Creaky wooden stairs lead to a shabby room. Against the weak walls rest sitar, tabla, santoor, dhokra, all in line and covered in dust. The only time these musical instruments come to life is when Shaista* and her four friends come here to rehearse.

While Shaista breathes life into the sitar and the stringed Kashmiri santoor, Naseema thrums on the tabla as Ayesha creates magic on the dhokra drum. Musical interludes follow touching praises of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) in the tranquil voices of the young girls. Within no time, the otherwise silent derelict room fills with sufi music, now facing extinction in Kashmir.

The first girl band of Kashmir, Pragaash, was formed in 2012 but broke up a year later after receiving threats.

With state government and civil society failing to preserve the heritage of the traditional sufi music of the valley, this group of five girls is striving to keep the art alive. Besides taking part in local and national events such as the state sufi music festivals and events of the Sangeet Natak Academy, they have worked for Indian film-maker Muzaffar Ali and theater director MK Raina. The girls are determined to pass on the tradition to the next generation.

“In this century, our youth are turning to western music like the Beatles, the Backstreet Boys [and] Michael Jackson besides being drawn to Bollywood music. But our culture is different from it. We cannot forget our rich heritage and adopt the culture of other countries,” says 24-year-old Shaista, the group leader of the valley’s sole woman sufi group. A group with no formal name.

Shaista was a mere 11 years old when she started taking lessons in sufi music from the valley’s veteran sufi artist, Mohammad Yaqoob Sheikh. The grandson of one of the most revered names, the late Ghulam Mohammad Qaleenbaaf, Sheikh is one of the few teachers and artists left here. He is reputed for his individual contribution in keeping this art alive by training young talent and is a recipient of many state and national awards.

(Top) The santoor, (bottom left) the tabla and (bottom right) the sitar.

“My grandmother was a spiritual person and loved sufi music. Because of her, my family was inclined towards sufism which is why my parents sent me to learn it,” says Shaista.

With time, Shaista became well versed in the sitar, santoor and even singing. She invited more girls to join the group. However, she could not continue with her education after grade 12 due to financial constraints.

Sheikh would teach the girls free every day. But despite these efforts, the group did not survive beyond two years. “The girls in my group got married after which they did not continue with singing. Out of six girls, I was the only one left.” The dearth of job opportunities in the field further contributed to the split.

A group of musicians performing sufi music in Kashmir, featuring the sitar and Kashmiri santoor, a 100-string hammer dulcimer with a range of three octaves that is played with a mallet.

This did not discourage Shaista (then 14). She went out and pitched to other friends and roped them in to form a new group of four more girls. Sheikh started training this new batch and they proved to be more talented and dedicated than the previous one.

“I have learned sufi music for six years. My soul is in it and I shall continue to learn and teach it as far as I am alive,” says Naseema, 21, who started training at the age of 12.

Hailing from a poor family of Budgam, Naseema could not pursue her studies beyond class 11 either. Her father does manual labour to feed the family of six. Yet she is determined to continue singing. “I am from [a] poor family and cannot do much. I feel it is my duty to pass on this art to [the] next generation. I am training my little cousins how to play the tabla and sing,” she adds.

Twenty-year-old Ayesha dreams of setting up an institute for teaching sufi music but this won’t be possible without funding. “All those who know sufi music this time share the responsibility to preserve it,” she says. “We are among them.”

Ayesha says their group works hard and performs well in programmes. “We ensure we participate in events so that people are encouraged to take up this art. At a time when scores of upcoming artists have quit sufi music, our performance is contributing to keep it alive.”

All the artists of the group are certified or approved by Radio Kashmir, Doordarshan, India’s Sangeet Natak Academy, the Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, and Cultural and Languages and have been recognised by several private national art groups.

Kashmir has a long tradition of sufi music. The 600-year-old spiritual art form came to the valley from Central Asia in the 15th century. It grew as a popular means of entertainment. It is primarily Persian and Kashmiri vocal and choral music performed by an ensemble of four to seven musicians led by one. The work of the great mystics of Persia and Kashmir such as Hafiz, Jalaluddin Rumi, Jami, Omar Khayam, Amir Khusrau, Rasul Mir and Neame Seab form the corpus, according to the extensive website on the topic, kashmirsufiana.com.

Despite this long history, not more than five to six sufi music teachers exist in Kashmir today. And only 20 to 30 people know the art. Kashmir has only one existing master of sufi music, Ghulam Mohammad Saznawaz. “Out of 180 melodies and ragas which find reference in ancient scriptures, 138 are lost,” Sheikh told The Express Tribune. The remaining 42 melodies are preserved by the legendary Sheikh Abdul Aziz in his musical notation ‘Kashur Sargam’ meaning Kashmiri melody.

“It hurts to see sufi music dying. Only [a] countable number of sufi music artists are with us now. Many of them are elderly,” says Sheikh.

One of the major factors is a lack of state patronage, which is why boys tend to be discouraged from taking up this art as a career. “With my own money and efforts I have been training boys and girls so that it [sufi music] is preserved. But after working hard for seven to eight years, they get no jobs, no career. They struggle for money and finally they quit,” he explains.

It would have certainly helped to have state-sponsored music schools or formal music courses in educational institutions, which could generate employment and interest. “Our youth love[s] music but they either have to leave Kashmir for it or quit,” he laments. He dreads the same will happen with the girls if their work is not recognised.

There is only one precedent for this kind of cultural effort: the Pragaash band, the first all-girl rock band in Kashmir. The three teenage girls got together in 2012 and performed publically for the first time in December 2012 at a ‘Battle of the Bands’ competition where they received the award for best performance.

Soon after the event, though, men threatened the girls with rape and death over the phone and social media (Facebook). It did not help that in February this year, the grand mufti of Kashmir issued a fatwa against the group, stating that music was “not good for society” and that all “bad things happening in Indian society were because of music”. Following the fatwa and condemnation from wide sections of society the pressure proved too much to bear and group publically decided to quit. Sheikh just hopes that the young sufi musicians won’t meet the same fate.

*Names have been changed to protect identities. 

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

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No one knows your body better than you do. Battling gluten intolerance for years and officially undiagnosed for the most part, I affirm this claim like many others like me. After countless hours in hospitals, multiple tests and being diagnosed with various other diseases, eventually a self-diagnosis and confirmation from doctors in New York led to the elimination of gluten from my diet and a relief to my stomach after years. I have celiac disease.

Celiac disease is a disorder resulting from an autoimmune reaction to gluten. It is caused by a reaction to a gluten protein found in wheat, barley, rye, and sometimes oats, which leads to the inflammation and destruction of the inner lining of the small intestine. This chronic digestive disorder prevents minerals and nutrients from being absorbed as well. There is no cure for celiac disease. The only effective treatment is a gluten-free diet.

Lack of awareness and varying symptoms of celiac disease make it hard to diagnose. Rahma Muhammad Mian was diagnosed three years ago after suffering from the skin condition of eczema since birth (a symptom of gluten intolerance). “I was tested for celiac thrice,” says the 29-year-old journalist. But the celiac test cannot be relied on. “All three times I was diagnosed with IBS [irritable bowel syndrome]. Until I went to New York where they did a biopsy and I was eventually diagnosed with microscopic-colitis,” she says. Microscopic-colitis leads to gluten intolerance. After eliminating gluten from her diet, Rahma’s eczema patches started disappearing on their own.

Rahma even had a biopsy in Pakistan but the gastroenterologists missed the possibility of celiac disease. “The field is still new. Quite possible that Pakistani gastroenterologists don’t know about it,” she says.

“From experience we can suspect if the patient has celiac disease and we test them accordingly,” says Dr Zaigham Abbas, consultant gastroenterologist and member of the medical advisory board for the Pakistan Celiac Society. But some celiac patients beg to differ.

I went through numerous tests, ultrasounds and endoscopies myself but it was not until after I abstained from consuming gluten and I started feeling better that I was diagnosed.

Anis Dhanani, the 59-year-old owner of Karachi’s best kept gluten-free secret, Damascus, suffered for four decades before he was diagnosed by his brother, a dermatologist who researched his brother’s symptoms online. “I am not a doctor, just somebody who suffered a lot,” he told The Express Tribune. “My own diagnosis was done on the basis of giving up gluten and I suggest people with symptoms [of celiac disease] consult a doctor and start a gluten-free diet, keeping in mind that it is very hard to diagnose and there is little awareness of the disease even among doctors.”

A study titled ‘Varied Presentation of Celiac Disease in Pakistani Adults’ recently published in the Journal of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan seems to confirm this.

“It [celiac disease] has extremely varied clinical presentations,” says the study. “Not much is known about the presentation of this disease in Pakistani adults.”

Solutions and problems

The lack of awareness and thus choices means that people like Anis Dhanani have had to find their own culinary solutions in Pakistan — but they are far and few between for now. His restaurant, Damascus, famous for its shawarmas, has developed a special gluten-free menu — the first in Pakistan.

“[For the] first two years of my intolerance I was at a loss, all my food was coming from London,” he says. “I wanted to help and serve my fellow sufferers.”

It started with gluten-free pita bread. A simple step, it may seem, but gluten, a protein in wheat, barley and rye constitutes the staple diet of Pakistanis. Gluten gives baked goods elasticity. Without it, a Pakistani meal is considered incomplete and baked goods are dry and crumbly.

“It took around 100 batches,” he says, “and a lot of patience, constant experimentation, and finally, three gels and five starches to perfect it.”

The work paid off. Damascus is now delivering nation-wide, serving a gluten-intolerant clientele in Karachi, Lahore, Kohat, Badin, Khuzdar, Abbotabad, DG Khan and other cities.

Like Dhanani, a few others, mostly home-based bakers, have decided to cater to celiac patients. But as Dhanani notes, only a gluten-intolerant serving gluten-free food can win the trust of the clients, understand the regulations and plight, and ensure the food is in fact gluten-free and not cross-contaminated.

Tanya Elahi runs a gluten-free and allergen-free bakery from home, Simply Bread, in Lahore. “My five-year-old daughter and I suffer from gluten intolerance,” she explains. “I started making gluten-free food for my daughter. She would see other kids in school eating nuggets and cakes and would ask for them,” says the self-diagnosed mother.

For Tanya and her daughter dining out can be difficult. Indeed, the pleasures of eating out are often denied to people who avoid gluten as the autoimmune disorder can cause serious problems if even the slightest bit is ingested. To give you an idea, even a dusting of regular flour can cause problems. Menus are a source of anxiety and self-consciousness because — besides its presence in obvious culprits like roti, bread, pasta and dessert — gluten also lurks in soy sauce, thickeners, vinegars, salad dressings, soups, some spices and Pakistani dishes such as haleem, nihari and kunna to name a few.

“The lack of awareness of celiac disease makes it even harder to dine out,” says Rahma. The chefs and waiters do not understand the gravity of the disease.

As many sufferers can relate, I have come across waiters who thought I was ‘joking’, as I dictated the procedure of serving me a gluten-free and allergen-free meal. Suffering with allergies to soy, nuts and cherries along with lactose and gluten intolerance, I usually have to deal with annoyed or baffled waiters and allergic reactions later.

