JUNE 17-23 2012
Cover Story
18 The toughest woman in Sindh Defying norms and conventions, Nazo Dharejo refused to back down without a fight
Feature
26 The Miracle Busters It’s skeptics versus ‘Godmen’ as India’s rationalists declare war on superstition
30 Immortal Beloved Khurram Ali Shafique on the woman who was Nezami’s inspiration for the epic romances of Layla-Majnun and Shirin-Farhad
Up North and Personal
34 Things that go Kerr-Boom in the night
18
Does lightning ever strike twice? It certainly does, in Zahrah Nasir’s case ... and with catastrophic results!
30
Regulars 6 People & Parties: Out and about with Pakistan’s beautiful people 38 Reviews: The best of Hollywood and Bollywood this summer 42 End Of The Line: If Ghulam Mujtaba got his way ...
38
4
Magazine Editor: Zarrar Khuhro, Senior Sub-Editors: Batool Zehra, Zainab Imam. Sub-Editors: Ameer Hamza and Dilaira Mondegarian. Creative Team: Amna Iqbal, Jamal Khurshid, Essa Malik, Maha Haider, Faizan Dawood, Samra Aamir, Sanober Ahmed. Publisher: Bilal A Lakhani. Executive Editor: Muhammad Ziauddin. Editor: Kamal Siddiqi. For feedback and submissions: magazine@tribune.com.pk Printed: uniprint@unigraph.com
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Fatima Butt and Rabiya Habib launch the Old Curiosity Shop in Lahore
Nina
Aliha and Mariam
Mehr Habib
Sadaf, Saira and Momina
Hina Butt and Sehyr Anis
6 JUNE 17-23 2012
Shazia and Aamir
Hamza, Maheen, Ayesha and Saad
PHOTOS COURTESY SAVVY PR AND EVENTS
Fatima Kasuri
Saba
17 JUNE 17-23 2012
PEOPLE & PARTIES
The flagship store of Cynosure launches in Lahore
Neha and Sabina Pasha
Nadia and Rachel Gill
PHOTOS COURTESY QYT EVENTS
Mehreen Syed
Saad, Maheen and Hamza
Qasim Yar Tiwana, Ayesha, Shabnam and Asimyar Tiwana
Fauzia, Cybil and Nooray
Noor and Juggan Kazim
8 JUNE 17-23 2012
Mrs Tauseef and Amina
Sarah, Shahzad and Erum Alam
JUNE 17-23 2012
Qasim Yar Tiwana with Reema and Dr Tariq Shahab Mahnaz
Ayesha Sana
Qasim Yar Tiwana organises Reema Khan’s wedding reception at the Pearl Continental Hotel in Lahore
Nickie and Nina
Sahiba
10 JUNE 17-23 2012
Rehana and Mrs Gill
Maria
PHOTOS COURTESY QYT EVENTS
PEOPLE & PARTIES
JUNE 17-23 2012
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Maheen and Nasreen
Farah and Frieha Altaf
Tammy Haq
PHOTOS COURTESY CATWALK PR
Singapore Pakistan Association celebrates the Rhythms and Colours of the Indus, in Singapore
Meera Shoaib, Laleh Lodhi and Huma Lodhi
Shazia Khawaja and Jaya
12 JUNE 17-23 2012
Faiza Sami
Aamena Islam and Mariam Islam
JUNE 17-23 2012
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Peacock holds a summer sale at Port Grand in Karachi
Samia
PHOTOS COURTESY PHENOMENA
Zara
Pomme
Maha
Mehreen Elahi
14 JUNE 17-23 2012
Naureen
Mishaal and Iman
Hassan
Madiha
JUNE 17-23 2012
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Im Aa Madiha and Deepak Perwani
Saima Azhar
Unilever Pakistan launches new Magnum flavours in Karachi Farheen Salman and Frieha Altaf
Aisha Linnea
Sanam Sayeed and Shahana Khan
16 JUNE 17-23 2012
Maliha, Neeshay and Shazdeh
Tooba Siddiqi and
Ayaz Anis and Raana Khan
d Suhail Tanveer
Annie Jaffri
Ayesha Omar and Shehla Chatoor
PHOTOS COURTESY CATWALK PR
man Ali and amina Sheikh
Adnan Malik and Ayaan
Maha and Nadir Feroze
17 JUNE 17-23 2012
COVER STORY
18 JUNE 17-23 2012
BY SABA IMTIAZ AND SAMEER MANDHRO
When the floods of 2010 swept away their homes and livelihoods, the villagers of Qazi Ahmed Taluka in Sindh’s Shaheed Benazirabad district knew who to blame. The natural waterway that the floodwaters should have passed through had been artificially blocked, and as the waters rose to up to three feet and submerged their lands, they sought the man they believed had ordered the blockage in order to protect his own lands. That man was PPP MPA Jam Tamachi Unar, who also heads the
public accounts committee of the Sindh Assembly. Armed with
copies of the Holy Quran, they — along with Unar’s own cousin — pleaded with the legislator to relent. They even approached Faryal Talpur, a member of the National Assembly and President Asif Ali
Zardari’s sister, but only received empty verbal assurances for their efforts.
But a few days later, when the media arrived at the scene, they
saw that the blockage has been breached in not one, but five places by the angry villagers who had finally taken matters into their own hands.
Despite his political clout, Unar was unable to find even a single
witness to testify against the person who had led the villagers in their act of defiance.
That person was no influential politician or bureaucrat with the
power of state machinery behind them, but rather a woman called
Nazo Dharejo. When the villagers seemed about to buckle under the pressure of defying powerful local notables, she told them: “If there
are bullets fired, I’ll take the first one. If they arrest us, I’ll be the first to offer myself.”
At 36, Nazo Dharejo is already a bit of a local legend. In the past
two decades, she has battled dacoits and has personally fought off several attempts to grab her agricultural land — often armed with
just a single Kalashnikov — while also managing to raise four children and ensuring that her lands remain productive and profitable.
