January 4-10 2015
Travel
Caught in the moment
Cover Story Younus Khan: Not Out
The fishing village of Damb in Balochistan is an ideal getaway for adventure seekers
Cricketer Younus Khan has shone despite several personal and professional challenges
22 Infographic
The right push An alternate approach to employee motivation
30
4
42 Regulars
6 People & Parties: Out and about with beautiful people
50 Reviews: Movies and Books 54 Health: Is Pakistan prepared to deal with Ebola?
Magazine Editor: Sarah Munir and Senior Subeditor: Dilaira Dubash Creative Team: Essa Malik, Jamal Khurshid, Mohsin Alam, Omer Asim, Sanober Ahmed & Talha Ahmed Khan Publisher: Bilal A Lakhani. 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
House of Ittehad launches its second outlet in Lahore
PHoToS couRTESy BILAL MukHTAR EvEnTS And PR
Amna, Adeel and Lubna
Geiti and Uzma
Alyzeh and Osama
6 January 4-10 2015
Anny and Madiha
Kanwal ilyas
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Khalid, Sonu, Shahzada Salman and Shazma Shahzada Farhad
Zarmina
Zara and Anum
Saad Qureshi and Rabia
Mehr Gillani and Babloo
8 January 4-10 2015
Xille and Sophia
Nazim Sheikh and Yasmeen
PHoToS couRTESy BILAL MukHTAR EvEnTS And PR
Faisal and Umer Malik
PEOPLE & PARTIES HoBo opens up its outlet in Lahore
Amna, Naveen and Eliha
Asad and Mishal
Mariam , Asfandyar , Juggan , Maimona , Hina , Saba and Murtaza
10 January 4-10 2015
Amna and Adeel
Mishal Pervaiz
PHoToS couRTESy BILAL MukHTAR EvEnTS And PR
Sameen Kasuri
PEOPLE & PARTIES Sana Ashraf and Alina Raza
PHoToS couRTESy BILAL MukHTAR EvEnTS And PR
Sonu and Lubna
Merry
Sana and Hasham
Sarah and Sana
12 January 4-10 2015
zeen Malik
Abdul Aleem and Dr Far
Sehr, Alayna and Adnan
PEOPLE & PARTIES
The cAcI centre holds a botox event in karachi Hina
Sanya
14 January 4-10 2015
Rakhshan Usman
Momiza
Naveen Siddiki
PHoToS couRTESy TAkE II
Almas, Neelofer, Farkhanda, Mina and Sabera
Caught in the moment
TRAVEL
The ďŹ shing village of Damb in Balochistan offers an adventure within driving distance TEXT AND PHOTOS BY AMEER HAMZA DESIGN BY SANOBER AHMED
A group of hunters, fishermen and tourists survey the Damb mangrove forest, which is home to countless species of crabs, migratory
22
Several travel destinations within Pakistan go unnoticed and unexplored due to our fear of the unknown. Only few are adventurous enough to take to the road in pursuit of new experiences and even those who do usually venture towards the north and east of the country. However, if you are in the mood to explore, Balochistan too offers a fair share of attractions that can be rejuvenating and culturally enriching at the same time. JANUARY 4-10 2015
After speaking to a few Pashtuns and locals from Damb village of Sonimani, Balochistan, our group of six adventure enthusiasts was convinced that the region is certainly worth a visit. However, when we finally set out on the road there were only three of us, including a local. As we sped along the smooth RCD highway, we didn’t even stop for a cup of chai due to the mounting excitement and two hours later, we were in Damb. Upon reaching our destination, we were
A proud hunter cum boatsman displays the day’s first hunt in all its glory.