As with most cases of gluten intolerance, various other food allergies develop. “On the villi (lining of small intestine) there are certain enzymes that are important to digest many carb[ohydrate]s including lactose,” explains Dr Zaigham Abbas. In celiac disease, the intestinal villi become damaged (flattened). Immune reactions to ingested gluten can cause this damage, which can impair the production of lactase. Loss of this enzyme results in a condition called lactose intolerance and can lead to other food allergies as well. Damascus and Simply Bread address other food allergies as well to ensure gluten-free and allergen-free foods for their clients.

“I have clients who are not necessarily gluten-intolerant but have wheat allergy, diabetes, cancer or suspect they have gluten-intolerance,” says Tanya. A gluten-free diet is being recommended for diabetics as well as studies show a reverse in symptoms of diabetes for patients on a gluten-free diet. (For more details please see diabetes.org and always consult your doctor before making any such decisions if you are diabetic).

Creating a gluten-free menu is more difficult than say, offering vegetarian options at a steakhouse. Chefs have to follow special techniques, follow stringent regulation and avoid cross-contamination. Dhanani says, “It takes months to develop each item and the ingredients cost up to five times as much as conventional ones.”

Gluten is not only confined to food or ingredients. It causes problems if gluten-free food is cooked or stored in the same facility as gluten food or being handled with the same hands. “I explained everything to him [the waiter] and my gluten-free chicken was ready, but then he used bread to take it off the skewer,” says Dhanani recalling the disappointment after hungrily anticipating a meal at a restaurant.

Symptoms and worries

Gluten intolerance manifests itself in different forms. For some it attacks the gut and in others it may cause skin problems as in Rahma’s case. “If I use a normal soap I get eczema on my hands,” says Rahma. Gluten lurks in soaps, shampoos, lipsticks and toothpastes. Not all celiac patients, like me, have to use gluten-free skin products but mostly all have to abstain from consuming it.

Celiac disease sounds scary at first especially since we Pakistanis consume gluten in some form in every meal. Abstinence from gluten and not being able to eat roti made with atta (wheat) is something most of us have never considered. Having a major sweet-tooth, I still remember the horror when my doctor asserted: “No more gluten. Ever.” But the pain I suffer after consuming gluten has instilled in me a fear so bad that I prefer settling for homemade crumbly gluten-free cookies than even thinking of taking a bite of that chocolate cake from the dessert trolley.

Symptoms & signs

It is estimated that about 1% of the world’s population suffers from gluten intolerance. Could you be one of them? If you have any of the following symptoms it could be a sign that you have gluten intolerance:

1. Digestive issues such as gas, bloating, vomiting, diarrhoea and even constipation.

2. A Vitamin D deficiency, checked with a blood test.

3. Fatigue, brain fog or feeling tired after eating a meal that contains gluten.

4. Diagnosis of an autoimmune disease such as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Rheumatoid arthritis, Ulcerative colitis, Lupus, Psoriasis, Scleroderma or Multiple sclerosis.

5. Neurologic symptoms such as dizziness or feeling of being off balance.

6. Skin problems such as eczema.

7.  Diagnosis of chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia. These diagnoses simply indicate your conventional doctor cannot pin point the cause of your fatigue or pain.

8. Inflammation, swelling or pain in your joints such as fingers, knees or hips.

Gluten-Free Food Guide

Islamabad

Barsa Store, G-10 Markaz

Essa G, Kohsar Market, F-6 

Karachi

Agha’s Supermarket, Clifton

Order: Damascus Café, Block 9, Clifton (Nation-wide delivery)

Order: Comfort Food Factory, placemyorder@thecomfortfoodfactory.com 

Lahore

Essa G, MM Alam Road and DHA

Makro, Model Town, Link Road

Victoria, Model Town, Link Road

Al-Fatah Stores, Liberty Market and DHA

Jalal Sons, Main Market, Gulberg

Panjeeri Shop, Mini Market, Gulberg

H Karim Buksh DHA

Order: Simply Bread, 0333 4631030 (Nation-wide delivery) 

Peshawar

Jan’s Arcade, Islamia Road, opp Chen One store, Saddar

Ahmed’s Mart, Jawad Tower, University Road

Avon Superstore, Located between Shell gas station & Spinzer Plaza University Road

Foods that contain gluten

Grains

Barley – Bran – Bulgur – Farina – Kamut – Graham – Semolina – Spelt – Wheat

Baked Goods:

Cake – Bread – Bread crumbs – Cupcakes – Tortillas – Bagels – Muffins – Pastries

Meat:

Breaded meat or chicken – Oven- or deep-fried meats – Hot dogs and other meats processed with ‘natural flavours’

Other Items:

Dressings – Couscous – Tabbouli – Gravies – Sauces – Candy – Potato chips – Tortilla chips – Canned soup and broth – Frozen or canned vegetables in sauce – Restaurant or fast food French fries (McDonald’s and Fatburger fries are gluten-free).

Cereal made from rye, wheat, bran, and barley always contain gluten, but ones containing oats, corn, and rice are often processed on the same equipment as their gluten counterparts. It is imperative that you look for the ‘gluten free’ label on cereal.

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

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In the court of public opinion, the celebrity is inevitably charged as guilty before trial. Nothing about celebrities is small — their fame or their ignominy.

Director and dramatist David Mamet circles this phenomenon with the real-life 2003 story of Phil Spector, a Hollywood record producer, famed as much for his instinct for millions-making music as for his coifs.

Spector was accused of murdering a young blonde date, actress Lana Clarkson, in his mansion by shooting her in the mouth after picking her up at a nightclub. In the 92-minute television movie for HBO, he is played by Al Pacino, whose Shylock perhaps prepared him for this gruff, flamboyant Jewish businessman’s role. But the real acting comes from his lawyer, Linda Kenney Baden, played by Helen Mirren, who puts in a solid performance as the matronly, pneumonia-ridden legal eagle who is tasked with the impossible job of trying to introduce reasonable doubt.

Mamet was clever enough to keep this story out of the courtroom. We never actually see the trial. Instead, the film is about the pre-trial prep. How does Linda find a way to defend a celebrity who is known to have a history of waving guns about in the studio? He has an ex-wife who claims the fame went to his head and he was abusive towards women. The evidence seems to be damning. But is it? Linda, who originally just appears to assist for a few days on trial, ends up taking the case. She says she thinks he is not guilty. But even she isn’t always so sure.

The first problem is one of blood splatter. If Spector held a gun in Lana’s mouth and pulled the trigger, the front of his body, especially his white coat, would have been sprayed with blood and brain matter. There were no such traces. But Linda knows that the jury’s mind is so made up that they won’t necessarily buy this.

Spector claims that Lana asked to see one of his guns and put it in her mouth. Weapons excite women sometimes, he says. When he saw her put it in her mouth, he shouted “No!” His lawyer wonders if that startled Lana so much that the trigger went off?

According to one line of defense action, Linda would have to prove that Lana was suicidal and killed herself. But attacking the victim doesn’t always go down well with the jury.  Obviously, since the action has already happened off screen, the film rides on dramatic delivery between Spector and his lawyer. Al Pacino has been given a great script. There are flashes of logical brilliance as his character is forced to examine and explain why he could or would kill a young woman. For example, Linda grapples with the argument that perhaps he killed Lana because she refused to sleep with him. But then Spector simply points out that this was a moot point because the victim had gotten into his car — of her own free will. The minute she agreed to be picked up and sat in his car, she had agreed to sleep with him.

Lawyers will love this movie but it also holds subtle messages for the rest of us. Mamet is examining how real-world action, perception of what happened, the telling of what happened, and the opinion of what we think happened all form the body of truth formations. A gun may go off and look like murder for all forensic evidence, but sometimes something entirely different could be at work. Mamet’s Phil Spector is a cautionary tale for all those who jump to conclusions — in a way, a very Pakistani audience and media flaw.

Magna opera in curia – courtroom dramas at their best

The Hurricane (1999)

The name Hurricane conjures Bob Dylan who sang about the black boxer Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter who was convicted of a triple-homicide and sentenced to three life terms. The movie, starring Denzel Washington, became controversial over its treatment of history. But the film is still high recommended for an education in the trial.

Hannah Arendt (2012)

Arendt was a well known German Jewish philosopher and social theorist who covered the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Israel for the New Yorker magazine. Her subsequent book, Banality of Evil, created a storm. In this film, German director Margarethe von Trotta takes on the story of the trial. and the controversies of Arendt covering it.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

This Pulitzer Prize-winning Harper Lee classic, widely read by students in Pakistan, won three Oscars five decades ago. Gregory Peck plays Atticus Finch, a lawyer, who defends a black man of a rape charge during the Depression in the South. Top notch forensic investigation can’t beat the guilty verdict though.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 18^th, 2013.

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The IUD or intrauterine device, more commonly referred to as the ‘coil’, tends to scare less-informed women as a birth-control technology. In a July 2013 study of 20 women from Karachi’s Shah Faisal Colony, the responses ranged from fear of the sight of it because it looked “dangerous” to fear it would hurt their husbands to the unfounded risk that it would ‘rust’ inside their body.

“People used to tell me that… when it rusts from inside it will produce fungus inside the uterus and obviously fungus will be converted into cancer,” said one woman, Shaista.

The study was based on in-depth interviews with the women, between 23 and 45 years of age, who were asked questions after they were shown the IUD, injectables and oral contraceptive pills. Only four said they used the IUD. “Many who commented were less familiar with IUDs, and several expressed hesitation about inserting a foreign object into the body,” states the study.

These women and others like them could be told that women around the world have been using the IUD for more than 30 years. Till 2006 it was known as the most commonly used reversible method with one in five (or 153 million) married women choosing it. The risk of infection is less than one percent. After it is removed, women have no trouble getting pregnant.

The study also found that the injectable contraceptive method was the most popular, as seven out of 20 women preferred it.

The women had certain perceptions about the pill. Some felt they were weak or less potent because they were so small. The belief was that the larger the pill, the greater its effect. They also felt that the lighter the colour of a pill, the “gentler” it was.

The researchers found that all the women associated contraceptives with a “heating” effect. “Obviously, they [contraceptive injections] are heat-generating,” said Nasreen. “They may be burning the blood.” It turns out that as the menstrual cycle can change, depending on what contraception is used, the women felt that if there was less blood, it was being “burnt” in the body.

The hot-cold concepts of medicines and the body or certain foods originates in the Hippocratic humoural medicine that spread via Arab influence. Western medicine is seen as ‘heating’ while Ayurvedic medicines are ‘neutral’, in reference to the speed with which they act and have an effect on the ‘blood’.

The researchers found that most women wanted family planning, but were not entirely comfortable with their experiences of contraceptive use. “Widespread concerns about adverse health consequences act as a barrier to the adoption and continued usage of contraceptives,” suggests the study.

The results of this study, conducted by Kamyla Marvi of the Leadership Development for Mobilising Reproductive Health and Natasha Howard of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, suggest that a better understanding of women’s concerns and explanatory models could help health providers do a better job.

