Do you deserve what you desire?
"What I cannot find is what I am looking for. Aan kay yaft na meshavad, anum arzoo ast.”Rumi began the search. Centuries later, Iqbal joined him.Can someone please help me find what Rumi and Iqbal were...
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Movie Review: Godzilla comes with a lot of expensive action
In monster movies, when someone – preferably an anxious scientist – tells you that the happening electrical fluctuations aren't caused by transformer malfunctions, and that they are electromagnetic...
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Ranchor Line: 14 acres of an abandoned identity
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 findings....
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Food Stories: The royal Korma
There is no better curry in the world than a Korma cooked right. 'Korma probably derived from the Persian Koresh, a ghee-based mild stew the Moghuls indianised using cream, yogurt, ground almonds,...
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Virtual piety, Real sins
How does one sound like a good Muslim, as well as an advocate of free speech and anti-censorship all at the same time? That may be a dilemma for the tiny minority of Pakistan that is baffled by the...
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Murder in Rabwah
Rabwah is an Arabic word meaning "an elevated place". This is what Wikipedia says about Rabwah (also known as Chenab Nagar) but personal impressions are all the more relevant; and I know it be a...
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The Brazuca: A ballsy move by Sialkoti entrepreneurs
There is more to Pakistan than Bin Laden, polio, and terrorism. Pakistan is also the birthplace of the Brazuca, the official match ball for the 2014 FIFA world cup. Most Pakistanis, let alone the rest...
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Movie Review: X-Men: Days of Future Past is exhilarating
By this time one thing should be clear: Wolverine is the bone of the X-Men's franchise - metaphorically, and of course literally.In X-Men: Days of Future Past, an effective and simply-told adaptation...
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Review: Jolie's a fun hero-villain in 'Maleficent'
Maybe it's too soon to say the tide has shifted definitively. But it's certainly been a unique time for fairy-tale villains.After hundreds of years of moral clarity, suddenly we're getting a new look...
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Adding the desi tarka to MasterChef
Chef ZakirWhen I began watching the first episode of Masterchef Pakistan, my first instinct was to recall a humid night in Nazimabad where I had stood in line for the opening of the first ever...
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The Pakistan zeitgeists: A nation through the ages
The searching 50sPakistan was carved out from the rest of India in August 1947. It was made up of the region’s Muslim-majority areas on the west and east sides of colonial India. The creation of...
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Review: Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom feels criminally short
With a runtime that sits at a little over two hours, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom feels criminally short. As many of us know, Nelson Mandela was a great man who was chiselled by extremely complicated...
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A country of dead women
Before Farzana Parveen was bludgeoned to death with bricks there was Shahida Parveen who was sentenced to be stoned. In early 1988, when democracy was new and a woman was about to take over the helm of...
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An honour more important than life
Scheherzade tripped on a bone, half buried and half sprouting out of the ground like a plant. “This knave jowls it to the ground as if it were Cain's jawbone, that did the first murder,” said the bard...
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I'm not going to let my disorder define me
We live in a land where no one's life is free of trauma. When I first came out of the bipolar closet, I was overwhelmed by the support I received. I woke up to messages of solidarity every day. The...
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Movie Review: Oculus – “You see what it wants you to see”
In one gruesomely effective scene deep in Oculus, the new horror movie starring an eerie mirror, Kaylie (Karen Gillan), the movie’s young lead heroine, bites off what she thinks is an apple. Only, the...
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A letter to an unborn child
Photo by: Calmtwood/FlickrMy very dear little one,Unfortunately, I will not be celebrating your birth since I have already attended your funeral. I would never know how much pain you felt when bricks...
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MasterChef sizzles hot with foody drama
AneelaA famous (and probably untrue) story about the first screening of a film claims that when the audience saw a shot of a train moving towards the camera, several ran out in fear that the oncoming...
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Do the dare: Give education 4% of the GDP
Inadequate spending on education has left Pakistan lagging far behind other countries. What better way to make education a national priority than by increasing education spending to at least 4 per cent...
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A few hard facts for unemployed Pakistan
Illustration by Khalida HaqUnemployment is our number one problem. Irrespective of how you approach the unique set of challenges that face Pakistan, it seems that lack of employment is at the heart of...
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