The greatest of love affairs are inexplicable obsessions. In Naushad Ali Khan’s case the object of his undivided attentions is the LP (Long Play), or 33rpm microgroove vinyl record.

He is prepared to go to the ends of the earth for it. Once, he picked up his gramophone and travelled to Umerkot because he had heard a Hindu there owned a Kundan Lal Saigal record that he had been dying to hear. When he reached the gentleman’s house, he informed him that he had come for the record.

“He told me the record belonged to his father and was not for sale and I told him I had only come to listen to it,” Naushad tells The Express Tribune. “He invited me in, served me food, and we listened to [it] around six times.”

When it was time for Naushad to go home, the Hindu told him he was crazy and handed it to him as a gift. The song was Ek Bangla Banay Nyaara from the film President (1937) and today Naushad owns one of the biggest Kundan Lal Saigal collections in Pakistan.

Naushad could have listened to Ek Bangla Banay Nyaara on tape, CD or even online. But as he and other collectors will tell you, vinyl is king. “Vinyl records have the master sound,” he explains simply. “There is a lot of flavour.”

According to the experts, LPs sound better because a vinyl record has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound’s waveform. This means that no information is lost as happens with digital recordings on CDs and DVDs. Original sound is analog by definition but digital recordings just take snapshots of the analog signal. As a result, they do not capture the complete sound wave. If you want to listen to the real deal, choose vinyl.

Given technology’s steady march into different, smaller, sleeker more long-lasting formats, most people who listen to digital music can’t really tell the difference. Tell someone you collect records and they will laugh in your face for listening to music on an “ancient” format. Once they’ve stopped laughing they’ll ask if people still even own records.

Their cultural ignorance can be blamed on four decades of change. Records started going out of fashion in Pakistan in what is believed to generally be the mid- to late 1970s. Zeeshan Chaudhry, the general manager of EMI Pakistan, says the manufacturing plants started shutting down around the same time. A more portable format had arrived, giving people a reason to move away from the bigger, unwieldy LP record. Listeners had discovered the cassette tape. Record labels started investing as it was cheaper and handier. Eventually, tape was eclipsed by the compact disc, which was in turn swept aside by the digital.

According to EMI’s Chaudhry, they were the only label in Pakistan and were by default the only ones releasing vinyl. “[People] had a special taste for music back then,” he says. “Their ears were tuned for the good and bad sound.” Over 65 years, EMI released an immense LP catalogue, including notables such as Ahmed Rushdi and Sohail Rana and even a number of obscure Pakistani rock bands no one remembers today.

It was thus Kundan Lal Saigal fans like Naushad Ali Khan who were buying LPs in Karachi those 30 years ago. When he was growing up he had seen people place a mic in front of the gramophone at family functions and the sound had him hooked. His first purchase was a Jesse Green record from Shalimar Recording Company in Saddar and he has been collecting ever since.

Around the time cassette tapes started going big in Pakistan, Naushad happened to move to the UK to play club cricket. As it turned out, this was an LP-buyer’s paradise. His trips to second-hand stores and one-pound shops eventually benefitted people in Pakistan. Every time Naushad would return, he would bring back vinyl and lend them to stores that would make master tapes — one for him and one for themselves to make further copies.

Today Naushad helps manage a weekly market at Sakhi Hassan and buys and sells records and sound equipment on the side. He is the best person to go to in order to track down and purchase records. His network includes over 200 kabarias and extends to Parsis and Christians in Karachi.

Second-hand records are imported by kabarias as parts of lots which also include toys, electronic equipment and books. Naushad gets first dibs on most of the records. His contacts call him each time they get a shipment. In return for this service, he pays for their phone credit.

The phone call is followed by quick trips to warehouses in Gulbai and Shershah to sort through records he would want. But the sellers insist he buys in bulk. So some days even though he may only want to buy four out of a lot of 200 records, he’ll have to buy all of them at Rs30 per LP.

“One time I found Are You Experienced? by Jimi Hendrix in a lot of 79 records,” says Naushad. “I offered the guy Rs300 for that [one] record, but he said I’d have to buy all of them for Rs7 each.” He ended up keeping on 13 records and gave the rest away. Michael Jackson and Barbara Streisand really aren’t really his cup of tea.

If you ask Naushad for his favourite records, he will bring out a bag with a lock and carefully open it. Nestled inside are original Jimi Hendrix releases. “These and all of my blues records are my most prized possessions,” he says.

As vinyl disappeared so did some names. One of them is Mairaj who will invariably be mentioned in any conversation you have with a record collector. He owned a store in Khori Gardens where he would sell records and other sound equipment.

But after his death, all you will find are a few scratched records stowed away at the back as his sons sell plastic and tent materials.

Collector Faisal Gill used to buy from Mairaj. “People would leave their records with Mairaj and we would go and buy them,” he explains. “There were others as well, Mansoor near Regal Chowk, Ghafoor in Ghaas Mandi. A lot of people bought their records from these guys.”

Faisal Gill is a bit of a legend himself in this world. The sound therapist, who works with children with special needs, has been buying for over 20 years and while he has lost count a rough estimate would put his collection at 6,000. His first records were handed down to him by his father and the first record he bought was a German compilation of pop music.

When stores selling tapes started clearing out their records to make way for more cassettes and CDs, Gill was one of those who picked up most of their libraries. “I purchased records from Scanners and Virgin,” he says by way of example.

And as records became harder to find in the markets and secondhand markets became inaccessible, collectors closed rank. It is through these circles that they buy, sell and trade records. So, for example, a collector might get word of a wanted record available at someone’s house and will just show up to request a sale or trade.

Now most of the purchases come from abroad, and Gill says he doesn’t have the time to run after sellers and sort through the lots. But if you’re lucky and your network isn’t as strong, you can still definitely find some gems at the weekly markets in your city.

In Islamabad, for example, an Indian correspondent, Rezaul Hasan Laskar, who started his career as a music journalist, has had plenty of good luck while he worked there for roughly five years before returning home recently. He began collecting vinyl when he moved to Pakistan. “My wife would go to the [lunda] bazaar and I never had the time to,” he says. “One day she said you have to come check it out and I started going with her on weekends. It was crazy! I picked up my first LP player for Rs400 and a number of records from classical to rock and roll.”

Over time the seller got to know Laskar and would call him every time a new shipment would come in. This way he’d get to pick records before anyone else did. But the records weren’t always clean. “Sometimes you pick up stuff that doesn’t play or is too badly scratched and sometimes you pick up pristine copies,” he said.

Prices in Islamabad are lower than in Karachi. In the capital you can buy a record for Rs20 at the bazaar and for Rs100 at stores. Sellers in Karachi are, however, slightly more savvy and can go as high as Rs2,000 for a record. But as you can imagine, if it is a rare LP of The Dead Kennedys, there’s probably no limit to how much you will pay.

With information from Discovery Communications Website Howstuffworks.com

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, July 14^th, 2013.

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When the distant literary cousins, fantasy and children’s literature, get married the latter often emerges as the dominant spouse. In the few strange cases that fantasy ends up on top, the couple is relegated to the “sci-fi” or “cult” side of the family. In some cases they go to Hollywood. Rarely, however, does this union end up in the most appreciated genre of all — fiction. I speak here of fiction that can be read by adults, young adults, and yes, children too. This means that the text opens itself to interpretations, ranging from the mundane to the magical. This kind of vitality in a text, in which the reader has complete freedom to create their own world within its world, is Neil Gaiman’s gift — and I love it.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane is technically a novel for adults but in true Gaiman spirit, it only really shares its secrets with a few — in this case, those adults who can remember what it was like to be a child. If you can remember how it felt to be seven, have no control over your life and have your decisions made for you even if your nanny were a nasty piece of otherworld evil, then you are tall enough for this ride, as Gaiman put it in an interview with The Independent.

The narrator is a middle-aged man, who in Proustian fashion falls into his memories in an ocean, which is really a pond. Or a pond which is really an ocean, depending on the reader’s imagination. He remembers his seventh birthday at home in Sussex, to which no one came, his kitten that was run over, the family lodger who killed himself in the family car, and Lettie Hempstock of the mysterious and magical Hempstock women who lived down the lane in a farm with an ocean in their backyard and a full moon all year round.

He remembers meeting Lettie who had been eleven for a very long time, on the day that the suicide happens, and starts a Sussex-specific cosmic plague. The effect is that everyone starts getting what they want, money, sex… The nameless seven-year-old narrator, however, ends up with the one thing he didn’t want: an evil specter that has escaped from another world and has lodged in his foot.

Thus starts the Gaimanesque fairytale: A resolute main character in a world that is at once strangely familiar (or familiarly strange), struggling to right what is wrong and gain some sense of control in the confounding mess of growing up.

Having said that, there is one major difference between this and Gaiman’s other books in which most of his work has a sense of hope and personal victory for the main character. This narration doesn’t lend itself to a reassuring end. The narrator returns from the recollections of his seven-year-old self to a life that is less than ordinary. This is a life that bears no mark of the magic of his younger self and perhaps as old Mrs Hempstock hints, a life that might not be worth the sacrifices made for it. In many ways, this is a musing on most our lives. We all experienced some magic as children, whether it be the explanation of a creaking door as a bhoot or perhaps the comforting presence of an invisible friend and ally. But as we cross the unseen boundary of maturity, these presences leave us, leaving our lives so much less charmed and more uninspiring.

There are, however, sections in the book which are nothing if not painstakingly detailed in description and bone-chillingly horrific in the reality of it all. At one point, the narrator’s father (a slave now to the evil nanny, or perhaps just a slave to his desires), plunges his seven-year-old son, clothes and all into an ice-cold bath and holds him in there. The cruelty of this scene is evoked by the father’s premeditative removal of his watch and loosening of the tie before he seizes his son in what is obviously an attempt to drown him. The starkness of this entire scene serves as a jolt, a cold shock to the reader as well as the narrator that enchantment isn’t for children only and even adults can be helpless and more importantly, wrong.

There is an immense amount of maturity in this writing — a grainy mesh of memory and reflection. The wonder and recognition of a child’s mind intersects with the nostalgia and regret of an adult’s memory. Gaiman’s work is autobiographical but will find resonance with all those readers who have in their childhood read the inexplicable mysteries in an otherwise increasingly bare world. They will appreciate moments such as this one, in which the narrator is engulfed in the ocean at the end of the lane: “I saw the world I had walked since my birth, and I understood how fragile it was, that the reality I knew was a thin layer of icing on a great dark birthday cake writhing with grubs and nightmares and hunger.”

If you liked this:

The Graveyard Book

After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own. Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn’t live in a sprawling graveyard. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack — who has already killed Bod’s family.

Coraline (2009)

This 2002 horror/fantasy novella won Gaiman several awards and was turned into a film. It is about a locked door that Coraline discovers in the old house where she lives that has been divided into flats. She is warned not to go near it, which means her curiousity got the better of her. She discovers a passageway that leads to a mirror reality of her life, replete with an Other Mother and Other Father. Coraline is warned again not to venture too far into this Other World. What happens when she disobeys…

Dr Who: The Doctor’s Wife

This episode was Neil Gaiman’s first venture into writing for the television series Dr Who. Gaiman brought a surprisingly human touch to the otherwise lonely character of The Doctor. He succeeded in doing so with the enigmatic character of Idris, who The Doctor teams up with to regain control of the lost TARDIS, the time-traveling machine.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, July 21^st, 2013.

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The late journalist Murtaza Razvi’s posthumously published novel Pittho’s World is a confusingly interesting book with a misleading title. It opens with a lie: all characters and incidents are products of the author’s imagination but it also appears to be heavily autobiographical.

The prime narrator of the story, who calls himself by a rather ostentatious name, Sheikho, routinely tells his lover Rani stories mostly about his dead relatives — primarily to cope with insomnia which both of them seem to be suffering from.

But many times his stories fail to have the desired impact on his rebellious lover who is a cynic, feminist and atheist of sorts as evidenced by her defiance of convention. She lives with the narrator under the vague threat of legal punishment. Under the post-1980 laws cohabitation and disbelief in God are regarded as fornication and blasphemy.

Whether Rani likes her lover’s stories or not, they will engage the reader as long as the writer’s strong political self, his liberal idealist, is kept at bay. This persona hovers like a specter throughout the novel. And it gets its chance to hijack the narrative when Sheikho’s lover, exercising her free will as a free woman, temporarily leaves him.

This is the point where the novel turns into a political commentary drawn from the stock, ready-made liberal-Marxist perspective. It doesn’t help that the author’s concept of the reader also skews his style. Keeping a foreign audience in mind, he goes into explanatory details which are superfluous for the local readers and which dilute the impact of the individual stories, some of which are good and intelligent, if not a great, pieces of fiction.

