The Express Tribune Magazine - April 20

APRIL 20-26 2014

The

News Room The survival guide for an Urdu newspaper in New York City

APRIL 20-26 2014

Feature

Borderline Politics In conversation with Ayesha Jalal

Cover Story The News Room

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Why Urdu newspapers are thriving in New York City

Feature

An [un]usual day at the market The Islamabad sabzi mandi is a source of sustenancef or hundreds of families

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4

34 Regulars

6 People & Parties: Out and about with beautiful people

38 Review: Movies and books 42 Festivities: The history and tradition of Easter

Magazine In-charge: Sarah Munir and Sub-Editors: Dilaira Mondegarian and Zehra Qureshi Creative Team: Essa Malik, Jamal Khurshid, Samra Aamir, Kiran Shahid, Munira Abbas, Sanober Ahmed & Talha Ahmed Khan Publisher: Bilal A Lakhani. Executive Editor: Muhammad Ziauddin. Editor: Kamal Siddiqi For feedback and submissions: magazine@tribune.com.pk Twitter: @ETribuneMag & Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ETribuneMag Printed: uniprint@unigraph.com

PEOPLE & PARTIES Abeer and Maham

PHOTOS COURTESY CATALYST PR

Bebek launches its spring/ summer 2014 collection in Karachi

Mehreen and Mishal

Zara

Sadia Nawabi

erazi

Alyzeh Rahim Sh

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Maryam, Faraz Alam, Areeba and Komal Malik

PEOPLE & PARTIES Aim Couture by Anmber Iqbal launches its zirconia collection in Lahore

PHOTOS COURTESY BILAL MUKHTAR EVENTS & PR

Sonu and Saba

Rizzi and Rabia Javed

Sophiya Khan

Lubna Farhad ina Batool

Anum Abid and Am

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Usman and Anmber Iqbal

PEOPLE & PARTIES

Porsche Pakistan hosts a Royal Ascot-themed brunch in Lahore

d Mehr Butt

Sehr Lone an

llah

PHOTOS COURTESY CATALYST PR AND LOTUS PR

Zahraa Saifu

Zara Shahjahan and Nehzat

Nayab and Risham Saqib

Attiya Rashid, Sana Noon and Iqraa Mansha

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Anoushey, Zo, Faryal and Yasmeen

PEOPLE & PARTIES ohi

Farida and Ro

PHOTOS COURTESY SHAHEEN KHAN

Shaheen Khan exhibits her latest collection at the annual SAARC exhibition

azneen

Azra and N

Nilofer

Shawana

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Zareen with a friend

PEOPLE & PARTIES

Mahbina and Saniy a

PHOTOS COURTESY LOTUS PR

Mahnoush, the lawn brand, celebrates its anniversary in Lahore

and

Shireen and Arjum

Uzma Khan

Huma

Saadia Nooray, Rima,

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and Zainab

Fatima Kasuri

PEOPLE & PARTIES ith his son

Zafar Alam w

The shoe brand Aura opens its outlet in Lahore

a

a and Persic

Noreen, Ann

Ali Abbas, Ayub and Salman

Micheal and Sonia Prof Lukas Albert Werth

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The

News

How to run an Urdu newspaper in New York City TEXT AND PHOTOS BY PURVI THACKER DESIGN BY TALHA KHAN

Room

In the basement of a brightly lit South Asian video and DVD store situated in a busy thoroughfare of Jamaica, Queens, 61-year-old Khalilur Rehman adjusts his print glasses as he feverishly edits a hand-written Urdu article, which has to be sent to Lahore, Pakistan, where it will then be typed out. On the opposite side of the cluttered table, his Hyderabadi wife, Anjum Khalil, patiently sifts through sheets of printed Urdu stories and scratches out and re-writes sentences. Old issues of newspapers, a few pens and highlighters, calendars and other office supplies lay carelessly strewn over the L-shaped desk setup, surrounded by four chairs and two desktops. A handful of overhanging wires connecting the computers with a router, scanner, fax-machine and printer dangle from various shelves and walls, giving the place an almost warehouse-like feeling. This is the New York newsroom of the oldest and largest weekly Urdu language newspaper, The Urdu Times. Run by the husband-wife duo, this Pakistani weekly is the most widely read Urdu language newspaper in North America and has 14 print and online editions in the United States, Canada and Britain. It also enjoys the largest circulation for an Urdu paper outside of Pakistan, according to its owners. And the paper’s free availability makes it even more unusual compared to other publications.

