Language shapes identity in Pakistan

A poet with a master’s in science

Muzamil opens by remarking on Maham Khan’s unusual profile: a poet who also earned a master’s degree in healthcare biotechnology. This combination is rare in Pakistan, where the path to scientific respectability typically means abandoning language and the arts. Maham represents something different: someone who refuses the binary choice between technical knowledge and literary expression. She publishes poetry, conducts biotechnology research, and navigates both worlds with intention.

How poetry arrived without planning

Maham’s journey into poetry began at age 12 or 13, when a cousin visiting her house was challenged to write verse on the spot. She joined the game and discovered she could do it. “It was naturally,” she says, describing how the words came without conscious effort. Over the next decade, poetry receded as she pursued formal education. Her father wanted her to become a doctor. She pursued biotechnology instead, more aligned with her interests. Then, at university, she entered a poetry competition at ComSats without preparation and won. When her family heard she’d succeeded while barely trying, they recognized she had real talent. By her final undergraduate year in 2017, she published her first book.

Language as a barrier to voice

The episode’s core centers on a question both Maham and Muzamil grapple with: why does English dominate Pakistani institutions while Urdu, the national language, remains treated as inferior. Maham states plainly: “Language is a powerful tool.” Yet in Pakistani schools and universities, English receives the best resources, the best teachers, the most prestige. Urdu is assigned lower status, as if the language itself carries less capacity for expressing complex ideas. Muzamil reflects that after 18 years of English-medium education, people still dismiss him for occasionally speaking Urdu, as though the language diminishes him.

The consequences ripple outward. Muzamil observes that many brilliant students stay silent in class because they lack confidence expressing themselves in English. They have thoughts, but no vehicle for them in the language of instruction. The loss is immense. Maham points to countries like Turkey and Thailand, which have grown rapidly while maintaining unified, strong national languages. In shops, airports, and government offices, these countries use their own language. In Pakistan, by contrast, signs are often in English first, Urdu second, creating a visible hierarchy about which language, which people, matter more.

Poetry moves to social media

For years after publishing her first book, Maham’s work reached few readers. Traditional publishing in Urdu poetry is limited; bookstores stock minimal Urdu literature. Then she began posting her work on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Within months, her following grew dramatically. The digital shift opened pathways that print could not. Yet the transition forced Maham to confront an uncomfortable question: was monetizing poetry a betrayal of art itself. She decided no. Reaching the masses required resources. Meeting that cost honestly, rather than pretending poverty was purity, seemed more honest.

Poetry as emotional witness

Muzamil asks Maham to share a poem, and she reads one addressing depression and emotional numbness. “In the world, if I see two colors, I am watching everything from black and white,” it reads. After reading, she explains what she was attempting: “My purpose was to acknowledge that this is happening.” She did not write to offer solutions. Her intention was witness. She wrote a poem about the 2020 plane crash in Karachi, not to analyze or explain it, but to name the collective grief. This is what poetry can do that news reports cannot: give emotional truth to moments when institutions fail to speak.

Maham observes that such work has historical value. A painting from the Renaissance era tells us what people felt during that time. So too will poetry from the pandemic years become a record of how Pakistanis experienced that moment. History reads through art. The most immediate, emotionally true art of a moment often outlasts analytical commentary about it.

The constraints of biotechnology in Pakistan

Maham’s other passion is biotechnology. In Pakistan, she observes, the field is severely underdeveloped. Labs exist to test for diseases like COVID, but not to conduct original research. Vaccines are imported rather than developed domestically. Cancer research is minimal despite cancer’s prevalence. The constraint is not talent: Pakistan produces skilled biologists. The constraint is infrastructure. “I think there are jobs available in labs that you can do, and the most important thing is that if you have a degree abroad, you can start,” Maham says. Opportunity exists primarily for those who leave. She studied gene therapy and worked with nanoparticles for cancer detection, research she finds compelling despite its technical and ethical challenges.

The ethics of merging mind and machine

As the conversation turns toward emerging biotechnologies, both Maham and Muzamil wrestle with innovation’s promises and perils. Elon Musk’s Neuralink project aims to implant chips in the brain, enabling brain-computer interfaces that could restore mobility to the paralyzed or allow the brain to access information instantly. Musk envisions a human-AI hybrid: superintelligence born from merging human consciousness with computing power. Yet the same technology could create a tiered humanity. The wealthy enhance themselves; the poor cannot. Gene editing for “designer babies” raises similar questions about who decides which traits matter. “My opinion is that it is inevitable, but it will come with us with our problems,” Maham concludes. Technology does not solve the human capacity for inequality. As innovation accelerates, the ethical guardrails lag behind, creating hazard for societies not yet ready.