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Karachi and the festivals
-Dawn.com PhotoI relocated to Karachi about a half a year ago and among the volatility and religio-political grandstanding of the city rolled out all sorts of festivities and festivals.In a short span...
View ArticleThe rechristening of Patel Park
Upon careful examination, you will realise that the Karachi Municipality’s maps of the city of the years 1941 and 1971 are pretty much the same. In 1941, most areas in the city were recognised through...
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Movie Review: Highway
—Photo Courtesy UTV Motion PicturesA young, rich girl is smitten by the road – and her kidnapper. One of the first words Veera (Alia Bhatt) utters to her prissy soon-to-be husband is: “Lets run away”....
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A network of networks needed for Planning Commission
This is the second of a two-part series on planning in Pakistan. Read part 1 here. Can one organisation, with few dozen employees, generate solutions for the myriad problems Pakistan faces? The answer...
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Karachi Eat
A view of the stalls at the Karachi Eat Food Festival.Having been in Karachi only two months, I have since been on a mission to try as much desi food as possible. And so, when I heard about the two-day...
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Wear that you care
Rare diseases are known to affect every one in 10 people, so it is safe to assume we all know at least one person who has a condition that has no treatment, cure or support available, locally or...
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The 10 best Pakistani political/social parody songs … ever!
10: Saban-Waban Chor: Majid Jahangir and Ismail Tara (1978)The passionate South Asian music genre of the Qawali reached a peak in popularity among urban Pakistanis in the mid and late 1970s. Two of the...
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Movie Review: Pompeii
In old Rome days, a gladiator falls for royalty, around the time a mountain makes history. In what is director Paul W. S. Anderson’s first recent film without wife Milla Jovovich, we see much, much...
View ArticleOn talks, terror and the people’s truth
Talks are the talk of the town. Terror too. Amidst talks and terror, truth feels to be missing like a forgotten tragedy. Far beyond the cosmetic eloquence of the talkers and the terrifying tales of...
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YouTube ban: Running out of excuses
-FileOne fine evening in September 2012, a law abiding, zealous and concerned countryman made a phone call to the Prime Minister’s office “Raja sahab, have you read the news? The Libyans have killed...
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A king’s rage versus a woman’s power
Sheherazade’s story I must tell but first, I should tell you the story of two powerful kings, one of whom married a woman a night. In the morning, each was beheaded. Why?Now if you ask his courtiers,...
View ArticleRatan Talao guruduwara: Between a mosque and a madrassah
Akhtar Balouch, also known as the Kiranchi Wala, ventures out to bring back to Dawn.com’s readers the long forgotten heritage of Karachi. Stay tuned to this space for his weekly fascinating...
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Food Stories: Pulao
This may just be my dearest food story yet, for my mother made legendary pulao, and while researching this story I stumbled upon information that has made it even more personal. The aromatic...
View ArticleFizza Malik: Beyond the death toll
For the first time in my life today, the number 11 felt greater than what I had ever been taught. Larger than a mere numeral, much heavier than just a statistic.I went back to the news story I had read...
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Think tanks and thought buckets
Once they were rare and elitist. Now they are ubiquitous and accepting. Still, affiliation with a reputed think tank is a coveted prize for intellectuals and thought leaders. While thousands of think...
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Can reporters stay out of my home when I am grieving?
Within hours of the tragedy, a news channel crew, consisting of a reporter, a cameraman and a driver, was already making its way through the home of Fizza Malik, a victim of the latest devastation to...
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Movie Review: Gunday
A scene from movie, "Gunday". – Courtesy Photo Ruffian, coal-robbing blood-brothers, separated by a woman’s touch.When the frames in Gunday aren’t marveling at the chiseled, sweat-dripping,...
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A possible third
On the fifth cycle of the larger moon, in the seven hundred and fortieth rotation of the planet, the Kingdom of Nari erupted with an unprecedented anger. King Uri Baldesh, the seventieth royal...
View Article'I heard no explosion, just a deadly silence'
Fear throbbed through me when I saw him arrive.He was a young man with a stubble, his eyes gazing into a void. He had his hands clasped together – occasionally searching the pockets of his roughly...
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HerStory: Seven defining moments for the Pakistani woman
Begum Liaquat Ali Khan, talks on "Women of Pakistan" at Town Hall, in New York, New York. -Photo Courtesy: Truman Library. They are the hardy flowers of an uncertain spring. Pakistani women are one...
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