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COVER STORY Le(a)ding the market Raised in Islamabad by an uppermiddle class family, Khalil says he had “no real job” before he migrated abroad. “It was around 1979 and I worked in the floor covering or carpet business,” he reminisces. “I had no intention of publishing or doing any newspaper business.” His trajectory from an odd-job immigrant to the founder, editor and publisher of The Urdu Times has been remarkable for someone without any journalism background or publishing in-

This venture eventually paved way for The Urdu Times in 1991, at a time when there was a dearth of Urdu journalism. “I moved shop from Manhattan to Jamaica, Queens, and stopped carrying bags containing sheets and rolls of faxed news from the Pakistani consulate,” he explains. Instead he started toying with existing technology to get him his news. With his number 286 basic computer, he managed to churn out stories for the tabloid-sized Urdu

Khalilur Rehman and his wife Anjum Khalil, the duo behind The Urdu Times, the most widely read Urdu weekly newspaper in North America. frastructure.

At the time, Indian immigrants in New York had started publishing newspapers centred on South Asian news, which usually had a negative angling towards Pakistan. “Now I am a liberal person, but misrepresenting my homeland and community is not justified,” he says. He also recalls that during the 1980s there was a vacuum in the market for Pakistan-centric news. Both reasons spurred him to start his own newspaper, The Eastern Times, an English language weekly, as there was no typesetting or calligraphy for Urdu at the time. The paper eventually folded, but Khalil had set the wheels in motion. He had single-handedly “self-taught and self-made” a publishing business, in an environment where he had to rely on borrowed teleprinters from the Pakistani con26 sulate.

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The New York newsroom for The Urdu Times where and reworked for a Pakistani American audience. publication from Pakistani newspapers and utilised the then newly developed 12-point font Urdu typecast and stencils for headlines. Every week he booked a call to Lahore, where he would have had someone record five or six Urdu stories emerging from the local media and phone record the clips. He would then transcribe those stories, develop new angles and re-write them. “My subject matter was anything to do with Pakistan, South Asia and Muslims,” he says. He would then distribute these papers in a bookstore that existed by Grand Central (now by the MetLife building) in Manhattan.

With a staff of 18, consisting of four typists, he tried to sell the paper, but with scant luck. With limited Urdu newspaper readers in the community, who didn’t fully understand the business or anything about local advertising, Khalil had no other choice

Imran, a Pakistani American, skims through the classified section of The Urdu Times. The paper enjoys a large readership in the New w York ork desii community.

news is procured from various sources

Khalilur Rehman entered the publishing business in order to fill the vacuum for Pakistan-centric news in New York. Today, The Urdu Times , is the most widely read Urdu newspaper in North America

but to make his paper available for ness advertisements also proved to be lucrative.

“Corporate ads brought in some decent revenue free so he could improve readership. and our position as the only Urdu language paThe Big (B)ad world per appealed to the community,” he says. For the For Khalil, combining passion with non-computer savvy older immigrant commutechnological advances was one nity that was used to reading Urdu papers, The thing, but using his entrepreneur- Urdu Times served as a dual resource — for them to ial judgment to sustain the business get news in their mother tongue from Pakistan was the need of the hour. Post-1995, along with staying updated with the local hapthe newspaper market expanded due penings and deals in New York. to the rising number of Pakistani Muhammed Farooqi was appointed editor of immigrants to the United States. The Urdu Times, just when Khalil moved to JamaiUsing the budding community as a ca, Queens. But soon, he too realised that it was resource, Khalil started procuring important for the community to get a taste of local advertisements ranging from the day-to-day issues and incorporate hyper local elements. To fill that gap, he started The Pakistan Post, which focused on in-depth, long form community-centric news. “For the older generation, reading a newspaper is a basic, it is a necessity,” he explains.