As per local rule, commercial fishing is prohibited between the 8th and 15th of every month — due to a rise in water level and consequential low catch — but when the conditions are favourable, the fishermen cast their nets and pray for a rewarding catch
birds, local birds and small animals. immediately captivated by the village’s thriving fishing industry. Anchored before us were around 150 fishing boats, some of which were being washed, greased and repainted. As per local rule, commercial fishing is prohibited between the 8th and 15th of every month — due to a rise in water level and consequential low catch — but when the conditions are favourable, the fishermen cast their nets and pray for a rewarding catch. Fazl-e-Amin, our guide, informed us that due to the village’s small population of around 3,000
A hunter loads his gun while scanning the sky for a target. inhabitants, men from across Sindh, Punjab and parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa are hired to assist in the fishing, sorting, packaging and transportation of the catch for export. He further added that locals who own trawlers pay the fishermen in advance, which is always 80% of the catch. All catch, as a result, is directly handed to the owner of the vessel, who then gives a portion to fellow villagers. It is, therefore, no surprise that the villagers’ diet during the winter months (since fishing is banned during the monsoon JANUARY 4-10 2015
23
TRAVEL THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED: The route to Damb season in summer) comprises primarily of seafood. Over the course of our two-day trip, we too indulged in plenty of fish over lunch and dinner. Our first day was spent exploring the area during which we found out that the region is blessed in more ways than one. Accumulation of the windblown silt during the summer months results in the formation of loess — combination of sand and silt — which develops into fertile soil. These sand dunes form a prominent feature of the landscape and house a number of species of crab and snakes. One of the area’s top attractions is to climb the tall dunes and observe or photograph the glorious sunset with migratory birds in the backdrop. The following day we woke up early, grabbed our cameras and packed snacks for a fishing trip. At 8:00am we boarded one of the smaller fishing boats and set out on our adventure maneuvering through the thick mangrove forests teeming with migratory birds and insect life. To our great joy, the locals were aware of the importance of mangroves — protection against significant flooding and a breeding ground for fish — and, hence, the water was pollution-free. But the joy was short-lived when we learnt that hunting is carried out in the area — part of the Miani Hor in Lasbela district which is yet to be officially declared Pakistan’s first marine
Balochistan Damb
Pakistan
Sindh From Karachi, drive along the Super Highway then turn left on the bypass for Balochistan and travel straight along the National Highway 25 or N-25 (also referred to as the RCD highway). After travelling for approximately 90 kms you will reach Winder town. There is a diversion on the left which goes straight to Damb (another 8 kms to 10 kms away). If you go straight you can either continue on the RCD towards Khuzdar and Quetta or turn left on the Coastal Highway which goes towards Gwadar.
Karachi
Despite a ban hunting is carried out in part of the Miani Hor area in Lasbela district which is yet to be officially declared Pakistan’s first marine protected area
Fishing vessels line up against Damb’s desert-like background, which makes the place colorful and fascinating.
The hunted birds being prepared for a meal by the host. protected area — despite a ban. One of the men in the boat, with a rifle slung across his shoulder, was scanning the skies with rapt attention for birds and ended up shooting at least 10 of them. To our horror, he said that he would return at night to hunt more as birds cannot fly or get away in the dark. Since the World Wildlife Fund office in the area had closed down, many locals seem to have taken advantage of the situation. Afraid to criticise our host’s actions, we maintained silence over the subject and out of courtesy the game meat was later eaten over lunch along with freshly-caught fish and prawns sourced from a neighbouring boat for Rs350/kg. As the water receded after 3:00pm, we sipped on our final tea with the locals and took one last round around the mangrove forest before heading back to the shore. Our trip had sadly come to an end but we promised the locals we would return with a larger group — the great company, hospitality and rustic food at Damb is definitely one of the simpler pleasures everyone should experience.
Ameer Hamza is a former curator for Getty Images USA.
Cooking the day’s catch of hunted birds and prawns purchased from a nearby boat. Eating amidst the cool breeze and the shadow of the mangrove jungle is a must-have experience. 25 JANUARY 4-10 2015
COVER STORY
BY AAMNA SAIYID DESIGN BY MOHSIN ALAM
“After so many misfortunes in my family, it is a Herculean task to keep myself from dreading bad news from home whenever I go abroad to play,” says Khan. But the 37-year-old has channeled all his turbulences into a positive force and reminded his fans time and again why he deserves to lead the pack. “Striving to keep my loved ones’ memories alive by doing what I do best trumps all other fears and emotions. I want to do something that will show the world what it means to be the son of [the late] Iqbal Khan.” And true to his word, Khan has only grown in stature ever since the fateful day in January 2005 when he abandoned Pakistan’s tour of Australia to pay his last respects to his father, the man he admires the most till date.