In spite of the occasional partiality of the narrative, the novel does at places impress with its simple correctness of expression and intelligently drafted character sketches — verbal portraits which at times appear to have been drawn simultaneously from the worlds of Gabriel García Márquez and Ratan Nath Sarshar.

At their best in the Bia and Dr D stories, Razvi’s characters masterfully demonstrate the irony and dark humour of the forces of fate. Like One Hundred Years of Solitude, Pittho’s World also works through the theme of recurring family traits and destinies through generations.

Razvi also successfully applied the method brought to perfection by Yusufi in Aab-e-Gum, a technique which allows the writer to subtly reveal some of his characters through hints scattered throughout the work.

But the development of these promising qualities in what would have been a budding writer is now a matter of speculation. We have been left with his first and final book of fiction, which, I hope, will be read even as it produces a mixture of praise and condemnation in its wake.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, July 21^st, 2013.

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Being liked, at least on Facebook, counts for this generation. Some people choose to share posts on insightful developments around the globe and others use the social networking site to… well be social. But no matter what your proclivities, you’d be lying if you could resist the profile picture. Here is our guide to some of the popular poses for them.

Pose no.1: The thumka 

Curve your body a little, stick your hips out just a little bit more and then place one arm on your hip arched precisely at the 90-degree angle. That’s when you get the thumka right. It is a great way to show your figure off, especially if you’re wearing a sari or gharara.

Pose no.2: The headache 

This pose is definitely amongst some of the easier ones. The ‘headache’ – as the name suggests – is ideal for when you are dying of a migraine. Just grab onto your head and squint at the camera. Believe it or not, it will even add more volume to your crown.

Pose no.3: The brow lift

For this pose turn your face slightly to the side, stick your chin out and raise one eyebrow. The benefit of this look is that the arched eyebrow contours your face well and makes it appear thinner.

Pose no.4: The kiss and tell

As the name suggests, you need to take the picture at the exact moment when you plant a great big smooth on your best friend’s cheek. It’s a great way to show affection and attract attention.

Pose no.5: The angelic face

The ‘I am so angelic’ pose is for those who want to look innocent. It is one of those poses that require minimal effort. You need to simply remain seated with your knees close together and let your elbows rest on your knees for support while you hold both your hands against your left cheek. Take that shot from a little above the head and it will be ‘perfect’.

Pose no.6: The pensive look

Request your friend to take a picture while you pretend to stare off into the distance. In the process, try to look “pensive” or “contemplative”. Practice and you’ll get this one right.

Pose no.7: The pout

The most sought-after and infamous pose of them all: the pout. If you don’t know how to do this already then simply push your lips forward and *click*. Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen achieved their signature pout by saying “prune” while being photographed.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, July 21^st, 2013.

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I forced my shuddering sedan up the slanted rock face. The hill looked over an untouched beach and sand dunes. We had postponed dinner to do this, choosing instead to get a look at the Buzi Pass around 40km further west on the Makran Coastal Highway before retreating to the village for the night. Our host Mir served fish gravy that we thankfully and hurriedly devoured. Later, his son brought us a finger bowl and a slice of lemon.

Once fed, I ventured out to shake off the long hours of stressed driving. A chilly but pleasant breeze drifted head-on. The stars and moon glittered above and their reflections did a stunning dance on the waves about 150 feet below. The night sky’s splendour is amplified by the fact that this part of the country has no electricity and is thus unspoiled by “light pollution”. As inconvenient for the locals as that might be, it is heavenly for Karachi-based astronomers hunting for “dark sky” sites.

The entry to Kund Malir. PHOTO: FARHAN HASSANY

I stood in the darkness, by the highway, which is the only major development this area has received and now serves as a lifeline for the locals. After watching the occasional truck seemingly crawl by, I headed back with a craving for some Kehva.

Over the hot sweet drink, Mir regaled us with the myths and folklore from the area. According to him, a long time ago, a freshwater well irrigated a lush green orchard of dates and mangoes besides the crystal clear sea. The tides came and went in peace and the garden flourished and became known for its fruit. It was a small wonder in itself that mango trees grew right besides the beach in this otherwise arid area, for this is no tropical island. This land is said to carry the curse of Sassui, whose heart was broken by its princes when they kidnapped her beloved Punho, their brother, from Bhambore.

This place, called Makran for centuries, extends all along the Arabian Sea from the eastern coastal edge of present-day Iran almost up to Miani Hor Lagoon. And just as the land’s face has been sculpted by the elements over time, so has its name. It is believed to have morphed from the original “Mahikhoran” or Fish-Eaters. In Persian, “mahi” means fish, as in the Urdu word “mahi-geer” for fishermen. “Khore” refers to “eater”, as in Urdu’s “Adam-Khore” or “man-eater”. Interestingly, Alexander’s officer Nearchus calls Makranis “Ichthyophagi” which is Greek for fish-eaters!

(L) The ‘Sphinx’ sculpture on the drive to Buzi Pass,  (R) Cars racing down the Buzi Pass  and (bottom) The Princess of Hope, Sassui waiting. PHOTOS: ADIL MULKI

Mercantile incentives fuelled the growth of Arab maritime skills and Makran’s coast was charted. Every small peninsula or cape came to carry the prefix of Ras, such as Ras Al Khaimah on the Arab side of the Gulf of Oman to Ras Gawadar and Ras Malan on the Makran coast right up to “Ras” Mauri near Karachi, or “Cape” Monze as we know it today. Every lagoon or inland bay ended with the suffix of Khor (Arabic for bay or lagoon), such as Kalmatt Khor and Miani Khor, which later came to be known as Miani Hor.

According to Mir, the Arabs established tiny settlements on the coast. Some old graves, said to be theirs, still reportedly exist around Singhar Hill in Gawadar, that is now adorned by a five-star hotel. Gawadar itself was purchased from the Sultanate of Oman in 1958.

With the Arab expeditions came their families and their slaves, who were mostly of African origin. Their descendants are referred to as “Sheedis” probably as a derivation of “Sayyiddi”, a title sometimes used to address their masters.

At the orchard-village, the Arabs left after a clash with a clan leader. In their haste they left behind only a few graves and a little boy. A mysterious old man in Arab clothing is often seen lurking around the site of the old graveyard and he often scolds anyone sleeping around the village in the open! At this point, my friend Farhan and I exchanged meaningful smiles as the motivation for our host’s history lesson became clear. He wanted to make us stay the night at his guestroom while we had preferred to either camp on the beach or park next to the old dhaba by the highway, before our departure at dawn.

We mischievously asked what happened of the little boy and were told that he was raised by the clan leader as his own son and that the progeny of this boy are still called Bidu-zai (clan of the Bedouin) in this area.

The clan leader, a pious man, had saintly insights, and had predicted that a day would come when a “black path” would be built by his garden and that his labour of love, the orchard, would be consumed by sands which the sea would regurgitate. The setting of this legend is called Kund Malir beach.

It is located a stone’s throw from the rocky hills and is flanked by sand dunes. Today, the marvel of engineering called the Makran Coastal Highway runs alongside it and Arab hunting parties whiz by in their powerful 4×4 vehicles. One of them has built a beautiful mosque and a rest house on top of a hill. Kund Malir is where I once had the pleasure of swimming besides dolphins and learned from fishermen how to land a heavy boat onto high ground. The orchard’s story was difficult for me to digest.

We thought that the entire legend of the Arab spirit, graves, the left-behind boy, the orchard and the clan leader’s predictions were concocted by our Scheherazade of a host.

If the clan leader had ever lived, hoping for a future highway nearby would be a natural desire. An oasis on any caravan route would be a profitable enterprise. It was hard to also believe in the mango orchards as they don’t do well in sand and that too besides the sea. Like any dry area with a little water deep underground, the only vegetation that subsists here are some date trees along with desert shrubs.

At dawn, after getting a few hours of rest, as we waited for a boat that would take us to a nearby mud-volcanic island, we walked around the dunes that seemed to have been pushed out from the sea towards the land. Wavy patterns on their golden sands created a mesmerizing play of light and shade under the rising sun.

Surrounded by large dunes, and partially buried under their sand we came across a swathe of hard dirt exposed by the winds. It was covered with salt flakes like the thor-effected lands of Thattha. It had green vegetation, mostly weeds, and was littered with pieces of old wood which had been withered by salinity such that the fibers underneath the bark could easily be torn apart. From here, we took a short cut to the shack that was our “hotel” by the highway. And there I stopped in my tracks.

Between a clump of date trees, surrounded by the sand dunes that the old man in the story had predicted, by the highway the old man had spoken of, was a live mango tree. Perhaps malnourished and neglected — like the Bedu-zai — abandoned and forgotten, but alive and green.

The author can be reached at vagabonds.odyssey@gmail.com

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, July 21^st, 2013.

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The Indians get India House. And a serene cross-legged Gandhi in Tavistock Square. And Chicken Tikka Masala, now one of Britain’s favourite national meals. And Bollywood premieres in Leicester Square. When I asked some friends living in London what comes to mind when I said ‘Pakistan’, I got ‘Im-run Kahn’ (New Zealand), ‘houses in the middle of the desert and sand everywhere’ (Brazil), ‘your terrorists’ (Belgium) and ‘no clue’ (Ireland).

So when, during the course of research for my MA dissertation, I read the following sentence in Stanley Wolpert’s biography of Quaid-e-Azam, I thought it might help me feel a little more rooted in London, to allow me to feel as if I could have a foot in both my Pakistani and British worlds: “His father deposited money enough to his account in a British bank to allow Jinnah to live in London for three years. There is no record of precisely how many hotel rooms or ‘bed and breakfast’ stops he rented before moving into the modest three-story house at 35 Russell Road in Kensington…”

He was seventeen when he first arrived in London in 1893 to study law, and still Mohammed Ali Jinnahbhai. It was from this address that he sent a letter to Lincoln’s Inn requesting that his surname be shortened to just ‘Jinnah’, according to Maddy Wall, a spokesperson for the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England, also known as English Heritage.

In 1955, the London County Council received a request to install a blue heritage plaque on the house, denoting the historic significance of the site. According to Wall, 35 Russell Road is now a private property, and a quick search online reveals that while the 14-bedroom house was up for sale in 2003, the Pakistani High Commission was unable to rustle up the asking price of 1.25 million pounds. This place, I thought, could show you another side to Jinnah — the young lawyer in London, as opposed to Jinnah the iconic, mythical leader (who is perfectly preserved in a somber portrait at Lincoln’s Inn).

A short walk from Kensington Olympia tube station, past the Irani cornershops and Lahore Karhai restaurant, the house lies at the intersection of Russell Road and Holland Gardens and has been divided into two sections, with seven flats in each section. (There are no rules preventing the restructuring or renovation of these private properties, despite their historic status). Were it not for the ink-blue circular plaque that lies between what is now Nos 35-A and 35-B, you would have never guessed that ‘Quaid i Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah founder of Pakistan stayed here in 1895’.

I don’t know what exactly I was expecting, but the house, with its row of silver garbage cans lining the front porch, a lime green tennis ball among the plants and the whine of construction taking place in No 35-A did not conjure any particularly patriotic feelings. I’d read that the house’s banister had been painted green and the halls inside festooned with paper flags, a Pakistani flag draped over the window and Jinnah’s chair, wardrobe and some mirrors preserved in the first-floor room he had occupied. But there was no answer when I buzzed the intercom for the seven flats (at this point I was pretty determined to feel something, even if it meant dealing with a cranky tenant). The blinds on all the windows remained firmly pulled down.

And so my friend and I gave up, walked down the street towards a Japanese restaurant where we ate duck pancakes as Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga played on the music system.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, July 21^st, 2013.

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Who would have thought that the pop-icon turned televangelist who irked women with the statement “it is better if women are not taught to drive” has invested the last ten years trying to save the lives of underprivileged women of Pakistan

Junaid Jamshed — the name brings to one’s mind an image of two juxtaposed pictures: one of a drop-dead handsome young Junaid, the other of a seasoned man with a long beard and a mellower face, beckoning people to come towards Islam.

Yet, there is a side to this man shrouded from the public eye. And that has to do with his work as a philanthropist whose focus is maternal health. Once known as the darling of female fans, Junaid is still very connected to women — he is helping save the lives of thousands of them in Pakistan. The man continues to surprise us and challenge stereotypes.

