The Express Tribune Magazine - November 21

november 21-27 2010

The Death Hunters

june 13-19 2010

june 13-19 2010

november 21-27 2010

Cover Story 18 The Death Hunters Tracing the victims of violence with Edhi ambulances

Feature 28 Punking up Pakistan The Kominas make punk music with a distinctly Pakistani twist

Portfolio 32 Where Time Stands Still...

Essa Malik visits Paradise Point

Parenting

28

38 Stranger and Stranger If you’re not ready for your next child, be ready to handle nosy strangers

Review

32

40 What’s new in film, TV and books

Regulars 6 People & Parties: Out and about with beautiful people 16 Tribune Questionnaire: Sami Shah on his navel 44 Horoscope: Shelley von Strunckel on your week ahead 46 Ten Things I Hate About: TV news

16

4

Senior Sub-Editor: Nadir Hassan, Sub-Editors: Batool Zehra, Hamna Zubair, Film Critic: Faiza S Khan Creative Team: Amna Iqbal, Jamal Khurshid, Essa Malik, Anam Haleem, Tariq Alvi, S Asif Ali, Sukayna Sadik Publisher: Bilal A Lakhani. Executive Editor: Muhammad Ziauddin. Editor: Kamal Siddiqi.

For feedback and submissions: magazine@tribune.com.pk Printed by: Yaqeen Art Press (Pvt.) Ltd., Karachi

june 13-19 2010

PEOPLE & PARTIES

Best Foot Forward Nadia Hussain launched her new line of footwear,

6

Ahmed , Madiha and Imtisal

Aneela Rashid

Cybil and Mehdi

Tony , QYT and Nadia Hussain

November 21-27 2010

PHOTO CREDIT: BILAL MUKHTAR PR

Fetish, in Lahore.

june 13-19 2010

PEOPLE & PARTIES

Fahad Hussayn and Maram

Saadia Asad

8

Yab and Farooq Hassan November 21-27 2010

Faisal Farooqui and Uma

Sophia

Khan

Anoushay Asad

june 13-19 2010

PEOPLE & PARTIES

Mehrbano Sethi and Bilal Mukhtar

Mariam and Emaad Irfani

Amna Kardar

10

Sabina Pasha and Khalid Sulman November 21-27 2010

Zainab

a

Cheem

Asifa and Nabeel

june 13-19 2010

PEOPLE & PARTIES

Home Comforts Siemens launched its home appliance range in Lahore.

vv

12

Bilal and Aqeel

Huma and Lubna

Mrs Jahanzaib and Sara

Hamza Tarar

November 21-27 2010

PHOTO CREDIT: BILAL MUKHTAR PR

A reception was held in this connection.

june 13-19 2010

june 13-19 2010

june 13-19 2010

Photo: Nariman Ansari

“Even when a comedian is lying he is being more honest than normal people” Comedian Sami Shah on his first crush, the desire to be a writer and his lovely navel.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

Sitting alone in my bathroom with a stack of comics and no im-

Physique. I yearn to be buff without doing any of the exercise re-

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

My ability to be perpetually broke.

The first hour long stand-up show I ever did. That and the birth

pending work.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

quired.

of my daughter (but my wife gets more credit for that one).

Their refusal to give me mass amounts of money because they

What is your most treasured possession?

love me so.

My iPod touch. Now, just because I said it, watch me lose it.

What is your greatest extravagance?

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Apple products. I want them all and can’t afford any.

Standing on stage the moment after your opening joke failed.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

If you didn’t do your current job, what would you choose to do?

Naïveté.

Write full-time. It was a dream that got waylaid by reality.

On what occasion do you lie?

What is your most marked characteristic?

I am a comedian. We never lie. Even when a comedian is lying he

I like to think it’s my sardonic wit. Others say it’s my annoying

What do you most dislike about your appearance?

Who is your hero of fiction?

A shorter list would be what I like about my appearance. I have a

Roland the Gunslinger from Stephen King’s Dark Tower series.

is being more honest than normal people.

lovely navel.

What is the quality you most like in a man?

The ability to argue along rational and linear lines.

inability to shut up.

Which historical figure do you most identify with?

Thomas Jefferson. I love nation building and having affairs with slaves.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Who are your heroes in real life?

Not being a man.

