How to live-tweet a wedding
Twitter has enabled news to be transmitted within mere seconds. Now, ordinary people are able to take part in the way information travels and even add their opinion to it. Recently, many have started using this platform to describe an event with a constant flow of tweets. This practice is known as “live-tweeting.“ The phenomenon of live-tweeting was popularised during the Arab Spring. Since then, we have seen many an incident being live-tweeted. Whether it is the Osama bin Laden operation, Whitney Houston’s funeral, or even an abortion, live-tweeting is the new fad. So perfected is this practice that there even exist many guidelines on how ...
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10 terms desis on the internet need to stop using
1.Dis/Dat/Dere: Every time I see a “dis”, a “dat”, or a “dere”, I can hear a Pakistani English language teacher crying softly somewhere. Here is a hint: try using those words with a “th” instead of a “d”, and the next time you pick arguments with Indian cricket fans on YouTube, you might actually sound less moronic! It is just *one* more letter people! 2.‘Nuff said: Short for ‘enough said’, the correct use of this phrase is to complete a very short, usually emphatic sentence. Instead, what we do is end a sentence with ‘Nuff said, and then follow it with a ...
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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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10 travel tips for the desi explorer
There are two ways to travel – like an invited guest, you can ring the doorbell, enter through the front door and have your host guide you to the prized room of the house while they serve you in their finest china, make small talk and control your experience of the place – or, you can enter through the back door, through the kitchen, see what’s cooking on the stove, set the table, make tea and find your own comfort zone to enjoy the experience at will. The former is a tourist, the latter an explorer and mastering the ...
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In search of a tea house
Being an army officer’s daughter, I have seen many cities in Pakistan. To say that I have been exposed to various cultures however, would be wrong as the only culture I have an understanding of is that of the army. Most of my adult life however, I have been in Islamabad. Islamabad is the closest it gets to any city being my home. There’s something about the Margallas, the wide clean roads, the neatly laid shopping malls, the winter mornings and the summer afternoons in Islamabad that is so familiar, so comforting. Just recently I had a chance to live in ...
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Islamabad Etcetera: The navab’s guard of desi farangis
This little preamble shall serve as a disclaimer, for in one’s present attempt, one is by no means being actively obnoxious or wilfully indelicate about one’s chosen subject today, fellow compatriots. Taking swipes at one’s countrymen is nearly always construed as bad taste. Some creeping abasement, some personal impulsion staining one’s argument, denying its objectivity. But regardless of this oft-resorted to response, one will press on. Pakistanis in the employ of foreigners are a special breed. Like a Gunga Din, an Uncle Tom, these trusted servants, like their literary or historic forebears, are a buffer to their employers, factotums who ...
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A few American brats you know
Alarmingly large numbers of Pakistanis are heading to colleges abroad. It’s become a status symbol. Parents dole out ridiculous amounts of money to make sure their kids – especially their sons – get a degree from a foreign college, however bad, or expensive. Experiencing life at a college in the US makes it easy for me to see what becomes of most of them. Forgive me; I’m going to take the liberty to generalise. The way I look at, if you place the typical Pakistani male at an American college then he’ll be sure to fall into one or more ...
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