Nazo Dharejo was the first of three daughters born to Haji Khuda
Buksh Khan Dharejo and his second wife, Waderi Jamzadi, in a haveli in Dedhan village, Qazi Ahmed. As was typical for girls in her family, Nazo only studied until the second grade, while also learning to read the Holy Quran in a mosque on the insistence of her mother.
“My mother didn’t know how to read properly,” Nazo says. “But
she stressed that I should read the Holy Quran.”
While this rudimentary education was considered enough for
most girls, Nazo wanted to study further. “I didn’t care for village life and really wanted to study,” she says repeatedly. “I wanted to
tour other countries and to learn about the world.” Though the little JUNE 17-23 2012
19
COVER STORY
village of Qazi Ahmed offered no such op-
never let his daughters feel like they
subsequently bogged down by lawsuits.
get what she wanted.
would always say we were his sahara, his
looked to their mother for strength. And
portunities, Nazo quickly found a way to “I had a sister-in-law who spoke Urdu
and I got her to teach me. I would read
whatever came my way, including digests,” she says proudly.
When Nazo’s younger sisters were sent
to school, another opportunity emerged. Having mastered Urdu, Nazo decided she
also wanted to learn English — “I didn’t
support.” He dressed the girls in men’s clothing and gave them male names —
In such a situation, Nazo and her sisters that strength was not in short supply.
“My mother is a very brave and loyal
Nazo’s was Mukhtiar — and taught them
woman,” Nazo says. When she heard that
to sit and unload the bullets from the gun.
how he had died. When she learnt he had
how to use the guns he owned. “We loved Bohat maza aata hai. It’s a delight to do it. We learned how to shoot.”
Little did Nazo know that sooner than
her son had been killed, she only asked been shot in the chest, she held her head high and said: “My son died like a lion.”
When the time came to bury Nazo’s be-
even know the alphabet!” — from a tutor
she thought she would have to put these
loved brother, there was no man in the
asked her father for permission for the tu-
After the death of the senior Dharejo
convention, Jamzadi told her daughters to
who lived in the autaq (compound). Nazo
lessons to practical use.
tor — who schooled her younger sisters —
(Nazo’s grandfather), the family split up
who was certainly not the stereotypical
ther filed a lawsuit against his family,
to teach her as well. Haji Khuda Baksh, chauvinist, agreed to her request.
His own father, the elder Dharejo, had
married four women. As a result, members of the extended family were perpetu-
over the issue of inheritance. Nazo’s faasking for the land to be distributed prop-
erly and physically took over the property he believed he had a right to.
Unsurprisingly, a feud broke out among
ally at odds with each other and fights over
the relatives, but Nazo — then still dream-
himself was unable to visit one tract for
(her dream job was then of deputy district
land were common. Haji Khuda Baksh eight years because of threats to his life.
Growing up, Haji Khuda Baksh nev-
ing of books and sitting for the CSS exam commissioner) — had no idea what she
house. Breaking both social and religious go to the graveyard and see to the burial of their brother. As relatives dug the grave,
Nazo and her sisters said their farewell to Sikander and saw him being buried.
Throughout it all, they remained dry-eyed
and steadfast. “No one ever saw a tear in our eyes,” recalls Nazo.
The Dharejo girls were clearly cut from a
different cloth, but to their rapacious relatives, they were simply easy prey.
With Khuda Baksh out of the scene, his
was in for.
feuding relatives thought they could eas-
hadn’t treated his many wives and chil-
aided by local politicians. Several mem-
had managed to hold on to. After all, his
others.
tial friends in the PPP while Nazo’s father
er got along with his father because he dren equally and would favour some over Perhaps, Nazo says, this was the reason
that he sought to do the exact opposite
with his own family. Khuda Baksh offered
As is typical in these cases, the feud was
bers of the Dharejo family had influenwas close to the Jatoi family of Naushehro Feroze.
that they wanted to see a film in the cinema, he would book a box just for them.
“He gave a lot of respect to his children,”
other murder of a female relative. While Nazo admits her brother did kill someone,
she also says the 1992 police encounter, in which 30-year-old Sikander was killed, was entirely fake.
The police claimed Sikander was one of
recalls Nazo. “When he came back from
the infamous dacoits who had terrorised
up his shoes.”
stoutly denies. To make matters worse,
the field, he wouldn’t let me touch or pick But more importantly, Khuda Baksh
JUNE 17-23 2012
wonderful hostess.
But the imposing Jamzadi thought dif-
course that would eventually shape Nazo’s
other section of the family split over an-
younger sisters. When the girls requested
and his wife was known primarily as a
were accused of killing a relative while an-
a life as equal citizens of society. “We were ping,” she says, recalling her life with her
son was dead, his daughters were young
ferently. Her sense of loyalty to her hus-
father and only brother, Sikander Ali,
allowed to go to Nawabshah for shop-
ily capture the acres of fertile land that he
The fight quickly turned bloody. Nazo’s
his daughters not just the opportunity to
gain an education but also a chance to live
20
were second to his only son Sikander. “He
band inspired her to take her family on a identity. Jamzadi told her daughters that
they needed to claim what was theirs with force if necessary. Together, the women
settled back into the Dedhan village of Nazo’s birth and into their 1963-era house along with Javed Arain, Khuda Baksh’s manager.
Arain had grown up in Qazi Ahmed. His
Sindh in the early 1990s, a charge Nazo
clan was from the Punjabi Arain agricul-
Khuda Baksh was arrested, jailed and
grated to Sindh years before the partition
tural caste, members of which had mi-
of the subcontinent.
stand,” she says.
smell of gunpowder and the staccato
how he had the run of the family house
but it was only a temporary reprieve.
blossomed.
purdah even from their cousins. Despite his
was diagnosed with hepatitis C and his
man there is a woman. But as a successful
village to be with Jamzadi. Nazo and her
of his condition. After he died, his rela-
father, and my husband.”
