The Express Tribune hi five - October 26

Ms OCTOBER 26, 2012 ISSUE NO. 19

Some like it white Does your wardrobe have enough of this colour?

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Clash of roles

Do you want to be more than a housewife?

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inside style crush From ramps to racks

domestic goddess Make eid special with homemade tikka boti

hottie of the week

This bloke will never leave you hungry

lessons I learned from a toddler

Section In Charge: Batool Zehra Send your feedback to women@tribune.com.pk

Ms

the buzz

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 26, 2012

Hom ew ork

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by Zahrah Nasir

Working from home is an option that many women consider at some point in their lives yet relatively few take up. Many who consider taking it up see their projects never getting off the ground; others give up when the pressure becomes too much or if family demands result in an unhappy conflict of interests.

At best, working from home opens up a whole new world for women, irrespective of age and educational background and, at its worst, it can be the basis for marital and family disputes. If ‘home work’ is going to succeed, an amazing amount of dedication is required, working hours are often long and hard and eat into time that was previously spent on household affairs. Then there is the issue of pay: some employers, especially those offering online work or those involved in the fashion industry, are under the impression that women working from home will tolerate being paid slave wages simply for the sake of being occupied.

In these cases, it is entirely up to individual women to fight for what they deserve. As opposed to those who work for an employer, self-employed women working from home can, if they work hard enough, have the world at her feet.

Amongst the many work choices, unsurprisingly, the clothes business and cooking are the most popular, followed closely by giving tuitions.

Some women are hesitant about factoring in the cost of their time, electricity, and petrol (if going out is necessary for supplies and deliveries). Yet, if they are to make a success of their enterprise and earn the rewards they deserve, then every single cost must be given due consideration right from the word go.

All in a day’s work Mahnaz*, a mother of two teenage children and a former English teacher, was offered a job transcribing tapes for a publishing house. She took it up, thinking that, each morning, after telling the maid what to do, she would have a good three hours to work on her own. Badly paid as the job was, it was still something she wanted to do.

“I felt that, since I had stopped teaching when the children were young, I had slowly been losing my own, personal identity. Earning some money of my own would also make me feel less guilty on the rare occasions that I decide to splurge on myself,” she says.

While back to full time teaching was out of the question due to family commitments, the opportunity to work from home seemed promising. “It was not an economic necessity for me to work but I needed to do so in order to feel useful again,” says Mahnaz.

Within a matter of days though, Mahnaz ran into problems which, before long, erupted into an all out battle of wills. The issue was something as simple as cooking. Mahnaz had always done the cooking herself, not because she enjoyed it but because keeping a cook had been out of the question. “My maid, who has been with the family for years, is a great basic cook and, before taking on the job, I had arranged with her that she would cook lunch to free me up,” she explains. “This was fine the first few days but, soon the family members began complaining that they no longer got to have the dishes they enjoy, even though I did still cook for them myself in the evening. At first I tried to explain the situation: that it was good for me to have a job and that they should respect the situation. But they all refused to recognise my right to be an individual as well as a housewife and mother.”

The situation went from bad to worse when Mahnaz’s husband, whose office was close by, stopped coming home for lunch at all, insisting on taking sandwiches with him each morning instead. Soon he was complaining that Mahnaz no longer took out the time to drop in on his elderly parents three mornings a week as she used to do before. “Now I can see that he was made to feel insecure by my attempts at developing a career of some kind. The fact that I suddenly had a work schedule and was, via work, interacting with people he knew nothing about annoyed him. I was, in point of fact, developing a life independent of him and our children and he felt threatened by it.

Mahnaz managed to stick it out for all of three months. The work had expanded to include proof-reading too which she generally tackled in the evening while her husband watched television and the kids did their schoolwork or were out with friends. None of the family members supported her and let her know of their disapproval in no uncertain terms. “In the end, I gave the work up, for the sake of peace and quiet,” says Mahnaz, “and now I feel somewhat negated as a person. I should not have given in.”

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THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 26, 2012

Success stories Cyra Anklesaria on the other hand, is looking forward, with a tremendous amount of pleasure, to a future which her home work and dedicated enterprise has made possible.

A teacher by profession, she taught dyslexic children for 24 years but also loved cooking.

