Today, our readers have put 'pen to paper' with fire in their bellies

Two nations with two very different futures

In his letter, Poet’s Work Should Be Heeded (Daily News, August 22, 2025), Essa again attempts to justify or downplay terrorism – which began long before “unchecked carbon emissions” were ever an issue.

The banned books in question have been linked to terror attacks and to fostering a victim mentality. While banning books is regrettable, it is far less barbaric than throat-slitting, decapitation, or placing bounties on authors and cartoonists, as seen in many Islamic countries.

The irony was clear on 29 August, when Indian forces launched Operation Naushera Nar IV after intelligence revealed an infiltration bid from Pakistan.

Essa has often issued what readers described as “chilling threats” before Pakistan-based groups attempted attacks on India. His claim of being an expert on “proxies” is telling– he is the ultimate proxy himself.India’s record contrasts sharply with Pakistan’s failures. In 2024, UNGA President Dennis Francis praised India for lifting 800 million out of poverty in six years. India has vaccinated a billion people twice over, provided 300m LPG connections saving 150 000 lives annually, and built 112m toilets, reducing child mortality and restoring dignity.

Through Aayushman Bharat, 370m now have health cover, while 124m rural homes enjoy new tap water connections, halving child diarrhoeal deaths. India has also built 50 000km of highways, boosted growth, corrected historic injustices through the CAA, and restored rights to Dalits, Gurkhas, women, refugees, and minorities via the abrogation of Article 370.India today is the world’s fourth-largest economy. Pakistan remains stagnant – and the global hub of terrorism. | Kamini Prakash Umhlanga

Flotilla of hope

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and acclaimed actors Susan Sarandon and Liam Cunningham have joined celebrities from around the world who have set sail from Barcelona in Spain aboard The Global Sumud Flotilla of ships aiming to deliver badly needed food and medical aid to the besieged and starving Palestinians of the Gaza Strip.

\In coming days this marine convoy will be joined by ships sailing from ports in Italy, Greece and Tunisia as it attempts to break the expected Israeli blockade off the coast of Israel in international waters.

The Netanyahu government will only further add to Israel’s international isolation by stopping The Global Sumud Flotilla from landing in the waters of the Gaza Strip. | Eric Palm Gympie, Australia

The future is ours to write – not a sequel to your past

Dear Aunties,

Enough. Stop throwing “Back in my days…” into every conversation as a feeble attempt to assert superiority. Your clock stopped ticking long ago.

Back in your days there was no WhatsApp. Today, you waste half the day forwarding fake news and “Good Morning” flowers. Back then there was no Wi-Fi, yet now you can’t breathe without TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook.

There was no fridge, microwave, washing machine, or AC – but now you panic if the electricity goes off for 10 minutes. Back in your days there was no Netflix or YouTube – but today you binge-watch endless dramas and shows. Back then beauty parlors were rare – now you don’t leave home without a salon touch-up.

And let’s not forget: The past you glorify did not have the medicine that’s keeping you alive today. So please– stop romanticising yesterday while you luxuriate in every modern invention. That’s hypocrisy at its peak.

And another thing: Who are you to dictate how anybody should live? Who gave you the audacity to assassinate women’s economic independence? You don’t pay their bills. You don’t raise their children. Stop acting like the manager of everyone’s life.

This is 2025, not 1925. Women are excelling in academia, leading businesses, commanding boardrooms, shaping policy, writing bestsellers, and yes – still revolutionising their homes if they choose to.

The key word is choice. A freedom your generation never gave women, and one you now want to take away. No – not happening. And let’s be honest: nobody forced you to blindly adopt every tradition “back in your days.” That was your choice. Don’t expect us to repeat it.

Stop telling us what to wear, where we belong, or what limits we must accept. Stop reducing our worth to refrigerators and stoves.

Respectfully, keep your outdated lectures to yourself. Our future deserves its own story – not just a tired sequel to your past. | Yumna Zahid Ali Karachi, Pakistan

And a great howl of despair was heard

Man United fans all around the world are in a state of shock. They couldn’t believe what they saw on Wednesday night when their once great team was humiliated, losing in the Caraboa Cup to a little team like Grimsby Town, a team in the 4th place in league 2. The shocking loss to Grimsby Town has been the talk of the football world. Sir Alex Ferguson must have been having sleepless nights, rolling on his bed. How could his former team which was once a mighty force in the premier league slump so low? Man United was outplayed by Grimsby in the first half but it managed to claw back to get a draw only to lose it in the penalty shoot out. In days gone by, Grimsby Town would have been child’s play for Man United and they would have been thumped it. But now teams have no fear of playing against Man United. How the mighty have fallen. | T Markandan Kloof

When old enemies unite, it is not love – it is money

In The Tempest, Act II, Scene 2, Shakespeare declares: “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”

How true this has turned out to be – proven again and again, century after century.

Consider India: once running to Israel for help against China in 1962, then again against Pakistan, later seeking aid from the US – only now to pivot suddenly and rub shoulders with China in order to gang up against America, all because Donald Trump is sounding the tariff horn against Indian garam masala imports.

The flapping of bedsheets by ever-changing partners in the same bed never fails to amuse us donkeys and asses watching from the stables, as Napoleons and Orwellian pigs dance around like inhuman humans.

Russia and China now share the same royal-sized mattress, united by a common enemy across the cold Atlantic waters.

Naushad’s Palki gave us the qawwali: “Meh idhar jawu, ya idhar jawu?”– “Which way to turn? This way or that?” How long before the original sin – money – overtakes all racial and religious ideologies, and India and Pakistan too leap into the same bunk, tossing aside petty differences to confront the West together?

Sceptics whisper this will never happen – the same voices that condemned Zhou Enlai’s double-play in the 1962 war, and swore Chini-Hindi bhai-bhai would happen only over their dead bodies. But it is happening. And many would rather become those dead bodies by suicide than see the day Partition is reversed.

Yet when my enemy is also your enemy, perhaps we can be friends– not because we hate each other less, nor because we love each other more, but simply because we love money the most. | Ebrahim Essa Durban

DAILY NEWS