COVER STORY
It was the late 1990s and Khan was toiling for a big break in first-class cricket in Karachi, his adopted home. Despite obvious potential and promise, the chance to succeed kept eluding the youngster like a bewildering will-o’-the-wisp; there just did not seem to be a secure spot for Khan in the metropolis. Some believed that geographical backgrounds mattered a great deal, and that aspiring cricketers closer to the heart of Karachi stood a better chance of securing a spot on the first-class team. “I was often the butt of jokes about living Quaidabad k pul k us paar [on the other side of the Quaidabad bridge],” quips Khan, who spent most of his youth in Steel Town in the outskirts of Karachi. Resolving to take matters in his own hands, he risked the little footing he had achieved in Karachi and moved to Peshawar in 1998-1999 to try his luck. Fate did not disappoint him, as he scored over 1,100 runs during his stay. There was no looking back for Khan after that. In January 2000, he was selected for the national team when Sri Lanka came to tour Pakistan, and scored 46 runs in his very first One Day International (ODI); no mean achievement for a debutant. In the same tour, he struck his first Test
hundred in only his second innings, again a remarkable feat with the likes of Saeed Anwar, Aamir Sohail, Inzamamul Haq, Yousuf Youhana and Moin Khan present in the team and only Anwar scoring a respectable 84.
Fast-forward to 2009 and Khan became Pakistan’s captain and topped the ICC Test rankings for batsmen, courtesy of his 313 runs in his first innings as skipper. That year, however, is etched forever in the memories of his fans all over the world not for his achievements in the longest format of the game, but for his ultimate triumph in the showpiece of an entirely opposite type of cricket — the 2009 World Twenty20. “The sheer impact of winning a world title was nothing short of overwhelming,” recalls Khan. The fact that it was only the second major trophy for Pakistan [after the 1992 World Cup] magnified [the joy of] spearheading the
victorious team for Khan even further. “Such was my state of bewilderment that I still don’t remember who draped the Pakistani flag on my shoulder as we took a lap of honour around Lord’s. Whoever it was, I’m grateful to him for making our celebrations an eternal memory,” he adds. Khan, who is a strong believer in foresight, reveals some anecdotes that led up to the unforgettable final. Just a day before Pakistan’s semi-final against South Africa, he went up to [the then Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman] Ijaz Butt and congratulated him on the team’s World Twenty20 win. Butt brushed off his felicitation brusquely, pointing out that they still had a semi-final to play, and that too against one of the stronger teams. “I still insisted on congratulating him, as the feeling that we will win this encounter did not leave me for even a second,” he says. And win they did, in a nail-biting match that eventually went in favour of the men in green by a margin of just seven runs The premonitions, however, did not end there. Khan recalls, sitting with the team manager on the eve of the final and going over the technical aspects of the match. “I saw a coffee mug someone had left on the table. After emptying its remaining contents, I held it aloft and launched into an acceptance speech, the kind one gives after being presented with the trophy,” he says. “Everyone present in the room including me was surprised by the spontaneity, but I ploughed on until the end.” Once again, his sixth sense prevailed and this time, the eight-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in the final was as convincing and satisfying a win as any captain could hope for.