At the Muslim Charity fund-raising dinners in Manchester, Birmingham and London May 31 to June 2, 2013. PHOTO: MOHAMMED RAYAZ

Yet, he does not reveal this side to his life readily. The first of a series of interviews, as he agreed to talk to The Express Tribune, revolved around Vital Signs and his metamorphosis into the world of preaching. Sitting in Shahi Hasan’s studio, his fingers, a couple of times, delicately traced the contours of the guitar strings. But an inner commitment is stronger than the temptation. He hummed a few lines, but stopped. The darling of the Pakistani masses is no longer a balladeer. The passion has been channelised towards a higher love. His songs formerly talked about how to woo a beloved… his nasheeds and naats still do. But the Beloved has changed. JJ has evolved.

The second interview was hard to schedule. His travelling is incessant, more for philanthropic work and less for proselytising, contrary to popular belief. “I think I am ready to talk in detail. It is time people hear my side of the story. I may come across as someone who has something against women. I’m NOT!” he said on the phone while he was at the site of a model village of 200 houses near Rahimyar Khan built with his support for flood-hit people.

“Meray oopar bohat zimmedari hai. As a human, a Muslim, a Pakistani, a person whom people know. I cannot turn away from these responsibilities; that would be [ingratitude]. Being grateful increases blessings and being ungrateful sucks them away,” he said at the second interview, sitting in his comfortable home in DHA, Karachi. He had just returned from a trip to the UK to raise funds for charity.

A suitcase is forever ready for the globe-trotter. It is pertinent to wonder how he balances family life and his added responsibilities. “I try my best to balance. Whatever time I give to my family is quality time. Ayesha and the kids will vouch for it,” he said. Any conversation with him is incomplete without periodic mention of his wife Ayesha. But he does agree that there is a price to his philanthropy. “The life of this world and the Hereafter are like two wives of one man. If you please one, the other will be upset. It’s a choice you have to make. Fact of the matter is that when we struggle for the Hereafter, Allah is pleased. And when Allah is pleased the life of this world improves automatically. Theek hai na?” he said, smartly interspersing an element of preaching in the interview. He never lets go of that opportunity.

 Muslim Charity has established five hospitals in Pakistan in Jhang, Faisalabad, Mangani,  Rawalakot and in Lahore. PHOTO: MUSLIM CHARITY

“Pakistan’s women should not have to go through this.”

“The year was 2003. I remember reading somewhere that a woman travelling from Jhang to Faisalabad on a tonga in full-term labour died because no maternal health facility was close by. That story shook me,” said Junaid.

At the Muslim Charity fund-raising dinners in Manchester, Birmingham and London May 31 to June 2, 2013. PHOTO: MOHAMMED RAYAZ

Comparing it with the comfort and facilities which are available to women in the cities, like his wife at the birth of their four children, he felt deeply disturbed at why so many women in Pakistan had to go through this. “It was during that time that I came to know that this organisation called ‘Muslim Charity’ was working to improve the state of maternal health. I contacted them to ask how I could help in my small way. I have been affiliated with them since then.” Junaid now works as the vice president of Muslim Charity, and uses his public influence, talks and naats to raise funds for the causes.

Till now, with his support, the charity has managed to make five hospitals in Pakistan mainly focusing on maternal health. As a global initiative, the charity works on improving maternal health the world over.

The masjid schools

A fascinating project Junaid has been working on is an interesting attempt at consensus-building between the clergy in Pakistan’s rural areas and those who believe in literacy as the answer to Pakistan’s problems. “How we do this is simple. We identify impoverished rural areas and broken-down mosques. We then reconstruct mosques and construct small houses for the village imams. In return, we request them to allow use of the mosque from 8 am to 12 am,” he said.

Part of this project is to sensitise locals and persuade them to send their children to these schools. These are regular schools where the children have the option of also learning the Quran. “The idea is to get these kids off the streets. We make them realise that they have a responsibility towards themselves. With mentorship, they realise that education is their path to a better life. Our aim is to produce peaceful and responsible citizens.”

In Sindh alone, up till now, they are responsible for putting 3,500 children back in school, both boys and girls. “One of them recently sat his CSS exam. I had tears when I heard this,” he said.

On men, women and balance

“It is sad how women are objectified. Rights to women have been given by the Creator. There is no problem with women working. Didn’t Hazrat Khadija (RA) work?” he said almost defiantly when asked about his views on women and their rights, adding that limits have been defined by God for both men and women. “Women should not be coerced in any way. A man needs to be more sensitive towards his wife. A woman’s biggest insecurity is loss of control.”

A Muslim Charity tent city in Dadu in 2011. PHOTO: MUSLIM CHARITY

He admitted candidly that Pakistani society was, according to one view, chauvinistic and male-driven. It is a place where men often oppress women. “For the sake of family honour, Pakistani women continue to suffer. Divorce may have been considered an unsavoury thing in the time of the Prophet (PBUH) but [it] was not a taboo, unlike [in] today’s Pakistani society!” he said. “In a society where [the] male-child preference still exists and women are blamed for producing too many daughters, will men not stand up for them? I have always felt strongly about the rights of women.”

When asked why families seem to be falling apart, he has a simple formulaic solution. “Damage control lies in this: men should control their tempers and women [should] think before they speak.”

Junaid Jamshed and Ali Haider performing at the Spiritual Chords Nasheed concert held in South Africa in August 2011. PHOTO: MUSLIM CHARITY SOUTH AFRICA

So is Ayesha allowed to drive?

“I knew you’d ask this!” he said with a chuckle. “Before I got married, I was visiting my father-in-law with a friend. My father-in-law mentioned that my wife-to-be was learning how to drive, and I was happy to hear that. But my friend, a senior, advised me, as experienced friends do: ‘Don’t teach your wife how to drive’. That was what I mentioned light-heartedly in that show.”

Junaid Jamshed helped raise funds for the charity that was involved with the building of Doha village in Sanjarpur, Rahimyar Khan. PHOTO: MUSLIM CHARITY

After he got married, he tried to teach her to drive but couldn’t because of a paucity of time. “She never insisted and never learnt,” he added. “It never really was an issue for us.” Wary of calling himself a scholar, he is clear that he is in no position to pass a verdict about women who drive. “But my personal opinions, likes and dislikes are my own. I have a right to them.”

The crossroad and the road less traveled

It was around 1999 when his solo album Uss raah par was released. The main track of the same title was conceived metaphorically by Shoaib Mansoor. “He knew that something had changed in me,” said Junaid, recalling the lyrics: hum kyun chalain uss raah par jis raah par sub hee chalain. Kyun na chunain wo raasta jis par naheen koi gaya. In a very Robert Frost fashion, the song talked about the road less traveled, which, in JJ’s life, did make all the difference.

“The transition in me had started. That song was about my journey. But at that time we couldn’t have showed it in the video. People were not ready for it.” He had not gone public with his change then. But he had started visiting religious scholars for his own inner healing. “I had everything — fame, money. But I did not feel complete. Being in a masjid made me feel at peace. Masjids still have the same effect on me. It is the place where we discover humanity. I confess that I had no plans of leaving music at that time. But I could feel I was changing. I couldn’t run away from it.”

And does he miss his past life? “Naheen yaar. No withdrawal symptoms of my past life. I own and cherish my time with Vital Signs. I am happy that as a singer I contributed to my country in a positive way. I lived that part of my life to the fullest. But now that is the past,” he said, with a direct look, again defying the pre-conceived notion that he no longer talks to women directly or makes eye contact with the opposite sex.

Ramzan offering

This Ramzan he will be seen again on TV every day, all through the holy month, sharing what he knows. “It will be different,” he said, alluding to an approach that relies on more outreach as opposed to sermons. He agrees that people should be sensitised about civic responsibilities through religious shows. “Breaking a red signal, parking a car behind someone’s, evading taxes: I consider all of these major sins. Religion IS about being a better, more considerate human.”

While Junaid is armed with Islamic study and training, he stops people from calling him a maulana. “It is a compliment when people call me that but I don’t think I am worthy of that.” His pet peeve is “When people use the word mullah or maulvi in a derogatory way.” For now, it appears that he is neither and defies being pegged as one thing or another.

Making a difference

We highlight three other people who are acting much in the same way as Junaid Jamshed to help those around them

Sarfaraz Rehman

The CEO of Dawood Foundation smiles a guarded smile, instantly commands respect, has a command over literature and poetry, and completely owns the floor when he begins public speaking. He is best known for being associated with CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). “Religion is more than just spiritual and ritualistic attainment. It is a code of life intertwined with a belief in Allah, which then helps one live in a fair, calm, equitable manner and makes the plank of value addition to the community a major goal,” says the man who uses religion to support his mentoring and academic activities. The Dawood Foundation just finished a city campus for the Karachi School for Business & Leadership, a graduate management school, established in strategic collaboration with the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School.

Hina Shamsi Nauman

With infectious energy, this mother of three wants to contribute to society. You can find her planting mangroves with her students to fight delta flooding, or selling hand-crafted environment-friendly stationery made by physically challenged people. She teaches Quranic tafseer to groups of women, and teaches business ethics and what Islam says about that at university. From a traditionally religious family, she studied Islam in-depth by choice at a more mature stage, and feels that “a leap of faith is what it takes to discover oneself. But it was not easy coming out of the closet about it”. A teacher for the past seven years, this business grad decided to bring religion to her university students, breaking the taboo that religious discussions are only for the madrassas.

Aly Balgamwala

They call him “disco maulvi” and he fits the bill, happy with the description. He tweets incessantly, has his hand in a lot of social causes, and blogs. An entrepreneur by profession, the tech-savvy Aly’s niche is activism for social causes through social media, be it the cause of a better Karachi or raising civic awareness. As a founding trustee of Ihsaas Trust, a not-for-profit set up to provide Islamic Microfinance along with other charitable work, he and his team “use this platform to advocate husn-e-khuluq (good behaviour/ethics) as taught by Islam within the context of business and personal life.” Aly has been a volunteer teacher at “Active Saturdays”, a Saturday class for young men aged 10 to 15 years.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, July 21^st, 2013.

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Assault on Wall Street is a cleverly crafted film directed by Uwe Boll, starring Dominic Purcell and Erin Karpluk, that tells the tale of the recent economic downturn in the US.

The content of the film is similar to what was portrayed in Michael Moore’s documentary Capitalism: A Love Story in which the large brokerage houses in New York were involved in a get-rich scheme by persuading their clients to invest in “dead stocks” or investments that did not exist. This practice spiralled out into large malpractice suits across the country and robbed many people of their life savings as the investigations deepened and their investments were put under legal review. Scores of people across the nation lost their homes as they were unable to meet mortgage payments and were either out on the streets or had to declare bankruptcy.

Jim and Rosie Baxford are average New Yorkers, living a simple life, when Rosie is diagnosed with cancer. Suddenly the bills pile up and Jim is fired from his job as the debts grow. Forced into an unfair situation Jim takes matters into his own hands and goes on a rampage against the criminal financial institutions that have caused him harm.

Jim Baxford (Dominic Purcell) has an emotive transfer in the film. We see two differing characterisations from the first half (that of a financially strained, over worked and desperate man) to the second half in which he becomes unemployed, grief-stricken but cold and calculating, adopting a robot-like persona.

Rosie Baxford (Erin Karpluk) has a well-etched character. Best known for her role in the Canadian show Being Erica, as Rosie she skilfully manages the desperation of her character by masking it as a calm happy persona. Despite her short-lived appearance in the film, her character leaves a lasting impression.

But it is Jim’s transformation that rivets as does those of the average New Yorkers around him. People start drifting in and out of his little world with Rosie and then that disintegrates — as Rosie gets worse, his lifestyle does as well. Eviction marks a turning point.

Discussing the ending would give it away. But the film’s one irritant is how it wraps up; we are not quite clear what the intelligent police officers are doing. Some kind of resolution would have helped.

Men on a mission

Falling Down

In the 1993 movie Falling Down directed by Joel Schumacher, William Foster (Michael Douglas) is just having a really bad day. After being laid off from his job, he gets stuck in a really bad traffic jam, just when he has to reach his ex-wife’s (Barbara Hershey) home on time for his daughter’s birthday party. Foster slowly unravels mentally and becomes a source of terror to some and a folk hero to others.

He Was a Quiet Man

In the 2007 He was a Quiet Man, Bob Maconel (Christian Slater) is at the end of his emotional rope and finally explodes. He is working in an office building where few people know him and fewer still care. He develops a seething hatred of those around him and carries a gun to work in the hope that he’ll have the courage to use it to take down some of his co-workers one day. That fateful day arrives when a co-workers snaps and opens fire. Bob grabs his weapon and kills the shooter.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, July 28^th, 2013.

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The latest smart stuff so we can sit back and enjoy life.