“The findings provide explanatory models from women themselves that could, with further research, inform health messages and family planning counseling, strengthening programmes in Karachi and potentially elsewhere in Pakistan,” concludes the study. T

*Names have been changed

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 18^th, 2013.

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Revenge Wears Prada, the sequel to Lauren Weisberger’s widely read chick lit novel, Devil Wears Prada, is a good follow-up on the lives of some old characters. And it is mostly just that. Devil Wears Prada at least had a page-turner of a plot — an antagonist unleashed straight from the pits of hell and a defined, strong and relatable protagonist. But the sequel fails to make up for Weisberger’s almost bush-league writing style.

More often than not, the book reads like a news report on Andy’s life. Through endless miles of narrative prose, we learn that almost a decade has passed since she broke free from the crabby and spiteful Miranda of Runway magazine. Andy has started her own fashion publication called The Plunge, and it is gathering a lot of attention from the New York glitterati.

We learn that The Plunge is co-managed by her old coworker Emily, even though they had a rocky relationship in the last book. Andy’s former best friend Lily and her ex-boyfriend Alex also make an appearance, but much later on.

As the magazine launches fresh advertising campaigns, Andy meets Max — a young man from a wealthy noble family in New York. Max is quite the man-about-town, but surprise, surprise, settles for Andy the minute he lays his eyes on her at a dinner party. Two meetings and a few conversations later, he decides to marry her.

Apart from Miranda’s unwelcome appearance, Andy has to negotiate another challenge — Max’s mother. This pretentious aristocrat is unhappy about her son’s choice because she feels Andy is excessively ambitious and an overall misfit in her otherwise perfectly family.

The climax is set early in the story, when Andy stumbles upon a private letter to Max from his mother, in which she urges him to reconsider his decision to marry, recommending another partner, Katherine. This unsettling discovery is made just before she walks down the aisle as Max’s bride-to-be. But, be warned, up until now there is no ‘revenge’ in the story. You need to be quite patient with Weisenberg.

A greater disappointment is that Andy is just not as charming in the sequel, nor is Miranda as obnoxious as she was. Perhaps Weisberger is trying to let her characters grow up and evolve or, she just didn’t brainstorm enough for this book. Despite these shortcomings, the plot has just the right amount of fancy parties, gorgeous dresses and pretty women. And so while it may not be as good as its predecessor, it is a must-read for all the Devil Wears Prada fans out there.

Available at Liberty Books for Rs591, after 15% discount

Shoes galore

Surfing in Stilettos

Carol Wyer’s novel is full of escapades and adventure. Amanda Wilson and her husband are going to be travelling across Europe during an exciting gap-year. But little does Amanda know that her adventurous plans will be stalled midway when she finds out about her cheating husband. And while abandoned in France, manages to meet the love of her life.

The Pastor’s Wife Wears Biker Boots

Kirstie Donovan, the Pastor’s wife decides to cruise off on a bright pink motorcycle on a road less travelled by most women over forty. From the flat landscape of Indiana to the mountains of Tennesse and couples at church to bikers, Kristie’s not just riding her bike for the fun of it.

Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues

Who needs Jimmy Choos when Tansy Poole’s shoe shop provides footwear to make any fairytale wedding come true? Paradise for shoe-lovers but her personal and love life not as heavenly, Tansy takes refuge in her shop’s success. Until actor Ivo Hawksley, returns to town and they both discover, secrets shared make a very strong bond. 

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 18^th, 2013.

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PJ Harvey’s eighth studio album ‘Let England Shake’ was well received and she earned numerous accolades for her voluble yet veiled political activism. But her latest single ‘Shaker Aamer’ — as the name suggests — makes no attempt to mask its intended purpose. Judging by the refrain in the outro, Harvey wants the world to not forget the last British resident detained in the ‘world’s most famous prison’.

Reminiscent of Jefferson Airplane’s style, the song reminds one of White Rabbit in its first few seconds, but clocking in at under three minutes, it still becomes a monodrone of flanger-filled guitar strums. Much of it is, however, buoyed by Harvey’s voice, unique in its tone and texture, as it manages to simultaneously soothe and shatter the nerves of the listener — the kind of voice that would draw a soldier towards it in the midst of battle. The dissonant delay on the vocals adds to the eeriness, but an otherwise sparse production lends the impression the song has been let out to dry in the sun for too long.

The lyrics are simple and literal. The opening lines, ‘No water for three days / I cannot sleep or stay awake’ indicate she does not mean to beat around the bush. By choosing to write in first person, Harvey has taken some risk and she does well to own the lyrical content. She highlights what the prison is so infamous for: ‘With metal tubes we are force fed / I honestly wish I was dead’. Again, Harvey’s discordant vocal delivery makes the song more authentic — a medieval minstrel narrating a bitter tragedy.

But despite this, the song never takes off. It neither soars nor plummets. It attempts to spear through the heart of the listener but falls just short. Harvey has already made headlines with the song so she has achieved one aspect of it. And that is what it will be remembered for, because the soundscape isn’t as memorable.

The song is available for download from her official website.

Who is Shaker Aamer?

Born in Saudi Arabia, 44-year-old Shaker Aamer was arrested from Afghanistan in November 2001 and shifted to Guantánamo Bay in February the next year. It has been nearly 11-and-a-half years since he has been detained without any charges. Although he has been cleared for release by both the Bush and Obama administrations, for some reason Aamer still languishes in jail — a place where he has reportedly fought for the physical and mental well-being of his fellow inmates. The British government has claimed to have been in talks with its US counterpart to negotiate Aamer’s release, but has chosen to not make the progress public.

The revolution in music

Blowin’ in the Wind by Bob Dylan

Written in 1962, this song poses rhetorical questions about war, peace and freedom. The underlying socio-political theme of the lyrics, in which he is searching for answers, is reflected in most of Dylan’s work during that era. The song later became symbolic of the US civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s.

Revolution by The Beatles

Amid the chaos that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, with the Vietnam War raging on one hand and the French government brought to its knees by student protests in Paris on the other, The Beatles released their first explicitly political song in 1968.

Dhinak Dhinak by The Baighairat Brigade

Released in 2013 by a group of young musicians, this song is a tongue-in-cheek critique of the power of the Pakistani military. It was, however, soon banned without any official explanation. The trio had also released another satirical number Aalu Anday earlier that targeted the political power games in the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 18^th, 2013.

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The Paper Mulberry tree has a bad rep for causing allergies in the Spring in Islamabad, which has some of the highest pollen counts in the world. But if your sinuses have just recovered from that season, watch out for the Fall. The Cannabis sativa weed is going to be a nuisance. You and I know it more commonly as the Bhang weed.

The bhang pollen count causes allergies from July to September, according to researchers. In a 2012 World Allergy Organisation study, Shahid Abbas of the Allergy and Asthma Centre in Islamabad and seven other researchers recorded the bhang weed pollen counts each day for three years. To give you an idea, the bhang weed put out 2,040 grains of pollen per cubic metre of air on August 18 in 2005.

The highest pollen count came from the Paper Mulberry or Broussonetia papyrifera in March 2006 at 34,320 pollen per cubic metre of air. Compare this with the highest recorded elsewhere in the world. In Cordoba city, 38,393 olive pollen grains per cubic metre were detected in the air on one day in 1991 — the highest in a study of 25 years of data.

Researchers at the Rawalpindi Medical College and Quaid-i-Azam University had similar findings in a 2009 paper published in the Pakistan Journal of Medical Research. Out of 702 people tested, 48% were allergic to the Paper Mulberry tree and 20% reacted to the Bhang weed pollen. They wrote that many patients with the pollen allergy are hospitalised in Islamabad in the spring (February to April), fall (July to September), and after the monsoons.

“Pollen are tiny powder-like biological particles released from trees, weeds and grasses for the purpose of fertilizing other plants,” says Dr Tarique Zahid Khan, an ear, nose and throat or ENT specialist.

When pollen grains get into the nose of someone who’s allergic, they send the immune system into overdrive. “When pollen enters our body, the immune system, mistakenly sees the pollen as foreign invaders, releases antibodies or substances that normally identify and attack bacteria, viruses, and other illness-causing organisms.” The antibodies attack the allergens, which leads to the release of chemicals called histamines into the blood, adds Dr Zahid. Histamines trigger sneezing, a runny nose and itchy eyes.

Pollen can travel for miles, spreading a path of misery for allergy sufferers along the way.

Allergy symptoms tend to be particularly high on breezy days when the wind picks up pollen and carries it through the air. Rainy days, on the other hand, cause a drop in the pollen counts because the rain washes away the allergens.

Although there is no cure for pollen allergy, there are a number of ways to prevent them. “Vaccination at proper time before the commencement of spring season can help avoid adverse consequences of pollen allergy,” says Dr Syeda Maria Ali, an assistant professor at the International Islamic University, who wrote a paper on the health impact of allergenic pollen grains with three other experts. “Wearing masks during pollen season is recommended.”

Air-conditioning and keeping windows and doors closed help. Dry clothing and bedding in the dryer instead of hanging them outside. Pollen can stick to the fur of your pets so be careful when letting them in your bedroom or allowing them to play outside.

Researchers have found that death caused by asthma in patients aged between 5 and 34 years was twice as higher on days when fungal spore concentrations were at or above 1000 spores/m3. In spring the pollen count for the Paper Mulberry can reach up to 30,000/m3 air in a single day.

410m to 7,000m

Pollen are produced in a season by trees like the Paper Mulberry

80% 

of the total pollen count, the highest in the air in 2005, 2006 and 2007 came from the Paper Mulberry tree.

The Cannabis sativa or the Bhang weed grows in all sectors of Islamabad

8,000 to 10,000

litres of air are inhaled by one person in 24 hours

1,430 pollens

Counts went as high as per cubic metre of air per hour

80 to 110 pollen

allergy patients visited PIMS daily for nebulization and oxygen basis during the Spring season, according to a study by researchers at the International Islamic University published in the Pakistan Journal of Botany in 2013

220 out of 1,000 patients tested positive for

allergic reactions to the bhang weed at the Pakistan Allergy, Asthma & Clinical Immunology Centre in Islamabad

Weed pollen counts cubic metres of air per day

Low 1 to 9

Moderate 10 to 49

High 50 to 499

Very high over 500

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 18^th, 2013.

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The smarter ones among us have the rare ability to laugh at themselves. They know how ridiculous it is to take anything seriously, especially themselves. These people are either trailblazers or raging madmen, laughing as the world rushes by. They have evolved to realise the pointlessness of what average minds consider important.

Hyderabad artist Mohammad Ali Talpur happens to be one of them. In a series that was shown a year ago at London’s Green Cardamom gallery, Alif, drives home the argument that symmetry can be deceptive. This body of about 14 works, stunning black-and-white pieces, marry powerful contrast with near-perfect balance. But, like all things beautiful, chaos lurks in the wings.