Stephen Fry, the man is a genuine polymath. Alan Moore, a

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

Oswalt, Marc Maron, Jimmy Pardo, Stewart Lee (all great come-

Unprintable curse words. I suffer from severe potty-mouth.

writer who manages incredible complexity of thought. Patton dians currently working).

When and where were you happiest?

What is your greatest regret?

1999, Karachi. Summer vacations and it was me and my best

Asking out that girl in ninth grade. I don’t think my confidence

friends just goofing off for three months. Ah, the halcyon days of youth.

Which talent would you most like to have?

Singing. I sound like a crow giving birth. Singers are inherently sexy, the bastards.

ever recovered from the outright rejection.

What’s your favourite quote?

I tend to loathe quotes. They are all pithy and gimmicky like, “The meaning of life is that life has no meaning.” Stupid. a

November 21-27 2010

17

COVER STORY

h t a e d e h T

nOVEMBER 21-27 2010

s r e t n u h

BY TAHA S SIDDIQUI

“Gun shot in Keamari!” Shehroz shouted to his colleague as he hurriedly yanked off his Edhi jacket from the wall hanger. I had just entered the Edhi office and before I could even talk to him we were on our way, speeding to Keamari, accompanied by the blaring of a siren and the indistinct chatter on the radio set.

Wanting to investigate violence in Karachi, I had planned on

spending time with Shehroz, an 18-year-old emergency professional, at the Edhi centre in Tower, II Chundrigar Road. The city was going through a spell of target killings, just after the by-

elections of PS-94. In the absence of law enforcement agencies, spending a few days with an Edhi worker was the best way to visit sensitive areas.

Speeding into a lane ahead of Keamari, Shehroz picked up the

hand set on the radio set.

“Confirm location, confirm location. I’m in Keamari,” he said.

“You’re in the right area. Please search; there’s no confirmed

location.” A voice replied from the other side.

Shehroz went from one lane to another with his designated

driver, Nadeem, looking for the victim but the search was futile.

It had been a false alarm.

Shehroz called off the search and Nadeem turned the ambu-

lance around. We were on our way back to the centre.

“Does this happen a lot?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he replied. “But we have to check all calls — that’s our

job.”

“How many calls did you attend to today?”

“I don’t keep an exact count, but on an average, I go for five to

six calls a day,” he replied. “It totally depends on the city’s situation. Today, for example, I had to go to the same locality in Lyari quite a few times to collect different parts of the same body. We

found the head first, then the torso and later the arms and legs.”

Shehroz took out his mobile phone and handed it to me. On

the screen was a snapshot of the body parts he had collected earlier in the day. I had barely asked if he had more such photos

when he eagerly started showing me other albums of his assign-

ments. I stared at the unspeakable horror and gore, repulsed yet nOVEMBER 21-27 2010

COVER STORY fascinated.

As midnight approached, we waited for more calls.

“How’d you land up with this job?” I asked him.

“I came in as a call centre operator but now I do everything

here,” he said.

A couple of hours had gone by without any calls. There were

reports of killings in different parts of the city. The death toll had gone up to 12 in the last 10 hours. The total body count was over

50 now. Meanwhile, Shehroz and I chatted about the politics of ethnic-sectarian violence, about area holdings, “bhatta” and the extortion business.

As his duty hours drew to a close, Shehroz suggested that we

visit the morgue and see the bodies he had picked up that day.

He was interested in showing me the body parts he had collected

and which had now been sewn up at the Edhi morgue near Super Highway.

At the morgue, the stench was unbearable — a sharp metal-

lic smell, the stale stench of congealed blood. In the cold storage

area were the uncovered heads, open eyes and empty gazes of the dead.

Day 2 The next day, October 18, the city wore a different air. I called

Shehroz as he was getting ready to go to work, asking him if the

city was violent. Surprisingly, he said it wasn’t. The PPP was

out in full force to mark the Karsaz bombings and the arrival of Benazir Bhutto three years ago. The city was peaceful because the leaders of PPP were making sure that the police stayed vigilant.

Day 3

It was around 7 pm when I heard from Shehroz. News had

come in that there was a massacre at the Shershah market, with at least 12 people dead. Meanwhile, I was at a product launch, in-

vited by the fashion doyenne Frieha Altaf. As we were leaving the

fashion show, my phone rang and on the other end was Shehroz.

He was in a hurry.