While Farooqi and Khalil have long since consolidated and set a standard advertising rate so that both papers can mutually coexist, other small-time Urdu papers have sprung up to contend within the South Asian community, which has caused a divide in advertising revenue. Both, The Pakistan Post and The Urdu Times can be found stacked side by side atop racks at several of the city’s community newspaper distribution spots, but often smaller Pakistani weeklies will be strategically moved to the top. Popular spots of distribution are outside mosques, community centres, South Asian grocery stores and ethnic neighbourhoods like Jackson Heights, Murray Hill and even outside the Empire State building.

Old editions of the newspaper can be found at their office in the form of hard copies. halal meat in ethnic grocery stores, local South Asian travel agencies advertising for Haj, to Islamic community centre ads. He slowly progressed onto corporate ads, which consisted of Western Union money transferring, long-distance phone cards and cell phone ads. The engineers and doctors in the Pakistani community were prospering, and so local busi-

Overseas sources, local angle Both papers have moved their major operations to offices in Lahore. This outsourcing has been strategically done in keeping with the rising costs and lowering readership. “Do you know that one man’s payroll here covers the cost of employing four people in Pakistan,” explains Khalil.

He says he made the conscious decision of hiring a 10-man team in Lahore, simply because it was more economical to cover staff as well as printing and production expenses.

His crew in Lahore usually sends him a selection of daily news, which he then uses his editorial judgment to pick, angle and handwrite 27 APRIL 20-26 2014

about the fact that “ads are the master” for a market like New York where circulation is estimated to be around 15,000 copies weekly. Sometimes if there are more classifieds (featuring property and rent ads or marriage ads), the pages can even go up to 16 or 17.

Canada, on the other hand usually has an issue of 25 pages as the city pages featuring community-centric events and news are far more popular than the international news items.

All 14 editions of The Urdu Times are scanned and posted online as PDF versions. While the front page lead story for each issue is the same, because it is usually an international news item, a marked differ-

Free copies of The Pakistan Post and The Urdu Times can be found on various street corners in Queens and Manhattan. into an article. “I pay heed to the American point of view and what my community here would want to hear,” he says.

The articles are then scanned and sent to Lahore where they are typed out, sent back and reworked before Khalil and his wife send in the final pages for layout and graphics back to Lahore. The assembled product is then given to Linco Printers based in Long Island City. This process is repeated weekly and both of them even work through the weekend. “I don’t even know what a Sunday is anymore,” his wife admits.

Farooqi follows a similar pattern of PDF, e-faxing and proof reading. “I am the biggest labourer in my office,” he jokes.

The Urdu Times also has its share of regular columnists and contributors in every city where it is distributed. Professors, students, community leaders and even one-off writers vie to send in a piece. “Look, our contributors do this purely out of passion, we hardly pay them more than $150 a month, so there are minimal op-eds or original content,” says Khalil.

He mentions an older gentleman in New York who provides a nazam (poem) on current affairs every week.

The newspaper’s burgeoning readership across cities such as New York, Washington DC, Miami, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, Toronto, Bradford, Montreal, Manchester and Birmingham is a testimony to its outreach and influence. While the paper’s Toronto and London office have a staff of 10 each, most of the American office branches don’t have more than a team of two. “Our Canada and UK issues are flourishing,” he says. Hence, there are more pages 28 in their issues as compared to New York. Khalil is blatant APRIL 20-26 2014

To keep up with a rapidly evolving news market, Khalil has also set

ence when comparing issues online are the changes in advertisements on the cover page and minor headline alterations, which cater to the local audience in each country. The masthead also remains uniform, with changes to the flag, depending on the country of issue.

A digital future To keep up with the pressures of a rapidly evolving news market, Khalil has started a website that “puts all the news under one head”. He admits that it has become more about survival in such a struggling market and feels that the other 10 to 12 Urdu lan-

Khalil’s team in Lahore sends him a selection of daily news which he then uses his editorial judgement to pick, angle and handwrite into an article.