Talpur uses acrylic on canvas and ink on paper to paint calligraphic strokes that closely mimic divine verse. As a gallery statement explains: ‘Alif’, meaning ‘to compose’ in Arabic, is the initial letter in the Arabic, Farsi and Urdu alphabets. As the first letter in the name Allah, it also alludes to the idea of the “first and last existence: awwal and aakhir (first and last)”.

He repeats characters, calligraphic strokes and even the pronunciation markers (zer, zabar, pesh) across the page. They cannot be ‘read’, but when you look at them, they “communicate a sense of reflection and peace”. The image becomes Escher-like because the viewer is taken aback by the dimensions that unfold. The lines dance, the severe grid of zeyr, zabr and nuqta become absurd, morph into something that looks like Pacman.

What appear to be mathematical compositions are not. The idea of Alif attains clarity when the piece starts to make you dizzy.The madness behind the method makes you lightheaded.

Alif also marks a turning point in his career which has long focused on an exploration of the line and a desire to make “art without content”. The gallery disappoints, however, by throwing in this line: The work can also be read as a visual response to notions of rhythm and metre, integral to music and poetry: … but also intertwined with the sufism-inflected version of Islam. This jargon is textbook Pakistani artist review.

Talpur is too evolved as an artist to transcend in a blatantly obvious way. He is creating space for his own version of the divine. He would like you believe in the meditative healing that symmetry promises. The repetition is meant to calm you, but when you know you are going in circles, the joke’s on you. And his understanding of the form emerges when he laughs with you, because he made you a part of his secret. You are sharing an inside joke with a friend.

Calligraphy is a subtle method, which I use to scratch my body and soul. It is neither a political nor social comment but an investigation of Islamic philosophical and sacred art. Uncountable curved and straight lines dancing like a classical dancer draw our attention to the deepest visual experience of “form is the idea”

Artist’s statement from his earlier exhibit of ‘Alif’ at the Canvas Gallery, Karachi.

Mohammad Ali Talpur, ‘Alif’

Green Cardamom, London

June 29 – July 27, 2012

b. 1976, Hyderabad, Pakistan
Lives and works in Lahore

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 18^th, 2013.

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2,652 is the number of footsteps between the three holy sites of Jerusalem, a city where Islam, Christianity and Judaism meet. Those places are Al Aqsa Mosque, the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Indian artist Shilpa Gupta walked that distance between them, taking photos as she made the journey. They emerged in an installation exhibited in Tel Aviv earlier this year in the shape of a 42-metre long thin canvas that portrays both the closeness and distance between the three religions. It is called 2652-1.

“It is about how close we can be, but how far apart we stand,” explains Gupta, who sees art as a way to understand what is around us through a media of form, light and sound. “But these mediums become the language to articulate what one comprehends or is unable to comprehend.” Indeed, given the history of relations between the members of these faiths, sometimes art is the only way to communicate.

2652-1, Installation, Archival Print on Canvas, 2010 Dimensions 1650.60 x 1.57 inches 4200.00 x 4.00 centimetres

It is works like these that have made a name for the 36- year-old, who is now taken as a star in the world of Indian art. Her works are rooted in and reflective of the times we live in. Regarded as a pioneer of New Media art, she consistently explores themes such as cultural and religious divides, globalisation and terrorism.

“The question of time, place and group that one is born into and may choose to dream or live in, has been impossible to escape,” says Gupta who has just returned from a solo exhibition in Brisbane. This has been an especially productive year. Just halfway through 2013, her works have been displayed in galleries in England, Singapore, Ireland, Denmark, New York and the UAE.

Since her student days at Mumbai’s prestigious Sir JJ Institute of Applied Arts, Gupta’s art has evolved to mine the rich tropes of time, perception of it and the measurement of distances. Despite works like 2652-1, she rejects the label of being a political artist, preferring instead to be called an “everyday” artist.

Gupta, who was born and raised in Mumbai, says her upbringing had an enormous influence on her evolution as an artist. “I grew up in a large, joint family and it was a tough decision to become an artist,” she told The Express Tribune. “While at one level, I felt great freedom with the opportunity to go to an art school, I was also aware [of] the meaning of choosing this thing called art.” Growing up in a family of 20 to 25 people in a large open home, made one aware of the “language” of art and how it could connect with those so close to it and not just to a small group of visitors coming to a gallery.

“When I was growing up, the air was full of cosmopolitanism,” she adds. “But something deep was affected in 1992 after the riots in Mumbai.” Gupta remembers a class chair that stayed empty after the riots, or seeing smoke from her terrace. That was also the decade of 9/11 and the US bombing of Iraq. She was keenly aware of those implications.

2652-1, Installation, Archival Print on Canvas, 2010 Dimensions 1650.60 x 1.57 inches 4200.00 x 4.00 centimetres

Gupta embraced art full time in 2004, after working a few years as a graphic designer. Her initial work was performance and web-based, with her later graduating to using a variety of media and forms such as video, installation and pictures. Interactivity, a hallmark from her early days, remains an abiding feature.

In one of her most talked-about works, a photographic series titled ‘I Want to Live with No Fear’, visitors were given a balloon printed with this line and photographed by Gupta as they travelled in public. Their pictures were made a permanent piece in the show.

Of closer relevance to home is the piece 1:14.9. Gupta created a hand-bound ball of thread symbolising the 1,907 kilometres, or 1,185 miles, of the border between India and Pakistan that have been fenced. The title of the work of art is the ratio of the length of the thread (79.5 miles) to the length of the fenced border.

1:14.9, 1,188.5 miles of fenced border — West, North-West Data Update: Dec 31, 2007. Hand wound thread ball and a vitrine, 2011-12 22x20x62 in | 56x51x158 cm

While her pieces are often specific to certain issues or conflicts, Gupta is constantly exploring ways to connect with her viewers, to encourage them to question their biases and engage with global concerns in a more personal way. It is perhaps this quest that gives her art a certain accessibility and appeal, sometimes absent in other works dealing with similar issues.

Her works range between Rs25,000 and Rs200,000, depending on the scale and medium.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 18^th, 2013.

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Some stereotypes celebrate people. We are thus not surprised that a 41-year-old German would decide to undertake a year-long journey from his home in the Black Forest across 11 countries, including Pakistan, in a hardy Land Rover Defender.

That man is Matthias Barth, a mechanical engineer, photo journalist and cinematographer, who has just exited Lahore after extensively capturing our truck art world. This is part of ‘Trucks.13’, a documentary for a German television channel and other smaller projects that seek to discover how art transitions from one region to another. Anyone can follow his route on the blog artcartv.blogspot.de with the help of Google translator. On it he details winding through Austria, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan and he was last in India with Nepal and Tibet next on his list.

Happily, he has good things to say about Pakistan. “I came here for six days, but I stayed six weeks!” he told me. We were introduced by a Belgian friend over dinner at the well known Lahore Backpackers. Barth wanted to know where he could buy neutral density camera filters. This was how I learnt that he was working on truck art.

In Pakistan he has successfully managed to accomplish what he set out to. He did not have visas problems, unlike for Iran and India, as his blog says. His video camera and documents were stolen in Turkey. It has been a challenging journey. In fact, he said over email a month ago that he had not known if he would be able to photograph or shoot the trucks in Pakistan because of the political situation. “I knew that it will be very difficult,” he wrote. “So I got the escort team provided by the government. It took me seven days to reach Lahore and there I felt very safe.”

Barth was inspired to take on this work after doing a documentary on the artcar at the Burning Man Festival in the US last year. As in truck art, artcars are vehicles which have been artistically modified as a hobby. Carartists turn them into aliens, dolphins, cover them in leopard print, even beads. Perhaps one of the most famous examples is that of Andy Warhol, who was commissioned to dress up a BMW.

For the project, Barth abandoned the idea of flying to each destination and instead hit the road. His companion became the blue Land Rover Defender that he affectionately refers to as ‘Bluey’. He bought it from an Austrian mountain farmer who had modified it for the Sahara, replete with bulletproof loopholes. But as this made Bluey too heavy, they were removed as was the massive roof rack. The mobile home has a kitchen in the back and a roof tent and is customized to keep him safe and comfortable whether they are traveling through a European thunderstorm or the Iranian desert.

“I compare [Bluey] with a Turkish donkey,” Barth wrote on his blog in German. “Treat him well and he will work faithfully for you.” Indeed, it was only after 24,000km that Bluey needed some minor maintenance work in Lahore. “The mechanics here are improvisers,” he wrote. “It’s hard to find the right one. Each specializes in an activity. Thus I often go to the specialists. They all are very cheap and do a good job. Unfortunately they do not work as efficiently as a European mechanic — like the work will be postponed to the next day, but I got used to it quickly.”

But how was Barth going to add to the already large corpus of work on truck art? I told him that our truck art had gone to Melbourne in 2006 when artists hand-painted a tram there in this style. Last year, a 16-seater minibus named ‘Tiara’ (pronounced ‘tayyara’ or aeroplane) hit the headlines in the UK. A Pakistani named Dalawar Chaudhry had transformed the Mazda into a psychedelic truck art delight that was even rented by singer Bob Geldof for his 50th birthday party.

Aside from training his lens every aspect of truck art, which will be revealed in the documentary, the difference this time is that Barth has used the innovative GigaPan System to capture this world. This is a combination of cutting-edge technology software and high-tech hardware, developed by Nasa to capture photos of Mars and beyond the solar system. It was even used in military intelligence and virtual microscopy and Google Earth is its most famous product. Each gigapixel image contains one billion pixels (1,000 times the details captured by a one-megapixel digital camera). Robotic cameras capture hundreds and sometimes thousands of images. During post-processing, an image stitching software automatically combines them together to present one composite and ultra-high resolution image with great sharpness and clarity.

Thus Barth has documented and interviewed everyone associated with the truck art industry, from the mechanics to the painters, the drivers to the decorators and even the chai wallahs. He discovered, for example, why the truck drivers write Pilot Gate on the door of the driver’s seat. They describe themselves as pilots because, as they put it, they don’t drive, they ‘fly’!

Given that this is a work in progress, Barth was unable to share too many details. The good news is, however, that the project is expected to be exhibited in Germany by the end of this year. He has a lot of material to process and encountered hiccups in places like Iran where YouTube is banned. But suffice it to say for now that Barth has seen that truck art is not a one-man show. Many interconnected industries earn from it whether they are the painters, welders, accessory- and component-makers, sticker designers and printers. He has even captured how life revolves around them in the shape of a low wage rate, child labour and poor working conditions. Nothing has escaped his eye or the GigaPan technology.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 18^th, 2013.

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I am not particularly fond of literature in translation because I find that so many expressions, descriptions and nuances are completely lost in the packing and moving from one language to the other.

These efforts produce an echo of the original; they result in a very strange sensation of a story. However, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson and translated by Rod Bradbury, hereafter THYOMWCOTWD (because that makes it much simpler), skips past this limitation because it actually is a strange story. It is an honest-to-God strange, shamelessly outrageous, feel-good romp of what I can only call a backlash to the gritty horror and dark thrills in Swedish noir writing that I usually stay away from.