Khuda Baksh trusted Javed, who recalls
even though the family’s women observed employer’s absence, Javed moved to the
sisters shuttled between Nawabshah city
and Qazi Ahmed, since they had to sort
out their father’s legal affairs and provide food to the jail he was imprisoned in.
One night, her mother called Nazo with
dire news: armed men had arrived to occupy their land.
Within fifteen minutes, Nazo and her
youngest sister arrived at Dedhan with a
lone guard. The family had the few weapons Khuda Baksh owned and a limited
They thought they would take the property, because we were just girls,” Nazo says
Nazo ended up winning the first bout, Although released on bail, her father
family tried in vain to conceal the severity
tives once again began to eye the lucrative
sound of automatic weapon fire, romance “They say that behind every successful
woman, I had two men behind me — my Ironically, Zulfiqar and Nazo had been
land he had left behind.
promised to each other when they were
property, because we were just girls,” Nazo
rangement fade into memory. This was
“They thought they would take the
says, using the dismissive tone men em-
ploy for women. “But my father always said that we should not talk of hopelessness, or of giving up.”
children, but the family feud saw the ar-
not the only casualty of the conflict and Zulfiqar’s own plans were also disrupted as a result.
His family had originally wanted him to
Even though it was only a few hundred
enlist in the army after he had graduated
of giving up either. They then garnered
the clashes meant he had to stay in the
acres of land, the relatives had no thought the support of the notorious dacoit Imam Bux Khoso. And when they came to take
with a Bachelors degree in Commerce, but district.
Zulfiqar and Nazo eventually met once
over the lands, this time they came out
again and he fought alongside her during
from Khoso’s gang encircled the entire
for each other for eight years,” she says
in force. About 200 heavily armed men
property and began to move in, hiding in the tall wheat stalks planted on the land.
her battle against the dacoits. “We waited
(Continued on page 24)
As the night progressed, the men crept within 20 to 30 yards of the house Nazo and her family was in and opened fire.
“Bullets were raining down on us. We
returned fire but we had only one Kalash-
nikov and we ran low on ammunition,” supply of ammunition. As women, they
she recalls.
With the enemy closing in, there
were intensely vulnerable and outnum-
seemed only one way out.
ten male relatives.
few bullets. We were prepared to kill our-
and loaded bullets into a gun as eighteen-
even your life, is more important than
bered, even after being joined by about On that night, her mother and sister sat
year-old Nazo and her cousins fired round
after round in a night-long gunfight with
“We sat there with our guns and only a
selves instead of losing face. Nothing, not honour,” says Nazo.
As she narrates the story, her husband
the intruders. The armed encounter left
Zulfiqar Ali Dharejo chimes in. “That day
entire life.
miracle that we won.”
her with a lesson she has held on to her “I learned a very long time ago that
some things are only solved with guns, it is the only language some people under-
we saw God at work,” he recalls. “It is a Zulfiqar, who is also Nazo’s first cous-
in, was with her on the day of the battle
against Khoso’s dacoits and, amid the
21 JUNE 17-23 2012
COVER STORY with a smile.
So who made the first move in this sto-
rybook romance?
“It was the 1980s,” says Zulfiqar with
a shy smile. “It wasn’t a time where you could be so upfront about your feelings.”
But he hadn’t counted on Nazo. “One
day I brought it up myself,” she says, laughing. “I said to him, ‘Well I like you, but do you like me as well?’”
to work, and the third — that she didn’t want to live with her in-laws.
would have married him”.
But on the day that Nazo was out-
“My mother-in-law was my aunt and if
manned and outgunned, that stubborn-
must be like! I knew we would not be able
that victory was a miracle, then this also
I am like this, you can imagine what she
to adjust,” she says. Nazo says she didn’t want her in-laws to feel like Zulfiqar fa-
voured only her and would make him spend time with them.
When she travels, it is Zulfiqar who
ness came in very handy indeed. And if seems to be a match made in heaven.
As for the battle itself, it is clear that it
is now very much part of the Nazo Dharejo legend.
Javed Arain still retells the story with
He did. And despite family opposition
takes care of their children and the house.
a tinge of wonder, relating how the next
now has four children: three daughters
Nazo who is the disciplinarian. Javed Ara-
lected entire bagfuls of empty shells and
to the match, the two wed. The couple
and a son. The eldest, Dua, has just taken her Matriculation exams and Nazo wants
one of her daughters to fulfill her own
abandoned dream of enlisting in the civil
It is clear though, that in this family, it is
in recalls laughing that when Nazo was in
Karachi recently, her daughter Dua let out a sigh of relief, saying, “Yes, the tyrant
morning, the children of the village colbullet casings that they had found in the fields.
When the police finally arrived the next
has gone!”
day, they came not to chase the dacoits
grade and ever since she taught him how
penchant for shopping (she is particularly
to vacate the house. “I still remember the
‘is doing it wrong’.
put-downs in return: “He likes ‘experi-
service. Saif Ali, her son, is in the sixth to use guns he keeps lecturing her that she Just like everything else about Nazo, her
relationship with her husband is also unorthodox. In contrast with the many men who would feel uncomfortable with such
a headstrong wife, Zulfiqar appears en-
tirely at ease. Unlike the verbose Nazo, he
speaks slowly and deliberately throughout the interview, but his voice nonetheless
has a steely and authoritative tone. “We live in a male-dominated society,” he says
with an air of finality. “The deeper you
travel in Sindh, the worse it gets. But a woman can do so much that a man can’t. If you go to the mountains Sassi [the heroine from the tragic Sindhi romance Sassi-
Punnu] was in, you’d be scared. It boggles my mind to think that she managed to go into such hostile terrain.”