Although essentially a cautious man, Khan has had his share of controversies. Soon after the World Twenty20 triumph, rifts between Khan and the PCB began to surface, which still remain in one form or the other even after countless changes in the management. Khan resigned as captain during an investigation into match-fixing charges that allegedly took place during his leadership (following the 2009 Champions Trophy semi-final defeat against New Zealand). Although he was cleared, the prolific batsman returned to captaincy only for a three-match series against New Zealand in the UAE , after 33 which he did not take up the mantle JANUARY 4-10 2015
COVER STORY again. Thereafter, he was banned for a brief period in 2010 along with Muhammad Yousuf following an inquiry report which blamed the two for inciting divisions within the team after the debacle in Australia where Pakistan didn’t win even a single international, losing all Tests, ODIs and the one-off T20. The ban was eventually lifted after three months. The most recent examples of the PCB and Khan being at loggerheads include the shocking decision of the board to offer a ‘B’ category central contract — with ‘A’ being the highest category of contracts awarded to players — to the veteran. Upon widespread disapproval and dismay, the decision was immediately reverted and replaced with an ‘A’ contract. The issue was nowhere close to being resolved when the PCB courted fire once again by dropping Khan from the ODI squad against Australia this year. Their reasoning: Khan scored only three runs on his ODI comeback after a hiatus of almost oneand-a-half years. What the board chose to ignore was the fact that Khan played only one innings in that series against Sri Lanka, after which he had to fly home on account of his nephew’s death. Perhaps unconsciously, the PCB rubbed salt in the veteran’s wounds by indicating that it would be ‘hard’ to consider a place for him in the upcoming World Cup. The injustice provoked a rare emotional outburst from Younus, who offered to sit out the rest of the matches in all formats until the World Cup. “If they are saying that youngsters are the future of ODIs, then where is the future of Pakistan in Test cricket? Don’t select me in Test matches and make [the youngsters] the future of Pakistan in Test cricket too,” he fumed at the time.
Luckily for him and Pakistan cricket, Khan eventually calmed down enough to reconsider and went to the UAE to feature in the Tests. This was when Test history was rewritten, as the exemplary batsman channelled all his energy and concentration into proving himself indispensible. Records upon records were matched, broken and made. Khan’s single-minded dedication 34 drew reluctant praise from the board and JANUARY 4-10 2015
sincere commendation from the opposition. The cricketing world was abuzz with the exploits of the born-again Younus Khan. Among numerous records, the batting great now has 28 Test centuries — five of them double tons and one triple — the most by any Pakistani. He became only the third Pakistani to score runs in excess of 8,000 in the longest format of the game, and is also the only Pakistani to have scored a hundred against all Test-playing nations. In the same series, he matched English batsman Herbert Sutcliffe’s record of three consecutive Test tons against Australia. Additionally, he is the only batsman besides Don Bradman and Sutcliffe to have a 50+ average in all the four innings of Tests. And what was perhaps overlooked by Khan’s peers at home was aptly summarised by Australian captain Michael Clarke in the following words, “Younus is a very good player and has been for a long time. He’s one of the gentlemen of our game and a class player.” As a final touch, Khan struck a century in the following series against New Zealand in the fourth ODI, underlining his determination to prove his point.
Commenting on his batting philosophy, Khan emphasises the need to stay in the present instead of thinking too far ahead if one is to get some runs. “I don’t think of who I’m going to face when it’s my turn to bat,” he explains. “My mantra is simple: aim for nothing less than a hundred and give it your best shot no matter who the opposition is,” he says adding that a batsman should always keep things simple and avoid taking unnecessary pressure. But according to Khan, all this is only possible if a player’s fitness is top-notch. “Apart from following a careful diet, I exercise with any implement available anywhere when I feel the urge to workout. Even a small table can serve as dumbbells,” he says. With 8,327 Test runs under his belt, what more does Khan want to achieve?“No less than 40 Test centuries, 15 ODI tons and if possible, 10,000 Test runs,” he says with a grin. Whether Younus Khan lives up to his ambitious wish list might be open to speculation for now but his spot on the team for the 2015 World Cup is certainly not. T Aamna Saiyid is a subeditor for The Express Tribune sports desk. She tweets @Aamna_Saiyid
35
INFOGRAPHIC
The Right Push
Sometimes a word of encouragement, a pat on the back, a casual dress day and a meal to appreciate good work can go a long way in motivating employees to improve their performance at work. According to the 2013 State of the Global Workplace report by Gallup, “To win customers — and a bigger share of the marketplace — companies must first win the hearts and minds of their employees.” To take up the challenge, therefore, here is the basic approach to employee motivation that can benefit many companies.
Employee motivation is not all about monetary rewards
Employees today are more intrinsically motivated, so in addition to fair pay, they want:
Dan pink, author of bestseller Drive believes the main contributors to employee engagement and motivation are:
a collaborative rather than competitive work-culture.
Autonomy the urge to control the “who/what/where of work”.
“work-life integration”.
a boss who is accessible and a mentor.