Allan Karlsson is a one hundred-year-old man who climbs out of the window of his old people’s home on his 100th birthday. He walks into a world which, when complemented by flashbacks from his earlier life, is more often that not eventful and delightfully carefree (despite some macabre deaths).

The first order of Karlsson’s escape day: steal a suitcase from a fellow passenger at the bus station only to discover that it contains fifty million Kronor. Armed with this ultimate resource and nothing to lose, Karlsson runs into one peculiar character after the other. The world is quite imaginatively his oyster and he assembles an equally inspired crew (rather Master and Margarita here). They include: a fake Bible seller (the old Testament ends with “and they lived happily ever after”); his brother, who is a hot dog vendor but is familiar with almost every profession known to man because he spent over fifty years in university studying every degree and completing none; a woman (the Beauty) whose pets include an Alsatian and an elephant; a thief who specialises in large-scale corruption and robberies; a mob boss and a detective inspector.

Available at The Last Word for Rs795

As if this did not provide enough excitement, add to the list of the centenarian’s adventures saving General Franco’s life and sharing paella with him. He helps the Americans develop and perfect their nuclear bomb. He makes great friends with and gets drunk with a very appreciative Harry Truman. At some point he goes to China to help Chiang Kai-shek’s wife blow up the communists. There is dinner with Stalin and a taste of a gulag. There is a plane ride to London with Churchill and at some point an umbrella in a cocktail on a beach in Bali. These are just the highlights.

Apart from being entertaining, the plot is also surprisingly flexible. It moves in concentric circles — it starts off with a minor occurrence and then keeps adding to them. And while these grow greater and greater, Jonasson manages to maintain their strong link to a counter-plot, ie the earlier life of Allan Karlsson, in alternating chapters. The flashbacks aren’t placed so much to inform or underpin the current happenings (the motley crew on the run from the law with stolen Kronor), but to enhance the narrative and add a dimension which really drives home the definition of an eventful life.

It’s like reading two books in one but without it being jarring or forced. The writing is so delightfully deadpan and at other times so ironic that the immensity of the narrative (we are dealing with a century’s worth of insanity and dictators), is effortlessly eased into four hundred pages.

Also a factor in the book’s triumph is the narration. While it takes place in third person, it largely bases itself on Karlsson’s observations which tend to be frank, almost Forest Gump-like as some reviewers have said. He is basically a nice guy, who is happy to help people (the Americans and their bomb), but only if asked nicely. So what happens when Stalin starts to get angry with Karlsson over replicating the American bomb for the Russians?

“…Did you have Stalin repeat a homage to the enemies of the revolution?” asked Stalin who always spoke of himself in the third person when he got angry. Allan answered that he would need some time to think to be able to translate ‘sjung hopp faderallan lallan lej’ into English, but that Mr Stalin could rest assured that it was nothing more than a cheerful ditty.

“A cheerful ditty?” said Comrade Stalin in a loud voice. “Does Mr Karlsson think Stalin looks like a cheerful person?”

Allan was beginning to tire of Stalin’s touchiness. The old geezer was quite red in the face with anger, but not about very much…

…Stalin exploded again.

“Who do think you are, you damned rat? Do you think that you, a representative of fascism, of horrid American capitalism, of everything on this earth that Stalin despises that you, you can come to the Kremlin, to the Kremlin, and bargain with Stalin and bargain with Stalin?”

“Why do you say everything twice?” Allan wondered while Stalin went on…

…”I shall destroy capitalism! Do you hear! I shall destroy every single capitalist! And I shall start with you, you dog, if you don’t help us with the bomb!”

Allan noted that he had managed to be both a rat and a dog in the course of a minute or so. And that Stalin was being rather inconsistent because now he wanted to use Allan’s services after all. But Allan wasn’t going to sit there and listen to this abuse any longer. He had come to Moscow to help them out, not to be shouted at. Stalin would have to manage on his own.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Allan.

“What,” said Stalin angrily.

“Why don’t you shave off that moustache?”

With that the dinner was over, because the interpreter had fainted.

Other reviews have called this book hilarious or laugh-out loud, but I found it more dark comedy than raucous LOLs. Stating the obvious as a technique sometimes mitigates the otherwise horrific reality of a scene and at other times work to create satire. For instance, one of the mob boss’s henchmen, whose money Karlsson has stolen, catches up with the crew only to meet a gruesome death — under the bottom of Sonya the pet elephant.

The book is not without its flaws. Despite the sparkling sense of humour that flows throughout, there are parts which needlessly drag. These chapters are the ones set in current time with Karlsson inadvertently bumping off one henchman after the other and amassing more and more crew members. This running narrative pales in comparison to the one about his past. Those parts are larger than life and worth marvelling at, not just for the fantastic events, but also for the effortlessness with which Karlsson’s life propels forward.

In him we see the classic example of someone being swept off his feet by forces large and (at times) benevolent. And thus, while I normally scoff at the pretentiousness of epigraphs in literature, the one in THYOMWCOTWD is near perfect. It encapsulates Karlsson’s spirit to embrace life and take a chance, no matter what the consequences, because eventually, you will end up on a spectacular beach with a cocktail in your hand and fifty million Kronor in your rather large pocket: “Things are what they are, and whatever will be, will be.”

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 25^th, 2013.

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Frances Ha will be a difficult movie to sit through for many Pakistanis. I emerged from the cinema in London relieved the film was over but appreciative of its new take on the life of a young woman trying to make it in New York, to put it extremely simply. I also fought back the urge to comb her hair into a clean ponytail. That was a strangled reaction from the socially conditioned Pakistani female in me even though I am not particularly well groomed myself.

Frances (Greta Gerwig) is a wide-eyed 27-year-old college graduate aiming to get a permanent place on staff at her dance company. As the movie opens, we see her living with her best friend Sophie (Mickey Summer). They tell each other they love each other, a lot, they drink beer on the windowsill and snuggle in bed. “Tell me the story of us,” Frances asks her; we feel it is bedtime and the mother is tucking in her child. At first I mistook the intimacy of their relationship as semi-homo erotic but as the film unfolded, I realised Sophie was just Frances’s support lifeline.

As soon as the characters are set up, Frances’s life starts to go belly up. Her boyfriend breaks up with her when she wobbles on moving in with him because she wants to renew her lease with Sophie. But she comes home to discover Sophie has decided to move out. For the rest of the movie we have to painfully watch her figure out living arrangements given that she can’t make rent and the dance company job falls through.

In cringe-worthy scene after another, we follow her trying to gain some semblance of cohesiveness in her life. Does she know what she wants? This involves a random trip to Paris, taking up with a narcissist for a space in his apartment, going back to her alma mater for a summer job and sleeping in a dorm to get by.

The plot runs along from one disaster to another, so don’t watch it if you like some semblance of progression to a neat ending. Frances Ha (directed by Noah Baumbach) flirts with the genre of mumblecore films, a sub-genre of American cinema, which prefers natural-sounding dialogue, low budgets and amateur actors. You won’t notice that it is shot in black and white, a choice that actually gives the film great character and is so reminiscent of Woody Allen’s work.

And Frances seems like a modern version of the characters neurotic Jewish New Yorkers Woody Allen has played. She is awkward, says the wrong thing, is self-obsessed but in an endearing innocent way. We forgive her because she is young, a hipster, lost. She doesn’t know when to stop leaving messages even though the person she is calling obviously doesn’t want to talk to her. We feel embarrassed for her. She runs blocks to an ATM when she runs out of cash for a dinner she insists on paying for. Her date lets her pay. We are not comfortable with how he treats her.

Much of the chaos is balanced out by her honesty that charms us but the very next moment makes us recoil in horror because we can’t be so close to something so socially inept. Take this scene from a hellish dinner she finds herself at:

“What do you do,” asks the man to her right.

“Er… it’s a little hard to explain,” she replies.

“Because what you do is complicated?”

“Err…because…I don’t… really do it.”

The underlying theme is friendship — can Frances learn to be on her own without Sophie who has grown faster out of the relationship? But this spirals out neatly into other rich veins touching on change, how oddly enough men still treat women with misogynistic undertones and get away with it, being young and clueless but wanting to figure life out on your own no matter how scary it is. The expertly written script carries all of this through with snippets of observations that Pakistani women will love. “Patch is the kind of guy,” declares Frances, “who buys a black leather couch and is like, I lurve it.” I’m not sure I love her character, but I get that it’s finally a film that shows a young woman without makeup and untouched by the conditioning that society foists on us.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 25^th, 2013.

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France has a way of pulling in audiences like no other city in the world. Whether it’s for the Eiffel Tower, Carla Bruni’s Little French Songs or Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s rom-com Amélie, it is impossible not to be drawn to French culture, cuisine, language and its array of enigmatic mesdames et monsieurs. Author Nicolas Barreau seems well aware of this theory and decided to devote his second novel The Ingredients of Love to a combination of the above. As expected, his book has not only piqued the interest of Europeans but an international audience as well. It was first published in Germany in 2010 but after gaining considerable traction, has been translated into English as well.

Barreau’s protagonist is a thirty-something Parisian restaurateur named Aurélie Bredin who wakes up one day to find her eccentric lover of two years gone forever. In the past, Aurelie had wilfully ignored Claude’s disappearing acts. However, this time she knows it’s different especially after she finds a devastatingly short note from him saying that he had finally met “the woman of his dreams”.

The heroine, spiralling in a never-ending vortex of self-pity and humiliation, wanders the rainy streets of Paris until she reaches a small bookstore in Ile Saint Louis. It is here that the novel The Smiles of Women written by a relatively unknown English author Robert Miller, calls out to her. Aurelie brings it home and reads it cover to cover, only to discover that the book is actually a tribute to her smile and her restaurant Le Temps des Cerises (The time of the cherries).

With a drastically transformed perspective on life and fate, she pledges to find the man behind the novel just to let him know that he saved her in her bleakest time. But reaching this writer, who supposedly lives in a romantic English cottage with his terrier, seems close to impossible. For one thing, the English writer Robert Miller does not really exist. He’s the literary creation of Andy Chabanais — the editor-in-chief at a French publishing house.

Chabanais had written the novel on a drunken whim under the name of Robert Miller as he knew an English author’s story about Paris would be a hit with a female audience. But as luck would have it, The Smiles of Women, takes off and now Andy Chabanais is receiving incessant calls from journalists for interviews. Bookstores want the Robert Miller to fly in to Paris for readings. This is the formula for disaster; Chabanais finds himself in the presence of the woman who had inspired him to write the novel but he cannot tell her who he really is.

Funnily enough, the book’s biggest failing is Aurélie herself, who appears to be a strangely one-dimensional and gullible character. Somehow, the unassuming French editor manages to win the affection of the reader quicker than the quirky heroine.

Ingredients of Love is reminiscent of Chocolat, a 1999 novel by Joanne Harris, as it is replete with beautiful descriptions of French cuisine and actual recipes at the end of the book. It also offers a unique insight into the French publishing world.

While it is supposedly written by a man, it is easy to tell that the writer is a female. This may have something to do with the fact that Nicolas Barreau is a pseudonym for a well-known literary figure widely speculated to be German author Daniela Thiele.