Zulfiqar looks incredulous when asked
if he ever has issues with his wife’s lifestyle or schedule. “We have never had
an element of suspicion,” he says. As for
Nazo, she says she put three conditions on the marriage: that she would not have
restrictions on travel, she would continue
24 JUNE 17-23 2012
As we talk, Zulfiqar pokes fun at her
fond of anklets) and she offers smiling menting’ on the farm and loses out. I’m a much better farmer than he is,” and, “He is such a stubborn man that no one else
but instead to force Nazo and her family
tone of my voice,” recalls Nazo. “I told the DSP Daulatpur — ‘You want men? Here,
you can arrest them. Do you want guns?
You can take our arms. You will get what-
ever you want. But we have a stay order
and are legally allowed to be in this house.
dered, initially, how I would manage the
Nazo’s guards — who were given to her
money to even eat.” Her extended family,
We will not leave.’”
by PPP MNA Roshanuddin Junejo — remember being overawed by her defiance: “Our women are restricted to the home
but Addi (sister) Nazo and her family has set a new example.”
Nazo believes the men had grossly un-
far beyond her immediate circle. Inspired
she says, never gave her any support. This
are beginning to question long-standing
came instead from the Jatoi and the Daheri families, friends of Khuda Baksh’s,
who extended their support from father
to daughter. Nazo began travelling to the land with her cousins and learned farm-
derestimated the women, and their abil-
ing in “six months”, she recalls proudly.
to maintain their father’s friendships and
ues. Several members of the family tried
ter eight years, she has managed to win
sult, Nazo stopped the water, built a check
ity to not just manage the house but also
defend his honour from his enemies. Af-
back the disputed land that her father had not even been able to visit.
As she thinks back to her childhood, she
says she sacrificed her dreams for the sake of her father. “I loved him madly. I won-
Nazo’s dispute with her family contin-
to steal water from her land, and as a repost and deputed an armed guard there. When her relatives began selling the land that neighbours her own, they refused to
by her perseverence, her female relatives conventions. They are studying and learn-
ing to be independent,” says Nazo with more than a little pride. Perhaps in a reflection of her mother’s childhood am-
bition, her daughter Dua also says she wants to be a bureaucrat, but also doesn’t
see a life for herself in the village. “I want to go abroad,” she says. As for Nazo, she has not entirely given up her dreams of a
higher education, and plans to enter an LLB programme at the University of Sindh in the fall.
Now, after years spent around guns and
offer it to her and instead gave it to other
crops, Nazo is now looking forward to a
Smaller pockets of land elsewhere in
stan Muslim League-Nawaz. She joined
men who now harass her.
Qazi Ahmed that were originally her father’s are still disputed, but Nazo is wait-
We sat there with our guns and only a few bullets. We were prepared to kill ourselves instead of losing face. Nothing, not even your life, is more important than honour,” says Nazo
The example she has set has had effects
house and whether we would have enough
ing for the PPP government to finish its term so she can file a lawsuit since her
relatives are closely connected to Unar and
new career path: as a member of the Pakithe former prime minister’s party a few
months ago and surprised him at a rally
by going onstage and taking over the mic to make an impromptu speech.
Though one of the major reasons for
other politicians. The conflict continues,
joining the PML-N is undoubtedly the fact
a kidnapping attempt in 2008.
claims a different reason. “People have
and Javed Arain himself narrowly escaped Nazo walks us through the former bat-
tleground. It is now a stunning property where she grows cotton, rice and wheat. Cut wheat is bundled up, waiting to go
through a thresher. Three tube wells supply water to the property but Nazo is concerned that there is not enough electricity to power these.
With a guard by her side, Nazo surveys
the property, inspects the crop and soil. “I am fashionable in the city but here I wear
a loose ajrak,” she says. Here, she chats with the farmers. A thermos of tea is produced. The men settle down on charpoys.
that her opponents support the PPP, Nazo asked me why I joined a Punjabi’s party,”
she says. “One of the reasons was his op-
eration against dacoits ... people’s honour wasn’t safe before the operation began.”
While she is sympathetic to nationalist
parties, she does not believe they have managed to deliver any tangibles. The PPP is out of the question for now, she says,
despite her respect for Benazir Bhutto, Nazo sees examples of the party’s alleged corruption every day. “People here don’t
even think about improving their lives. It is just a struggle.”
And in typical style, she is aiming
Nazo looks out at the land and scores of
for the very top of her new career. “Why
“There is a school here ... but no teach-
counters. “I aim high — I want to be chief
kids turn up to say hello. er,” Nazo says sadly.
think of being an MPA or an MNA?” she minister.”T
25 JUNE 17-23 2012
FEATURE
immortal beloved
BY KHURRAM ALI SHAFIQUE
30
A painting of Nezami Ganjavi himself. JUNE 17-23 2012
Layla and Majnun, Shireen and Farhad ... these are the lovers of legend, whose romances have been told and retold for centuries. But how many know of the Persian poet Nezami Ganjavi who reimagined these timeless tales? And how many know that he modelled his legendary heroines after his true beloved, a slave girl named Afaq?
“Under the dark shadow of her hair, her face was a lamp or rather a torch, with ravens weaving their wings around it; And she really did not need rouge since even the milk she drank turned into the colour of roses on her lips and cheeks.” That is how her lover described her, and the lover was no ordinary
man. He is the one who gave the world the legends of Shirin, Farhad, Layla and Majnun. He was the Persian poet Nezami Ganjavi
(1141-1209) and the woman whose flowing hair he compares to the Ravens’ ebon wings was Afaq.
Nezami’s worldview was inspired by Sanai, a famous poet from
Ghazna who had declared: “The pious man combines two in one
but the lover combines three in one.” Here, “two in one” is a refer-
ence to the individual and God while “three in one” alludes to the individual, society and God. Hence, Sanai gave birth to a trend in literature where the beloved represented the spirit of collective life.
Until then, Sufis had taught detachment from the world, but
inspired by the vision of Sanai, a young Nezami felt that the mes-
sage could be developed further for discovering a unity between the individual, society and God. It was this view that he applied to his first book, which he finished at the age of 25 in 1176 AD, and about
which he declared that it contained “resources for becoming a der-
vish as well as a king.” Quite aptly, he called it Makhzanul Asrar (The Treasure of Secrets).