“Taha, get to Civil [Hospital]. I’ve just picked up three gunshot

victims from near Radio Pakistan,” he shouted.

As I drove on the empty streets of Karachi, the city seemed

paralysed. It felt as if it was late in the night though it was just 8 pm.

At the hospital, I went up to an Edhi official and asked for

Shehroz. He appeared a few minutes later and asked me to follow him inside the mortuary.

“I picked up three bodies just half an hour ago,” he said. “They

were lying on top of each other on the side of the road.”

There was the same metallic smell and dried blood on the floor

that we walked on. Around the bodies was a bunch of men (police

20 nOVEMBER 21-27 2010

nOVEMBER 21-27 2010

COVER STORY

officers, I was told later) inspecting the bodies and taking notes.

The victims had all been men in their early thirties.

“Taha, look at this one,” said Shehroz, touching the forehead

of a victim. “He’s been shot in the head at close range... “

Right in the middle of the forehead, there was a bullet hole.

“Aren’t you bothered with all this violence?” I asked Shehroz.

“I am used to it,” he shrugged.

There was emergency at Edhi that day, and he had gotten in-

structions from his head office to stand by at the hospital since there was a strong possibility that they would have to pick up

more bodies. The death toll for that day stood at 17 in the last 12 hours.

I decided to stay with Shehroz and soon we were off to Malir

where there was an exchange of fire between two groups and casualties were expected.

The streets were quiet and it looked as if someone had sucked

the life out of the city. After reaching a point in the lair of streets in a neighborhood, the ambulance driver stopped next to a police mobile.

“We can’t go any further,” he said to me.

Curiosity is a dangerous trait, I decided to scout the area. I

walked up to a lone police mobile standing in one corner and asked one of the policemen what was going on.

“There’s firing ahead, sir. Don’t go,” he said.

“What seems to be the problem?” I asked him.

“Sir, we’re waiting for orders, we may have to carry out an op-

eration,” he said.

Right then, my phone rang. It was Shehroz.

“We have a gunshot case in Korangi. We are moving there,”

he said.

“Okay, I’m coming,” I replied and hung up.

As we sped to Korangi, the details started pouring in. There

had been firing at a camp for flood victims and three people were

reported to be injured. We were in Korangi in 20 minutes or so, but as we were about to enter the lane where the incident had taken place, we saw ambulances driving out of the area.

The injured had already been taken to the hospital. One of the

victims had succumbed to injuries and residents of the camp

were protesting with the body. An Edhi ambulance already ac-

companied the protestors so Shehroz decided not to go. He called in at the headquarters and was told to go back to Malir.

22 nOVEMBER 21-27 2010

nOVEMBER 21-27 2010

REVIEW

june 13-19 2010

june 13-19 2010

COVER STORY

26 nOVEMBER 21-27 2010

We reached the spot we were at earlier and Shehroz got a call

from the HQ informing him about a body that had been brought to the police station nearby. We went to Al Falah Police Station, where the call had come from.

The victim was a boy in his late teens. Shehroz checked the

body and showed me the bullet wound. The boy had been shot in

the chest, close to the heart. Shehroz and his helpers loaded the body onto the ambulance and minutes later we were speeding to the hospital.

At Jinnah’s emergency ward 20 minutes later, the doctor

on duty declared the victim dead and referred us to the nearby morgue. A little while later, the father of the dead boy arrived.

Inside the morgue, I could smell the same metallic stench of blood and hear the cries of the father.

At 3 am, Shehroz called it a day, and invited me to dinner with

his family the next day.

DAY 4

I reached Shehroz’s locality around 5 pm. Lyari is one the most

notorious neighborhoods in Karachi and Shehroz came outside

on the main road to receive me. Through a labyrinth of narrow lanes, we came to a four-storey building where Shehroz lived.

He introduced his parents and his two younger siblings, a 16-

year -ld sister and a 14-year-old brother. His mother went to make tea for us while his father started chatting.

After a round of tea, I asked his father about his son’s work.

“Do you like what he does at his age?” I inquired.

“Yes and no,” He said. “We need the money so he has to work.”

“But I have no words for the kind of work he does,” he added.

“So what was your reaction the first time he came home and

told you about picking a dead body?” I asked.

“We were shocked. We wanted to tell him how scared we were,

but if we’d done that, our son would have been shattered.”

