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Pragaash band: Girl Band Sufi
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...
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Gluten-intolerant: Gut Instinct
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...
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Movie review: Media trials and the court of the people
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...
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Family planning: Immaculate Contraception
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...
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Book review: The devil does a disappearing act
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...
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Let England shake for Shaker Aamer
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...
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Pollen allergies:The Big Bhang Theory
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...
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Calligraphy: Straight faced
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...
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Articulating everyday phenomenon: The distance of a shout
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...
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Pakistani truck art: From axle to gigapixel
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...
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The book with the really long title that you must read
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....
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Movie review: Frances Ha - wildly inappropriate
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...
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Book review: The ingredients of love - faking it till you make it in Paris
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...
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Data protection: To protect and serve
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...
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Menstrual cycle: Give them wings
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...
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Imaginative games: Cheap shot
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)...
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Walled city of Lahore: Six degrees of restoration
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...
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Doorway to the boss: The Secretary
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...
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The physics of diamonds: Set in Stone
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...
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Movie Review: The Wolverine - Crying Wolf
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...
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