A pictorial depiction of Layla and Majnun.
In keeping with contemporary tradition, Makhzan was dedicated
to a local ruler named Bahram Shah. Since printing had not been
introduced in those days, the “publishing” of a book meant dedi-
When Nezami picked the folklore of Shirin and Farhad for remaking the heroine in the mould of Afaq, he described Shirin as ‘the soul of Iran’. Hence, by analogy, the stonecutter Farhad would become the common citizen who literally moves mountains for the sake of that soul
cating it to a king or a noble who would not only reward the labour
but may also want to disseminate a book that contained a preface in his praise. The rewards offered to Nezami for his labours included a slave girl named Afaq.
Nezami fell in love with her, freed her and married her. In an age
when men could easily keep harems, he was amazingly monogamous and remarried only after Afaq’s death. One can imagine the
passion which the pioneer of love poetry must have possessed, but how can one estimate the allure of the woman whose soul earned, received and (undoubtedly) deserved all this passion?
Actually, that is the catch. When Nezami picked the folklore of
Shirin and Farhad for remaking the heroine in the mould of Afaq, he described Shirin as ‘the soul of Iran’. Hence, by analogy, the
stonecutter Farhad would become the common citizen who literally moves mountains for the sake of that soul. Shirin’s marriage with Emperor Khusrau Pervez and her falling in love with him would
signify that nations were identified by their rulers in that ancient world, which the advent of Islam was bringing to a close.
There was something about either Afaq or Nezami, or both, due
to which the poet’s love for her did not remain restricted to the physical existence of a woman. It instead turned into a living experience of the kind of organic unity that makes the death and resurrection of the entire humanity akin to the death and
JUNE 17-23 2012
31
FEATURE
When his third wife died while he was writing the last epic, he declared that each book had cost him a wife. He had remained loyal to each of his wives while they lived, but the one who assumed a life of her own beyond death was Afaq
resurrection of an individual.
In 1180 AD, Afaq died before the epic Khusrau-o-Shireen could be fin-
ished, and while Nezami did remarry, it seems he could never get
over her memory. When asked by King Sherwan Shah to write an epic about the Arabian folk tale of Layla and Majnun, which was in
turn probably based on a true story that had taken place four hundred years earlier, Nezami was reluctant. However, young Muham-
mad bin Ilyas, his son from Afaq, also showed an interest in the story and hence the soul of Iran that had ‘died’ as Shirin came back
to life as “the spirit of all human beings” personified by Layla. She
also was Afaq, since the “souls” of all cultures were one, as Nezami was going to show in the book he would write after Layla Majnun.
By the time he finished Layla Majnun (1188 AD), in which the hero-
ine did not fall in love with the prince (unlike Shirin), signifying that civilisation was gradually moving away from the kings, Nezami had lost his second wife as well.
The next work, Haft Paykar (The Seven Beauties), featured seven prin-
cesses from different lands narrating seven stories. Each story de-
picted a stage of self-development equally applicable to individuals as well as societies. These stages could be revisited many times.
Nezami remarried for the last time and started his final epic Iskan-
dernameh (The Book of Alexander), a grand combination of ingredi-
ents from East, West, Iran, Arabia, Mesopotamia, India and many other climes. Perhaps Nezami was now describing a “final combination” of humanity that might be possible sometime in a distant
future. It’s a testament to his vision that this sort of cultural and physical fusion, albeit incomplete, can be seen in the great melting pots of the world.
When his third wife died while he was writing the last epic, he
declared that each book had cost him a wife. He had remained loyal
to each of his wives while they lived, but the one who assumed a life of her own beyond death was Afaq. If the souls of Shirin and
Layla were the collective ego of humanity, their outward forms
were modelled on Afaq in the works of Nezami. While her spirit has
already been granted a form of immortality, her physical form also found a way of surviving.
In March 1923, Nezami’s grave in his native city of Ganja (now
in Azerbaijan) was opened up to move his remains to a newly built
mausoleum. Inside were found not one but two skeletons: one of a
man and the other of a woman. Experts believed the latter skeleton
to be that of Afaq’s, and it was also moved to the new grave along with the remains of the poet himself. On the new grave, someone
could have even placed the epitaph that alludes to the combined
grave of Layla and Majnun at the end of Nezami’s version of that story:
“Two lovers lie awaiting in this tomb
Their resurrection from the grave’s dark womb. Faithful in separation, true in love,
32 Nezami’s mausoleum in Ganja, Azerbaijan. JUNE 17-23 2012
One tent will hold them in the world above.”
UP NORTH AND PERSONAL
The old adage ‘Lightning never strikes twice’ is a lie! 342
BY ZAHRAH NASIR JUNE 17-23 2012
It doesn’t just limit itself to two times either as, in sixteen years, it has struck the phone line seven times with five disastrous results, one doublewhammy and a major catastrophe, from which yours truly is still reeling in shock. My first experience of being ‘struck’ was in the midst of a
ferocious winter storm — one of such viciousness that ‘La-La
Land’, as my mountain home is called, was in danger of be-
ing blown to a completely new location somewhere in the outer realms of a distant galaxy. As lightning struck the corrugated iron roof of my house, a mind-numbing zap was accompanied with an electrifying blinding blue that enclosed my world.
The phone line: This is inventively strung, looped over and
dangled across at least two kilometres of mixed forest cover. The forest, despite the predations of indigenous firewood hunters and the forest guards themselves, manages to drape
itself around the mountains in the manner of a multi-green
moth-eaten shawl and there is, as I am repeatedly told by various PTCL engineers and others tasked with answering my questions, no way to protect it from the lightning it attracts. I am
also told that gadgets like voltage regulators/stabilisers aren’t
though I forgot to tell my house guest this.