Mastery the innate drive to get better at things and to be recongnised for contribution.
flexible work schedules.
Purpose
to make the world a better place.
the sense of connecting to something bigger.
BY OWEN LLOYd WILLIAMS dESIGN BY OMER ASIM
Extrinsic
Intrinsic
Encouraging behaviour by external consequences: reward and punishment/carrot and stick.
Intrinsic motivation comes from within and the individual is motivated to do something, it’s about finding personal value and reward in what they are doing.
According to Deloitte, millennials will make up 75% of the global workforce by 2025.
Cash Rewards are less important to today’s workforce. Nelson Motivation Inc (San Diego, California) surveyed the priorities of 1,500 staff in 2002. The outcome in order of priority: A learning activity Flexible working hours
Masclow’s hierarchy of needs — The old way Self- Actualisation Esteem
Works to live
Lives to work
Increased authority
When asked to jump — “Why?”
When asked to jump — “How high?”
Motivated by autonomy
Prefer structure
Work-life integration
Work-life balance
Autonomy Time with their manager Time off from work
Safety
Public praise
42 January 4-10 2015
GEN X / BABY BOOMERS
Verbal praise
Social
Physiological
GEN Y
Choice of assignment Written praise
TOWARd A BETTER WORK-LIFE BALANCE: DAIMLER’S MAIL ON HOLIDAY Daimler’s Mail on Holiday automatically deletes all incoming emails and notifies senders that their messages haven’t been received when staff are on holiday.
Monetary based methods may not be enough to keep your workforce motivated. Meta-Analysis by Judge et al suggests that there’s a less than 2% overlap between pay level and job satisfaction.
It can help to enable staff to switch off when they’re on holiday. “With ‘Mail on Holiday’ they start back after the holidays with a clean desk & no traffic jam in their inbox. That is an emotional relief.” Wilfried Porth, Board Member for Human Resources at Daimler
Atlassian have Shiplt Days where staff are given 24 hours to develop any project of their choosing, as long as it’s related to the products of the company. The goal is to create something that they can present at the end. Great products come out of teams that have the time and courage to take risks. Shiplt day is a time we set aside for people to learn new things and take risks.
3M allows employees to spend 15% of their working hours on their own project.
Lyndsey Prewer, Atlassian Development Manager
Enables employees to be creative and encourages collaboration. Can result in innovation and launch of new products. Lets employees pursue radical ideas that would not normally be prioritised.
“It’s energising for employees to take a break from their day-today business and think creatively about solving other problems”.
...like Atlassian’s ‘Shiplt days’ are best suited to software firms & are easily scalable for different business sizes.
Better suited to businesses that are more project-based.
FLEXIBLE WORKING
There needs to be structure in place to allow individuals to not be reachable whilst away.
WorldatWork members reported a positive impact of workplace flexibility with: Reporting A Positive Effect On Satisfaction
Reporting A Positive Effect On Engagement
A number of companies like, Netflix and Virgin, offer their employees an unlimited holiday allowance. The concept is also sometimes referred to as “trust breaks” or “zero-allocation policy”.
doug Williams, Forrester Research Reporting A Positive Effect On Motivation
Company may not be in a position to afford time that does not lead to tangible results. Employees may find it difficult to shift their attention when they have ‘real-world’ deadlines coming up.
Best for businesses with strong management teams.
They’re currently offering this perk to 100,000 German employees.
Gives staff the autonomy that Gen Y expect and the work-life balance they desire. It shows trust in employees and gives them flexibility. Gives staff a change to get away from work more to refuel.
West Paw Designer in Montana has a day in the year when everyone designs a prototype for a new product.
Not ideal for shift workers, retail stores, hospitals or call centres.
Potential legal implications. You need the right company culture for it to work.
Easily implemented by most businesses, but in smaller companies, where certain team members need to be able to respond to urgent issues, this may not be feasible.
The concept can however be used in other ways as done by Health-care consultancy Vynamic where their CEO discourages staff from sending mail between the hours of 10pm and 6am in order to reduce stress.
