Here’s a video I made recently. It is a collection of people and events that have shaped the way I see the world today. The song by Live is a personal favourite and quite accurately portrays my thoughts. I am sure I have missed out a lot of important personalities and events, but I fit in as much as I could. Anyway, hope you like it. Will be looking forward to your comments.
Continue reading ‘Good Pain’
Archive for December, 2006 Page 2 of 3
Ah! Much has been said about the vast degrees of progress we have made in the past decade or so…the country has indeed inched forward…the path to success has been laid…ladies and gentleman we are now on the yellow-brick road…
If you doubt it…just take a look around you. Yes we’ve achieved steady growth rates of between 6-8% in our GDP for the past three years…the banking and financial sector is flourishing…look around at all the cars…traffic is at its peak cuz everybody is doing well-they have their own cars….and whats that…a plethora of imported sports cars…hmmm we must have really hit the jackpot!!!
But wait a sec…what’s that I spot out of the corner of my eye…an advertisement in the local Dawn newspaper…what does it say….
Wait a sec chum…we were so busy blowing the progress horn we forgot all about one simple detail… “The Pakistani Mentality!!!!”
Another clip from fifty fifty. ‘Classics’ will be a regular feature on this blog showing video clips of interesting, entertaining TV programmes, interviews, songs etc. of the past.
Continue reading ‘Classics: Fifty fifty - Biased hockey commentary’
Democracy…a simple word best defined by “for the people, by the people”. Since independence the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has sought the true meaning of this word and has made countless efforts to decree itself a democratic state.
Alas all its efforts have eventually come undone. This leads us to the question…isn’t it time that we-the Pakistani nation-opened our eyes to the fact that we just are not cut out for democracy???
It’s a bitter pill to swallow…but the sooner we realize it the quicker we will move on…and perhaps progress from the rut we have been in for the past six decades or so…. Continue reading ‘The Democracy Dilemma’
Jamil Dehlavi is the man who made Immaculate Conception and Jinnah. He now tackles the very ‘hot’ topic of terrorism in his latest film Infinite Justice (Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan was initially called Infinite Justice), which was recently shown at the Kara Film Festival. I made my way down because the movie had been advertised as being losely based on Daniel Pearl’s story. Therefore it was ironic that the director of the festival, Hassan Zaidi, made an annoucement before the start that they had never claimed the movie to be about Daniel Pearl. This was because the producer of the actual Daniel Pearl movie i.e. Brad Pitt et al threatened to sue the Festival and the producers of this movie as they posessed the rights to the real story.
Continue reading ‘Movie Review: Infinite Justice - Jamil Dehlavi’
Ali Khurshid, a student at Indus Valley, has been chosen as one of Time magazine’s 15 ‘Persons of the Year’.
I guess this is part of Time’s ‘You’ Person of the Year theme this year. They have selected 15 people from all walks of life who have contributed to the online community. It really is something to be proud of that one of the 15 is a Pakistani, but I really find this to be an absurd idea. Continue reading ‘Time’s Person of the Year: Ali Khurshid’
The government has made certain changes to the Pakistan Studies curriculum. I couldn’t agree more with the need for a certain action. As someone who has studied the subject I can honestly say that it was probably the most biased subject I have ever read. Many subjects have biases, especially those that have something to do with history, but Pakistan Studies taught me the concept of ‘us vs. them’. It left behind all kinds of rationality and tried to portray the Pakistanis (Muslims) and Indians (Hindus) as ‘good’ and ‘evil’. In a way the subject encouraged Pakistani youth to be emotional, irrational human beings with a distorted appreciation of events. The new curriculum ensures that all such material that promotes prejudice against the non-Muslims of prepartition India is exluded.
It might be advisable to add something on the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. We are hardly told anything about what happened. Why not add that, according to most estimates, hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi men were murdered and thousands of women raped? Continue reading ‘Pakistan Studies Curriculum: What about Bangladesh?’
A lot of the roads in Karachi have been dug up. There is no doubt that this is all for good reasons, however a little better planning would avoid any need to digup these roads. I do not doubt the city planners and civil engineers intentions for one second (though there is good reason to because of the huge amount of taxpayers’ money going into rebuilding of roads), but I certainly do doubt their competence.
Continue reading ‘Karachi’s roads: Lack of planning and purpose’
Noori’s new video Meray Log is out. You can view it here
It is a slow, soothing song with nice meaningful lyrics. What’s great about the lyrics, which is true for a lot of Noori songs, is that they can be interpreted in many different ways. However, amazingly, more often than not, Noori adopts the most simplistic meaning for its videos. This could mean that at times I give them too much credit for something which they never intended. Either that, or that they do not consider the Pakistani audience to be able to understand the depth in their songs. This video doesn’t really show anything apart from several unappealing and unnecessary closeups of people’s faces. Disappointing!
Lyrics Continue reading ‘Noori’s Meray Log: Disappointing Video’
This theory developed when I personally experienced the consequences of an ongoing practice at restaurants, shopping malls and a cinema in Karachi. One of my friends and I had wanted to have an ice-cream cone from one of the fast food chains in the city. However, on approaching the doors we were told that Friday, Saturday and Sunday were family days and we could not enter without our family. This was not the only time I was affected by this practice. Once I had to convince my parents to accompany me and my male friends to a Cineplex in Defence. At another time, I had to sneak into a posh local shopping mall to get my laptop fixed on a ‘family Sunday’. So what is a ‘family’? A ‘family’ in Karachi’s posh public places is defined as a female or a group containing at least one female, regardless of any relationship, blood or otherwise. Continue reading ‘The clusterf*** theory’