The Parisian Life: À la recherche du temps perdu

Murder on the Eiffel Tower

The first in a series of six Parisian murder mysteries by Claude Izner, Murder on the Eiffel Tower, captures the death of a woman on this great Paris landmark. The cause of her death is initially traced to a bee-sting. But is that really so?

Paris Peasant

In Paris Peasant (1926) hardcore communist, Louis Aragon, effectively uses surrealist writing to paint a beautiful picture of Paris. He consciously uses the city as a framework and interweaves his text with images of related ephemera: café menus, maps, inscriptions on monuments and newspaper clippings.

Le Temps des Cerises

Zillah Bethell tells the story of Eveline, a young woman, set in the background of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. She is engaged to the romantic Laurie, but is drawn towards his friend, Alphonse, who is plotting to break the siege. The author’s vibrant prose and dramatic imagination make the book an enjoyable read.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 25^th, 2013.

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Passwords just don’t cut it anymore — keep your stuff safe

Data theft, website vandalism and hacking are constant concerns in this age when information is power and everyone wants to ensure its safety. For the longest period, users have relied on text-based passwords as the first and sometime only line of defence and this has worked fairly well, and still does. But this doesn’t mean that you cannot find more creative and more unorthodox — read ‘cool’ — methods to protect your data.

USB lock

Data may be a virtual commodity, but this doesn’t mean that the protection must be the same. For the real people out there we bring you the Headlock! This tiny and very inexpensive device slips over the connector of any USB flash drive (or any USB device) and locks in place with a three-digit combination. But do keep in mind that the lock’s three wheels only provide 1,000 possible combinations. So a patient hacker with a few hours to burn could easily get in.

Wireless PC Lock

The tiny green puck clips to your shirt or keychain and serves as a PC proximity sensor. If you move two metres or more away from the computer, the receiver plugged into your machine’s USB port locks the computer via software. Once back within range, the PC unlocks. This can help you save the two seconds it takes to log in and log out manually. And I think for that, it’s a bargain!

Swiss Army USB

The Swiss Army USB has its share of the usual bells and whistles but it also has a biometrically protected, self-destructing encrypted USB thumb drive. To access the encrypted data stored on the built-in flash drive, you need to swipe your fingerprint across the Secure Pro’s built-in optical sensor. But don’t try fooling it with a severed finger, it’s heat-sensitive as well, so only living fingers will do. If you try to open the flash drive’s case, the Secure-Pro burns out its chips in spite. Very secure — and very strange.

PC Clamp

The wheel clamp is not the only device out there to lock something down. Similar technology exists for laptops as well. Perhaps a day will come when passwords won’t be enough and we will physically need to clamp shut our notebooks to ensure data security. This device, launched by Elecom, and now cloned by many others, prevents users from physically opening your laptop to use it. It also comes with a cable to prevent people from just walking off with your machine.

USB Port Blocker

Your machine could be used by unmonitored users, say in a hotel lobby or the airport. And you might also want to protect your PC from illicit USB device connections. The Lindy USB Port Blocker is a two-part device consisting of a key tool and a “lock,” which is essentially a dummy USB connector. The key tool deposits the lock into an unoccupied USB port and detaches, blocking physical access to the port.

Peeping Tom

Now you can peep, legitimately and not be censured for it. When you peer inside the Qritek IRIBO mouse, or rather look inside the eye on the side of the device, you get an eyeful of light which works with a camera inside the mouse to scan your iris to confirm your identity. Only then will it give you access to the computer it is attached to.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 25^th, 2013.

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In the secret lives of girls, shame is the great leveler. The logistics of managing the one-week interruption of the ‘biological’ cycle can be a nightmare when you have to go to school. Many girls would rather skip classes than put up with the discomfort exacerbated by long walks to school and the risk of soiling themselves in a place where there are either no toilets or poor ones.

This has long had a small, almost unnoticeable effect on school attendance rates in Sindh’s countryside, small towns and villages. While there are no numbers for this province, the trend has been documented in the north. Results from a recent study in areas affected by the 2005 Kashmir earthquake near the city of Muzaffarabad indicate that almost 50% girls miss school during their cycle, and about 40% of girls do not have access to protective materials to manage this phase. Additionally, Unicef Pakistan said in 2011 that shame during the cycle, limited education from the family on this aspect of biological change, ridicule from boys, a lack of washrooms and facilities to change, clean up and dry re-usable protection material all limited a young girl’s ability to cope.

But the times are slowly changing. A little cotton and some technology can go a long way.

The Express Tribune was not able to find any data on Sindh to support the claim that access to feminine hygiene products improves school attendance. However two sources of information seem to bear this out: studies from Africa and interviews of school principals and grocery store owners in Sindh’s towns and cities.

The phenomenon has been documented in Africa. A 2009 University of Oxford study in Ghana found that girls were missing up to five days of school a month. In test case studies, they found that supplying the students with the feminine hygiene products radically changed their ability to go to school confidently. On average, the rate of absenteeism was halved (from 21% to 9%).

The headmistress of a girls’ school in Old Sukkur, Muneeza Begum, also testified to the problem of absenteeism. According to her estimates, while she has 1,200 students, attendance can go down to as little as 600 at times. “It is a lame excuse that they can’t attend school because of their monthly [cycle],” she said. “I always suggest they use the comfortable stuff and attend class.” But she noticed that as the girls were generally from poor families they could not afford the 150 rupees for one pack. Affordability can be such a key factor in decision making that a non-profit in Rwanda alerted its government to lifting an 18% sales tax on feminine hygiene products. The government agreed, saying it understood this would help girls from poor homes who would otherwise miss school.

Globally, girls who cannot afford the protective material mainly have to make do with cloth, rags or home-stitched cotton pads. These options are neither comfortable and reliable nor hygienic, even if they are cheaper. Generally, in Sindh’s peri-urban areas, girls tend to be aware that they have other choices. This awareness has emerged as companies have spread their distribution networks with well-designed and packaged products at even the smallest grocery store. It is also becoming more acceptable for women to shop for them themselves.

In Tando Muhammad Khan’s Shahid Bazaar, for example, salesman Imtiaz Pali at Chhipa General Store has stocked these products for the last 10 years and his shop is ideally located close to private and public schools and colleges.

SOURCE: WASH IN SCHOOLS, PROCEEDINGS OF THE MENSTRUAL HYGIENE MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOLS VIRTUAL CONFERENCE 2012

A majority of his customers are students and he has found that having pocket money is key to the decisions they make. He says he gets customers from the surrounding countryside but an education seems to make a slight difference. “Girl students are more confident than ordinary ones,” he added, while making a comparison between school-going and illiterate clients.

He has stocked the brands in a corner of his shop and displays them by pack size and price. While many younger women will walk in and pick them off the shelf, he still receives ‘parchis’ or chits of paper with orders from customers who are older and live in the surrounding countryside. Women from the villages send the parchis because they don’t necessarily go to market themselves — their men do.

The demand for feminine hygiene products is most likely closely linked to quality, as introduced by multinational brands. Proctor & Gamble, for example, began to produce the brand Always in Pakistan in 2001. The company did not share any data with The Express Tribune despite repeated requests, but according to an unofficial estimate this brand had 66% of the market share in 2012.

And while it is a sensitive subject in this part of the world, companies such as P&G have used the double-edged ploy of running educational programmes with product campaigns. It was reported by Africa News in 2012 that P&G started an  ‘Always Cares’ programme in Nigeria where the company teaches girls ages 13 through 21 about puberty and feminine hygiene. Since 2009, the program has reached more than one million girls a year.

Quality seems to matter here too. Ambreen Musharaf, a lecturer at Government Girls Degree College, Sakrand, said that girls who can afford it will make their purchases on visits to the bigger cities. Otherwise women are stuck with low quality options. “The available [product lines] in very small towns are of low quality therefore our students still use the old [options],” she said. “I see a few girls from good families who mostly visit the bigger cities are more comfortable.”

It certainly helps if institutions such as the 900-student strong Government Girls College, Larkana keep a stock. “The girls are comfortable now,” said Anila Abro, the director physical education, while referring to the trend in switching to feminine hygiene products. “There a few who are still shy to ask for them during school hours but we provide them.”

She vouches for improved attendance rates in the last couple of years because of this change in “life style” as she put it. The girls are more confident during that time of the month and don’t try to avoid gym class either. “The girls have no excuse now. They have thrown away the old stuff that gave them trouble,” she added, referring to the cloth and cotton options.

It appears that being linked to a large urban centre leads to more awareness. Shahida Khokhar, a teacher at the Girls Middle School Dokri, in a taluka of Larkana, said that the use of old protective materials persist in small towns and villages. “Women in rural areas have no idea [about feminine hygiene products] but girl students who interact with their peers in cities, use the new [technology],” she said. “I see that a majority of women in rural areas have a complex about [using them].”

The simple decision to use a certain product has a lot to do with the culture at home and there are differences in the lifestyles of women in cities such as Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas, Larkana and Nawabshah and their surrounding rural areas. Shahida Mushtaq, the principal of Ibn-e-Rushd Girls College in Mirpurkhas, with over 30 years of teaching experience, believes that family background explains the evolution. “Parents want a better life for their daughters — in class and outside class,” she said. “Today’s girls are more advanced and lucky. They [want] the best facilities.” A strong sense of academic competition means that girls do not want to be held back.

“A girl has to attend class no matter what her condition,” stressed Aftab Ahsan Qureshi of Hyderabad’s Nazrat Girls’ Degree College with 5,000 students. “There is no excuse for anything. She has to attend class which ensures success in the rest of her life.” Her tone is markedly no-nonsense, but the college has a reputation across Sindh for enforcing discipline and punctuality. “I didn’t care what a student is facing physically,” she added. “Hyderabad is a city and girls of this city have to compete with those in bigger ones like Karachi.” And while Qureshi, who has worked with girls for 37 years, did not necessarily agree that the introduction of feminine hygiene products had any impact on attendance, she did admit that they had brought about a change.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 25^th, 2013.

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While many children in Karachi and indeed across Pakistan were busy playing with their toy guns this Eid, there were some who either don’t have access to such fake weaponry (money, parental disgust) or who aren’t interested in it.

These are the children who play games they have invented or ones that don’t involve a trip to the toy store where their parents will have to fork out hundreds of rupees for Chinese plastic.

Girls, especially those living in predominantly Pashto-speaking neighbourhoods in Karachi, are perhaps the most inventive:

Chindro

Twelve-year-old Tooba likes to play Chindro with her friends in the street outside her home in Masan. She explains that for Chindro you first need a flat circular stone or wooden block and flat surface, which can be the ground. You mark a rectangular box on the ground, divide it vertically in the middle and then horizontally with three lines. This will give you eight boxes.

The players toss a coin and the winner starts the game. Tooba throws the stone in the first box, hops and aims to hit the stone into the box above with her other leg. This continues for all the boxes. If the player touches any line she loses her turn. If you complete a round, on one leg all the while, and get the stone through all eight boxes, you get a point and another turn. It is almost like hopscotch with a few variations; the stone needs to be kicked and not thrown into the box and none of the boxes are numbered. You start by moving up the right column of boxes and coming down the left column.