A couple of weeks ago I trekked off down to Islamabad for a
series of business meetings followed by lunch with friends —
an extremely enjoyable, giggly affair, by the way — and arrived
home much later than planned to attack a backlog of urgent work. ‘Urgent’ meant that impatient editors had either phoned or sent text messages about rapidly approaching deadlines. So, with dogs walked, cats fed and budgies put to bed, I got com-
fortably engrossed on my laptop computer. Just then, a lengthy thunder growl warned of an imminent storm so, cursing loudly, I hastily shut down the computer and disconnected from the
DSL system. Then I made a mug of coffee and sat down to wait the storm out as the work had to be written and sent off before I
could call it a night. The storm attacked in full force, rampaged
on and was, much to my relief, over and done with in just over 30 minutes. Playing it safe, I waited another 30 minutes, scanning the sky for lightning every few minutes, before decid-
ing that work could resume. Still being in a ‘fun with friends’ frame of mind, I put on ‘The Best of U2’ on full blast as I slaved away.
Bono was hitting the high notes of ‘With or without you’
of the slightest bit of use in protecting electronics as lightning
when … aaaaaaagh!
that things are blown up before the voltage regulators/stabilis-
and flicker of a deadly flame sent me reeling back from my pre-
travels so incredibly fast — at the ‘speed of light’ of course — ers have a clue what hit them.
What does happen though, when things are ‘hit’, is that they
object in totally unexpected ways: Telephones, no matter their
Zap, zip, fizzle, swizzle, boom, crack, kerr-boom! The smoke
cious laptop computer. I cursed loudly as Bono fell silent and a spectacular fireworks display vied for ‘Pride of Performance’!
The storm had snuck back. Well, maybe it had roared back
weight, size and colour, uniformly shriek in an ear-piercing
but I couldn’t hear anything except Bono … and the lightning
blue before radiating enough clear light to illuminate the deep-
tally
falsetto, spring straight up in to the air and turn a brilliant
est, darkest gloom (3 am being the preferred time for such occurrences) and go off with a nerve-shattering BANG that a can-
had struck the telephone line, blown the modem and also to-
sizzled, fried and otherwise ‘murdered’ the laptop. That
was it…dead as the proverbial dodo!
Once the eye stinging smell and haze of melted plastic
non would be proud of!
cleared, I — very tentatively, in case ‘it’ fought back — reached
a recent house guest still found it hilarious that amongst
once loathed but come to honour, love and …dare I admit it….
Five ‘La-La Land’ telephones have gone this way so far, yet
my back-up supplies of this, that and the other, is one brand
out and touched the smoking remains of the machine I had
‘obey’. No hair-raising electric shock blew me off my feet, noth-
spanking new telephone — just in case.
ing screamed, not a sound — aside from a furtive hiss — was
lar impact: Having heard a rolling rumble of thunder announc-
tapped ‘Start’. Obviously, not a darn thing happened, but I had
The double-whammy was an early evening event of spectacu-
ing a storm, I quickly checked for lightning flashes and — yes,
there they were — rushed back to my desktop computer, shut it down and switched it off. Being in a tearing hurry and with my
mind in ‘multi-task’ mode, I forgot to also disconnect the modem from the telephone and, shame on me, forgot to discon-
heard so, still incredulous of what I had just witnessed, I gently
to check. It was 11.30 pm, the electricity supply had blown too so I was in the dark, and there was nothing for it except to accept that the situation was entirely my own fault for allowing Bono to drown out reality and cost me a packet in the process!
For the curious, and no doubt there are some, the outer-
nect the telephone itself. I paid for my mistake about fifteen
casing, keyboard and screen of the laptop looked fine but the
the walls, there was the usual frying telephone song and dance
hard drive was intact and retrieved by the computer whizz to
minutes later when, withthunder claps reverberating through performance accompanied by a totally unexpected pistol shot, red glow and — smoke!
Since then, I began keeping a spare modem in stock as well,
mother board had melted. By an absolute miracle, data on the whom I morosely presented the evidence.
And therefore, in the light of my experience (pun intended), I
would say that lightning does strike more than once.
JUNE 17-23 2012
335
REVIEW
the perfect buddy flick BY NOMAN ANSARI
Men in Black 3 is the third entry in the sci-fi comedy series and it is one of those exceptional threequels that is actually better than its predecessors. The 3D in the film is decent while the special effects are snazzy and fun with a well-written script that has plenty of hilarious one-liners for star Will Smith. The movie also sports some great makeup work, presenting all sorts of amusingly goofy and gooey alien creatures. These creatures, of course, are trying to live on earth in disguise all the while being kept under check by the ‘men in black’, who are part of a secret agency that regulates all alien shenanigans on planet Earth. Things start at the LunarMax prison on Earth’s moon, where a dangerous intergalactic felon, Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement), who insists on being called just ‘Boris’, is broken out. Boris, who is a tough humanoid-looking alien with a creepy spider-like insect that rests in the palm of his hand, has only vengeance on his mind against Agent K, who in 1969 not only captured him but also shot off his arm in the process. Soon, K (Tommy Lee Jones) and his partner Agent J (Will Smith) encounter Boris at a Chinese restaurant run by aliens, where he hints of his plan before making his escape. The next day, when J shows up to work, no one remem-
blast from a bestforgotten past BY SAIM SADIQ
Let’s get one thing straight: I’m aware of the fact that the movie under review has probably raked in a few hundred million rupees so far and is raking in more and more dough even as you read this. I’m also not blind to the fact that the so-called ‘entertainment-hungry’ crowds are lapping it up like starved cats with a bowl of cream. In light of this, making an effort to explain just how ridiculous this film really is seems slightly pointless. The essential problem with Rowdy Rathore is that it wears its insanely silly, blockbuster-recipe masala-ness with much pride. That would be a great thing if the silliness was fun to sit through and if the packaging was clever. Sadly, It is not fun or clever, simply because the film aims to take you back to the cinema of the 80s — possibly the worst era for Bollywood, and a time best forgotten. This is the sort of film that became outdated in the early 90s, in which a visibly plump heroine resurfaces once every twenty minutes only to get her belly pinched by the hero, a sequence that appears about ten times in this film and is cue for a song to begin out of nowhere. The story revolves around two Akshay Kumars (cue the ’80s double38 role fixation) with a difference in the shapes of their moustaches serving JUNE 17-23 2012
bers K as if he had died back in 1969. Later, with the help of the new chief Agent O (Emma Thompson), J realises that Boris has changed history by going back in time and killing Agent K. And here we learn that Boris’ actions have ramifications for the space-time continuum. At this point, with the assistance of a lazy shop-owner Jeffrey Price (Michael Chernus), whose father, Obadiah Price (Lanny Flaherty), invented a time travel device, J goes back to 1969 to stop Boris. Eventually, he teams up with K (Josh Brolin), who at this point in life is a young agent. Under all the goofy alien stuff, the MiB films have always been ‘buddy flicks’, about the relationship between Smith and Jones’ characters. In MiB3, their rapport and their contrasting personalities are given extra attention by the script, lending the film plenty of soul. But what is absolutely exceptional about MiB3 is the performance by Josh Brolin, as a younger version of the iconic Tommy Lee Jones. Brolin’s impersonation is so uncanny as the sullen, narrow-eyed, old fashioned field agent, that you would almost think the actor was an alien. It is almost too good.
