10 things nosy ‘Pak’ers love to ask
Do you ever get riled up by busybodies asking annoying questions to ‘place’ people in their social world? Well, here are some conveniently snappy answers we wish we could respond with (you might even get away with some of them if you did; sarcasm is often lost on the unwitting). 1. Have you found anyone eligible yet? Yes (enter Mashallah), I have won the marriage lottery! She/he is, Mashallah, loaded and divorced only thrice. 2. Who is your father? He is Mian/Chaudhry (enter name) and owns (enter name of mill/bank). 3. What does your husband do? See answer number 2 please. 4. What village are you from? It doesn’t matter if you have never seen ...
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World Cup conspiracies: Bal Thackeray is an ISI agent
Everyone is talking about arch-rivals Pakistan and India facing each other in a World Cup semi-final on Wednesday. Here are a few golden statements that Pakistan cricket fans are making: Pakistan was given a place in the semi-final as a reward for releasing Raymond Davis. Reaching Mohali a week before the match is no good; the Pakistani players may get paid off. Indians are good at black magic – check out how their pundits throw amulets on the Mohali pitch. The Mohali pitch has been developed to assist the Indian players. Pakistanis will lose the match because they know the Indian crowd will beat the ...
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A tale of conspiracy: Why can’t we handle the truth?
Pakistanis welcome anything that rejects official explanations and prefer to adopt absurd theories. It’s no secret: we love conspiracy theories. We love hearing about them, we love entertaining them and we love spreading them. Perhaps it’s a third world phenomenon, where we instinctively suspect our surroundings. Or perhaps, it’s just illiteracy and the fact that in our part of the world, people are easily duped into believing anything. Take any of the following incidents as an example: whether it’s piecing together Raymond Davis’ actions in Lahore, suspecting entrapment of our oh-so-innocent cricketers, screaming foul when Rahat was arrested in New Delhi, and even ...
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Scandalous Islamabad: Facebook’s gossip vultures
On an idle Sunday afternoon spent eating pizza and chatting with my sisters-in-law, I was introduced to ‘Scandalous Islamabad’. In case you don’t know what it is, ‘Scandalous Islamabad’ is a Facebook group inspired by American TV show Gossip Girl (remember the mysterious “And who am I? That’s one secret I’ll never tell. You know you love me xoxo Gossip Girl?”) Currently, this Facebook group has a following of almost 5,000 people. The grapevine is active The group that was created in January this year keeps disappearing and reappearing. Apparently, this is because they got hacked. There is a post on their ...
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What really goes on in the Sindh Assembly
In June 2010, legislators from the Sindh Assembly zealously thumped their desks after passing a bill for the establishment of the “Sindh Revenue Board” to collect sales tax on services. While covering the story, I was surprised to know that a majority of legislators were not even aware of the bill’s significance; they didn’t know the difference between tax on services and tax on goods. One of the MPAs went on to say, “We have no idea about the bill; it is enough that we have supported it.” And I can assure these were the exact words of the lawmaker, who ...
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KLF 2011: The good, bad and ugly
I roped in some friends from my English Literature class to tag along with me to the Karachi Literature Festival at the Carlton Hotel this weekend, and we witnessed some enlightening talks and poor event management. We managed to catch the last bits of a talk on literature and extremism and therein began the bad. Noisy journos and social butterflies The talk was less of a discussion and more a press/socialite event with people standing around chatting to each other and cameramen rudely pushing their way around. Can someone please explain to me why journalists who were meant to cover the event ...
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Can we have more intelligent cricket stories, please?
For someone who loves the game of cricket, irrespective of which teams play, I must concede that covering cricket matches almost became an untenable career option for me. I joined journalism to be involved with the game I loved. Of course, like most aspiring cricket writers, I made a cardinal mistake about the way sports coverage functions – I assumed what I wrote would change the way things are perceived. However, that is not the reality. My initial perception of ‘changing the system’ with my work was soon shattered; I learned that it’s not just the content but how this content ...
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Fashion industry: The ugly world of pretty people
The fashion industry may look glamorous from the outside but it has some serious loopholes. It’s refreshing to see superstars air kissing at award shows and interviewing each other on morning TV shows and it may lead someone to think that this is the only industry in Pakistan where people actually get along. But this friendliness can turn pretty ugly if one knows the right amount of dirty secrets that surround this industry. What are some of these dirty secrets of the fashion industry? Primarily, there is a lot of nepotism and corruption in showbiz. I scratch your back In the Pakistani ...
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WikiLeaks: Gossip on a global level
We like to pretend that we’re indifferent to it. The fact of the matter, however, is that it exists all around us. Sometimes in the shape of a tete-a-tete, at other instances as an intelligence report or espionage leak, it all boils down to the same idea – information generated across the circles where it has no business being. Simply put, it is just the good old strangely satisfying thing we call gossip. “Log kya kahain gey” – a maxim we’d lived under all our lives, explains perfectly the very human desire to talk, converse, and ...
Read Full PostDo you have what it takes to be a society aunty?
Aunties are the essential thread that holds the delicate fabric of Pakistani society together. In fact, it’s quite surprising that a proportion of our country’s defence budget isn’t allocated towards the Aunty Brigade. ‘Society Aunties’ are the crème-de-la-crème of the Aunty Brigade. Deceptively formidable, they are armed with snubs, icy stares and an ammunition of feline comments. Beautifully groomed, dazzlingly arrayed, and possessing razor-sharp social finesse ‘Society Aunties’ reign drawing rooms, ballrooms, and fashionable weddings. Just don’t make the mistake of addressing them as ‘Aunty’ especially when they appear 39 and Botoxed while their classmates are getting hip replacements. Have you ...
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