Friends and family who enjoyed her cooking, encouraged her to go commercial and she started by just focusing on a narrow range of snacks and starters. Soon, demand forced her to do other dishes too. For five years, she juggled teaching and cooking but eventually dropped teaching to focus fully on catering.

Her business is very popular in Karachi circles and her culinary skills are legendary.

“I’m my own boss, can make whatever I want to and the timings are flexible,” she says, counting the advantages of working from home.

While Cyra has a lady to help her cut, chop and wash the dishes when they pile up, she does everything else herself. “I love it!” she says. “Very soon now, I’m off to a culinary school in London to learn more. My dream is to get myself a small café with an adjoining bookshop adjacent to a beach in Thailand.”

Another success story is that of Naheed Moini who, 18 years ago, decided to add interest to the family flower shop in The Metropole Hotel, Karachi by going into the candle-making business.

“I got the idea from a book an aunt gave me,” recalls Naheed. She started out in the kitchen of her home but then contacted the author of the book, a man in Wales, and went on a course to learn directly from him. After this there was no looking back for Naheed whose ‘Candleworks’ took off straight for the moon and remains at the top of the league. “I soon discovered that working for myself, from home, gave me a measure of independence which drastically altered my life,” she explains. “Not only was I suddenly financially independent but being involved in a creative endeavour boosted my confidence.”

5 Things My nephew taught me

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Just their luck Unfortunately though, the cost of establishing a home-based career can come with a price tag few women are prepared for, as both Shabnam and Amna discovered to their shock and horror.

Shabnam*, a fragile-looking, middle-aged lady, with three teenage children, began giving tuitions to A-level students about 12 years ago. Taking on only girls, she would enlist her husband’s help in dropping her students off if it had gone dark and they did not have their own transport. It was almost six months down the line when Shabnam realised that something was seriously wrong. “My husband was acting strangely and more than once I intercepted telling looks pass between him and one of my students. When I challenged him he admitted, to my horror, that he was having an affair with a girl I had been particularly fond of.”

All hell broke loose in Shabnam’s life when her husband walked out and she had to work to keep her house from falling apart. “He didn’t take up with the student, or at least not as far as I am aware,” she painfully discloses. “But our life together was over and since then I rely on the income from tuitions to support my children and myself. I sometimes wonder if developing my own career was responsible for destroying a previously comfortable life but, on reflection, he would have probably left at some point anyway.”

Amna* who took on book-keeping on a self-employed basis, has a very different story. She had worked for a few years before getting married and having children. “I missed my career and, with my husband’s blessing, took it up again from home. Soon, thanks to a good number of clients, I was earning more than my husband did at his own office job.”

Amna did so well that when her husband said that he was resigning from his employment and going in to business with her, she was relieved at the thought of sharing the task. But instead of working with her, he would simply laze around the house.

“I thought that he was simply taking time to adjust to a home routine,” says Amna. “But before I knew it, I was working round the clock, supporting him and our lifestyle, while he did nothing at all.”

This went on, despite repeated promises from him that he would change, for almost 18 months when, Amna simply cut the cord and has never looked back!

“I now thoroughly enjoy my career and my life without having to cater for a man. Our children divide their time between us and appear to have benefited from lessons learnt too. Our daughters will certainly never take any nonsense from a man and, I hope, my son will treat his future wife with the utmost respect,” she concludes.

One of the most difficult things faced by women working from home is getting family members and others to take their efforts seriously – especially in the beginning as, because the woman is still at home, people have the wrong impression that they can interrupt at will and on any pretense. People ringing for a chit chat, others dropping by at will or demanding that the working woman attend this or that function or go here and there shopping or whatever and all can, sometimes, be difficult to refuse and yet, if the woman is determined to make a go of what she has chosen to do, then it is essential that she learns to say a great big ‘No’ to all temptations.

• The names Mahnaz, Shabnam and Amna are pseudonyms to protect indentities.

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“No” is a great answer to everything I love that kids are completely and uninhibitedly undiplomatic. They don’t care if your feelings are hurt. If bathtime doesnt figure in their trajectory of play, they will simply say ‘NO’.