The articles are then scanned and sent back to Lahore where they are typed out and resent to Khalil. The final assembled paper is then sent to a printer in Long Island City. guage papers are also ailing under the staggering pressure of digital and online world of news. “My wife is my biggest anchor and it is only two of us here in New York who are sailing this ship,” he says. His long-term vision is to develop a site with daily news updates or “pure news” and then devise various regional and hyper local verticals. “I want it to be like BBC Urdu and VICE.” Farooqi concurs with the demand for online news, but feels that language-oriented newspapers have a bigger chance of surviving in a declining print market vis-a-vis English papers, which he feel are “already finished.”

Khalil has even incorporated the naskh script from the existing nastaliq script in an attempt to keep up with the recent changes made to the Urdu script and make it more searchable for mobile devices and the web. The nastaliq script is more cursive and ornate, and is still used in The Urdu Times, whereas the naskh script is more angular and straight. “My print reader is confused with this change, but it’s something they have to get used to. Anyways I am only giving myself another 10 to 15 years in this business,” he says.

The fax machine starts beeping and Khalil calls for his marketing manager. “Right now, this man is the most important part of my business,” he playfully adds as he archives yet another old issue in a back room where years of history lies stringed together in yellowing pages.

up a website which allows him to cater to a wider audience.

Purvi Thacker is a graduate from the Columbia Journalism School and currently works as a freelance journalist in New York. She tweets @purvi21.

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Borderline Politics

Ayesha Jalal on dealing with history, criticism and mediocrity

BY FAIZA RAHMAN

Working with competing narratives of the biggest and bloodiest migration in recorded history has always been a formidable venture.

But in Ayesha Jalal one beholds a scholar of grit, who even as a graduate student at Cambridge in 1978 was already penning research that would go on to strike rude face-offs with the popular but deficient portrayals of the politics of Partition.

Clad in a crisp off-white kurta, churidar pajama and a flowing dupatta — the typical South Asian ensemble which she never forsook, carrying it to Columbia, Harvard and Tufts — Jalal settles down for a little chat with a group of social science undergraduates at the Institute of Business Administration at the Main Campus, University Road, during her recent visit to Karachi. According to her, Pakistan was not a democratic project resting on the comprehensive mandate of Indian Muslims, it was an accident.

Its genesis was not intended by Jinnah, whose call for Muslim minority rights was misconstrued as a separatist slogan, leading to a hastily penciled border, accounts of which pour from the prolific pen of Jalal’s granduncle, Saadat Hasan Manto.

Although her thesis is ambitious and enjoys a strong academic ‘cult following’, it attracts many frowns. Jalal, whose work and lineage are both sub-

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Photo Courtesy: IBA Social Sciences Club APRIL 20-26 2014

ject to murmurs, is pretty much inured to criticism for the sake of criticism. Holding up a copy of The Sole Spokesman, one of her first works which introduced her controversial thesis, she says, “I want to say this: this work that I do, all this work, this is not being done to please anyone.

I am not seeking any votes and I’m not trying to win any hearts. People in India hate me as much as people in Pakistan hate me. Does it seem like I care?”

When the book came to the fore, several Pakistani newspapers criticised Jalal heavily for what they said was understating the influence of Islam in the creation of Pakistan. They asserted that she was influenced by Indian academics. And although she pretends not to, Jalal does regret that people form such opinions of her and of her work, which includes a total of eight books, The Pity of Partition being her most recent work, without even bothering to read it. “That’s just what people in this country do,” she shrugs. “They just love having opinions.”

Regardless of her position on Partition, Jalal is revered globally as a historian of meticulous methods. She was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship by the US government in 1998 and her research also won her the highest civilian honour of Pakistan, the Sitara-e-Imtiaz, in 2009. “As a woman, one has to work two hundred times more than a man to prove her mettle,” she says. “If you are a mother then it’s doubly difficult. I’d say put the rest of the world aside — even in a place like the US, there is substantial discrimination.”