as the only distinction between them. Somewhere in this tale of identity confusion, is a villain who looks like a South Indian Tarzan and what is possibly the dumbest Indian heroine of the year so far. This latter role is played by Sonakshi Sinha, who seems content being part of blockbuster films which don’t demand any acting skills. Akshay Kumar does reasonably well with both the characters and the brief moments of intermittent relief offered by the film work entirely due to the little bit of star charisma and timing that Kumar can still boast off. However, even that much is taken away from the audience midway through the film once Kumar is made to take care of a little girl who considers him her father. During the climax, his goofy grin does attempt to make you forget the massive gaffes of the film itself, but this is a role he can do in his sleep. In fact, he probably did. Overall, Rowdy Rathore is as silly as it gets, can hardly be called a film and certainly does not pass off as an ‘entertainer’. Yet, if you dig the Housefull movies, love the Salman Khan brand of entertainers and find fun in the blatantly offensive, you might just enjoy this one too. The rest of us cinema-lovers, however, deserve better.
a world full of mirrors BY NADIA JAFRI
Author Nell Freudenberger takes on the challenging task of telling a story primarily from the perspective of “the other.” The story is centered on Amina, a Bangladeshi woman, who marries a white American man named George and immigrates with him to Rochester, New York. This premise was both disconcerting and intriguing. After being introduced to Amina, it soon becomes apparent that her decision to meet someone the way she meets George is an intentional, practical and well-thought-out one that she arrived at together with her parents. And so, I tried, ungrudgingly and un-judgingly, to take the ride along with Amina into a marriage that seemed both unlikely and sensible at the same time. Amina and her parents have spent much of their lives trying to make ends meet. As a result, Amina has managed to use her limited resources to pass college-level entrance exams with just home-study and is able to earn an income by tutoring the children of wealthy parents. Her desire to go abroad is practical, thoughtful and, perhaps, necessary for her parents’ safety and well-being. And so she does what any modern, educated woman who wants to immigrate to America would do, right? She joins an online chat room where she can meet American men. Her parents are excited by the prospects and wait patiently as one materialises. Enter George, a middle-class engineer from Rochester who is looking to meet someone “different” from the American women he has unsuccessfully dated in the past. Despite their obvious differences, they both share a desire to settle down and start a family. Amina’s arrival in Rochester is accompanied with the transitional awkwardness that is expected of any such migration. George’s mother tries her level best to welcome Amina, while Cathy, George’s conservative, religious aunt provides a good dose of comical inappropriateness. However, it is the arrival of Kim, George’s cousin, and the estranged, adopted daughter of Cathy, that really shakes things up. Kim has spent time living in India, working as a Bollywood film extra and then shacking up with a wealthy Indian. She tends to exaggerate or outright lie about her experiences. Back in Rochester, after her failed marriage, she spends her time in Indian tunics, teaching yoga and pursuing a friendship with Amina. The relationship seems contrived at first, but intentionally so. One wonders what Kim’s real motives are, though it’s apparent that they are not necessarily cruel or malicious. Amina’s eventual discovery of George and Kim’s past, as well as her own feelings about her migration, culminate when she returns home to Bangladesh to bring her parents to America. It is here she once again sees Nasir, the son of her father’s friend, who has been tending to her parents during her absence. He has returned from London, swayed towards Islamic conservatism during
his stint there, but has since “recovered.” One can’t help but see that the real love story is between Amina and Nasir. George appears more like a caricature of an “all-American” husband in contrast to Nasir, who is not only Amina’s childhood crush but also forces her to look within herself. My desire to keep Amina and her parents in Bangladesh became stronger as the story drew towards its end. These were the relationships that were concrete and lasting and the one she has with George falters in the shadows. As with most stories of migration, this one is also bittersweet. There are reasons for which people are sometimes left with no choice but to displace themselves and give in. But the question that always lingers is: at what cost? Though I was at first critical of Freudenberger’s ability to write from Amina’s perspective with authenticity, my ill judgment was quelled upon reading the first few chapters. The writer’s descriptions of Bangladesh and Amina’s family life maintain a certain authenticity and don’t come off as clichéd fictional accounts of “exotic lands in South Asia”. The varying levels of religiosity and moral complexity of the characters are also nuanced and believable, something else I wasn’t expecting the author to be capable of. As Mohsin Hamid aptly states in his review for The New York Times, “…The Newlyweds” is at heart a tale of never-ending migrations. Its world is full of mirrors, the refracted similarities conjured up by globalisation.” It leaves you with nostalgia for things lost and a 39 hesitant openness to what may lie ahead. JUNE 17-23 2012
REVIEW
exogenesis comes to a theatre near you BY NOMAN ANSARI