Loud and simple with no confusion. And they never do it meekly, the way I usually do when I disagree with something, its a plain, assertive, feelingless NO.

Every now and then, bawl your eyes out Nothing gives more clarity than a good, heartfelt cry. When tears drop, all the murkiness and dirt of your heart flows out. Holding back the tears will eventually blacken your heart. So cry all you like just so you come back afresh, ready to face all the monsters out there.

Giggle mindlessly for hours My nephew is a chronic giggler, while its charming right now, it won’t be when he’s a 40-yearold man. But what his giggling for no apparent reason taught me is that sometimes you don’t need a reason to laugh. Sometimes its just nice to let out a big guffaw. These days I laugh when I’m in the middle of a terribly difficult situation.

And the absurdity and silliness of laughing when you’re stressed and anxious, makes me laugh even more. But the endorphins that are released definitely calm my nerves.

When all else fails, be creative Just recently my nephew and I were sitting outside in the terrace because of a power failure.

With no toys with him and a pretty sweaty and angry khaala on his case, he invented his own game. He build his own toys and came up with his own plot. He piled on a few bricks on top of each other and built a little bridge, he took a bright coloured leaf and called it a car and started blowing on the leaf so it would pass through the bridge. I sat in fascination and wondered how many times I come up with creative ways to solve a problem.

Actions speak louder than words From his incessant phone calls during work hours to him missing my absence when I’m away for trips, I feel like a deity thanks to this toddler who can’t even pronounce the word ‘love’. He does not know the importance of the very candidly used phrase ‘I miss you’ but he knows that my voice is just a few digits away.

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Ms

en vogue

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 26, 2012

A tryst

with wh White is the shortest route to understated glamour and designer Mavz knows that well. The norm in the fashion world is to pair this hue with bold colours to accentuate the element of contrast. But we are glad that a brand finally stepped out of the typical colour settings and paired it with equally diluted hues to create chic fashion pieces. Mavz toyed with dull peach, minty green and other pastel colours on a chalky white canvas giving their new collection a surreal twist.

Hair and Makeup: H and Z Designer: Mavz Coordination: Umer Mushtaq Photography: Zara Tareen. H and Z Model: Hira Tareen

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 26, 2012

hite

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Ms

Style crush

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 26, 2012

How to: wear harem pants by Taneeya Hasan

Master the art of wearing one of the hottest essentials of fall 2012

One of the trickiest things in fashion these days is to pull off the harem pants without looking like Aladin’s baby sister. The pants that somewhat look like what you see jocks wearing literally stormed into the vogue vicinity last year and since then they haven’t looked back. If you are one of those who tried acing this look and instead looked like you’re wearing a banyan (vest) over your shalwars, then high five us and read this guide because we care about you and we don’t want you to look like a roadside thief ever again.

We are literally covering our pretty faces while we break it to you that the rule of thumb here is that women with heavy bottoms must avoid lowers that are loose around the thigh area and tighter around the calf area. Warning: Do not go all hater on us just because we believe women who have a wide posterior can still pull off harem pants better than women who have an apple bottom. The good news is that our loyal friend with an ethereal fashion sense vogue.com.uk tells us that a lot depends on the fabric of harem pants that you are wearing. One must know that these pants are puffy around the thigh area hence they add width to the wearers body. If you are a curvezilla, chance are you may not look like runway royalty Kate Moss in these pants, as harem pants have a tendency to add weight to voluptuous figures; however, with the right pair, you can create a stunning, sensual and exotic look. Women with fuller bodies should go for harem pants in a more flowy cloth such as silk, satin or even jersey. Try to keep the focus away from your thigh area as much as possible by adopting these fashion tricks.

If you are opting for a more western look with the harem pants then pair them up with cropped jackets and shirts as this gives more breathing space to your body and makes your torso look longer. Funky uppers also draw focus to your upper body and even if you are failing at pulling off the genie look chances are people wouldn’t even notice. The rule of 1:3 (or 3:1) in photography implies that only one part of the human body should be in focus because it’s pleasing for the human eye. To balance out the bagginess and the fullness at the legs, always wear a fitted top, like a tank top, casual graphic print Tshirt (brightly coloured tee) or fitted silk blouses. A bold accessory such as a chunky hairpiece is also a good idea to keep the eye more towards the upper side of your body.

