Coke Studio Ep 1: Thank you for ‘Larsha Pekhawar Ta’
The first episode of “Coke Studio” season five has lead to an interesting debate amongst its fans. Did the studio do justice to rap with Bohemia’s rendition? Has Hadiqa Kayani come of age? These questions and others have been making the rounds. One thing that is glaringly obvious is that an artist’s sincerity can be judged from behind the scenes (BTS) clips. For instance, Humayun Khan sounded like a mature artist when he spoke about his experience of completing his education first and then switching to music, that too, at a time when the music landscape of Peshawer was changing. But ...
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Shabnam: A bright star of a bygone era
In the 60s, Shabab and Evernew studios were considered the two best film studios in Lollywood. Any director in Lahore would want to shoot his films there. Like many legends of that era, the beautiful Shabnam also spent most of her time shooting at these locations. After 14 years, Shabnam returned to Pakistan last month. Although Shahab no longer exists and Evernew is not what it used to be, Shabnam’s fans were keen to have one more glimpse of her as she visited her colleagues in Lahore. Film technicians who had worked with Shabnam back in the day described her as a ...
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10 things I hate about being a Pakistani gamer
For many in Pakistan, video games are still in the same category as children’s cartoons – which I still watch, by the way. But for hardcore gamers, video games can be a form of art that aside from providing entertainment, can also stimulate one on an artistic and intellectual level. Personally, I’d like to see a child perfectly execute a bomb disposal with zero casualties in the tactical shooter, Rainbow Six, or lead their nation to world domination in the strategy game, Sid Meier’s Civilisation. Also, I’d love to see a child frag me in an online shooter, like Battlefield. Okay, ...
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Mata e Jaan Hai Tu: A new age drama
Humsafar fever is over. The drama may be remembered but the excitement has ended before you can sigh “Khirad”. But there is a new drama on the block! Hum TV’s Mata e Jaan Hai Tu is based on a novel by Farhat Ishtiaq who also wrote Humsafar. Honestly, when the promos for the show were first aired I couldn’t even understand the name Mata e Jan properly! So, what got me hooked? The cast. Over time, directors have understood the importance of faces that brand the drama. This drama stars: Sarwat Gillani, Adeel Husain, Sanam Saeed, Junaid Khan and Sajida Syed. In the show Sarwat Gilani plays Hainya, a girl ...
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Why fighting Mullah Radio is not easy
It was on May 7, 2006 that our team started the transmission of Radio Khyber, located within Khyber Agency, one among the seven districts of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) in the north-western part of the country. I started transmitting with a passion to empower local people and give them a voice- a voice which had been kept silent since 1901, the day the colonial empire of India promulgated the Frontier Crime Regulation (FCR) in Fata. The FCR was designed by the British, who used the region’s own tribal traditions and social psyche to rule ruthlessly over the territory. All the ...
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Cinema and class
Film as a revolutionary art form has for some time been at direct odds with the commercialisation of cinema, because it has put those on the margins in popular discourse. The decline of Pakistan’s local film industry has also coincided with changing economic structures in which the industry used to operate. Cinema has since long been associated with projection of national identity. With the advent of globalisation, film has been used to project various group identities and has also changed the paradigm in which culture functions. In the 1970s, Indian actor Amitabh Bachan had come to represent the quintessential anti-hero in ...
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Meet Chota Jatt, the Pakistani superhero
My goal while making Chota Jatt was to provide the children of Pakistan with a character they could relate to. I wanted to give them a role model. Inspired by Lollywood movies from the 70s and Japanese Anime, Chota Jatt tells the story of the legend behind the man who inspired an entire movie genre (Maula Jatt), and highlights Pakistan’s rich culture. The character Chota Jatt uses his strength to fight for justice and to battle against corruption. The series will be high octane, action packed and hilarious. Currently, in Pakistan there is very little programming done for children, particularly those from the ...
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“My family thinks I’m disgusting”
Transgenders are often forced to live under miserable conditions in Pakistan. Society does not accept them and they live as outcasts who are discriminated against in every field of life. This treatment extends not only to strangers but the family of transgenders too, who disown them and may even beat them till they are forced to leave their homes. In this video we learn of the humiliation they are regularly made to suffer. People not only mock and ridicule them, they do not allow transgenders to study alongside them in school. Many eunuchs are, thus, forced to live a life of begging, ...
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Accidents are not entertainment
It was a sunny afternoon in Paris, and my family and I were just stepping out of the glorious Sacré-Coeur basilica when our discussion on Romano-Byzantine architecture was cut short by the sight of an injured man lying on the stairs. I wasn’t precisely sure what had happened to him. All I knew was that he was breathing heavily and that there was blood streaming down his leg. The terrace was filled with tourists and worshipers, but only three people were sitting next to this wounded gentleman: one of them was a security officer; the second one, a female tourist who ...
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The domino effect of terrorism
While the dictionary defines it as the “use of violence and intimidation in pursuit of political aims there is no unanimous legal definition of ‘terrorism’ If it was up to me, I would define it as a continual dose of fear that creates uncertainty, distrust and melancholy. That melancholy triggers depression, which in turn gives birth to numerous psychological ailments. Recently, a noted psychiatrist from Peshawar, Dr Khalid Mufti, released a survey report, conducted under his supervision by an NGO called Horizon. According to the survey, 80 per cent of South and North Waziristan residents are suffering from mental illness while ...
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