Later, I had a talk with his sister. “It is scary but someone has

to do the job,” she said about her brother. “Shehroz shows me the pictures every time he comes home.”

It was almost night fall when Shehroz’s phone started ringing

again. There was an emergency in the city once again and they were calling him to work.

Minutes later Shehroz was on his way. a

27 nOVEMBER 21-27 2010

Feature

up pakistan punking

One album, an EP and a performance at the BBC Maida Vale studios later, The Kominas inject new life into punk music.

by Huma Imtiaz

If Vital Signs in the 80s represented the shareef, slightly rebellious boys who loved both gori and sanwali girls, of Pakistan, more than 20 years later, it’s the Kominas who are their antithesis.

Let’s take their song “Kuj”: It’s a marriage that, on paper,

seems to be a rishta aunty’s worst nightmare. The words are of the late Munir Niazi, one of the finest Punjabi poets of recent

times. The beat is punk rock; guitars, a pounding drum beat, a vocalist crooning in Punjabi and a catchy beat. The result is the

28

21st century interpretation of the poem “Kuj” by The Kominas.

November 21-27 2010

The last Americans of Pakistani origin who created waves

were the would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad and the Sargodha 5. The Kominas may have songs like “Suicide Bomb the

The Kominas claim to fame was their role as a Taqwacore band, and their debut album, Wild Nights in Guantanamo Bay, which propelled them into fame.

Gap”, and lyrics like “Wal-Qaeda Superstore/Those other joints

are such a bore”, but let that not raise your hair on end. Imran Malik, drummer and back up vocalist for The Kominas doesn’t

look like a terrorist-in-training, even though he does have long hair and facial growth.

The Kominas’ claim to fame was their role as a Taqwacore

band, and their debut album, Wild Nights in Guantanamo Bay,

which propelled them into fame. The Taqwacore movement, in-

troduced by Michael Mohammad Knight, was a rejection of traditional Islam, which was incorporated by different bands such

as The Kominas in their sound. Malik, while talking about the album, says, “That album was released when no one knew who The Kominas were, and it was more like, lets make an enormous statement for our friends. We thought “Suicide Bomb the Gap”

was funny; these were things that you’d never heard in music before and that was the idea. The driving force behind the al-

bum was to see what a Taqwacore punk band would sound like and make it a reality.”

However, Malik says that there is much more to The Kominas

than the label “Muslim punk band”. “We don’t identify with Islam as much as we identify with our Pakistani heritage. Songs

like “Pardesi”; you take a typical iktara [a traditional one-string

instrument] riff and mix it with reggae and ska. That kind of stuff is exciting to us. The idea is not to fuse these kinds of mu-

sic, but to take South Asian music and translate it into some-

thing where you use it with the instruments we know how to play because we grew up in America, we identify with rock cul-

29

ture and the instruments. And the idea of three to five brown November 21-27 2010

Feature kids making music…you can use your own vocabulary, so that’s what we’re doing, talking about things that we talk about be-

tween ourselves. That was the idea and it continues to be the idea of the things that we do. Our influences are all over the

place, living in Brooklyn there are all kinds of bands that people haven’t heard of, and we play with all kinds of people. Some

people would think that that’s not going to work, that you need to have a distinct sound. But we’re so complex and there’s no reason to hide behind some kind of idea. Calling it Taqwacoreit’s a label that would restrict us. We definitely have some songs

that can be called Muslim punk songs like “Shariah Law in the USA” and “Suicide Bomb the Gap”. “Kuj”, however, is not a Muslim punk song, it’s about living and growing up in Lahore, and

how it’s a cool place. So it’s a really universal song, Munir Niazi

wrote those lyrics and we identify with that, we’re not trying to restrict ourselves in any way. We want to make music that we find to be cool or interesting or surprising, there’s no theme or genre that we’ve stuck to.”

With lyrics such as “Hum sirf wohi piyeinge jo Iraq mein pee rahe/Hum sirf wohi piyeinge jo Karbala mein peeetay thay” in a song titled “Tunnn”, it is no surprise that The Kominas have a reputation of being controversial 30 November 21-27 2010

With lyrics such as “Hum sirf wohi piyeinge jo iraq mein pee

rahe/Hum sirf wohi piyeinge jo karbala mein peeetay thay” in

a song titled “Tunnn”, it is no surprise that The Kominas have a reputation for being controversial. In their second offering, an EP titled Escape to Blackout Beach, The Kominas covered a Naseebo

Lal number, “Manji De Vich Daang”. Malik says that the Naseebo Lal track was his idea. “I was interested in the controversy

behind her, and how banning someone like Naseebo Lal is an

wefil thing. The only way as a band to pay tribute to someone like her is to cover one of her songs, and it was a song that we also find really funny, “a snake in a bed”- that’s hilarious.”