Luckily for Jalal, her life partner, Harvard professor and historian, Sugata Bose, is also her research partner with whom she has collaborated and edited several publications. “But the men from my Cambridge days were very different; a woman with intellectual ambitions was a whole new species for them,” she says, having left the allgirls haven at Wellesley College for the unabashedly chauvinistic environment at Cambridge.

Taking the middle route has never been an option for Jalal, she argues that instead of juggling responsibilities one should focus on a single task and get it right. “These Western feminist notions which suggest that a woman can be the best mother and also the best CEO and also the best ‘this’ and also the best ‘that’ is all a myth! If you want to raise the best children, then maybe you should just be raising children,” she says, adding that mediocrity has pretty much become a defining aspect in Pakistan today.

“That’s the problem with women in this part of the world — they are not focused! They senselessly want everything which leads to mediocrity all over.”

And mediocrity is not the only problem in the country Jalal insists. “The thing is that we are all, in one way or

These Western feminist notions which suggest that a woman can be the best mother and also the best CEO and also the best ‘this’ and also the best ‘that’ is all a myth! If you want to raise the best children, then maybe you should just be raising children Scholar Ayesha Jalal

the other, suffering because of the identity of being Pakistani. Unless you don’t understand history well, ignorance in all aspects will haunt you and you will remain confused. Today’s political and social movements reflect this confusion.” To rectify this, Jalal seeks a constant flow of historical knowledge from the university to the masses, even to those who may not attend universities. “What we, and specially the younger generation, fail to realise is that a state must be backed by university research.”

She laments what she calls as an ‘intellectual deficit’ in the population overall. “Today, the anchors on television are the bastions of intellect. Their sensational and immature discourses are out there to educate the common man.” She makes no secret of her irritation with the electronic media’s ‘hijacking’ of the information space in the country. Though wary of some popular anchors on television, she steers clear of mentioning their names. Jalal is, after all, an academic who is stung by the veneration of those who demonstrate little scholarly insight. “Our children don’t read. Our elders don’t read. Books are no longer a part of culture. People are, more or less, at the mercy of the ‘education’ that the media offers them,” she says, resting her case. T Faiza Rahman is a subeditor for the Editorial pages at The Express Tribune.

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FEATURE

A [un]usual day at the market The Islamabad sabzi mandi that was devastated by an attack this month is home to hundreds of labourers TEXT AND PHOTOS BY ABDUL QADIR MEMON DESIGN BY SANOBER AHMED

A crate of guavas planted with five kilogrammes of explosives wreaked havoc in the lives of hundreds of families in the federal capital on an early April morning last week. The blast not only claimed 23 lives and injured many others but also tarnished the reputation of a market that is the daily destination for many.

Every morning, a throng of men and women flock to the sabzi mandi, located in I-11 sector, Islamabad, to earn their share for the day. They set up shops, selling everything from rotund tomatoes to export quality mangoes to customers from all over Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, FATA and Punjab. Over the years, children from the nearby Afghan refugee settlement have also become a permanent part of the mandi, making a living carrying bags that are too heavy for their young shoulders or cleaning up the leftovers after a long day. Every now and then, a rumbling truck rolls up with the day’s produce, drowning out the usual bargaining din between vendors and customers.

Tiny stained cups with a saccharine milky concoction serves as fuel for a day that usually that stretches endlessly.

As the sun sets, shriveled leftovers are packed up into wooden crates in the hope of finding a customer the next day. Tired labourers set off for their homes, only to return the next morning and start the grind all over again. But as security conditions in the country worsen, the fear for 34 life now looms larger than the quest for livelihood.

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FEATURE

Even relatively safer places like the Islamabad Sabzi mandi has fallen victim to terror recently

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Abdul Qadir Memon is a freelance photographer who has worked with the development sector and the government of Pakistan.