Bilovri or Kanchay

Bilovries are marbles or glass pieces sold in the market. A number of games are played with bilovries and usually the winner gets to take them home. In one commonly played game, the children try to put the bilvories into a small hole that is about one inch wide and deep from a distance of about five to six feet. To aim, stretch your middle finger back like a bow-string by applying pressure with the forefinger of the right hand. Then shoot the marble by releasing the finger.

Ghotti

“We usually play Ghotti inside rooms in the summer or in the grounds in the evening after we complete our Quran lesson in the seminary,” explained Tehreem, a class 4 student who lives in Keamari. Ghotti is played with five small round stones. Usually two or three girls take part. You put all five stones in the sand and then pick one and throw it in the air. That stone is called the Taak and you can only use one hand in the game. You have to pick up another stone from the sand and catch the Taak before it touches the ground. If you fail to get another stone or catch the Taak, you lose your turn. If any player completes a round with all four stones without letting any of them drop she gets a point and the second turn.

Shalghaatay

Shalghaatay is played between two teams. Team A closes their eyes in a street and Team B marks lines with chalk or charcoal on the wall of a house at some hidden place. Team A has to find those lines.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 25^th, 2013.

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Six of the remaining 12 gates of the walled city of
Lahore are being rescued. The Walled City of Lahore Authority is putting millions of rupees into the project with the help of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. Experts will start with the Texali and Shah Alam gates. They will, however, be modeled on the Roshnai gate, which was built in the Mughal style, said a restorer. It appears that Sikh or British styles will be eschewed.

The old city of Lahore came to be known during the reign of Emperor Akbar (1584-1598) as the walled city because it was enclosed by a nine-metre high brick wall with a rampart. The walled city had 13 gates made of wood and iron. They continued to exist until the 19th century but the British are said to have demolished them in an attempt to weaken the defences. Almost all of the gates, except Roshnai Gate, were felled. Except for the Delhi and Lahori Gates, all of them were rebuilt but sadly today, only six continue to exist: Roshnai, Delhi, Shairanwalla, Bhati, Kashmiri and Lahori gates. Here is a bird’s-eye view:

Roshnai Gate

Roshnai Gate lies between the Lahore Fort and Badshahi Mosque and is still in its original condition. It was the main entrance from the fort to the city and was specifically used for courtiers, royal servants and their retinues. In the evenings the gate was lit up, giving it the name Roshnai or light. Next door is Hazuri Bagh, created by Maharajah Ranjit Singh in 1813 to celebrate the capture of the Koh-i-Noor diamond from Shah Shujah of Afghanistan. In the centre of the garden stands the Hazuri Bagh Baradari in marble. The mausoleum of poet Muhammad Iqbal and the Samadhi of Ranjit Singh are worth a visit here.

Masti Gate

Its name derives from the word Masjidi as the mosque of Mariam Makhani, the mother of Emperor Akbar, is located in its immediate locality. Some historians assert that the gate was named after Masti Baloch, who was appointed a guard. This area is primarily packed with shoe vendors today.

Texali Gate

The royal mint or Taxal was located near this gate, lending it its name. Today this area is renowned for its appetising range of food. The bazaar is also the place to go to for musical instruments that are made and sold here. The sacred places for the Sikhs, Pani-Wallah Talaab and Gurdwara Lal Khooh are also located here.

Bhati Gate

Named after the ancient Bhat Rajput tribe, Bhati gate is renowned for Lahori food. Its Bazaar-e-Hakiman was named after the hakims, who lived here. Poet Dr Allama Iqbal had a small place here where he used to study and hold daily meetings with his comrades; it still exists. Prominent pahalwans or wrestlers such as Kala Maro lived here.

Mori Gate

Sandwiched between Lahori and Bhati gates was the small Mori gate, even though it wasn’t a gate as such. In Urdu, the word mori is used to referred to a small hole. In the evening, when all of the gates were closed, this particular opening gave access to the walled city. It was also used as an outlet for garbage disposal. The striking structures are still witnessing the glory and magnificence of the bygone empires; however, advertisement of different shops, banners of political parties, pollution and uncleanliness of the vicinity are heavily costing the splendor of the Mughal art.

Lahori Gate

The oldest of the gates of the walled city, Lahori Gate is colloquially known as Lohari Gate. During Hindu Raj, the neighbourhood of Ichra was supposed to be the actual Lahore. As this gate faced Ichra, it was thus named Lahori Gate. However, another group of historians claims that Lohari comes from Urdu word loha or iron. Lohars or blacksmiths used to run their business here. Just across this gate you will find Anarkali Bazaar and the tomb of Qutubuddin Aibak, first Muslim ruler of the subcontinent.

Kashmiri Darwaza

This gate opens towards the valley of Kashmir. Inside visit the Kashmiri Bazaar with narrow markets and alleyways. A pathway leads to the famed and impossibly tranquil Wazir Khan Mosque. A big market for children’s shoes spreads out from it.

Khiziri Gate (Shairanwala Gate)

It is said that this gate was named after a saint, Hazrat Khwaja Khizr Elias, who was known as Amer-ul-Bahar (commander of water). At the time it was built this gate opened onto the river front. Some historians assert that when Sher-e-Punjab Maharaja Ranjit Singh got hold of the city, he kept two domesticated lions in a cage for protection, which is why this gate was named Shairanwala or Lions gate.

Zakki Gate (Yaki Gate)

Zakki Gate has a bit of a surprising story. It was named after a saint, Zakki, who historians say was beheaded during a fight against the Tartars. It is said that even after his head was severed from his body, the body continued fighting for some time. His head and body are said to be buried at the spots where they fell. A number of temples are also located in and around this gate.

Delhi Gate:

This gate was built during the reign of Emperor Akbar and is named as such as it opens towards Delhi, which was the then capital of the Mughal dynasty. Just as you enter, to the left is the rehabilitated royal bath or Shahi Hamam built by Hakim Ilmuddin. A short walk up ahead will lead you to Wazir Khan Mosque with its intricate painted panels. The tomb of Hazrat Meran Badshah is located in the courtyard of the mosque. Hindus also revere the Shawala Baba Bhakar Guru site in this neighbourhood.

Akbari Gate:

Named after Jalalud Din Muhammad Akbar (1542-1605), Akbari Gate is located in the east. Akbari Mandi, the biggest wholesale and retail market of Lahore for grains and spices, was set up by the emperor and serves thousands even today.

Mochi Gate:

Morchi or trench soldier seems to be the word that led to Mochi Gate. This etymological origin is supported by the fact that some streets or mohallas in the area still bear names like Mohalla Teer-garan (arrow craftsmen), Mohalla Kaman-garan (bow craftsmen). Some historians feel that the name came from Moti or pearl after Pandit Moti Ram, a guard during the reign of Akbar who used to watch over this gate. The gate was the main route taken to some Havelis of the Mughal empire such as Mubarak Haveli, Nisar Haveli and Laal Haveli. To its immediate right is Mochi Bagh where political get-togethers take place. Find here dry fruit, kites and fireworks and don’t miss the kebabs and das Kulcha with lonchara for breakfast.

Shah Alam Gate

This gate was named after Aurangzeb’s son and successor, Muazzam Shah Alam Bahadur Shah. It was once called Bherwala Gate and was burnt to ashes in the 1947 rioting; only the name exists today. It opens into one of Lahore’s busiest bazaars, where you can get nearly everything from iron receptacles to wedding accessories. Rang Mahal and Soha Bazaar (the gold market) are also worth a visit. There are almost 400 shops, burning brightly with hundreds of gold and yellow bulbs, to browse. Kanari bazaar is a hot favourite for brides-to-be and Chata bazaar is known for the traditional leather khussa. Go to Gumtee and Dabi Bazars for bangles and Azam Cloth Market for textiles.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 25^th, 2013.

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If TV shows were any indication of reality, every secretary would be a rubenesque redhead, flitting around the office in a tightly zipped skirt and even more tightly guarded secrets. She would be a master of the moment — sultry and gregarious behind closed doors but impenetrable and aloof in public. She would be discreet and immaculate, with never a hair or emotion out of place. She would always be sexually superior but intellectually inferior — on television only, that is.

But life is not an episode of Mad Men and sexy stereotypes do no justice to the women (and men) who were regarded as the highest vertebra in the backbone of a company. The profession has changed with computer technology, good secretaries are hard to come by today and perhaps it is not considered a career path any more. Even the word ‘secretary’ has been replaced with the more politically correct ‘administrative or office assistant’. But as some of the old guard will tell you, they still take immense pride and prefer being called a secretary.

“[As a child] I remember Jacqueline being the first one to walk into [my father’s] office,” says Bilal Hameed, a private textile businessman in Lahore. “She was this super-organised, stern woman. You know, the kind you can never imagine [as ever once being] young.” Jacqueline worked with his father for nearly 24 years but once she retired, Bilal says his father never found a replacement who could fill her shoes. “They kept coming and going.”

In Karachi, Pakistan’s financial capital, Parsi and Christian secretaries were and still are regarded as having set the gold standard. Some of them are still around but several factors have contributed to a drain on the profession. Aside from retirement and death, the general exodus of this non-Muslim demographic in reaction to the slow creep of ‘Islamisation’ from Ziaul Haq’s time has had the corollary effect. And thus, while women such as Maharukh Bhiladwala, Goretti Ali and Caroline Charles, all secretaries with decades of experience, still rule the carpeted corridors of multinational companies few of their caliber remain.

Limited options

“When we entered the workforce, the options for women were limited. You could either be a teacher, nurse or a secretary,” says Goretti Ali, who has been a secretary for 34 years. Since teaching did not pay well and being a nurse required a different kind of commitment, she chose to follow her sister’s footsteps and took her first job as a typist at the age of 17. Training involved a few months of typing and shorthand classes after school and a lot of learning on the job. During the 1970s, many women went to a school run by the St Patrick’s social welfare society on the grounds of the cathedral.

Today a good secretary can ask for as much as Rs75,000 but Mahrukh Bhiladwala used to go home with Rs80 per month 47 years ago. That is by no means a measure of success, for today she is the president of the Distinguished Secretaries Society of Pakistan, a voluntary organisation that provides professional support to secretarial members across Pakistan.

Inevitably though, as other professions such as architecture, human resources and banking opened up, the charm of a secretarial job began to fade. “Back then, there was a lot of glamour and a certain persona associated with being a top executive’s secretary,” she says. “Now young girls don’t want to [take] a line which is by nature a subordinate profession — where you always have to report to someone else.” They would rather be in jobs where someday they can be the boss.

The making of a good secretary

1978: Presenting certificates of attendance to the Pakistan secretarial delegation in Singapore.

Typing, maintaining a filing system, taking shorthand, and answering the telephone were the basic skills that every secretary needed when Goretti Ali entered the profession during the 70s.

But naturally, it spirals out to include making travel arrangements, or even, in some cases booking wedding halls or finding a vet for the boss’s pet.

