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Reading Gatsby in Pakistan
The nouveau riche, the valley of ashes Girls from good families must marry by the rules in Pakistan as well By Dr Ishrat Lindblad “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do/I’m half crazy, all for the love...
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Kasuri craft: Blanket statement
If Sindh is famous for the rilli, Kasur is known for its khais. But unlike in Sindh, the artisans of Kasur are struggling to keep their dying craft alive. They are getting some help from interior...
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Crime show re-enactments: Extra Ordinary
Someone yells for the kidnappers to come up. A scrawny gawker is pushed aside. Arooj starts walking through the field of elephant grass in her limp lawn suit and black leggings. Three men leap out....
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Wear it Parsi style: Lady Gara
Parsi girls become women the day they wear a sari. The sari perawanu or sari-wearing ceremony is a rite of passage. At the centre of the celebration are five married women who help the girl wear a...
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Movie review: Fast & Furious 6 - Just plane crazy
Tighten your seatbelts as Fast & Furious 6 prepares to crush any semblance of reality, this time with a giant tank. To raise the bar in the sixth instalment, the speedsters pull all the stops by...
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Vaccines: Defence policy
Where to get them: Free at EPI centres across the country, public hospitals and dispensaries and at private hospitals and clinics. Where to inject: Dr Tabish Hazir at Children’s Hospital, Pakistan...
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Eco-friendly paper: Pulp Fiction
Putting pen to paper can be exciting if the paper is handmade and embossed with dainty, pink flowers. It was for me at least when I received a diary as a gift from Nepal. That is a country that takes...
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Nimco: Old Spice
The sinfully caloric crunch of Nimco owes its addictive allure to dough ground with red chili, salt and turmeric. Off-set a mouthful of it with a sip of scalding hot, milky sweet chai for the ultimate...
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Man of Steel: Going commando
ISLAMABAD / LAHORE / KARACHI: Three Superman fans, from Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi, assess the rebirth of the first superhero. Kneel before Zod By Vaqas Asghar in Islamabad A man who descended from...
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Transgendered-artist album: Please don’t stop the Music
When Amitava Sarkar sings Ekla Cholo Re, Rabindranath Tagore’s famous call to conscience, you can’t tell he is neither male nor female. This is exactly the point he and eight other singers want to...
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Pimp my ride: Bulletproof
Zain is realist enough to know he is at risk of being kidnapped. He is a young businessman at the helm of an empire in the making. But with the acquisition of his bullet-resistant ‘monster truck’, he...
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The Fall: Virgins or vamps
A woman returns home after drinking at a bar to find that someone has laid out a set of her underwear on her bed. There has obviously been an intruder. She calls 911 and a male and a female officer...
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Anticipating a glorious death of our Sun
All good things come to an end. Even the lives of stars. Located 2,300 light years away, the Ring Nebula (right) is a gorgeous announcement of the demise of a star that shone brightly for ten billion...
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Delhi by Heart: Writing ‘home’
In candid tones, journalist and analyst Raza Rumi explores an Indian city, and indeed his own identity as a Muslim in the Subcontinent, in his first book, Delhi by Heart. He admits to being an...
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N-Gents: Parlour Tricks
If your moustache has reached dali-esque lengths or you are battling a uni-brow, perhaps the new male grooming salon, N-Gents, can offer some assistance. “We can suggest ways for the client to address...
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Polo: Four legs, two heads, one heart
Hot off his horse at the end of the polo match at Cirencester in 1985, Prince Charles planted on her lips what was probably the sweatiest kiss of Princess Diana’s public life. Her giggle was captured...
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Healthy living: Oil’s not well
Cooking oil is expensive which is why we re-use it and this Ramzan we’ll need more of it for those samosas and pakoras at iftari. The only problem is that constantly reheating and reusing a batch of...
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Movie review: It’s the end of the world as we know it
Zombies attack the human race and threaten to kill every person in sight; the humans flee at first, there’s a dash of drama, and after some deaths here and there, the humans ultimately overcome this...
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Between Iraq and a hard place
“How can you live in Pakistan? It’s so dangerous there,” says the bartender in the trendy Erbil bar. I point out that things aren’t exactly smooth in Iraq either, but then this is Kurdistan — that one...
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Poetry: Write or Retreat
Agha Shahid Ali would have been proud. Were the famous Kashmiri poet alive today (he died in 2001), he would have surely commented on the publication of Towfeeq Wani’s 264-page novel The Graveyard: a...
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