Basim Usmani, The Kominas’ lead vocalist says that their rep-

grew up listening to it. Bollywood is so strong in our culture,”

that they write. “It doesn’t have to be that way. As we move on

“Who are these boys?”, one wonders. Pakistani boys in the

utation as a controversial Muslim band overshadows the music

laughs Malik.

we’ll be using less vocals, and less lyrics. We’re trying to em-

US, punk music and a fascination for “Choli Ke Peeche”? Unilke

thinking of expressing our ideas through rhythm. I don’t have

on the South Asian bandwagon.

phasise the beat in the material we’re writing currently. We’re to sing a verse in Punjabi if we use a Punjabi beat.”

other bands of South Asian origin, they’re certainly not jumping In an op-ed for The Guardian, Basim expressed these views about

Usmani says this is a gradual process. “Our first album had a

the Sufi music festival held in New York: “As someone familiar

radio sessions we did mostly qawali, filmi and mujra music. So

politicisation cheapens our most cherished tradition. It’s akin to

few Punjabi songs on it, our last was half in Punjabi, for the BBC

I think we’ve been emphasising our roots more and more, but

now I think we’re going to emphasise the rhythms. It’s going to be an entirely new approach. We’ve put down money on an

apartment in Philadelphia, we’ve been writing new material here for our third album.”

If there is one video that has beeen repeatedly YouTubed this

year, it is The Kominas doing a cover of the Bollywood classic

“Choli Ke Peeche” for Bobby Friction’s show on the BBC, part of

their performance at the BBC Maida Vale studios. A young man croons the song that probably cemented Madhuri’s reputation as one of the finest dancers Indian cinema has ever produced.

with the regimen that mystics have to maintain, I feel that this defecating in the sink where you wash your hands. The fact that

the head of the Sufi council was a Musharraf crony Chaudhry

Shujaat Hussain is embarrassing.” I ask Basim if he feels we’re exporting the wrong kind of music (like Salman Ahmad) to por-

tray a moderate version of Pakistan? Basim says, “Yes, and when it becomes too political it alienates people from the music. Abida

Parveen performed 10 years ago in Central Park and I think it was better then, than when she performed at this festival that was

just beating people over the head with a stick. I think we need to protect these singers and their business in Pakistan.”

With an India tour in the works and a plan to come to Paki-

Malik says, “We’ve been covering “Choli Ke Peeche” for years,

stan to perform in the winter, The Kominas want their mu-

our most popular songs, even with white audiences. And when

example that both Usmani and Malik quote is their concert held

it translates to a rock song so well, and it’s perfect. It’s one of

Bobby Friction asked us to do the Maida Vale session he insisted

that we play it. We weren’t even going to do it originally, but he

insisted that this song is what’s going to make you guys blow

up in a way. It’s something unique and universal. Not just Pakistanis and Indians but its a song that everyone knows and we all

sic to become popular amongst all classes in the country. An a few years ago in the red light area of Lahore, where they invited everyone from the street to attend, and was featured in The Taqwacores film.

Malik says, “We’d like to see our music being played in taxis in

Karachi as well as in somebody’s Mercedes.” a

November 21-27 2010

31

PORTFOLIO

where time stands still..

PHOTOGRAPHY: ESSA MALIK TEXT: FARID ALVIE

Away from the haze, glare and

a seemingly perpetual sunbleached veneer that is a staple

of all mega cities like Karachi, there exist pockets of respite that act as sanctuaries for weary senses. Not too far from the

incessant cacophony of traf-

fic jams and the often over-

whelming demands of daily urban living, lies one such ref-

uge. As an integral part of this city’s lexicon, Paradise Point is

the epitome of egalitarian generosity. It welcomes everyone regardless of who they are and provides equal succor to all.

As with all such places, there

is a timeless, universal feel prevalent.

