‘Dosti’ between Pakistan and India
If Taylor Swift was a political analyst, she would be telling us right now, ”India and Pakistan are never, ever getting back together!” By cancelling concerts by Pakistani artists, not issuing visas and letting our women’s cricket team camp at a stadium during their tour, India has given us the proverbial lannat. The Pakistani government has responded with some serious passive-aggressive silent treatment much like an angry boyfriend. At times like these, hearing about the 50th anniversary of the Elysee treaty signed between France and Germany which ended an era of animosity, wars, bloodshed and bitterness between the two countries comes as a ...
Read Full PostAre homemakers ‘prostitutes’?
Politically incorrect, pathologically honest and a prolific rambler – that’s author of Prozac nation Elizabeth Wurtzel, in a nutshell for you. Recently, with her 5,500-word confessional article, “My one night stand of a life” published in New York Magazine, she has sucker punched the entire publishing world with a diatribe, that is exactly like her, honest to a fault. One of the groups who have come under fire of Wurtzel’s unapologetic pen is homemakers or housewives. “I believe women who are supported by men are prostitutes, that is that”, says Wurtzel While it may seem that Wurtzel might just be talking just about gold diggers, in ...
Read Full PostThey call her Berlin
Berlin is like that friend, who as soon as you meet, shares her deepest, darkest secrets without any shame. She’s been betrayed more harshly than Jesus, has seen more blood than a haematologist and has had her fair share of wars waged on her soil. Anyone in her position would just clam up and hide their scars; not wear them on their sleeves all the time. Yet, Berlin showcases her biggest mistakes for the entire world. Just when you think that a broken person like her has probably forgotten how to really live – she takes you to a party so ...
Read Full PostIf you jump off, you will fly, I promise!
Two years ago, I made the first most life-altering, high risk, and extremely indulgent decision of my adult life. For most of my life, all my life-decisions were sort of handed over to me and I had no choice but to follow their trajectory. But regardless of following all the right decisions and a path full of perfect daisies, I was still lost as lost can be. After a breakdown of Lindsay Lohan proportions, my drug of choice was chocolate ice-cream, I decided to actually do something about my situation. My decision was take up writing as a full time ...
Read Full PostIf I choose to wear a hijab, will you let me?
If feminism did one thing right for women it was to provide us with an abundance of choices. Something the fair gender hadn’t really experienced before. Whether it was the choice to wear pants and throw away those constricting corsets, or the choice to go out and vote and make a difference in the world. We could drive, abort or use contraceptives. These are the same choices that helped women like you and me get PhDs, work in male-dominated industries and hold top level positions and get equal pay. We could literally be men if we wanted to be! But if ...
Read Full PostHello, any moderates out there?
After reading the Reuters report on dance parties in Pakistan and watching the daily shenanigans of the religious extremists on television, I’m starting to feel lonelier and lonelier in this extremely dichotomous and polarised society. I do not know how it happened but it certainly happened sometime in the last few years when practically all Pakistanis chose their sides. Today, a person is either the ‘I’m-better-and-smarter-than-all-of-you’ type of liberal or he or she is a ‘we’ll-blow-your-head-off-if-you-ask-for-any-rights’ type of religious fundamentalist. So now, the debate is always on miniskirts versus the hijab and on dance parties or dars. In their liberal or ...
Read Full PostAirport travelers: Friends afar
There’s something magical about letting yourself disappear in the music of your mind and losing your heart to absolute strangers in their conversations, their actions and their journeys. Like a ghost, I sit on one too many buses and trains just observing people. I take mental notes about their mannerisms when they’re not watching. I make up stories about where they may be headed, who their lovers may be and what they might have overcome in their lives. I fall in love with some and end up hating others. And though we never even exchange a single word or glimpse, I ...
Read Full PostKarachi for Dubai: An unfair trade
Ever since my family was robbed at gunpoint, we’ve been planning an escape route out of Pakistan. Lately, my family has given me a very serious country testing mission. The objective: to find a place that feels like Karachi — minus the killings and corruption. Naturally, my first stop was Dubai because if countries were related, wouldn’t Karachi be its twin sister? Only Dubai would be the prettier, more fashionable one with more money. But three days in the city and I couldn’t wait to come home to the ugly, wretched sister with no morals. I’ve always believed that every city has ...
Read Full PostCan writers ever be journalists?
The first lesson they gave me in my first fiction writing class at NYU was: find a wound, pluck it, pierce it, poke at it till it gushes out with so much blood you don’t know what to do with it. Now while you’re lying bleeding, drenched in your sordid sorrow and putrid pain, get a freaking pen from somewhere and write all that s*** down. Okay, they only said, “write from pain” – I’m improvising for effect. But when I apply the same theory to a feature story for The Express Tribune – before I can even get the name ...
Read Full PostThe seething red anger: Is it all worth it?
In the colourful spectrum of human emotions, my favourite has always been the seething, ugly, red one — anger. Every now and then, it’s good to feel like a steaming frying pan left on high heat for so long that it splatters off anything and everything you place on it — in strict rejection, in complete contempt or in painful helplessness. Trying to cook something in it will only produce something burnt and distorted. So you’ve got two choices: either turn off the heat completely or keep burning until nothing of it/you remains. I can’t stress how important that state of ...
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