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FILM

Plane pleasure Power-packed performances and a gripping plot rescue a rocky flight

BY SAQIB NASIR

There have been a number of airplane hijacking movies with an all-too-familiar plot, but Non-Stop, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, takes it to a whole new height, with some bumps of course. With constant twists and turns in the plot, the thriller manages to keep the viewer captivated till the end.

Liam Neeson, the Irish actor who starred in Taken, Schindler’s List and Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace, plays the lead role of alcoholic US Air Marshal, Bill Marks. He is a tainted ex-police officer on the New York-toLondon flight who receives a series of threatening and anonymous text messages stating that every 20 minutes a person will be killed on the flight until $150 million are transferred into a specified account. This switches on Neeson’s panic mode as he begins to suspect almost everyone on the flight.

Instead of finding the troublemaker, unfortunately, Neeson lands in hot water, causing people to turn a suspicious eye towards him. Julianne Moore playing Jen Summers, a talkative passenger who recently underwent heart surgery, is

another name on the list of suspects. Having starred in Nine Months and The Lost World: Jurassic Park, the actress is a maestro at turning ordinary characters into memorable performances. Even the pilot, a cop and a Muslim doctor (typical Hollywood plot cliché) suffer from a similar fate of distrust and suspicion but all ends well when the real culprits surface.

Apart from the mind games, the movie ends on a series of high notes ensured by veteran action producer, Joel Silver such as the fight in a confined plane toilet. Neeson delivers some really hard punches dispelling the notion that age is a determining factor when it comes to playing an action lead. Along with its fine moments, the movie also suffers a few blows when it comes to believability — a single person hijacking an entire aircraft is, thankfully, far from possible.

Despite the few setbacks, Non-Stop has done exceptionally well at the box office, securing an estimated $85 million, according to boxoffice. com. While the movie falls prey to seen-before action and a disappointing ending, the solid performances and well-executed plot make it a worthwhile watch. T Rating: Saqib Nasir is a graduate from the University of Warwick and is currently working as a subeditor at The Express Tribune.

Movies that fly high in the ‘hijack’ genre

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Die Hard 2 (1990)

Executive Decision (1996)

Air Force One (1997)

Bruce Willis steers the Die Hard series to another compelling success by taking on a team of terrorists who seize control of an entire airport to force the release of a drug lord.

With no runway lights and diminishing fuel, Willis must act fast for planes to land safely.

Kurt Russel plays an intelligence expert who is on a mission to stop the hijacked 747, bound from Athens, to enter US airspace. Before the terrorists can release their leader imprisoned in the US, Russel diffuses their plans midair in this well-executed thriller.

When the President’s official plane is hijacked, only the most capable can be trusted to lead the rescue operation. Harrison Ford is the man for the job as he rescues the hostages including the President’s wife and daughter from the grip of terrorists who are spurred to rebel by the President’s ‘zerotolerance’ policy on terrorism.

APRIL 20-26 2014

BOOK

An unusual treasure hunt Kamila Shamsie’s latest offering effortlessly straddles centuries

BY MUHAMMAD ASIF NAWAZ

The book is available at Liberty Books for Rs995 Twenty minutes into Kamila Shamsie’s session at the Lahore Literary Festival had me convinced of her eloquence and brilliance as a writer. And as a reader I expected nothing less in her latest offering, A God in Every Stone — an exceptional piece of literature which has underlying themes of family, love, war and colonialism.

While Shamsie has tackled the themes of love and loss skilfully, it is her treatment of the historical aspect of the book that showcases her real expertise as a writer.

The plot is based for the most part, in the city of Caspatyrus, now Peshawar, and is set against a backdrop of two episodes of violence — WWI and the Qissa Khawani massacre. To do justice to their importance, Shamsie has dedicated a segment to each of these events.

The story begins with the arrival of Vivian Rose Spencer, a British archaeologist to Peshawar in a quest to unearth the city’s past. She is helped by a young Peshawari boy, Najeeb Gul, who is also extremely interested in the history of the region. The plot revolves around Vivian, Najeeb and Qayyum Gul, Najeeb’s older brother who has just returned home after losing an eye fighting for the British Indian army. The equation between the English protagonist 40 and the young local, is what takes the novel

forward. Qayyum’s story, despite being significant to the book, pales in comparison.