Colours,

shapes,

textures, sounds… all become enhanced, forcing one to take note. Wet, dark sand grains caressed by frothy ocean foam; jagged rocks jutting from the earth;

thick

cotton

clouds

spread across an almost azure sky; tiny crustaceans carried

to shore on the backs of gentle waves, the world comes alive in every aspect of this incredible universe. This is a different dimension altogether.

Despite its intrinsic connec-

tion to this city, Paradise Point unfortunately draws fewer of this city’s denizens now than it once did. And that, indeed,

is a shame. For within the embrace of this great Karachi

icon, there (still) exists a special portal capable of transport-

32

ing one to another world.a november 21-27 2010

...

33 november 21-27 2010

PORTFOLIO

34 november 21-27 2010

35 november 21-27 2010

PORTFOLIO

november 21-27 2010

37 november 21-27 2010

parenting I’m standing at the counter of a shop for baby and kids with my almost-three -year-old. We’re buying water bottles for nursery school. She’s scampering around and as I call

out her name, the woman in line behind me looks up suddenly and smiles, telling me that her daughter has the same name. Oh what a coincidence, we laugh. We exchange pleasantries about

our daughters: how old each is, which schools they’re at, how we feel about said schools. As I’m paying, this completely amicable stranger asks me if this is my first and only child. I say yes, and

suddenly she morphs from being a perfectly nice stranger whose only connection with me is that our daughters share a common name into a monster whose desire seems to be to convince me to add to Pakistan’s already ridiculous natural increase rate.

I’d like to say there was an iota of reason in what followed. I’d love to say she meant well, but I’ve

stopped making excuses and I’ve given up lying.

“It’s time to get pregnant again,” the stranger said, “she needs the company,” she added by

way of explanation. She has many friends at school, I reasoned. “But what about when she comes home?” prompts my new life coach. Then as if this isn’t bad enough, she starts talking directly to my daughter, squatting low to look her in the eye and telling her to ask mama for a sibling, to say mama please let me be a big sister, oh won’t you please?

stranger and stranger And just like that, this episode goes from being severely uncomfortable to resembling a Lynchian BY Mahvesh Murad

surrealist nightmare.

This woman who appears to be brainwashing my child doesn’t know a thing about me. She

doesn’t even know my name. She doesn’t know if I or my husband are infertile, if my child is even biologically mine or adopted. She doesn’t know if I’ve recently miscarried, or am going through a

traumatic and painful hormonal treatment. She presumes I am married — she doesn’t allow for the possibility that I am widowed or d-i-v-o-r-c-e-d (shock horror). Hell, maybe I just don’t want

another child (recent research shows only children to be smarter and more successful than one of multiples — go Google it). And, most importantly, she doesn’t realise that this is none of anyone else’s business.

I would love to say I told her smartly off and left her jaw hanging at that counter on behalf of

every woman who has faced such a situation, but I didn’t. I took my child’s hand and we walked away. I have heard this countless times since my daughter turned one. I have heard it from friends,

from family and now from a complete stranger. I would like to think each of them meant well each

time. But sometimes I wonder if they were part of a classic vicious circle, a silent legacy of pressure tactics that pushed them into multiple children and now pushes them to offer the same opinion to others, largely unwarranted. Or perhaps they’re happy with many children, perhaps they’ve never had any issues, from conception to graduation.

But here, now, I’d like to say what I wanted to say to each of those women. If you’ve ever been

the person to tell a woman it’s time to have a first/second/third child, if you’re that stranger, that friend, that sister, that mother or that mother-in-law, then you should be ashamed of yourself. You

may think that by being a mother of multiple children you can guide others as to when and how to bear theirs, but you’re wrong. You only know your own life and you only ever will. You do not know another woman’s potential to be a mother, of one child or more. You do not know her life,

her reproductive organs, you do not know her world, and you do not how much love she has to give.

38

Do not presume. a November 21-27 2010

39 November 21-27 2010

REVIEW

featured review of the week

film pilgrims’ progress

By BATOOL ZEHRA

Those of you who love watching other people play videogames will be thrilled by Scott Pilgrim vs the World. Those of you who don’t might, by the end of the movie, acquire an idea of the idle, passive fascination of the same. Edgar Wright who’s directed cult favourites Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, translates Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel series to the big screen but despite — or perhaps because of — the editing razzle-dazzle, the spliced screens and the visual effects, the videogame referenced, comic book-based world of Scott Pilgrim feels hopelessly flat and insular.

