Professional beggars: More greedy than needy
Allah keh naam par 10 rupay dey dey beta. (Please give me Rs10 in God’s name, son.) Roti khila dey, tujhey ek naik aur khubsurat biwi miley. (Give me bread to eat and you will find a beautiful, decent wife) How many times have we heard this and cringed from deep within? Such phrases are played like rhythmic rhetoric every time you park your car on a signal. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a feudal lord’s son who will throw acid on his wife, neither do I commute in a chauffeur driven, air-conditioned SUV. I’m a common Pakistani who walks the same streets like millions other ...
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Meet Umair, Pakistan’s very own child prodigy
Child prodigies are an eclectic bunch; being on the fast-track in the lane of life at such a tender age makes them so. Although, some go on to commit suicide, turn to crime and develop drink and drug problems, we remain irrevocably fascinated by them. We are overcome by their childhood achievements and allured by the fame and recognition they bring to the family. Secretly we wish in the depths of our hearts that our children would also do the same. However, what we fail to realise is the immense pressure that these kids are put under, the long hours that they spend ...
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Lusting for heroin, living in excess
My friends always did seem to be perpetually waiting for something. They wanted an explosion of culture and expression and art to suddenly rip open their city, something that they could be a part of. The explosion never came and they got tired of waiting. The paradigm shifted from making music, writing poetry and actually being productive to watching Basketball Diaries and Trainspotting, listening to Alice in Chains and Stone Temple Pilots. “They did heroin you know?” “We should do heroin.’’ “Why?” ‘’Because. What else can we do?’’ I saw it happen, this whole fascination with Americana and the people who made it – for ...
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Can Kabaddi ever be taken seriously?
Kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi. Dope, dope, dope. The biggest highlight of the Kabaddi World Cup 2011 earlier this month was not that India won the tournament but the fact that 45 players failed the dope test in a single event. The tournament featured 14 teams, but by the time it finished there were only 12 teams officially named at the closing ceremony. This is primarily because Australia was expelled as five of its players were tested positive for dope. The organisers, additionally, banned the US from the tournament before the semifinals as three of its players refused to take the dope test ...
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Land of confusion: Why we’ve lost the war on drugs
Recently it was the UN sanctioned International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, another day of world leaders, NGOs and others lying through their teeth about their success in ridding the world of the scourge of narcotic drugs to try and justify their pay checks. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is very different. If you’ve seen the Steven Soderbergh’s 2000 movie Traffic, a remake of the brilliant 1989 British television serial Traffik, starring Jamal Shah among others, you might remember a very relevant piece of dialogue. It happens when teenage junkie Caroline introduces herself during a rehab support group ...
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Will Shiney Ahuja know life behind bars?
Bollywood and crime have always had a strange connection, not only in reel life but also real life. Recently, Shiney Ahuja was sentenced to seven year imprisonment for raping his maid. The incident made many celebrities cry foul stating that they are soft targets. Meanwhile, many rejoice the fact that maybe, finally it is the end of celebrity feudalism. To be quite honest, for many celebrities being famous doesn’t go in their favour. When people file frivolous PILs (public interest litigations) over unimportant issues the paparazzi goes overboard highlighting the scandals to win more eyeballs, celebrity viewpoints are justified. In the case of ...
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The real women who will change Pakistan
Three women from diverse backgrounds and facing multiple challenges all seem to have one priority – education. I met Mussarat a few years ago. After losing her husband to a protracted illness, Mussarat brought up and educated her two daughters alone.She worked in a tube-light making factory, a sewing and stitching centre and also cleaned people’s homes- sometimes holding more than one job,simultaneously. She had been dependent on her father for her livelihood before marriage and her husband after her marriage. Uneducated and unskilled, she was left to fend for herself when her husband was no longer able to provide ...
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Pakistan needs a gun-control law
Has your car ever been stuck behind a police mobile in a traffic jam? If yes, then you may have found yourself staring in to the barrel of a rifle that lay snugly on a police officer’s lap. There is probable a security lock on these guns that are pointed directly at us, but the thought of an accidental shot always makes me move a little further away from the vehicles to ensure the gun is not pointing at me. What bothers me is that I have never seen the rifle pointing towards the vehicle, at another officer or the driver ...
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Kuch Khaas open mic night: Good times in Islamabad!
Last weekend I attended an open mic night at Kuch Khaas, a famous social enterprise in Islamabad. The occasion held all the promise to be yet another “mass brain cell genocide”; a phrase I use fondly each time I end up at one of these gigs. I had anticipated a night filled with tone-deaf kids hopped up on drugs, with couples leering in the corners and of course bad karaoke music. But I was wrong on all counts. This open mic night has to be one of the finest youth events I’ve attended in a long time. Kuch Khaas is located ...
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Guns and poppies in Sindh
There are powerful people who suddenly appear with lots of arms, all brand new, semi-automatic weapons, into villages like Buriro , in rural Dadu, Sindh. People, the poor villagers are asked to hand over the lands to them and just work as tillers and do what they are told . They are threatened with dire consequences and even death if they do not cooperate. The police looks away and a new crop is cultivated. I used to listen to a famous US rock and roll band named ‘Guns and Roses’. Now it seems Sindh has over the last two decades ...
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