PC on a stick

Meet the dual-core computer the size and shape of a USB Flash drive that turns any HDMI-capable TV or monitor into an Android station. The Android 4.0 Mini PC MK802 II costs $50 to $70. The MK808 ups the ante with a dual-core CPU, more internal memory and native 1080p output. Available off liliputing.com or on ebay.

USB Wall Socket: Newer Technology Power2U

Ever faced with the situation where you realise you don’t have your phone or tablet charger on you? Or the wall socket is not compatible with your charger’s plug? This device will take care of those worries and turn your home, or office into charger heaven. Pretty much all devices now charge over USB, not just phones or laptops, even wifi hotspots.

With this USB faceplate that has two USB ports, you no longer need to carry a different charger for each device. And this is thanks to Newer Technology Power2U at a cost of just $25.

SmartWatch: Sony SmartWatch

A smart watch lets you control your phone, check email, play music. Android phone-using geeks like me will love the Sony SmartWatch ($150) that pairs with your phone via Bluetooth and runs a variety of custom apps, including special FB and Twitter clients. It sounds an alarm if you’ve left your handset behind.

Lifeline for your laptop: Veho Pebble Pro or Hyperjuice 60wh

The average ultraportable notebook or laptop gets barely more than six hours of endurance when running at 40% brightness. Most external batteries on the market can only charge USB-powered devices like phones and tablets. This is where the Pebble Pro can save your life. The Veho Pebble Pro ($70) comes with a slew of tips for charging. Mac users will appreciate one of the Hyperjuice batteries, such as the $170 60Wh version that promises an additional 20 hours of endurance.

Floor Plan Light switch

This is kind of useful, but more than that I think it is uber-cool and a style-statement that even a non-geek would be proud to show off in his or her ultra-fashionable mansion. And like I said, it is useful. Have you ever had a problem with forgetting which light switch stands for what light, or what room? Taewon Hwang came with the great idea of creating a master light switch with a simple design that shows you what lights you are turning on or off. It couldn’t be simpler.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, July 28^th, 2013.

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When Khaplu Palace opened its doors to the public in 2011, people saw, for the first time in 40 years, the 19th Century royal home used by the Dogra rulers.

The palace was rescued by the Aga Khan Cultural Service of Pakistan that has restored and turned this Baltistan relic into a boutique hotel. It is located on the upper side of Khaplu Town, south of the River Shyok, in Skardu. Whatever is known about the town has come from the writings by the numerous historians, explorers, researchers and British Indian officials who trekked Skardu’s glaciers in the 19th century.

Prior to 1840, when the Dogras of Jammu took over Baltistan during their trans-Himalayan conquests, the region was ruled by a family titled ‘Yabgo’ (leader). The Yabgo family shared roots with the monarchs of Chinese Turkestan or Xinjiang today. The Yabgos are said to have governed from Thorsikhar, a fort strategically located on top of a cliff. However, once Baltistan was captured from them by the Dogras, it was decided that the ruling seat would be shifted from Thorsikhar fort to another location.

The Yabgo family offspring, who currently live in Khaplu Town, recount that after consultation with Yabgo Raja Daulat Ali Khan, the Dogras chose a site for their new palace by rolling a boulder from the top of a cliff adjacent to the Thorsikhar. The stone came to rest at Doqsa village where Khaplu Palace was then shaped with the aid of Kashmiri and Balti artisans.

The palace is a four-storey building primarily built of timber. The structure was strengthened and moulded with poplar wood and mud adobes together with a clay and soil mortar. The building’s infrastructure was fortified with stone masonry that was reinforced with timber and lime plaster in order to render the structure earthquake-resistant. Its main façade is embellished with a decorated octagonal wooden balcony whose doors and ceilings at each level display the finest Kashmiri, Tibetan and Balti motifs. If you look closely you will see the floral patterns, swastikas and geometric designs which historians believe were influenced by Persian, Kashmiri and Tibetans styles.

In contrast to other forts and palaces in Gilgit-Baltistan, Khaplu Palace had separate levels for ministers, servants, aides and one separate level for the royal family. So there was the Chogoraftal (royal meeting room), Chogojarokh (royal balcony), Lainakhang (princess dressing room) and Rani (queen) rooms.

After the independence of Pakistan in 1947, the people of the area annexed the whole region with the country. Even so, the Yabgo family managed to retain their power, that is, until 1972 when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto abolished the feudal system and the royal family gradually lost command over the administration. Since then, power has gradually shifted to local representatives. The rulers of the royal family of Khaplu continued to be respected by the residents of Khaplu Town but they were no longer revered as an icon of influence.

As the fortunes of the ruling family waned, so did their palace. Since the area is also prone to severe winter temperatures, the palace succumbed to the erosion brought forth by Skardu’s annual snowfall. The structure’s skeleton and timber décor deteriorated, leaving the building’s shell battered. Visitors and trespassers added to the destruction by scratching their names into the mud walls. The wooden carved jallies went missing.

In 2005, the Aga Khan Cultural Service Pakistan approached the community of Skardu to rehabilitate the palace. The service had already worked on other places in the area, including the 400-year-old Shigar Fort.

After surveys and documentation by a conservation specialist, local technical teams went to work, only taking a break during the harsh winter months. It took six years. Hundreds of Balti labourers and artisans were employed and more than Rs25 million was distributed in wages. Materials worth Rs30 million were purchased for the restoration work. Dozens of Skardu residents received technical expertise in wood-carving, carpentry and masonry work which will prove invaluable for future projects.

In order to sustain the legacy of the palace, the property, along with its ancillary buildings, was converted into a heritage guesthouse and museum. The revenue that this generates is distributed to the community and a sufficient amount of the proceeds is kept aside for maintenance and as a reserve fund for property.

If you fancy visiting you can take a 50-minute flight from Islamabad to Skardu. The resort provides transport from the airport. There is a choice of 21 rooms and eight suites but they aren’t cheap at the minimum of Rs12,000 per night. The best time to go is June, July and August with temperatures ranging from 14 to 20 degrees Celsius. A polo ground is located down the road and matches are held every weekend. Guests can also visit the Gulzar fish pond nearby and fish for trout or take a lengthy tour of the palace and its rooms, which are stunning in their restored splendour.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, July 28^th, 2013.

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Nanga Parbat, the Killer Mountain, didn’t strike this time — men did. On June 23, members of a terrorist group murdered 10 foreign tourists and their Pakistani cook. Local news reports said it happened at Fairy Meadows and they flashed images of it, saying that it was the base camp of Nanga Parbat. International news agencies claimed that it happened “at a hotel in Northern Pakistan”. What they both have in common is factual error.

As an adventure seeker and travel photographer, I have devoted my life to exploring the farthest corners of Pakistan. And my next stop, as planned for June 28, was a trek to the base camp of Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest mountain in the world.

Just four days before my trip I received a series of text messages from family and friends informing me about the massacre and inquiring if I was safe. I turned to the television to learn more about the incident. The news tickers were confirming my worst fears but their inconsistencies were quite blatant.

Images of Fairy Meadows, the lush green plateau located at the western edge of the Himalayas, offering the best north-side view of the mountain, kept flashing before my eyes. It was presumably the location for the attack. But that soon changed. Subsequent reports stated that the murders took place at the base camp of Nanga Parbat, which is not Fairy Meadows. Others reported that the incident had taken place in a hotel in Chilas, a completely separate location.

It was misreported that the foreigners were murdered at Fairy Meadows. They were actually killed more than 70km away from Fairy Meadows at the Diamer base camp, which offers a view of the west face of Nanga Parbat. To reach this camp you need to take a completely different route from Chilas. It is much more remote than Fairy Meadows with fewer tourists venturing out there. It also has a rotten reputation.

(The Express Tribune reported later that even tour operators have challenged a Gilgit-Baltistan police officer’s statement that the tourists were killed inside a hotel. The operators say there were no hotels on the Diamer face area and they have suggested the tourists were staying in camps.)

As expected, the mention of Fairy Meadows in the news spread panic. I learnt about this firsthand from Qari Rehmat Ullah, a native of Chilas who runs a small cottage and the camping site at Fairy Meadows (pictured below). I had the good fortune of meeting him as he was on my bus down the Karakoram Highway.

“I was in Islamabad the day it happened,” he told me. “As I turned on [the] television, the news of [the] massacre showed images of Fairy Meadows cottage from my website.” His immediate reaction was to call up his brother at the campsite but he was completely unaware of the happenings. “Everything with him was safe.” But Rehmat Ullah received countless calls that day.

After the sectarian killings of 2012 when 18 people, mostly Shia pilgrims, were killed, buses are no longer allowed to travel alone on the main Karakoram Highway. Therefore, we had to travel in a convoy led by paramilitary forces, which extended the 12-hour journey by four hours.

Source: Deutsche Himalaya Expedition Map of Nanga Parbat, Pakistan Trekking Guide by Isobel Shaw and Ben Shaw. ILLUSTRATION: JAMAL KHURSHID

The journey to the north side of the Nanga Parbat base camp goes from Islamabad to Chilas (370 km) and further north to Raikot Bridge (49 km) which is a jumping-off point for Fairy Meadows. A 1.5 hour jeep ride takes you to Tato village and then a further three- to four-hour hike to Fairy Meadows. To the base camp of the north side of Nanga Parbat, it is another five- to six-hour one-way hike, crossing through lush green alpine forest and Beyal camp and Raikot glacier.

Once we reached our campsite at Fairy Meadows, it was past midnight. The next day I woke up early and unzipped my tent to gaze upon the giant mountain before me. It stood tall behind a composition of alpine trees with its peak hidden behind passing clouds from time to time. Meanwhile in the lush green pastures of Fairy Meadows horses grazed quietly and a stream of cold water meandered through the fields. As I looked behind me, I could see Rehmat Ullah’s wooden cottage.

He showed me around and told me about how the news had impacted his business. A group of over 150 people had cancelled their trip. Almost every member of the household in the nearby village depends on tourism and there are close to 300 houses here. Starting from Raikot Bridge with jeep owners and porters in Tato village who carry your luggage to Fairy Meadows, everyone makes a living by catering to tourists. Once you set camp there you’ll find people offering horse rides and selling eggs and vegetables. Also, there are more than five camping sites at Fairy Meadows, all owned by locals.

I spent three nights at Fairy Meadows and devoted one day to trekking to the base camp on the north side of Nanga Parbat. During my stay there, I was joined by a group of at least 70 people, 25 of whom were from Karachi. The group also included a 55-year-old woman; this was a heartening sign that not all tourists had been deterred by the news.

As I said goodbye to Rehmat Ullah, he expressed how desperate he was for the local media to correct themselves since summer is the peak season for tourism in Fairy Meadows. This is my attempt to set the record straight for him.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, July 28^th, 2013.

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ISLAMABAD / PESHAWAR / LAHORE / KARACHI: Dorms are places where you live away from your parents for the first time in your life (microeconomics). You learn how to make a bong from a soft drink can (mechanical engineering). You learn what it is like to be alone (Theory of Relativity). You discover not to wash whites with colours (biochemical synthesis).

Chances are you are living away from home because your parents won’t let you study abroad, you wanted to get away from your parents, your hometown’s idea of higher education is limited to long-distance learning. In any case, we decided to provide a little information so you know what to expect.

If you are going to the Ghulam Ishaque Khan Institute of Topi, you won’t have a choice but to live on campus. “This is because of the tight study schedule,” explains hostel manager Farruk Naveed. You will be placed at one of its 10 dormitories along with 1,500 classmates. The good news is that you get wi-fi, central heating, air-conditioning and even a swimming pool.

And while you have a choice with the Lahore University of Management Sciences, you’ll almost want to stay on campus. “Given our hectic study schedule, I really couldn’t afford to stay anywhere off campus,” says Maham Imtiaz from the Chasma Barrage area. She described the LUMS hostel experience as “heaven on earth”.

If you are headed to Islamabad or Rawalpindi, know that nine out of 15 public sector universities have dorms. Public universities Bahria, Air and Wifaqi Urdu university have no dorms. Not a single private or semi-government university in the twin cities offers housing (SZABIST, Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences/FAST, and Iqra University).

Places like COMSATS, Islamabad that don’t have on-campus housing still accommodate their students, although far away (Rs45,000 per semester). The assistant warden at its boys’ hostel, Asif Shafi, said they offer subsidised transport.

But one of the girls who lives in a Comsats facility in Sector H-8, 15km from campus, said that if she misses the morning bus, she has to pay Rs200 for a taxi. A better example is QAU Islamabad’s subsidised shuttle service to the city center every 45 minutes.