Scott Pilgrim is the typical vacillating, slacker which the nerdy Micheal Cera — whose charisma is underscored by his high-pitched voice and lack of a jaw — seems doomed to play for the rest of his acting career. A bassist for the mediocre punk band The Sex Bob-ombs and an unlikely lady-killer, Scott is recovering from a big break up by dating a high school girl Knives (Ellen Wong) amidst disapproval from his big sister Stacey (Anna Kendrick), bandmates (Alison Pill, Mark Webber and Johnny Simmons) and roomie (Kieran Culkin). For a regular, passive, non-confrontational kind of guy, Scott’s life is surprisingly full of drama. But things really start to heat up when Scott spots the girl of his dreams, the lovely, inscrutable Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a punk rock chick with pink hair — well, at least initially, because Ramona changes her hair colour every week-and-a-half. To win the blasé Ramona, Scott must battle her seven evil exes — not ex-boyfriends, as Scott ingenuously keeps referring to them until he has to fight Roxy who calls Ramona a “has-bian”.

What ensues is Mortal Kombat-style battles with a string of colourful exes starting with the Bollywood-inspired Matthew Patel who Ramona went out with in seventh grade. “Why do I have to fight you?” asks a genuinely bewildered Scott, a question that will resonate with the uninitiated viewer. Still there are laughs a-plenty 40 even for those who are unlikely to get the in-jokes or be tickled by November 21-27 2010

que cera cera Will Scott choose Knives or Ramona? You really couldn’t care less.

With his squeaky voice and nonexistent jaw, Micheal Cera makes an unlikely lady-killer.

The exes, when vanquished, don’t die, they simply vanish as silver coins rain down and Scott racks up points, 1-ups . . . even another Life. But the battles are all the same joke, repeated incessantly through the movie.

the humour which banks on weirdness alone. The exes, when vanquished, don’t die, they simply vanish as silver coins rain down and Scott racks up points, 1-ups . . . even another Life. But the battles are all the same joke, repeated incessantly through the movie, and after the first few exes, you stop caring for what are essentially cardboard cut outs, or, in this case, video-game characters — colourful enough, but never truly engaging. There is never much of a fight, the fun is in the exaggeration, the pop ups, the Batman series style text that floats on the screen accompanying punches(Pow), doorbells (Riiiiing), and the sound of bass (DDDDDDD). Scott’s real battle, the break up with Knives, is lost in that noise.

Compared to the magnificently entertaining Kick Ass, which, with its comic book obsession, ran along similar lines, Scott Pilgrim seems gratuitous, and manages to stir in the viewer a blasé reaction, reflective of the attitude of its protagonists.

41 November 21-27 2010

REVIEW

tv real science fiction

By Ammara Khan

Watching “The Event” is as confusing as grappling in the dark for your lost flashlight. However, this is precisely what sets it apart from the television shows that you can watch while indulging in the notoriously irresistible habit of multitasking. The show demands commitment of a higher degree; you do not just watch it, you simultaneously look at many frames of the story and try connect them to form the correct picture in your mind. It holds a seductive fascination for those who have a weakness for robustly challenging plot sequences like “Lost” and “FlashForward.”

Directed by Nick Wauters, “The Event” is a science fiction story with all the spice of a political thriller. Making a mind-numbingly mysterious start, the series chronicles the story of an ordinary man, Sean Walker, who becomes entangled in huge national conspiracy. Determined to propose to his beautiful girlfriend Leila, Walker boards a Caribbean-bound cruise ship. Soon his girlfriend goes missing along with any evidence of her ever boarding the ship. We are soon introduced to a group of mysterious detainees on board who are later revealed to be aliens and told that an extraterrestrial aircraft crashed in northern Alaska near the end of World War II and the surviving passengers look just like humans — the catch being that they have slightly different DNA and they age at a remarkably slower rate than humans.

As it aims to explore concepts of otherness and difference, the show presents a metaphorical discourse on identity politics. By humanising the aliens, it tries to reconcile science fiction with realism, making it easier for the audience to grasp the marginalisation of the detainees. The show bears some resemblance to James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984) and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which both symbolise the same marginalised existence that “The Event” does. The difference is that aliens in this show do not present the gothic side of otherness as Frankenstein does, and they are not an embodiment of the technological aspect of our culture 42 like The Terminator. Devoid of a stable and distinct body, the aliens November 21-27 2010

not just another alien adventure “The Event” effectively highlights the undesirability of truth in contemporary culture present the uncanny experience of fragmentation and uncertainty.