Another central theme in the plot is the ancient artefact Vivian is searching for. The treasured relics she ends uncovering in the process, do not carry million dollar price tags like they do in a Dan Brown novel, but have a deep personal and familial connection.

This novel is a juxtaposition of the Eastern and Western sensibilities which can be viewed as intense or comical. The god in this book, besides being in every stone, lies in the details. Furthermore, the characters are refreshingly relatable as they struggle with their inner demons to move ahead.

The occasional jibes add spontaneous humour to a plot that relies more on the serious side as its strong suit. There is a dramatic shift in the latter half, however, where the plot is propelled through the exchange of letters and telegrams, as transitions from one period to another, which is the best part of the book.

Even though Shamsie shines for the most part, the book is not without its fair share of flaws. The prospects of Pathan women are exceedingly bleak throughout and the aftermath of Qissa Khawani tragedy seems a little dragged and becomes a tad predictable. The conclusion is also not as

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Author Kamila Shamsie.

comprehensive and concrete as the readers would have hoped it to be. But overall, these drawbacks are so petty that they can be overlooked in the bigger picture. So if you are a history buff, an archaeology lover or just a fan of great writing, this book will be a delight. It might even convince you to visit Peshawar and see the city through Shamsie’s eyes.

Muhammad Asif is a medical student from Abbottabad. He is a freelance writer for various publications. He tweets @asifnz

FESTIVITIES Have an egg-ceptional

Rabbits, hares and lamb: These animals born in spring signify the return to fertility of nature. In pagan times, eggs, rabbits and bunnies were signs of good luck and new life, and the early converts to Christianity tweaked these customs and tied them to their new life through Christ.

Let your Easter celebrations be guided by history and tradition

BY TEENAZ JAVAT DESIGN BY ESSA MALIK

Easter is more than a festival of decorated eggs; on this well-attended Sunday service of the year, Christians celebrate the resurrection of their lord Jesus Christ after he was entombed following his crucifixion on Good Friday. And over time, this resurrection or rebirth has come to signify the triumph of good over evil.

Like most celebrations, Easter Sunday begins with a prayer service and thereafter sharing food with family and friends. Decorating eggs, preparing the customary lamb roast and hot cross buns are other parts of the festivities that represent a strong Christian belief.

Easter attire: Wearing new clothes for the entire week of Easter is customary. Baptised Christians wear white clothes, indicating the person is free from sin and is filled with grace.

Easter baskets:

The lamb roast:

Tradition has it that baskets filled with bread and eggs were brought to the church for Easter service to be blessed by the priest.

While few still follow the custom, Easter baskets nowadays are filled with decorated eggs, chocolates, jellybeans, marshmallows and other delectable delights and are presented to children on the occasion.

The Bible refers to Christ as the ‘Lamb of God’ — the sacrificial offering. Lambs were and are still sacrificed as penance for people’s sins and wrongdoing and since Christians believe that Christ died to relieve them of their sins, the lamb is an important part of the main meal on Easter Sunday.

Easter eggs:

Hot cross buns:

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Easter is incomplete without hot cross buns. The buns laden with black currants and raisins are not just enjoyed by Christians but by members of all communities. They are prepared in a particular shape so they can be divided into four parts representing the four quarters of the moon and the four seasons of the year. And the cross is more than an adornment, it reminds Christians of the day Christ was crucified and is therefore eaten on Good Friday.

Teenaz Javat writes headlines, news alerts, tickers and tweets for a living. She tweets @TeenazFromTo

They symbolise life and fertility and since Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Christ it takes centre stage at the festivities. And while the Easter egg is largely symbolic, there is a story behind the decorated eggs. It is believed that while Christ was crucified, an egg seller helped him carry the cross. While doing so, he left his basket of eggs behind and on his return discovered that all the eggs had been coloured. It seems his act of kindness was rewarded with a basketful of coloured eggs.

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