This infographic is created by Owain Lloyd-Williams, a UK-based writer and creative content author on behalf of BodyLogic MD. He tweets @Owain_LW
43 January 4-10 2015
FILM
A lost battle
The latest addition to The Hobbit franchise is an epic disappointment By Schayan RIaz
The most irritating set of films in recent history concludes. Peter Jackson has finally managed to wrap up his second stint in Middle Earth with the third part of his Hobbit saga, The Battle of the Five Armies. These films are supposed to be epic fantasies. It’s a fantasy to think that these could be considered epic in any way. The Battle of the Five Armies is not a film. At best, it’s the third act of a film which has long outstayed its welcome. Some people might say that this is for the fans — for those who ‘get’ what Jackson does. So blinded are they by all things hobbits, elves or dwarves, that they cannot see the most obvious cash grab since James Cameron’s Titanic was re-released in 3D a few years back. Three films for a book that is a mere 300odd pages long? The first was pure filth, with its distracting introduction to high frame rate filmmaking. The second was marginally better, largely due to the presence of Smaug, voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch. This last one is 50 just a horrible disappointment, with hideous January 4-10 2015
lighting, tacky computer generated imagery and sub-standard acting. The Battle of the Five Armies wouldn’t have stood a chance against the more intelligent blockbusters this year, such as Guardians of the Galaxy or Edge of Tomorrow, if it had been released over the summer period. The action resumes from where the last film stopped. Smaug has come out of the Lonely Mountain, livid at the titular hero Bilbo Baggins for having woken him. He destroys Laketown, but then Bard the Bowman slays him. The survivors of Laketown reach Erebor, where Thorin Oakenshield is battling a nasty “dragon sickness”, because he’s searching for the Arkenstone — the same Arkenstone that Bilbo Baggins had stolen in the earlier film. He uses this to try and forge peace between Thranduil and Thorin, but then the latter’s cousin Dáin arrives and they battle each other anyway. There’s also a lot of orcs, led by Azog the defiler and his son Borg. They all battle each other. There’s a lot of clinking and a lot of deaths.
If you haven’t understood anything at all about what you’ve just read, there’s no point in explaining it any further. Because the film doesn’t either. With this third part, Jackson naturally assumes that you have been a devotee and that you have remembered all key events and characters from the other two films. Therefore it just plunges you into the narrative without any need for context or set-up. The battle from the title has substantial screen time. While one or two set pieces do indeed have merit from a technical standpoint, and Martin Freeman as Bilbo is an actor worth watching, the entire thing falls flat otherwise. Nearly everyone else looks battle-weary, not from the battle itself but from the contractual obligation. This is an exercise in cruelty by Jackson and one hopes that he will finally be laying off J R R Tolkien now. Rating: Schayan Riaz is a writer based in Germany. He tweets @schayanriaz
BooK
Playing it safe Sachin Tendulkar leaves a lot to the reader’s imagination in his autobiographical account By NomaN aNSari
Anything associated with cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar’s name is not just expected to be good, but great. His autobiography, Playing It My Way is no exception. The book gives the reader a glimpse into the hard work, discipline and sacrifices it took to make ‘Little Master’. It is also a testament to a man who handled his cult status with admirable dignity throughout his career. But although Tendulkar’s reserved nature served him well throughout his cricketing career, it doesn’t make for a compelling autobiography. While the book gives plenty of insight into what it was like to be Sachin Tendulkar, the husband and athlete, it fails where it should have succeeded most easily: the subject of cricket itself. Often, Playing It My Way feels more like a statistics-heavy read on Indian cricket between 1989 and 2013, than an insight into the game from a great cricketer. The book begins promisingly enough as Tendulkar pays tribute to his boyhood batting coach, whom he often lovingly refers to as ‘Sir’. Here, Pakistani readers will appreciate the Indian cricketing system, where genuine talent has a better chance of being discovered and nurtured from an early age. Soon he moves on to his first tour to Pakistan, where he tells us how legendary Pakistani cricket leg-spinner Abdul Qadir taunted him after he smashed rookie leg spinner Mustaq Ahmed’s over by asking him to take a chance on a more senior bowler. After Tendulkar gave Qadir the same treatment later in the innings, the veteran Pakistani cricketer paid the 16-year-old a compliment. But Playing It My Way is woefully thin on such intimate moments. Perhaps Tendulkar should have read Imran Khan’s All