Rawalpindi Medical College owns four hostels but a student said she and other girls were accommodated six kilometres off campus near Justice Ali Nawaz Chowhan Square on Rawal Road. “Accessing the library is the biggest issue for us,” she added.

Pakistan Institute for Development Economics, Islamabad has two off-campus hostels — for girls in Faizabad and for boys in Chak Shehzad. Although the hostels are far from campus, the institute provides transport in two shifts (Rs2,000 per semester). One student described the hostels as comfortable and peaceful even if they weren’t that big.

QUA, Islamabad (above)

Too close for comfort

Do check overcrowding when choosing. A veterinary sciences student at Pir Mehr Ali Shah University of Arid Agriculture University in Rawalpindi warns that up to six students are stuffed into one room. You can perhaps sleep in such an arrangement, he says, but forget about trying to get any studying done. Don’t be taken in by the rates of about Rs5,000 a semester for boarding.

A Rawalpindi Medical College student described their overcrowding in an off-campus dorm: “At least two to three girls live in each room, which is a 10-by-10 foot den.”

Punjab University’s 28 on-campus hostels are the most sought after, because they are cheap, starting at Rs1,800 per month. But you only get a room if you are enrolled in the morning programme. While you may get to use the wi-fi, gym, laundry room and even an on-campus tailor, beware of the sanitation complaints. “The buildings are old and naturally the up-keep is difficult,” said student Maria Qanita. And because the rooms are in such demand there is overcrowding — five girls sharing a space for four. Oh and you sometimes get a charpoy instead of a bed (but that might be more hygienic).

Political science

On some campuses watch out for the political student wings. A PhD student at International Islamic University, Islamabad (IIUI), who wanted to remain unnamed, spoke of constant interference from at least three student unions. “Hostel rules [seem] to apply only for students who aren’t affiliated with these student wings,” he says wryly. “We are discriminated against. Even our guests are not allowed to enter the mess. But the […] or members of any other union can easily get a space for their guests in the hostels.”

The provost of the IIU male section, Dr Hafiz Abid Masood, denied that student political wings had any influence. But at the same time, he apologetically admitted that to their existence by saying, “What university doesn’t have these unions?”

At Peshawar University, six to seven students live in one room and many of them are not PU students. One student complained that they were affiliated with the student organisations, smoked hashish and listened to loud music. “These guys in the administration know about it but the student organisations are a real trouble and they avoid any tussle with them.”

In Karachi, it has been much worse with political meddling leading to the closure of hostels. So, for example, Karachi University closed its boys’ hostel in 1994. The girls’ hostel and one for international students are the only ones on campus right now and accommodate about 350 in total. As a result, the out-station students, such as the ones from Gilgit-Baltistan, end up renting flats near Safoora Chowrangi at the end of University Road. With four people sharing a flat the rent comes to about Rs6,000 per month with meals.

Punjab University, Lahore (above)

Temperature control

The creature comforts of life include an electric kettle to make 2 am coffee for study marathons, a microwave to reheat a leftover dinner and the all-important air conditioner. You’d be lucky to find a hostel that has ACs in the rooms. But some places will allow you to install one at an extra charge. If not that, a room cooler for Rs500 a month.

But if you are living on-campus at Peshawar University, you’ll find yourself studying in the lawn when the temperature goes up because the ACs are usually broken. At LUMS there are no ACs in the rooms but in the common rooms, where you will find people sleeping in the stifling summers.

At the IIU, which has 11 hostels for 5,000 outstation students, you can use stoves in your room but you are not allowed to install an AC. But this is still better than places like Forman Christian College hostels that won’t let you keep a TV or heater let alone an AC.

Security issues

In October 2009, two suicide bombers blew up the cafeteria of the International Islamic University. Three women and two men were killed. NUML had to cancel its convocation in 2009 after it received threats. Today the campus looks like a garrison with checks on student bags and ID. “As GIKI is located in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, there are security threats all the times,” says Assad Sulaiman, a recent graduate. But there are night patrols and military check posts at the back where the jungle starts.

The popular places

While Pakistan may not have any ivy leagues, it certainly does have some historic campuses. Perhaps the most beautiful hostels across Peshawar district are the 10 of Islamia College. For instance the Victorian-style Qayum Manzil was established in 1914 and the nearby Butler Hostel in 1913. They have 36 rooms each that take four beds. The best part is the fountain in the middle of each building.

Every student pays Rs3,200 for food and Rs21,000 per annum for boarding. “[This] is out of reach for most students… but let me tell you the quality of food is good and our hostels are neat and clean,” said one student. The Islamia College students were the only ones who did not complain.

Khyber Medical College (KMC) also ranks up there because of its quality housing and cheap food. Rooms at Qasim Hall and Razi Hall cost Rs10,300 per annum. You can install your own AC for an extra charge. You get a first class bed and a variety of meals for Rs45 and you can eat as much as you like. No outsiders are allowed.

The hostels of Agricultural University and the University of Engineering are in comparatively good shape but students said they did not come close to the KMC standards.

In Karachi, the private Aga Khan University is known for maintaining the best housing on-campus and off-campus for around 500 students. The university charges Rs13,000 a month from Pakistani students while overseas students pay $130.

Peshawar University’s hostels are also spacious and beautiful with large lawns, fountains, common rooms and dining rooms. Expect to pay Rs18,600 per annum for a room for two. Larger rooms have been divided over the years to keep up with demand. The downside is that you’ll be lucky to find drinking water after noon. There are few checks on outsiders.

Dow International Medical College in Karachi has on-campus housing, specifically for international students. It gets a lot of students from the UAE, US and Canada. They need to pay Rs8,000 on average per month for boarding and lodging but they get their money’s worth. The facilities include ACs, folding beds, plenty of space for clothes and books.

Karachi’s Institute of Business Administration did not respond to repeated requests for information for this story.

Islamia College, Peshawar (above)

On your own

If you are a private university student, there is a high chance that your institution will not offer housing. This will leave you with the choice of living with family or friends or winging it at a private hostel — which is big business these days but more in the sweatshop kind of way.

This is how Rao Ali Sarfaraz of MAJU Islamabad put it: “Living in private hostels in the twin cities is like self-detention in Kot Lakhpat jail.”

One of your biggest priorities should be regular power supply. In Rawalpindi, for example, Rao Ali Sarfaraz’s private hostel owner isn’t pushed to get a generator and now the student feels his grades will suffer.

Don’t be taken in with the cheap rents. Forman Christian College students who look for housing in Main Market in Gulberg and Jail road can get apartments for Rs5,000 but don’t have generators. Another option are the Pak-Turk hostels on main Jail road that charge Rs10,000 per person for a four-person room (including two meals, gas, water and parking). You pay Rs2,000 for an AC.

In most cases, it is better to stay on campus because they have the infrastructure. Fourth-year LUMS student Ahsan Usmani has been living at the boys hostel but looked for an off-campus residence for social reasons. (You aren’t allowed to have visitors after 9:30 pm on campus.) But he decided not to move out because the incessant power failures jacked up the cost of living off campus.

The other worry with private hostels is overcrowding. This explains the mushroom growth in the past 15 years in Peshawar around University Road, Hayatabad and Hasthnagri.

“The hostel is a good business. Just rent a residential 20 marla house with at least seven rooms and you can accommodate 28 students which means Rs56,000 minimum,” said one owner. “You can use the store and even the garage as a room. You can make rooms by using partitions if the drawing room is large enough.”

Private hostels think they are doing you a favour by providing cheap rooms on the expensive Peshawar University Road neighborhood. “This is an area where public transport is easily available 24 hours a day and there is comparative peace too,” said Sameeullah, the warden of a private hotel.

But the cheap places at Rs2,500 are barely inhabitable. “I have rented a room because it is almost walking distance from my coaching centre,” said student Bilal who has come to Peshawar to prepare for a medical entrance test. “Otherwise it is a dirty hostel and nearly all hostels in this area are similar.

Ibrar Khan said he had no choice but to find a place off University Road. “Look at the condition of this room we have to share,” he said. “It is a small room and we don’t even have a foam mattress let alone a bed despite the fact that there are lots of insects in the summers.”

Hayatabad has more than a dozen places where you will pay about Rs3,500 in rent and about Rs2,500 for food a month. They are cramped at four a room but neater. But the owners squeeze four people per medium-sized room. They say they can charge more because the houses are in good shape.

But be aware that the Peshawar Development Authority has prohibited hostels in houses in Hayatabad. “Every night we fear that our hostel could be raided and we could be forced out,” said student Sajjad Khan. “It is a permanent tension despite the fact that we pay full rent.”

Another downside is that you’ll probably be responsible for your own meals as the private hostels don’t have proper dining rooms and large kitchens. Some of them might have an arrangement with a restaurant nearby. “We eat at a nearby hotel which costs us Rs2,500 per month minimum,” said Khalid, an Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan student who has a room off University road.

Of course, there are students who willingly choose to live off campus in private hostels. One fourth-year GCU student moved out because visitors were not allowed. “Even my father could not come in the room,” he said. GCU students tend to look in Anarkali where rent is low, starting at Rs4,000. The buildings are old but this may appeal to some. “I like the fact that I get to live cheaply and get a flavour of the city as well,” explained student Haider. Now that is the old romantic notion of student life. Poor but happy.

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LUMS

The Lahore University of Management Sciences houses almost 1,800 students in their 10 on-campus residential buildings. Expect to pay about Rs24,500 per semester, Rs5,000 per month for a room, including electricity. But you have to pay more for appliances. You have a kitchen with a refrigerator, stove, iron, water cooler, microwave and toaster. But live-in students can cook at the Pepsi Dining Centre. Vegetarian meals cost Rs35 and non-vegetarian Rs100 upwards. You have a doctor on campus five times a week from 3 pm to 7 pm and an emergency line is available 24 hours a day. Beauticians come in five times a week.

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Abbottabad

Who can study indoors in such beautiful surroundings?

By Saad Khan

If any place comes to close to matching the setting of Malory Towers, the famous British Enid Blyton boarding house series, it is Abbottabad. The pine-covered hill station in Hazara division has beautiful weather and real winters. But it isn’t that cut off that you can’t pop over to Islamabad or Peshawar, which are close by. That is if the warden allows you to leave by the main gate.

Of particular note are institutions such as Army Burn Hall School & College, which prides itself on preparing the next generation of soldiers who go on to join the army. The campus is located on Mansehra Road where Matric, O’Level streams are offered. Expect to pay between Rs125,000 and Rs250,000 per annum which includes boarding, lodging and messing.

For roughly the same price, is Abbottabad Public School spread over 55 acres and surrounded by lush green hills. Students are taken from class 7 to 12 and take either pre-engineering or pre-medical groups at the intermediate level. The institution is entirely boarding with seven hostels loftily named after Iqbal, Jinnah, Liaqat Ali Khan, Sir Syed and even Tipu Sultan. Day scholars can stay at Rehman House. You can mess around in the common room but no watching dirty movies on the TV there. Expect to pay Rs150,000 upwards per annum.

Ayub Medical College and Teaching Hospital on the Karakoram Highway has hostels but not messing or laundry. Expect to share a room with two students. Women Medical College improves on this by boarding you at its off-campus hostels if it can’t find you a place on campus. This way it accommodates all 500 students. Huge plus point is studying at the historic Hoti Palace campus over 50 kanals. Expect to pay Rs350,000 per annum which includes boarding and lodging but not transport.

The much larger Comsats University, located on 308 kanals, had a modest beginning in World War II barracks but now has 5,500 students. It has three blocks for 750 male students and one for 100 female students to stay in. Fee, which includes boarding and lodging and messing, comes to about Rs105,000.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, July 28^th, 2013.

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You got it right, tis the season to wear white! Nothing spells summer like this light reflecting hue which absorbs less heat than other colours, making it a favourite during the sticky, sweltering hot season.

But while it is the perfect choice for the sultry weather, be warned that not everyone can look fabulous in white. Unlike dark colours that enhance your figure, whites can make your flaws stand out if worn the wrong way. Here, Ms. T recommends some trendy ways to wear white and look good.

50 shades of white 

It’s important to find out the shade that flatters your face and enhances your complexion. While you may dream of resembling Marilyn Monroe in an ivory cocktail dress with a halter bodice, the truth is, it might just be the wrong white (and the wrong cut!) for you. White has many shades, from bright white to warm white (beige). For light skin tones, opt for beige white rather than the stark, crisp white. For darker complexions, choose to wear milky-white, which doesn’t make your skin look dull.

Shirts

After picking out your white shirt, look for a fruity fun shade to complete your outfit.  Traditionally, it’s always safe to wear a white shirt with blue jeans, but for the fun-factor, we recommend printed or colourful palazzos. The white keeps it simple and summery and the colour brightens your look.

