How long can one go on pandering to bigots? It is one thing to have freedom of speech, although it’s quite another to use that freedom to claim that any television show which depicts Muslims as regular, law-abiding folks-next-door is telling a dangerous lie. But this move, perpetrated first by the evangelical wingnuts and secondly by a prominent corporation like Lowe’s, is abusing freedom of speech, while dealing a nasty backhand to our country’s vaunted freedom of religion.

I was heartened by all the major networks’ and comedy talk show host’s responses to the absurdity of the bigots’ claims.

The ability to speak your mind and follow your own faith are two of this country’s cornerstones of liberty. How can one right be the instrument of violating the other? How is this American?

“… the Senate is trying to pass a law which would allow for US citizens with suspicion of links to Al Qaida or terrorism to be detained without trial indefinitely. This is blatantly unconstitutional. ‘Suspicions’ can encompass unimaginably horrendous abuses, and would inevitably target the US Muslim community, who are typically law-abiding citizens. Even in Britain under the tyrant Henry VIII in the 1530s, in the terrible days of torture and beheading, accused citizens were entitled to trial.”

I was referring to the National Defense Authorization Act. How heroic it sounds, and how the name camouflages the disgrace it embodies.

Today, the Senate passed the bill — most ironically, on the 220th anniversary of the Bill of Rights. 86 members voted for it, with only 13 dissenting voices standing against this infraction of American liberty. Sadly, the threat of a presidential veto has been withdrawn, and the President is expected to sign the bill. How can we have come to this point after so long? 220 years after the creation of the Bill of Rights, we should be moving forward, not rocketing backward.

Sadia Ashraf, Bapsi Sidhwa, Greg Mortenson, Gina Davis, Danny Pudi

This is the second time I was invited to a gala for Greg Mortenson.  On November 13 ’10 the Central Asia Institute [founded by Mortenson]  awarded   me the 2010 Spirit Lifetime Achievement Award. This was at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas. It was a surprise and I could scarcely contain my emotions.  Greg Has been my hero ever since I read his personal  story In Three Cups of Tea.

Greg has a phenomenal energy and I suspect it springs from his abiding faith in humanity. I was astonished  by the number of schools and events he addressed in his flying visit to Houston a few  months back.  The CAI has established 145 schools and educated 64,000 students, including 52,000 girls in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Greg Mortenson and I share a bond with the Karakoram Mountains.  My  novel,  The Pakistani Bride, is also set in the remote region at the roof of the world.  And although decades separate my novel  from  Mortenson’s books the desolate lives of the tribal’s they depict are very similar

The guests were welcomed by Sadia Ashraf, Outreach Coordinator for CAI, who also gave a moving account of the devastation caused by the recent floods in Pakistan.  She introduced me as Pakistan’s leading writer before inviting me to speak.

The rest of the program was kicked off by a special address from award-winning  actress Geena Davis, followed by a talk by Danny Pudi (starring in  NBC’s show Community). Greg Mortenson spoke at the very end.  The event was compeered by TV and film actor Michael Rady

Every one of the 1000 guests received a copy of my novel  Cracking India together with Mortenson’s  book Stones into Schools. The evening ended with many in the audience asking me  to sign their copies of Cracking India.

One such lesson life has insistently taught me is humility. I think I have a healthy ego and every little success blooms disproportionately large and exultant in my mind. And again, startlingly immediate, something occurs to topple me from my inflated self-regard and teaches me how temporal and foolish my bloated ego was.

1. Life has taught me that circumstances that appear to adversely affect us can mysteriously work to our advantage. I had polio as a child. Since this illness affects the nerves, my parents were advised not to put pressure on me by sending me to school. This made for a childhood of extreme loneliness. I assuaged this by an inordinate amount of reading and daydreaming. I realise now that this time I had to myself and the resources my imagination fashioned to entertain my mind turned me into a writer. The hours spent reading taught me how to create characters and suspense, and also to structure my novels. Who would have thought what my parents considered an affliction would turn into a source of pride for them? And a source of immense satisfaction in my life.

2. There are sorrows in our lives we cannot talk or write about, but these hard lessons develop one as a person and give us an understanding of human nature. They help us realise the enormous reserves the mind has if we tap into it.

3. Each of us, at some point in our lives, comes across a special guide or mentor. One such person, a Parsee priest who was so poor that he slept on a bench in a temple in Bombay, visited Lahore at the invitation of my mother. He bequeathed me a fleeting glimpse of the eternal state of bliss out of which we are born and in which we dwell in the afterlife; or at least that’s what I’ve come to believe.

4. Be a fatalist. I feel much of our life is preordained, although we may think it is chance or luck or some sorrow we have brought upon ourselves that governs our lives.

5. We are deeply linked to the spirituality that sustains all life and matter. There are noble people on earth – one could call them saints – who help us to recognize this.

  I will be interviewed on March 3rd at the KITAB Sofa by Edward Nowotka, editor of Publishing Perspectives.

On March 4th Qasera Shahraz and I have been invited to give readings at the home of Khursheed Junejo, the Ambassador of Pakistan.   

On March 5th I have been invited to a prominent literary club in Abu Dhabi by Ms. Asma Seddiq Al Mutawa. The club has been recognized by UNESCO for its efforts to promote reading and a love for literature in the UAE.