10 breakup blunders you can avoid
My cable operator recently found a way to irk me and my childhood friend with a particular music channel that he constantly televises. Repeatedly playing “Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely” by the Backstreet Boys and the Titanic theme song, throws us back into a galaxy far away, purposely buried away, of our first love and the breakup that followed. Nobody likes talking about breakups, but these sappy songs reminded us of some absurdities we have gathered along the way and how to avoid them. Here are a few: 1. Breakup shopping Before throwing away your months’ salary on shoes and bags, just remember, ...
Read Full Post
A short, myopic and utterly biased guide to bookstores in Lahore
Let me qualify this first: by ‘books’ I almost exclusively mean books of fiction and poetry — and my judgment of bookstores rests entirely on the said collections. So, go read some other column if you’re into politics or that kind of a thing. Just go away. (Also, I don’t discuss Urdu books here either; there will be another piece for that.) Now let’s begin with the usual suspects, Ferozesons and Sang-e-Meel, which have traditionally provided shadier grounds for fiction lovers. Over the past few years, however, these two have fallen on hard times — and it seems to me, ...
Read Full Post
Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows, Pottermore and saying good bye
Indeed, it all ends here as millions around the world unwillingly let go of a rope that for the last fourteen years has allowed us to descend– nay, apparate – into the most fantastical, timeless world ever to have been conjured (pun intended). Last Thursday author JK Rowling joined the Harry Potter cast in Britain, fictional home of Potter’s mystical world of magic, to promote the final film in the seven-film series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two. The cast, transformed from mousey-haired, ambrosial little children into chic, downright dapper young adults, spent hours mingling with fans as they ...
Read Full Post
For the love of books: One woman’s battle
We are not always the monstrous creatures depicted in newspapers. There are people around us who are working for the betterment of society. These are people who keep hope alive when everything around us is falling apart and crumbling into disorder. The idea was simple: to help. While most of us were fixated on how the last game of Manchester United turned out or busy posting videos of a pleading man being mercilessly shot dead by the law itself I felt hope because of a young woman I have never met. She is one person who is bent on changing the lives of ...
Read Full Post
Digital piracy: Sharing is not stealing
Today, we are witness to an increasing number of crackdowns on piracy, with the police raiding street vendors, storerooms and middlemen involved in piracy of media goods including music CDs, VCDs, DVDs, books, software CDs, etcetera, with tougher laws, heavier penalties and fines, and with increasing court cases filed by media producers against pirates. However, piracy is an overwhelming force, with millions of criminals working hand in hand with consumers – us, the people who patronise the theft in films, music, comics, books, and other media goods. Sharing is not stealing: At least, it shouldn’t be How about digital piracy though? ...
Read Full Post
No tea for Mortenson…
I met Greg Mortenson at the Authors Festival in Carmel, California while I was attending grad school in the area. We chatted for half an hour and swapped contact information so we could meet in Pakistan. While in Pakistan, I rang up his Central Asia Institute (CAI) contact, Suleman, to arrange a meeting but Mortenson’s trip was cancelled because of his heart condition. Nevertheless we kept in touch through emails and Facebook. I made an effort to see the CAI schools in Skardu while I was visiting those areas during my summer break. After my return to California, a group ...
Read Full Post
The demise of reason
“Being in your company”, said Bahadur Shah Zafar, the principal convict after India’s battle for independence in 1857, “is nothing like what it used to be; it’s harder for one to speak up than it ever was.” The entire experience of those troubled times informs the verse. Strangely, what we are going through nowadays is very similar. Voice the littlest of dissent and you hear a bullet whiz by or a must-be-killed edict. The prudent counsel, therefore, is to shun religious debate. To hear whatever interpretation is being put forward for Islam and to remain quiet. But there are those ...
Read Full Post
Saeed Book Bank: Another casualty in KP
It’s not that I never anticipated the closure of one of Peshawar’s largest and oldest bookstores, Saeed Book Bank, yet that news still broke my heart. I can’t exactly recall my first visit to the store but I do know it was the best book store in the province. Saeed Book Bank has been regarded as a site worth mentioning to tourists in Peshawar. It has served the literary and educational needs of the people of KP for over five decades. Saeed Book Bank was established in 1955 by Saeed Jan Qureshi. His sons took over the family business in 1985. ...
Read Full Post
The Deathly Hallows: Harry Potter comes of age
The Harry Potter series has come a long way since the first book. The film adaptations have managed to stay true to J K Rowling’s books and the latest film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the seventh in the series – tells the darker side of the that story audiences world over have come to love. The film takes us into the mind of Lord Voldemort, the darkest wizard of all time whom Harry must defeat by the end of his quest. Unlike previous films, there is no attempt to tone down the dark cruelty of the Death ...
Read Full Post
Works on Faiz and other books
Were he alive today, Ahmad Nadim Qasmi would have found the current fervour and growing unanimity of acclaim for Faiz Ahmad Faiz quite intriguing since he thought that his own sidelining as a secondary figure of contemporary Urdu poetry during the latter’s lifetime had something to do with class and lifestyle. With class and lifestyle gone with the man, now what remains, Qasmi Sahib would have wondered, but his poetry and his memory? Is that worth making so much fuss about? In the realm of the arts, relative greatness cannot be determined with a measuring tape. Faiz Sahib himself made no such ...
Read Full Post