For an evening out, wear earth toned pants or neutral colours with a silk or chiffon white top. Accessorise with silver or stone jewelry and nude, beige or brown heels. For a day out with friends, wear a cotton white shirt atop vibrant coloured trousers or leggings. Try out bright floral pants if you want to bring some variation to your look.

Pants

Before we go any further, make sure your white pants are not transparent. Whether you like skinnies, straight or cropped, the fitting of the pants should flatter your body shape. There’s nothing worse than wearing white pants that are see-through, oversized or poorly stitched.

Pair your white pants with any colour you like: from nudes and pastels to bright and dark. The lighter coloured tops give a fresh and calm vibe, while the more radiant shirts make you look sexy and bold. For a night out, go for a darker coloured tunic, which gives a formal look, but still keeps the summer feel with the white pants. If you’re stepping out during the day, try wearing pastel shades.

If you’ve been indecisive about wearing white this year, it’s time to kick those fears good-bye and give white a chance. After all, it’s a must-wear colour of the season. So weather it’s a BBQ party, a baby shower or a formal dinner, it’s time to dig out those whites and beat the heat in style.

Eastern wear

No matter how old you are, when you wear a crisp white cotton kurta or an ivory chiffon outfit, you send off good vibes. White is always in fashion as far as desi clothes are concerned: from an all-white outfit to those essential white shalwars and dupattas, dressing up would be that much harder without our white eastern essentials. The one rule to remember when wearing all white is that your undergarments should be your skin colour, which will save you from embarrassment.

Try wearing chunri duppattas with a white shalwar and kameez or combine any shade of white with Sindh’s susi lined cloth. On a hot day out, wear chicken-kari kurta with cotton capris or cotton white kurta with white embroidery on it. A pair of fancy khussas is a fashion forward way of adding colour to your white ensemble. For formal wear, go for white chiffons and silks embellished with sequins or kamdani.

Published in The Express Tribune, Ms T, July 28^th, 2013.

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The Aztecs and Mayans may have done it centuries ago and many tribes may still do it, but if you are thinking of getting a body piercing today it’s best to do your research because they carry the risk of potentially life-threatening diseases.

According to a study conducted from June 2007 to May 2008, published in the Journal of Pakistan Medical Association titled ‘Frequency of Hepatitis B and C in rural and periurban Sindh’, body piercing was identified as a risk factor for contracting the virus.

Infections are common if you don’t take precautionary measures during and after a piercing. Oral piercings can be especially dangerous. They can cause infection of the mouth or lips that “may lead to speech and chewing and swallowing problems,” says Dr Mansur Ahmad, a dentist and oral surgeon at the Aga Khan University Hospital. It can also compromise the airway from trauma.

But P, who wishes to remain anonymous, recently got her tongue pierced and says, “It’s not painful at all and there is no risk of an infection because the enzymes present in saliva help tongue piercings fight infection.” On the other hand Tooba Masood who got her lip pierced in 2010 says, “My lip looked like a bee had stung it three times. Since the piercing was on a visible part of my body, I was worried about getting an infection… a lot of Polyfax, icing and alcohol swabs helped.”

Although they may seem unrelated, tooth fractures and tooth chips can also be caused by oral piercings. It weakens the teeth parallel to the piercing, usually the pre-molars and the middle teeth. This happens when the metal hits against your teeth.

The perennially fashionable eyebrow piercings also need lots of care. Tooba got her eyebrows pierced in 2005 and then again in 2008 before going to college. She opted for the vertical piercing on the eyebrow ridge. “I don’t have my eyebrow piercing anymore as it fell out… just a big scar on my eyebrow now,” she says. “Eyebrow piercings are a bit complicated in terms of when you have to get your threading and waxing done. The skin can get loose and the metal can fall out.” And if the metal gets trapped, it could make the piercing even more risky. According to Dr Ahmad, “nose and eyebrow piercings almost always leave a scar.”

On the other hand, ear piercings may seem like a simpler choice but they too run the risk of infection. “Ear piercings can be the most painful ones, especially since sleeping on a fresh ear piercing can make it very sore,” says P who also has a Tragus piercing, a piercing on the skin that covers the ear canal opening. Cartilage piercings may remain sore longer than ones in the lobe.

People with a heart condition should simply avoid body piercings. “In such cases piercings increase the possibility of bacteria getting into the bloodstream, infect the heart, and damage heart valves,” says Dr Ahmad. If you must get one, make sure that the person performing the piercing is using a sterile technique. Piercing guns are not sterile.

“There is only one place in Karachi I would trust to get piercings and that is Sarwana. They are extremely clean,” says Zara Ali, who has five piercings in one ear, a nose piercing and an eyebrow piercing.

If you want to get the piercing done the right way, make sure you use a sharp and clean needle. After the piercing clean the area with warm water and soap twice a day or use a liquid medicated cleanser. For oral piercings use an antibacterial mouth rinse after meals.

Bling it on

When it comes to selecting the right jewellery for your new piercing Dr Mansur Ahmad recommends using only titanium or gold. Nickel or artificial jewellery (gold-or silver-plated) can lead to an allergic reaction and should be best avoided. If the metal is soft it can get scratches and grooves that can harbour bacteria. Anything that oxidises will do the same.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 4^th, 2013.

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Everything else is a glimpse into a dysfunctional, almost fractured mind that is sharpened by both its failings and its resilience. The literary result is obviously too evolved for a category to describe what Lydia Davis does with words, which is why she has been categorised as a short story writer.

Ali Smith, a fiction writer herself, probably came the closest when she came up with the term ‘prose stylist’ for Davis. That almost describes what she does. Almost, because the writer can invoke enough power with a single unpunctuated sentence hunched in the corner of a page to throw you into sudden despair. However, before you even know you have fallen flat on your face, she has moved on to an absurd snippet of humour, giving you no choice but to get up and follow.

‘The Letter’, best described as a window that opens up longer than expected into the lives of two people paying the price of hoping for a happy ending, is savagely sliced in the middle with the insertion of a series of sketches called ‘Extracts from a Life’ (Both from Break it Down, 1986). They read like notes that will make you laugh out loud at her childlike simplicity of how her love for grownups is born out of sympathy only because they will die or at how her encounter with Tolstoy left a bad aftertaste but thankfully she was saved by Dr Einstein. The childlike expression ensures you that she is not guilty in any way of jumping on the surrealism bandwagon. The contrast also shows a complex mind at work that throws you off balance.

The anthology is, however, premised on a contradiction as it tries to string together her collections in a linearity that does not surface, if it all, in her writing. The publishers themselves admit it was a task to collect her work since both the author and her work have an intrinsic elusiveness. “… I had been alone in that apartment so much by then that I had retreated into some kind of inner, unsociable space” from ‘Blind date’ in Almost No Memory.

The collection does mark her evolution as a writer — from her first collection Break it Down published in 1986 to Varieties of Disturbance in 2007 — you witness the understanding and control she acquires over her expression, how she masters it until eventually she emerges as a creator of her own language. She strips it. Layers that writers use as covers; she cuts them loose. Lydia Davis’ language today is naked and immaculately sculpted. You see the beauty of a semi colon, the grace of a comma that adds a silent understanding. How a period does not bleed out your imagination but adds to it. It also showcases the fact that the themes that she had picked are regulars. But they grow up with her too. She knew in her first publication the pain of happiness. But it’s a woman who is starting to understand loss with a more silent assertiveness in Almost No Memory. The same anthology makes the use of food as a sinister force that channels her confusion and anger. Her inner child is also retreating, scared of the wrath that is displayed in ‘Meat, My Husband’ or when she gives ‘Examples of Remember… that thou art but dust’.

This is how I discovered Lydia Davis, in Varieties of Disturbances: “I put that word on the page, but he added the apostrophe,” from ‘Collaboration with Fly’.

By that time her characters were not masked versions of her own disappointments and most had names and lives outside of her. Thematically, she had steered towards a direction that marked the beginning of a woman’s journey towards self-actualisation, transcending the ordinary human loss and meekly stepping into the metaphysical. Her horizon had broadened, the pain that accumulated over the years solidified into a foundation where she has arrived but it’s too strange a journey for her to not take.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 4^th, 2013.

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The heavier than usual downpour in Mumbai this year could not put a dent in the Ramazan fervour at the iconic Mohammed Ali Road. Neither water-logging nor the potholed streets deterred Mumbaikars from travelling considerable distances to sample the fare at this mecca of meats. During the holy month, the mile-long Mohammed Ali Road stretch, named after Khilafat Movement leader Mohammed Ali Jouhar, is a feast for all the senses. From the stalls glittering with jewellery and silks, to the snippets of qawwali and azaan that fill the ears, and of course the aroma of mithai, grilled kababs and fruit — this street delivers a heady rush.

My first stop on this gastronomical pilgrimage is Bohri Mohalla, a name indicating the large presence of the Dawoodi Bohras living in the area. I wind my way through a long lane, beset on both sides with magical cauldrons of sizzling malpuas, a milk pancake, fried and sinfully dipped in sugar syrup, mounds of the rich, milky rabri sweet, stalls selling every ilk of chaat and balls of colourful suttar feni, a string-like sweet mixed with milk and eaten at sehri, before the fast is kept at dawn. The potato chaats at Bohri Mohalla come highly recommended, prepared as they are with special masalas not found elsewhere in the city. What goes into them? Well, that is kept a closely guarded secret.

I head straight for Noor Sweets, an institution in its own right, famous for its malpua-rabri and roasted kaju barfi. “We have customers from all over the country. Even the family of His Holiness orders from us,” says its 85-year-old owner Abdulali Hassan Ali proudly, referring to the Syedna, the spiritual leader of the Dawoodi Bohras. Ali claims to sell over 200 kilogrammes of malpua a day during Ramazan. “The secret is that we use the purest ingredients and have never compromised on quality,” he says.

Twenty-five-year-old Shaikh Aafreen Ali Mohammed agrees. He was born and brought up in Mumbai, where it is de rigeueur for the family to pay a daily visit to Noor Sweets during Ramazan. “Malpua is available right through this month which is not the case otherwise so we make it a point to come here,” he says.

Bohri Mohalla is among the quieter parts of Mohammed Ali Road and packs up by midnight. That is the time to hit Minara Masjid, just two lanes away. Here the action continues into the early morning hours. Chaotic and crowded as they are, the food stalls near Minara Masjid attract crowds by the thousands every day. The big ticket item here is roasted quail. The live birds are kept in huge cages and are grilled to order.

For the more faint-hearted, there is nalli nihari, which is the other big attraction, especially with the Bollywood set. Aamir Khan and Sanjay Dutt, I am told, are regulars here during Ramazan. “Sanjubaba usually comes here in the early morning hours during Ramazan,” says Abdul Kalim, stirring a huge pot of nalli, a slow-cooked beef or mutton stew, which traces its origins to Awadh and Hyderabad. “He sits rights here and eats like everyone else,” Kalim says pointing, as if to support his claim, to his ordinary, rather rundown stall. This year Dutt who is in prison, will be missing the action. “Aamir Khan comes here too, usually after the fifteenth day of Ramazan,” Kalim adds as if to make up for the loss.

These crowded lanes, with their carnival-like atmosphere, are a microcosm of the great melting point that is Mumbai. You find the Audis and BMWs parked alongside ordinary taxis, posh families from south Mumbai high-rises and foreigners negotiating the traffic to try out different kinds of pau bread and kababs. The roads are messy and crowded, pick-pockets lurk everywhere and the drive may be a nightmare, but nothing it seems can diminish the magic.

As 28-year-old Nida Thakur emphasises, “There is LIFE here.” Raised in Mumbai, Nida moved to Qatar five years ago after getting married. She makes it a point to time her annual visit back home during this season. “I have to come here and eat the sandaal,” she says pointing to a set of clay cups filled to the brim with a sticky pudding made of rice, coconut milk, mawa and sugar. Popular among the Memons and Konkani Muslims, sandaal is exported in large quantities to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. “When I take a bite of this, I know I am home,” she says.

Watching people surge past the green minarets of Minara Masjid, a light drizzle on my face and the smell of pineapples and smoky kababs hanging in the air, I can see what she means.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 4^th, 2013.

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Head down Northampton Road in London’s east end and you’ll find yourself in the waiting room of a train station from the 1920s in India, where a bejeweled lady in a mint green and gold shalwar kameez fans herself while cautiously keeping an eye on a leery ticket inspector. A woman in a safari suit, her hair a mass of pin-curls, clutches a glass of port as she scans the crowd on the platform for her son, Dickie, who ran away from their home in England to head to India. Her husband, a colonel, is laid up in their train compartment with a terrible case of dyspepsia.