Round View, which allowed the reader to get to know some of the greatest international cricketers from Khan’s era by sharing candid moments with them. Khan even reserved a chapter on the cricketers he thought were the best in the business. But if Sachin decided to remain quiet on international cricketers, at the very least he could have shared deeper thoughts on his relationship with his own teammates and the atmosphere in the Indian dressing room. The most startling omission from the biography is his complete silence on the match-fixing issue. While it is true that he had no knowledge of the allegedly corrupt activities of his own captain, it is a pity that he doesn’t have an opinion on it either. In fact, the autobiography almost makes it seem as if Tendulkar had little opinion on 52 the cricketing world overall. January 4-10 2015
The book also suffers from poor narrative pacing, where moments in the legendary cricketer’s life which should have been gut- wrenching for the reader end up having little emotional impact. Here too, inspiration could have been sought from tennis star Andre Aggasi’s book, Open, which is one of the greatest sports autobiographies ever written, and has found readers both inside and outside his fan base. On the other hand, aside from die-hard Sachin fans, Playing It My Way would be difficult to recommend to most readers. Noman Ansari is a freelance writer and a regular contributor to The Express Tribune magazine. He tweets @Pugnate
Ebola : A ticking b
mb?
a few precautionary steps can mitigate the risk of the virus making its way to Pakistan By Moliha arfeen | Design By aaMir Khan
Pakistan may have had a few false alarms when it comes to Ebola — the deadly virus that has ravaged West Africa and also spread to the US — but is still extremely ill-prepared to deal with the disease. Even though the chances of the disease reaching Pakistan are relatively low, there is nevertheless a threat of the virus making its way into the country through travellers from Ebola-affected countries and members of the peacekeeping forces sent by Pakistan that are stationed there — Pakistan has nearly 8,000 military personnel deployed on UN peacekeeping duties in Africa, 2,500 of which are in the Western region of the continent.
6,856
people have lost their lives to Ebola so far.
SOURCE: WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
Although a few steps have been taken so far such as conducting Ebola workshops with airline crews that have direct flights from West Africa and installing Ebola detection booths with thermal scanners (which can detect high body temperature, one of the symptoms of Ebola) at the Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad airports, a more thorough effort is needed to not only prevent the virus from entering the country but also to contain it, if it does. A few countries have proposed imposing travel restriction on Ebola-affected countries but experts fear that it will only end up aggravating the situation further as illegal immigration will make the disease even more difficult to track. Instead, a better approach of tackling the disease is through increasing awareness of the symptoms which will make identification easier and also help prevent it from spreading further. The following is a list of symptoms for the virus that you should look out for and get immediate medical attention in case you are experiencing any:
Symptoms
54
Fever Severe headache Vomiting Muscle pain Weakness/Exhaustion Diarrhoea Abdominal pain
Unexplained hemorrhage (bleeding or bruising) Reduced appetite Rash Eye redness Hiccups Sore throat
The Ebola virus first appeared in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks, one in Nzara, Sudan, and the other in Yambuku, Democratic Republic of Congo. The current outbreak (first cases notified in March 2014) is the largest and most complex Ebola outbreak since it was first discovered. SOURCE: WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
Patients with a threat of the virus should receive immediate screening, and if recognised to be at risk, should be separated from other patients. Places and people that have come in contact with Ebola patients should also be monitored for 21 days, which is the time during which people may begin to show symptoms. “We need to improve our healthcare system and promote infection control in public and private hospitals all over the country,” says Dr Afia Zafar, professor and consultant microbiologist at the department of Pathology and Microbiology, Aga Khan University. Here are a few simple preventive measures that can reduce the risk of coming in contact with the virus:
Wash your hands frequently. Thoroughly cook all meat before consumption. Refrain from handling animals without gloves and other appropriate protective clothing. Avoid handling items that may have come in contact with another person’s body fluids or blood. Avoid facilities where people with Ebola are being treated. Avoid contact with deceased Ebola patient’s bodies.
Moliha Arfeen is a student in Karachi. She tweets @molihaarfeen19