How far would you go to learn more about mankind’s origins? What price would you pay? Ridley Scott’s latest sci-fi epic, Prometheus, explores these questions in a film featuring grand visuals created through some technical wizardry that is simply out of this world. The film’s special effects are responsible for both the deadly-looking alien creatures as well as the enormous space vessels, while retaining enough subtlety to make it all feel authentic. And, in typical Ridley Scott fashion, Prometheus is enhanced by some fantastic cinematography, depicting alien landscapes. But while there is little doubt in my mind that Prometheus will find several Oscar nods in the technical field when the time comes, I doubt it will earn any accolades for its narrative. The adventure begins in 2089 when two archaeologists, Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), find an ‘invitation’ from what they assume is the alien race which ‘engineered’ mankind. Soon, they convince a wealthy businessman, Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), to hire a crew and fund a spaceship to discover more. A few years later, the two are off on their space-faring trip in the scientific vessel christened ‘Prometheus’. Those travelling with our archaeologists are uncharacteristically crude for a group of educated explorers. Leading the group is Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), an employee of Weyland’s company, whose character adds very little substance to the film. The most interesting person in the crew is David (brilliantly portrayed by Michael Fassbender), the ship’s android who is constantly striving to be as human as possible. Every time David is told he isn’t human, he is clearly hurt and we reflect on how our alien creators will treat us when we treat our own creations with such little compassion. As the mission progresses, our explorers learn that not everyone in the group has noble intentions, and that not all invitations are friendly. Scott has wowed cinema goers with modern classics like Black Hawk Down (2001) and swept us away with historical epics like Gladiator (2000) and Kingdom of Heaven (2005). Two of his science-fiction films, Blade Runner (1982) and Alien (1979), became fan favourites and influenced cinema for years to come. Prometheus originally began developing as a prequel to the Aliens franchise and the irony is that it recycles so much of Alien’s narrative structure that on some level it feels like Ridley Scott is ripping off his own masterpiece. Moreover, the derivative nature of Prometheus isn’t limited to photocopying Alien’s plot development. The film is littered with a number of one-dimensional characters who display a level of dimwittedness associated with characters in a low-budget horror film. Trained
40 JUNE 17-23 2012
scientists, who clearly have the intelligence to have been chosen for space exploration, exhibit childish recklessness, lacking rudimentary precaution in unfamiliar situations. That being said, Prometheus contains scenes that are genuinely frightening, thanks to Scott’s skill at building suspense and topping it with the gruesome. What truly makes the alien creatures in the film click is how repulsively organic they look.
sexuality in the time of war BY GULRAIZ KHAN
The movie’s tagline says it’s about “loving the other”. I disagree. Meherjaan is primarily, and more interestingly, about female sexuality against the backdrop of brutality. It’s about women discovering themselves as they are engulfed by a war, reclaiming themselves as men around them are consumed by battle, and consolidating their narrative as they look back at an essentially masculine affair. The movie’s strong central plot — the love affair between a Pakistani soldier and a Bengali girl — is diluted by its peripheral characters. The young Meher, played by Shayna Amin, is insipid when compared to her two aunts — the rape-survivor Neela, played by Reetu Sattar, and the effervescent Salma, depicted by the director Rubaiyat Hossain herself. But the three women together provide an aesthetic narrative of a war which, not surprisingly, has ruffled quite a few feathers in the director’s home country, Bangladesh. Not all three female characters are equally strong though. While ditsy Meher strolls in the woods, Neela is reclaiming herself, and her sexuality, after being raped by Pakistani soldiers. While Meher is largely passive, waiting for her Pakistani-soldier-in-crisp-khakis to rescue her, Salma demands to her father that she is married off, and proposes to several men herself. Neela and Salma are empowered, while Meher is a characterless shade. She gains a voice, and a dimension to her character, only after Wasim Khan (played by Omar Rahim) walks into her life. The affair, however, is trite and two-dimensional and Meher evolves little until Wasim’s departure. Hardly surprising then that the older Meher — a middle-aged, sculptor played by Jaya Bachchan — bears little resemblance to her younger self. The two aunts not only engage the audiences, but also surprise them with their aggressiveness, their unabashed advances, and the comfort they have with their own skin. Unlike Meher, they are neither apologetic, nor do they seek redemption from outsiders. Despite being on the sidelines, they managed to hijack the movie from Meher. The movie’s strength — its women and their self-discovery — also incurs the audiences’ ire. Critics claim that in its quest for depicting an ‘alternative narrative,’ Meherjaan glosses over the tangible brutality of the war. It ignores the plight of the women who were raped and butchered, and almost romanticises the enemy, even if it is depicted by a defected soldier. Whether the criticism is warranted can only be explored when one questions what the director actually set out to do. Yes, Meherjaan is set in a war — and no less than one that leads to the formation of the nation-state of Bangladesh — and its characters evolve when confronted with the war, but is it about the war? In her Director’s Note, Hossain claims, “The purpose of Meherjaan
is to break the glorious narrative of national history and open up a modest avenue to explore perhaps, not only one or two, but multiple narratives of war.” The quest is ambitious, but Hossain’s canvas is restricted; there is little depiction of the war and its complementary goriness — a subject that is intrinsically complex. Let’s not be mistaken — Meherjaan is no national documentation, and Hossain has no responsibility to document the actual war, but relegating all of it entirely to the background appears to be a conscious decision. Hossain seems far more interested in women and sexuality — hence the peppering of literary and academic references throughout — and does not shy away from saying that “history is always a creation of the present.” Meherjaan, therefore, is the creation of a modern, Bangladeshi woman with a strong academic interest in feminism and sexuality. It’s a movie about sexuality in the time of war, and feminism as it evolved during that period. It would have possibly been received far more appropriately, and evoked little controversy, if it had claimed to be so, and not a ‘controversial’ war-time movie about “loving the other.”T JUNE 17-23 2012
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