The destination is Srinagar. The train journey begins in Rangoon and winds through Chittagong, Patna, Lucknow, Delhi and Jullundur before its final stop.

All aboard Shuttlecock Inc’s Great Indian Peninsula Railway — a £65 per head pop-up dinner experience for Londoners that will take 40 guests on a seven-course culinary journey from Rangoon to Srinagar.
As the name suggests, a pop-up restaurant is just one that pops up. No permanent space is needed, just a venue the organisers will rent for a few days. Some pop-ups last only a day while others can run for a short period, like this one, The Great Indian Peninsula Railway, from July 18 to August 10.

In fact Shuttlecock Inc was created specifically for this form of entertainment, bringing together art, music, theatre and food in a series of pop-up events in London.

So what inspires a group of Londoners to bring India to the heart of their city?

It started with the Sunday blues. Four cousins, driving back to their hometown of London after a vacation in France, found themselves wishing they didn’t have to return to their jobs on Monday. What would happen, they mused, if they worked with each other?

And so the Templetons — Anna (31), Ed (29), Will (27) and Oliver aka Olly (the baby, at 22) — looked to their roots for inspiration. “We’re from a pretty big family,” explains Ed. “And every family occasion revolves around a meal.” The cousins decided to combine their love of food and travel to form Shuttlecock Inc last year, creating the perfect evening out for Londoners looking to shake up their dinner plans. “We wanted to host something like our family get-togethers, where you dance, have great conversations and have a great meal,” says Ed.

For their first pop-up event in March, the group was inspired by the golden age of travel during the 1950s — no plastic cutlery, no pat-downs and plenty of legroom. For Shuttlecock’s first ‘Mile High’ event, a bevy of Pan-Am-inspired stewardesses welcomed their ‘passengers’ for the evening into a departure lounge (a disused Royal Mail sorting office that had been transformed by a set-designer) and presented them with a passport and boarding ticket to their destination of Gothenburg, Sweden. Once on the ‘plane’ (two long tables where diners sat side-by-side), the passengers feasted on a meal featuring pan-fried scallops, chargrilled elk, lingonberry ice cream and crayfish while raucously singing Swedish drinking songs. Subsequent Mile High events whizzed through Beirut (featuring smoked labneh with sour cherries, rose water and grape jelly with cardamom custard) and Sicily (swordfish in orange and cinnamon with fennel and pine nuts, burnt peach gelato, pistachio praline and amaretti biscotti).

Their latest venture is inspired by numerous trips to India. “A few years ago, I did a journey across India in a tuk-tuk,” Ed recounts. “I covered 4,000 kilometres in that rickety old thing, starting in Meghalaya in the north east and ending in Jaisalmer in Rajasthan.” This project is very much a work of love, a family affair — walk into the dining room where his grandfather’s old trunks perch in the train’s berths, you’ll see Will polishing cutlery. Painted signs (‘Avoid: sleeping near the windows wearing heavy jewels, friendship with strangers’) replicate the highlights of the cousins’ travels in India (there’s no paan ki peek to be found here, though) and on the first night, an assistant-less Olly frantically chopped vegetables with both hands to prep a meal for forty people.

It’s easy to lose yourself in the fantasy, in this haze of incense and Mohammad Rafi songs. A white-turbaned coolie darts between the crowd, offering a glass of paani here, practicing his English there — “Ali is our odd jobs man,” the ticket inspector (who goes by the name Quentin Raamsbottom, ‘a babu’s name that he has stolen’) says, “he makes many jobs even.” He adds, snickering, “but be careful, because he sometimes checks out the train’s undercarriage, if you know what I mean.” This crew of ten actors has worked with Shuttlecock on previous events and they have their routine down pat — when I tell Lakshmi, a woman from the pink city of Jaipur, that I’m covering the event, she deadpans, “what event?”

Thus, the key element, ultimately, is the attempt to be authentic. The event does not rest on a colonial imagination of India alone. Harini, a dinner guest from south India who came to the event with her daughter, loves the attention to detail and the atmosphere, which “is very reminiscent of [her] time in India”. And while the food is central to the experience, not everyone is there for the feast. Lily, for instance, who surprised her date with tickets to the event, admits that while she is not a “massive fan of Indian food,” she decided to come for the novelty of the experience.

Each ‘stop’ of the train’s route explores a different flavour and the menu includes everything from sea bass and scallop broth (Chittagong) to a vegetarian thaali (Patna). The idea is to serve a taster menu that encourages people to try food they might otherwise be hesitant to order at one of London’s thousands of curry houses. “This is an interpretation of Indian cuisine,” Ed clarifies. “We’re not expecting anyone to say, ‘This is exactly how my mum would make it.’” Olly, who has the enviable experience of being a chef at the award-winning Moro at his young age, takes inspiration from restaurants he loves — “We’ve been doing research for this project at Tayyabs in Whitechapel for nearly 7 years,” Ed quips — but tweaks dishes in order to offer something fresh for Londoners who are able to roll ‘daal makhni’ off their tongues effortlessly.

Their appetites whetted by an hour of cocktails in the train’s waiting room, the train’s ‘passengers’ are summoned by the ticket collector’s whistle to board. Their ticket stubs punched, they enter the carriage and squeeze in next to complete strangers in a series of berths (repurposed church pews).

“We’ve had a lot of people at our other events who meet for the first time at one of our pop-ups and then come back together for subsequent ones,” Will says. And in a city where you apologise profusely for so much as brushing against someone on the train, you can find yourself sharing the contents of your thaali with someone you met only ten minutes ago.

Two waiters in shalwar kameez serve up plates of salad with slivers of tart unripe mango or kayri, tea leaves and crunchy peanuts, the perfect opener for the next course, a bowl of sea bass and scallop broth tinged with lemongrass and coconut.

As the train makes its ‘way’ through each city, the diners tuck into peppery lamb with a gritty delicious yoghurt-tinged masala, sweet figs with crumbly paneer and crisp chapattis. Quentin Raamsbottom and Ali join our table, bickering. “Laaton ke bhoot baaton se nahin maantay,” Quentin pronounces, delighted to meet his first diner so far who speaks Urdu/Hindi. “Indian s**la kaun aaye ga, itnay paisay de kar?”

When the train ‘reaches’ Delhi, Olly serves up a plate of melt-in-your-mouth creamy pan-fried chicken kaleji, seasoned with cardamom and chili. At this point, five courses in, the room is getting warm, the diners’ faces are flushed as they are served lamb and pea samosas in a buttery puff pastry, garnished with cool mint raita. As we head to Srinagar, it is a relief to be presented with chilled cups of cherry cake with yoghurt, garnished with pistachios and plump cherries. An impromptu game of cricket starts in the aisles with a green lime serving as a ball. The passengers join in with a crescendo of whoops and table-thumping.

Their attentions focused on the game, the guests scarcely notice the theft of Laskhmi’s jewels. Quentin grabs Ali by the scruff of his neck, accusing him of pocketing the gems. A lady in red silk who has entered the train carriage unnoticed cries out, “No! He is not a thief! He is my husband,” and we’re suddenly in the middle of a Bollywood-inspired flash dance in the aisles. The passengers, giddy by this point, join in the dancing.

“The whole point of what we’re doing,” Ed says, “is that you walk through the doors into a completely different world — it’s a story that you’re part of and you get to let go for a few hours.”

As the night comes to an end, we walk out of the train’s waiting room and step out into a cool London evening. Ali, now in a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt and jeans, is heading home for the night. The passage through India has ended.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 4^th, 2013.

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We all have days when we can’t understand our problems and try to look for a solution. But we don’t know where to look. John Gray’s new book Venus on Fire, Mars on Ice is a solution. It shows how stress affects relationships, and highlights the different gender responses to emotional and physical stress. The book deals with what men and women can do to help each other understand hormonal balance. At least it helped me bridge the communication gap with my husband.

Gray underlines the significance of two hormones: oxytocin for women and testosterone for men. The more women take on the same responsibilities as men, the less oxytocin they make, and the more men take on female responsibilities, the less testosterone they make.

To start out, he points out how gender roles in a marriage were previously defined — women were to stay at home while men were breadwinners — and how the dynamics have changed today. With more working women today, the stress at home has increased. It is therefore important to understand hormonal changes and the effect they have on our mood and eventually our relationships.

Stress levels in urban and rural settings vary though. According to Gray, living in urban areas can be more stressful because of increased noise pollution. When it comes to relieving that stress, he notes (in his geographical context) that twice as many women as men are taking antidepressants, which can (but not always) result in weight gain. One study reveals that during a moderately stressful situation, a woman’s brain has eight times more blood flow in the emotional part as compared to a man’s brain.

The food we eat plays a key role too. Good nutrition produces the right hormones and balances them and simple changes in diet can go a long way in transforming relationships. When you are under stress, sugar and organic food can help. Along with food, a good night’s sleep, five to eight hours, can also help you cope better.

Tips and practical knowledge are plentiful in the book, with one chapter entirely devoted to them. For instance, to ensure a continuous supply of feel-good hormones, women need to talk. And if they are denied the opportunity of express their feelings, women experience stress and feel neglected by their spouses. On the other hand, men need to do things their way and they need the time and space to do it. Instead of looking for ways to improve themselves, they attempt to do things that they are best at and seek appreciation for it. And when a woman acknowledges that, she helps restore his testosterone levels.

Gray notes that both men and women can be motivated to lead happier lives together. The key is to manage your stress which according to the writer is the single most important factor in dysfunctional relationships.

Available at Liberty Books for Rs846 after a 15% discount

Relationship Rescue:

Men, Women and Relationships: Making Peace with the Opposite Sex

Relationship expert John Gray in this book enables you to recognise and accept the differences between you and your loved one, equipping you to avoid inevitable bumps in your love-life. He explains the different ways men and women communicate, cope with stress, resolve conflicts, and experience and give love.

Why Can’t You Read My Mind?

Psychologist Jeffrey Bernstein in Why Can’t You Read My Mind? reveals the nine toxic thought patterns that poison and end relationships. Bernstein offers a simple yet powerful approach for breaking the negative thinking cycle and helps readers establish positive thinking for solving their problems and dealing with the stresses of everyday life.

Marriage Rules: A Manual for the Married and the Coupled Up

Marriage Rules offers new relationship advice to age-old problems in a unique format. Dr Harriet Lerner gives readers more than one hundred rules that cover all hurdles and lead to a perfect long-lasting relationship.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 11^th, 2013.

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Milan Kundera observes somewhere that the novel does not write a society’s history. Its overwhelming concern is, rather, with the existential condition of the individual. Philosophical discourse is not part of its provenance, though its characters may engage philosophy where the latter is not the object of novelistic intention but only an element of its strategy, to reveal tellingly some aspect of the character’s persona.

In his masterwork, The Mirror of Beauty (Hamish Hamilton, 2013; 958 pages), Shamsur Rahman Faruqi seems to have found a happy medium. It is a novel as much about a woman — a stunning beauty of elegant grace, infinite dignity and gravitas — as about Indo-Muslim culture in its heyday and during its precipitous decline, mostly at the hands of the British in 19th-century India, but partly also because of the sapped energies of the latter day Mughals who failed to rise to the demands of statecraft with shrewdness, creativity, and grit. But perhaps the overarching impulse behind this work’s creation springs from the author’s tender regard for a way of life whose memory is fast receding from our collective memory — to preserve before time has annulled what was once a living, scintillating reality, or, at least, our romanticised vision of that reality.

Faruqi does not, however, use his protagonist as a living museum for the display of cultural artefacts, divested of personality, volition, and selfhood. His intimate knowledge of a bygone era, its people, their manners and language, compounded by an uncannily intuitive sense of the nuances and intricacies of the poetics of good fiction, enables him to interweave the quintessential qualities of both with such deftness and surety of touch that the two melt, almost as a dialectical necessity, into a breathtaking intimacy. It is the culture that makes Wazir Khanam who she is, and it is the mirror of her being in which the entire elegance of that culture, its decorum, its insatiable love of the literary arts, miniature painting, music, a myriad of crafts, even maladies and their indigenous as well as Greco-Arab cures, is reflected in a rainbow of warm, dazzling colours. The delightful ambiguity of “beauty” in the title further reinforces the author’s twin concern, as the beauty of the protagonist and the culture meld so seamlessly it is impossible to think of them as separate entities, or to discern where reality eases into illusion.