Put the emphasis on your waist as much as you can. Add a wide, glittery or studded belt that draws attention to your curves and takes focus away from your thighs and mid leg area.

Do accessorise but don’t over accessorise. harem pants easily dominate the ensemble because of their puffiness and flare, hence over accessorising would confuse the observer’s eye. Remember how experts in the make-up world say if you’re wearing heavy make-up on the eyes you should keep the lips nude? The similar rule applies to clothing as well. If you are wearing harem pants, refrain from bringing on your bling blings because they would turn the whole look into a fashion mesh and trust us, looking like a rapper in Pakistan isn’t as cool as it is in Brooklyn.

When looking for that perfect pair to go with your harem pants, get your hands on peep toes or gladiator heels because they add height to your overall look. Since these pants usually end around the calf area they could make your legs look shorter and stumpier; to avoid this situation one must add height and the key here is to show your feet. Wearing pumps or covered shoes would make the human eye perceive you shorter than your normal height.

If you can’t seem to find a pair that flatters your body shape and size, look for alternative designs that have some similarity with harem pants. The flare in harem pants varies from brand to brand and if you feel too much flare is not for your body type then switch to something less flowy and flarey.

If even then you have trouble finding a look that works for you, then try a slouchy harem-style jumpsuit instead.

domestic goddess 7

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 26, 2012

recipe

Tikka Boti BBQ Mix

ingredients Beef/Chicken/Mutton 1-2 Kg

method 1. Mix Shan Tikka Boti BBQ Mix in half a cup of water.

Add garlic, ginger, raw papaya and apply it to the meat. Leave it to marinate for 3-4 hours. Then remove and discard the raw papaya slices.

2. Sew the meat onto the skewers. Place on very low heat of coal/gas fire. Grill very lightly on all sides.

3. Lightly brush the meat with butter/ghee and rotate the skewers until the meat is tender. Serves 6-8 persons.

Garlic Paste 1 tbsp Ginger Paste 1 tbsp Raw Papaya with skin 1 cup Ghee/Butter 1/2 cup Shan Tikka Boti BBQ One Packet

hottie of the week 8

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 26, 2012

Status Undisclosed Birthday Undisclosed Horoscope Undisclosed

Face

90%

Who is he?

It was purr at first sight when we saw restaurateur Sikander Rizvi — owner of Xander’s Cafe — at the launch of his cafe in 2010. Our delectable hottie, with chiselled features courtesy his French heritage, is the son of Florence Villiers, who basically gets a thousand prayer emails everyday for opening our taste buds to succulent dishes of France through Cafe Flo. Sikander, also known as Xander among comrades and loved ones, manages an intimate 600-square foot cafe tucked away in a cosy corner of Ensemble boutique. Even though he is a food lover by choice and a restaurant owner by profession, his main aim on this planet seems to be to make us melt into a gooey mush with his chocolate boy looks and divine culinary skills.

Talent

95%

Why he’s droolworthy Have you ever dreamed of waking up to the aroma of freshly made crepe and an exotic concoction named after you? Well if you have a Sikander at home, you may be one of the lucky few who can actually urge him to make a drink or a dish with ingredients denoting aspects of your personality. The restaurant owner who “went to hospitality school in Switzerland and worked in hotels in South Africa and Amsterdam” has all the skills up his sleeve to swirl up a mix and make your heart swoon with sugar and spice and everything nice. Here’s a tid bit served in hot sauce for all those who are taking notes: Sikander loves Japanese food and hates Mongolian cuisines. So anyone who knows how to cook Japanese meals that sound more like martial arts tricks than food, must take our their pans and stir some Japanese perfection to win this foodie’s heart.

Things you didn’t know about him

Charisma

100%

Total Package

95%

With his culinary expertise and his good looks, Sikander is a trophy chef everyone wants to take home. He will cook for you on the days you don’t feel your best (six days a week at least we’d say). Surprises will be deliciously unpredictable because this bloke knows how to take something ‘meh’ to level aa-wait for it-mazing with magic fingers.

Warning: He could come off as a mama’s boy and the saddest part is our mamas tell us to stay away from that type. You need tissues?

Sikander Rizvi