A journalist’s journey
I have in front of me Safar Aadhi Sadi ka (Half a Century’ Journey), an autobiography by late Abdul Karim Abid, a famous journalist. It’s a journey full of detours, as should probably be expected considering Abid was not the kind of journalist who kept himself to professional matters. He was in fact the kind of person who participates in and is part of the political goings-on of his times. When such a person takes to writing there is a lot in the narrative for the reader. The difficulty is a narrator who speaks of his role in what went on ...
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Shoaib Akhtar: An embarrassment par excellence
Shoaib Akhtar’s autobiography is generating something of a stir, and perhaps it should. Personally, I haven’t read it yet, only the bits and pieces available across my beloved WWW. However, if these excerpts are anything to go by, I must congratulate Mr Akhtar on his glorious achievement. Bravo world’s fastest bowler! Akhtar has proven beyond a doubt that the image he created, and then tried to deny throughout his career, was indeed true. And I’m not even talking about his off-the-field antics. After all, like any poor kid who stumbles onto a bundle of money, he was bound to make stupid ...
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Controversially yours – Shoaib Akhtar turns back the clock!
A new chapter to the history of one of the most controversial cricketers to ever grace the game was added as Shoaib Akhtar’s autobiography was launched in India on Friday. Akhtar is supposedly the fastest bowler that the game has ever seen and is best remembered not only for bowling missiles that had stumps after stumps flying all around the ground but also for his antics off the field which included fights with the PCB, many disciplinary hearing and suspensions. His long run up to the bowling crease was as talked about as his driving around in an expensive sports ...
Read Full PostBuried under forewords
I have received a strange book of poetry. I started reading it: a foreword, a second foreword and another foreword. After that, yet another foreword. What kind of poetry can it be, I wondered, to need so many prefaces (and where is it hiding). The book is called Satre Nau, the author is Manzar Hussain Akhtar. Having encountered several forewords one after the other I thought maybe these were originally written for separate books and have now been compiled in a single volume. But then I turned another page and to my surprise came upon poetry. Why, I wondered, should poetry ...
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If Harry Potter were desi, his broom would be a jharoo and his Snitch a laddoo
Harry Potter’s last film is coming out (in Pakistan) on July 22 and somewhere in semi-peaceful parts of Karachi, not shown on TV, a couple of kids are getting ready for the biggest event of their lives. If their city will allow them to. When Harry Potter’s last book was released, bookshops around the world were told to release Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at exactly the same time, lest some overeager fan typed up the book on the internet and ruined it for everyone by not operating on GMT. That meant at 4:30 am every book outlet in Karachi ...
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A 55-year-old security guard with a big dream
Sitting at the entrance to the computer lab, at the Aga Khan University (AKU), seemingly like the many other guards around, he wears the usual uniform as people passed by him. What not many notice is that on his desk sits a copy of Thomas Hardy’s “Far from the Madding Crowd” and during the breaks he gets, he sits and reads voraciously. Saleem Akhtar, 55 years of age, has picked up his books again, and he is on his way to becoming an Intermediate graduate. Standing at about five feet four inches, sporting a henna-stained beard with half-rimmed reading glasses ...
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Riaz wanted to learn English
It was almost 11 years ago when I stopped my car at the Teen Talwar traffic light to be greeted by the usual herd of beggars, windscreen cleaners and newspaper sellers. One of the newspaper sellers, Riaz, a total of four feet in height, asked me for a lift to the Marriot signal. Irritated by the commotion around me, I chose to ignore him. Rather than moving on, he boldly walked in front of my car, locked eyes with me, stuck his teeth out like President Asif Zardari would, if he stared at the sun, and performed a mini-break dance ...
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Reading for the soul: Helping kids love books
Today was the last day of my self-conceived experiment at a school in Lahore. A few months ago I had offered three hours a week of my precious time to read stories to my daughter’s kindergarten classmates. I was convinced that after months of interacting with these children I‘d be able to flush out and pacify a bully terrorising my delicate daughter. It would also, I reasoned, provide a good opportunity for a bookseller like myself to test that age-old lament that the youth of today lack the attention span for books – although granted, by “youth” most parents ...
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Let’s talk about sex
While the Behavioural Surveillance Survey (BSS) found a vast majority of young people in Pakistan to be sexually active, another study showed that Pakistan is witnessing a rise in sexual abuse cases. Statistics released by an NGO, Sahil, in a report called “Cruel Numbers Report 2010,” reveal that victims of sexual abuse comprise 73 per cent girls and 27 per cent boys. These findings mock the belief that young people do not know, need not know, or, have nothing to do with, sexuality because they are protected by Pakistan’s culture and tradition. Abuse and violence shouldn’t be the only standpoints to ...
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Should Justin Bieber replace Osama bin Laden?
Okay, so now that big bad Osama bin bad hair day is dead the question that all of us are asking is “who will be taking over as the head of al Qaeda?” The position definitely requires charismatic leadership and the ability to strategize but if the group is to stay relevant they may want to think about a new kind of leader. Here are my suggestions: Justin Bieber: Who better to lead a bunch of frustrated, young kids with way too much spare time on their hands in an ultimate battle of good against evil? Bieber is (insanely) passionate, has a (zombie-cult) ...
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