But it is a beauty as much illusory as tangibly real. Illusory in the form of the non-existent Bani Thani (“The Bedecked One”) who dominates the first 150 pages of the novel, and every bit as sensually real as the ravishing Wazir Khanam of the remaining 850. Either way, its seductions prove fatal in the end. Even as it generates the desire for heaven or for earth, it destroys by its lethal effects on men.

Central Asian culture, transplanted to India by the Mughals with an ecumenical incorporation of native Indian customs and conventions, is enacted through Wazir Khanam and a fairly extensive cast of characters, some from the lower classes and in subservient roles, but most drawn from the upper crust — indeed some of them historical personages — and in commanding positions. And all this in the midst of the irritating presence of the foreign intruder: the Company Bahadur.

The English, literally in awe of the majesty of Indo-Muslim culture before the 1800s, had acquired, as William Dalrymple notes in The White Mughals, all the hubris and arrogance of an upstart with the advent of Wellesley on the horizon of India in 1798 as governor-general.

Although fictionalised, Wazir Khanam is a historical character. She was the mother of the Urdu poet Dagh Dehlavi. Born sometime in early 19th-century Delhi, Wazir’s ancestors were natives of the Hindal Purwah village some twenty miles from Kishangarh in the province of Ajmer in Rajputana, until her great-great-great grandfather, the miniature painter Mian Makhsusullah fled to Kashmir. He had painted the image of an imaginary Bani Thani. On an unscheduled visit to his estate, Maharval Gajendrapati Singh saw the iconic image hanging in an alcove of Mian Makhsusullah’s hut. Its lifelike resemblance to his own younger daughter Man Mohini so enraged him that he suspected some promiscuous goings-on in the back of the portrait. He had Mohini brought in a palanquin, accused the innocent girl of dishonouring him, and slit her throat, giving the residents until the next morning to vacate the village. Still later, Mian’s two grandsons, the twins Daud and Yaqub, moved to Farrukhabad and Delhi, with a brief stopover in their ancestral Rajputana, where they lost their hearts to two ravishingly beautiful orphan sisters and married them.

But who is this enigmatic Bani Thani, and was Mian Makhsusullah’s some morbid fixation?

By the time Mian arrives in Kashmir he is firmly resolved never to paint again. He learns, instead, the art of producing talim-ie, creation of exceptionally intricate designs for carpet weaving. However, the imaginary Bani Thani is so enmeshed in his being that he paints her yet again, this time on ivory, and hangs it in an alcove in his atelier. He would gaze at it many times during the day and, as often, during nightlong vigils. He lives, but just. His soul is on fire, desperately seeking an ideal well nigh unattainable in this life. The day his son is born, he places the infant in the arms of his brother-in-law and leaves the house never to return. He is found reclining against a mighty oak, covered in his blanket — dead, his hand curled over the piece of ivory. The two are laid to rest in a single grave.

The strikingly beautiful and mysterious Bani Thani represents a Platonic ideal, not some flesh-and-blood woman. “Some people also described her as ‘The Radha of Kishangarh’, meaning the beloved of God Krishna.”

The reference to Radha, “the beloved of God Krishna,” and the disquietude in Mian Makhsusullah’s soul, as much as his absorption in something beyond human contingency, represent, what Shelley eloquently calls “The desire of the moth for the star, / Of the night for the morrow, / The devotion of something afar / From the sphere of our sorrow.” In other words, the painful realisation of the yawning gulf between the phenomenal and the transcendent eternal, and the impatient desire to be gathered up in it until all consciousness of personal ego is extinguished — a notion common enough in the Sufi metaphysics of Wahdat al-Wujud. Makhsusullah (Appropriated by God) may not have been a Sufi, but his every movement belies unmistakable sufic strains: his detachment, his otherworldliness. Bani Thani to him was a symbol of something lacking, but necessary, in human existence, something sublime and of an infinitely higher order that existed beyond time, and drew him inexorably to itself. He may not have been able to articulate with the clear vision of a Sufi, still his Bani Thani was the mimesis of the cosmic spirit in an imagined earthly medium.

Shamsur Rahman Faruqi worked as a civil servant in the postal department until his retirement. He is a poet, critic, and literary theorist acclaimed for this three-volume critical work on the Urdu dastan.

Wazir’s character dominates the novelistic space from Book 3. She comes through as an individual minutely conscious of her unassailable erotic powers over men. But she knows how to restrain those powers from riding roughshod over her drooling admirers, schooled as she is in the courtesies and mores of her culture, and deferential to a fault to its requirements and limits. Lively, self-willed, unwilling to submit to domesticity, full of wit and subtle humour, with a passion for life and aware of the demands of her flesh, she never oversteps those limits yet manages, amazingly, to preserve her individuality.

Mistress of three men (Englishman Marston Blake in the employ of the Company Bahadur; Nawab Shamsuddin Ahmad Khan, a close relative of the poet Ghalib; and Agha Mirza Turab Ali), hoping someday to rise to the status of wife, she is singularly unlucky as the lives of all three are snuffed out prematurely. Blake meets his end in Jaipur at the hands of an overexcited mob that suspected the Company of interfering in the business of the Maharaja’s succession; the Mirza is done in by thugs; while the public hanging of the Nawab owes in no small measure to the rivalry and ultimate humiliation of the Resident to the State of the Company Bahadur, Nawab William Fraser Sahib, who had lost the affections of Wazir to the handsome Nawab. (Not content with his burgeoning seraglio of half a dozen desi bibis and numerous boy-lovers, Fraser wanted to add Wazir to his sprawling harem as well.) Her fourth wooer, none other than the Mughal prince and heir apparent Mirza Fathul Mulk Bahadur, who finally bestows on her the much longed for and much delayed dignity of becoming a legally wedded wife, dies suddenly in 1856, a year before the sun was to set irrevocably on the Mughal Empire, or whatever was left of its nominal authority amidst the steadily encroaching power of the English.

Wazir goes through her tragic vicissitudes with exceptional grit, stoicism, and grace. The deaths of the four men in her life, whom she loved in her own way, are not the only wounds life has given her. Practically disowned by her religiously devout father and eldest sister, who could not put up with what they assumed to be her unforgivably unorthodox ways, she also had to suffer the haughtiness, the sleazy machinations, the petty-mindedness and jealousy of the relatives of her four lovers. Not only is she divested of material assets after their deaths, even her two children with Blake are practically snatched away from her lap by Blake’s cousins, the Tyndales.

By the time the novel has moved to Wazir Khanam, the spiritual purity and considerably less materialistic aura of the traditional culture has undergone a palpable change. The affinity of Wazir and Bani Thani is not in the physical realm but in a notion of beauty — bewitching enough to put men beside themselves.

Something of an epic in its magnificent expansiveness, the Mirror defies any attempt even to enumerate its tantalising wealth, much less to adequately discuss it in a few hundred words, which would be like the attempt “To see a world in a grain of sand” and “eternity in an hour.” The whole way of life of 18th- and 19-th century India is gathered in the novel’s encyclopaedic sweep. One can literally assemble several inventories of manners, ceremonies, festivals, fabrics, jewelry, arts and crafts, arms and weaponry, you name it. The description of Wazir’s attire at her first visit to Nawab Shamsuddin alone is spread over four pages, and that of his palatial residence in Daryaganj takes up over five.

Some individuals defy our notions of human possibility and limit. Faruqi is one such individual. A civil servant in the postal department until his retirement, he accomplished in letters what few are able to in educational institutions and literary academies. A poet, a critic, a theorist of literature, a fan and translator of detective novels, a polymath, with a profound knowledge of music and painting — the list of his achievements is endless.

As if his studies of Ghalib and Mir, his incisive comments about the nature of fiction, his insightful forays into lexicography and prosody, and, lately, his three-volume critical work on the Urdu dastan, a stunning contribution to world literature, were not enough to leave ordinary mortals breathless over his vast erudition and creativity, he has achieved in a single novel what writers toil a lifetime to achieve, but few ever do: the brilliant portrait of a vanished time.

Faruqi came to fiction later in his career with the publication of half a dozen short stories, later collected in Savar aur Doosray Afsane. While readers were still reeling from the stunning beauty of these stories, a treasure of cultural riches broke upon their senses with a crashing force — his gargantuan novel Ka’i Chand the Sar-e Asman (The Mirror of Beauty in its English reincarnation).

A reworking in English of the Urdu original, the Mirror rarely drifts away from the main events of the original. And Faruqi alone could have accomplished this formidable feat. The characters of a bygone age, their every breath and movement steeped in the unmistakable ambience of a self-sufficient but, ultimately, doomed culture, with its penchant for high-living, pleasure, allusion and poetry, required an idiom commensurate with their times and cultural personality. Faruqi’s stylised English — notwithstanding its few infelicitous contemporary “hey” and “girlie” and “you son of a gun” — gives the novel its razor-sharp edge of authenticity.

India should be rightly proud that two of the greatest living Urdu writers, both recipients of the Sarasvati Samman — Faruqi and Naiyer Masud, an academic, research scholar and a short-story writer — make their home in its bosom. And Penguin, equally, should be congratulated for publishing them both in the same year (Masud’s The Occult, Seemiya in its original Urdu, will appear later this year).

The Mirror of beauty is available at Liberty Books for Rs1,271 after 15% discount.

A shorter version of this piece first appeared in Mint Lounge (ww.livemint.com)

Dr Muhammad Umar Memon is Professor Emeritus of Urdu Literature and Islamic Studies. He has been associated with the University of Wisconsin Madison since 1970.He is a scholar, translator, poet, Urdu short story writer, and the editor of The Annual of Urdu Studies. 

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 11^th, 2013.

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Assalam alaikum. Hum zameen kay rehnay waalon kee taraf say aap ko khush amdaid kehtay hain (Peace be upon you. We the inhabitants of this Earth send our greetings to you).

This greeting is onboard the farthest human-made object from the Earth: Voyager 1. Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 provided the first close-up pictures of Jupiter and Saturn, before starting its journey out of our Solar System. After 35 years of travels, it is now roughly 19 billion kilometers from the Earth. There is another way to think about this distance. A radio message from the Sun would take only eight minutes to get to us. From Voyager 1, it currently takes 17 hours! Furthermore, the distance between us and this assalam alaikum will only keep on growing.

Urdu is not the only language onboard. There are greetings in 55 world languages, including Akkadian, a language once spoken in Mesopotamia four thousand years ago. These greetings are stored on a golden record onboard Voyager 1. In addition to welcoming messages, the 90-minute record contains music (from Beethoven’s 5th symphony and Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode to Senaghalese percussion and Raag Bhairvi), natural sounds (from wind and thunder to croaking frogs and bird songs), and 115 pictures depicting life here on Earth (you can listen to and see all the contents at goldenrecord.org). If in the far-far future, some alien race encounters Voyager 1 spacecraft, they will get a glimpse of life and culture here on Earth — at least as envisioned by astronomer Carl Sagan and his associates for Nasa in the seventh decade of the 20th century.

But in its outward journey, Voyager 1 can also tell us about the boundary of our Solar system. This is a hard task. There are no ceremonial displays of national identities, like at the Wagah border. There are no billboards in space saying that you are now leaving the Solar system. Nor are there any border checkpoints that may look at the nationality of Voyager 1 with suspicion.

One way to define the “border” of our Solar system is by its Heliosphere. Within this region we are likely to encounter most particles — electrons and protons, in this case — that are emitted by the Sun as part of its steady Solar wind. But, our Solar system also contains particles — mostly protons — that were once produced inside exploding stars and now fill up the space within our Galaxy. Instruments on Voyager 1 can distinguish between these two types of particles — the locals and the visitors from outside. The boundary of our Solar system, then, can be defined as the place where the number of particles from the wider Galaxy starts outnumbering the particles from our Sun. This is our border.

Just this past year, humanity’s farthest object reached such a border: the number of Solar wind particles dropped precipitously — by more than a thousand. During the same period of time, the number of particles from the Galaxy increased ten-fold. It seems that Voyager 1 is now in the process of entering interstellar space.

The spacecraft is not aimed at any particular star. But in 40,000 years, it will pass close to a small star named Gliese 445. We do not even know if there are any planets around this star, let alone any life capable of detecting and capturing Voyager 1. But if some thinking beings do end up playing the Golden Record, they will also get to see a picture of a lively street scene from Pakistan — inhabitants that speak Urdu. We will be long gone by that time, and it is impossible to predict the future of humanity four thousand decades from now. However, our Urdu greeting will sound as fresh as ever.

In the mean time, on this planet, Eid Mubarak!

Salman Hameed is associate professor of integrated science and humanities at Hampshire College, Massachusetts, USA. He runs the blog Irtiqa at irtiqa-blog.com

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 11^th, 2013.

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