Scheduling the boss’s time is one of the biggest duties. “You need to have enough of a mind to be able to tell the real [deal] from the chaff,” adds Bhiladwala, stressing the need for a firm but pleasant demeanour. “Everyone wants to see the boss — it is your job to decide whether this person is worth your boss’s time.”

But with this power comes greater responsibility. The former head of an advertising firm recalled the loss of an eight-million-rupee account 16 years ago because the secretary flubbed up on the day’s list. He went out to lunch and she forgot that a major ice-cream company’s executives were slotted in for a visit.

Good people skills and the ability to communicate properly with your boss were the bedrock of the profession as was the understanding that as a secretary you were the “the face of the organisation” as Ali puts it to emphasise what they considered one of their weightiest responsibilities.

“Patience is the biggest aspect of it,” says Saleem Khan, a private businessman in Karachi. “There are a lot of small details and seemingly unimportant tasks that they have to take care of, but if you can do that with a smile, you are perfect for the job.”

A good secretary also has stamina. For many, a regular day starts at 7:30 am and ends around 7 pm. “The concept of a 9 to 5 day is outdated,” says Biladwala. “There is no such thing.”

But it can also be a nerve-wracking job in which there is no room for histrionics no matter how badly your day has gone. Bhiladwala’s formula was a restrained one: When a day gets out of control, I just close the door, jump up and down for a few minutes and mumble a few things. If you [happen to] walk into the room two minutes later, you will never be able to figure what I was doing.

Evolution of the job

1995: Goretti Ali during the early years when most offices were transitioning to computers.

Before computers invaded the office, the typewriter was a secretary’s best friend but also her worst enemy at times. “I remember the days when we sat with six, seven sheets of carbon paper and typed away, as the keys went tick-tick and the carriage went clackety-clack,” says Bhiladwala. “And God forbid, if there were calculations involved…. you had to sit across a person who read off the numbers from a paper while you ticked [them off].”

Goretti Ali recalls how excited they were when they first found out that they could save a line on the electric typewriter.

As the world became more tech-savvy, the women invested in computer classes and gradually mastered the device. From manually memorizing the commands of the early disk operating systems to learning to create immaculate spreadsheets on Microsoft Excel, these women struggled but learnt all the skills needed to stay relevant in their field.

As bosses started to manage their own schedules with the help of laptops and handheld devices, the nature of the secretary’s job changed. “Now a secretary can’t be just a secretary,” emphasises  Caroline Charles. “She has to know a little bit of finance, HR and administrative work if she wants to secure her job.” She is one of the relatively younger entrants to the profession and her work entails all of the above.

Not just the job, but the way they dressed for it also changed with time. Previously they enjoyed a reputation for being sharply dressed in all kinds of clothes from trousers and skirts to shalwar qameez. “Things changed post-9/11,” says Ali. “It was better to gel in than to stand out.” She completely switched to shalwar kameez but cites the deteriorating conditions in Karachi as the main reason. “These days the city can shut down any time within minutes. You have no choice but to walk down the street and hail a rickshaw, and doing that in a skirt is just asking for trouble.”

And yet there are women like Bhiladwala who agrees with the potential risks of wearing Western attire but who has adamantly stuck to her linen trousers and floral tops.

The ups and downs

The salary ceiling has been one of the biggest downers in the profession. A beginner can make anything between Rs2,000 to Rs25,000. However, once a secretary reaches a certain rank and pay scale, it is impossible to grow any further.

“It is just the nature of the job,” says Bhiladwala. “You might be handling the work of a manager, but you will always be a secretary and that automatically puts a barrier on how much you earn.” Her case is an exceptional one: she became a managing director for one of the companies that had initially taken her on as a secretary. When the company dissolved a few years later, though, she had to rejoin the secretarial market at a much lower pay scale.

Sexual harassment is a constant risk and for most women is an instant deal breaker. They will walk out, which is hardly justice for them but the only option. The unwanted attention ranges from men making suggestive remarks, to slipping them telephone numbers and making physical advances. “It is the absolute worst thing for your confidence,” says Ali. “You start to second-guess yourself and spend an endless amount of time wondering if you gave off the wrong vibes. Sometimes I wish we could live life backwards; I would have handled situations so much better.”

Working for women bosses does not necessarily make it better — that terrain comes with another set of challenges. They are generally more aggressive and keen to emphasise their authority, something that Bhiladwala explains is the outcome of trying to overcome the default perception that women are the weaker sex. “A woman has to work twice as hard to prove that she is half as good as a man,” she says. “Men can go around slapping each other on the back and get to work when it’s needed. If a woman does that, she is perceived as frivolous. So she has to be doubly vigilant and doubly authoritative, [but] which if taken too far, becomes arrogance.”

National brand ambassadors

Secretaries, as many of them like to be called, have done a fair bit of work on the international scene. Pakistan will be hosting the next congress, a bi-yearly congregation of secretaries across the Asia-Pacific region in September 2013. The country is a member of the Association of Secretaries and Administrative Professionals in Asia Pacific, an international body of 15 member countries. A five-day conference will host 120 foreign delegates, said Bhalidwala, who is the current president of association and nervous and excited in equal measure about the event.

“It is challenging because of the security situation,” she admits. “But that is why it is equally important too. The world has a certain perception of Pakistan and we want to change that by projecting our working women at the forefront.” The conference will host speakers to address workplace issues and provide an opportunity for secretaries from different countries to network and exchange ideas. The last congress hosted by Pakistan was in 1990.

Future

The supply and demand for secretaries is tenuous. According to an advisor for a media group, he has noted high demand in the Punjab where the old merchant class ‘seths’ still need someone to do their correspondence in English. Their children, however, who take over the reins of business with formal degrees do not need this kind of help.

“Once I took over things, I never really felt the need for one,” says textile businessman Bilal Hameed, who has been managing his father’s enterprise for the last five years. “Everything is so… convenient now. You check your own emails, plan meetings according to your schedule. You don’t really need another person to do it for you.”

If the decline in demand is linked to the rise of the cloud-computing executive, the supply is shrinking because of better-paid jobs and a change in perception for the profession. The only good news is that Ali and Bhiladwala feel it will always be in safe hands, especially now that people join it out of choice, not because they have no other choice.

Maharukh Bhiladwala

President of Distinguished Secretaries Society of Pakistan and Association of Secretaries and Administrative Professionals in Asia Pacific. She has been in the secretarial profession for the past 47 years.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 25^th, 2013.

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A quick lesson in the physics of diamonds

Something got stuck in my throat the minute the sales assistant gave me the price: £77,000. It was the classic Tiffany engagement ring. My sister and I were killing time at Heathrow Terminal 3 before heading home to Karachi. The sales assistant saw me looking at the display case from a safe distance and asked me what brought me into the shop. I replied that this was the first time I had plucked up the courage to even enter Tiffany & Co. She flashed me a brilliant, pearly smile and quickly unlocked the glass cabinet. “Try it on,” she said.

As my sister and I were temporarily stunned by its clarity, we were given a lesson on metallurgy and gemmology. In the Spring of 1887, Tiffany shocked the world by buying the French crown jewels. From that time on, it became known as the world’s authority on the earth’s hardest substance.

As I started to take the ring off, it began to stick. My sister coughed nervously as the sales assistant’s eyes narrowed. “Take your time,” she said.

“Can’t you suck your breath in,” hissed my sister. “It’s not like we’re going home with it.”

Clarity is the key rating measure. Virtually all diamonds have imperfections. A stone is said to be ‘flawless’ if under ten-power magnification is shows no internal flaws (clouds, feathers, pinpoints). Diamond clarity ranges from FL (Flawless) to 13 (heavily included). The Tiffany round brilliant-cut stone has 57 or 58 precisely aligned facets.

The facets on the pavilion (bottom) mirror the light back and forth in a frenzy until it bursts out in a blaze. The Tiffany experts warn against claims that more facets are superior. When a diamond is cut with a shallow pavilion and large table size, it produces a dull stone. It also creates an ugly ‘fish-eye’ effect when viewed through the crown. And if the pavilion is too deep, there is a darkening ‘nailhead’ effect in the middle of the stone.

If you go to the New York flagship store you can even see the 128.54-carat Tiffany Diamond on permanent display. The weight of a diamond is measured by carats. One carat is 0.2 grammes.

As carat weight is always a factor in pricing, some diamond cutters will attempt to trick casual buyers. They create an excessively thick girdle to increase carat weight and hence price. But brilliance and beauty are sacrificed.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, September 1^st, 2013.

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Comic book adaptations for the big screen have been a gamble in recent years. But at least these cinematic experiments gave directors a chance to figure out what works. This is probably why The Wolverine manages to come into its own and separate itself from the comic book.

This time round director James Mangold brings us an adaptation of the 1982 comic that is a sequel to X-Men: The Last Stand. An adamantium-clawed mutant, Logan (Hugh Jackman), receives a request to travel to Japan to say goodbye to an old friend, an ailing Yashida (Hal Yamnouchi). Years earlier, Logan had saved the Japanese boy-soldier when the atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki. With a new lease on life, Yashida went on to become an industrial giant after the war. He is now an old man on his death bed who proposes that Logan ‘pass on’ his healing abilities. In return, Yashida will relieve him of his immortality.

A suspicious Logan, while captivated by the idea of ‘eternal rest’, rejects the offer. Yashida then asks Logan to protect his beautiful granddaughter, Muriko (Tao Okamoto), to whom he has bequeathed his empire, bypassing her father as his heir.

But even before Yashida’s funeral is over, the Yakuza try to abduct Muriko.

This is where the movie transitions. In much of the second act Logan comes up against his trauma caused by what happened to Jean Grey in the third installment of X-Men (We can’t give it away). If the action sequences were not that distracting, this would have been a rich vein to mine. The one thing that gives Wolverine his strength and his identity is the bane of his life as well. Life is full of irony. The blessings of power, or say immortality, are double-edged; duality has always been the bread and butter of heroes and villains. But more importantly, we have to question, what do we make of the morality of characters such as Wolverine — who can cause so much pain and be so violent.

As the movie sticks to a classic three-act structure it tends to drag in places. Periodic forced transition scenes are a weak point as is the script for some of the characters, especially the token love-interest Muriko. Her sole purpose seems to be acting as a catalyst to precipitate emotional flashes in Logan. Joining Muriko is Viper, a poison-secreting mutant, whose character goes as deep as her latex green suit. Unless we know more about her motives, she too emerges little more than a pretty prop.

If these elements of the film disappoint, the action sequences do not with their neat swordplay and the adamantium samurai mech. But sadly, they don’t take advantage of the 3-D factor, especially the scene shot on top of a bullet train. They really could have worked the scene in which Wolverine lifts off and flies back the length of the train to sink his claws into a bad guy.

Overall, this film is an improvement over the last Wolverine movie, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and director Mangold has done a fairly good job. While it could have benefited from better writing and more fulfilling characters, the action sequences are definitely worth a watch although they would have been just as good in 2-D.

One last thing, do not forget to stay past the end credits for a special stinger.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, September 1^st, 2013.

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