By giving the aliens apparently organic human bodies, the story subverts the tradition of substituting the technological for the organic and undermines their status as ‘the other’ and highlights the notion of hybridity instead.

Furthermore, it effectively highlights the undesirability of truth in contemporary culture. The new black president Elias Martinez who was supposed to release the secret detainees becomes another brick in the wall when he chooses to keep their existence a secret.

This can help us discern the elements of the “constitutive ideology” of the show. It presents a haunting image of a postmodern world that is still clinging to the lie of certainty to keep up with its image of a great civilisation.

book The gentleman and the tramp

By Nadir Hassan

Think of this for a moment. The greatest hero of the Second World War may not have been Winston Churchill with his defiant speechifying or Generals Patton and Eisenhower with their intricate invasion plans. It may have been a suicidal tramp.

In Operation Mincemeat, The Times columnist Ben Macintyre tells the too-true-to-be-falsified tale of an elite British spy unit that used a dead tramp to deceive the Germans. In 1943, as the Allies were gearing up to launch an invasion of mainland Europe through Sicily, the British desperately needed Hitler to move his troops to the Balkans. With nothing less than the fate of the free world depending on it, an eccentric barrister, a pretty young secretary and a coroner fleshed out a germ of an ideas provided by Ian Fleming, the man who would go on to create James Bond. They ransacked the morgues of London to find an anonymous body, one they could dress up in full military regalia and dump in the waters of Spain.

The hope was that the local authorities, sympathetic to the Nazis, would send the body along with the treasure trove of false intelligence planted on him, to the Germans. It was an audacious plan and one that, against all reasonable expectations, worked. Thrown off the scent, Hitler moved many of his troops out of Sicily and the resulting Allied invasion was a resounding success.

There is no moral to Operation Mincemeat. It is written in spynovel style and simply tells the tale of a bunch of misfits to decided to defeat the Krauts with brainpower. The only complexity in the book lies in the elaborate identity the group for their make-believe soldier. Just through the contents of his wallet, they were able to give him an aristocratic background, a history of financial recklessness and a tempestuous love affair.

The hero of the operation is Ewen Montagu, a brilliant lawyer who puts the plan into motion and ultimately implements. Montagu is a fascinating character, one cooks up all the little details that make the plan work. But even he is over staged by his younger brother, Ivor, a rebel to took to fashionable left-wing causes and,

death becomes him One dead man changed the course of World War II

while his elder sibling was working for the British spy agencies, was feeding information to the Russians.The unsung hero of Operation Mincemeat is Glyndwr Michael, the vagabond with a history of mental disease, who in death managed to serve his country in a way he was never able to manage during his troubled life.

The plot of Operation Mincemeat is so intriguing, romantic and suspenseful that it was hardly likely to fail as a book. Macintyre, though, makes it a resounding success thanks to his zippy prose, thorough research and constant tone of credulity. a 43 November 21-27 2010

HOROSCOPE

BY SHELLEY VON STRUNCKEL

Aries March 20 – April 19 Just when it appeared everything was going smoothly, suddenly obstacles confront you. Disastrous as

this seems, they’re slowing your pace, and just when you need it. Once you’re actually delving into minor problems, you’ll be thankful they appeared, as they reveal potentially serious dilem-

mas that you wouldn’t otherwise have noticed. Tackle them now

and you’ll resolve them swiftly. Wait and they’ll only become more complicated.

Taurus April 20 – May 20 Your biggest challenge isn’t dealing

with the array of dilemmas you’re facing. None is that serious.

Shelley von Strunckel is an internationally acclaimed astrologer who created the first horoscope column for the London Sunday Times in 1992.

A frequent lecturer, she writes daily, weekly and monthly horoscopes in

It’s discerning which are based more on the emotional dramas triggered by the current Taurus Full Moon, which highlights

existing issues and exaggerates new ones, and actual problems.

Because those issues aren’t that pressing, take things slowly. By midweek your mood will be calmer and those dramas will seem less urgent.

publications around the world including South China Morning Post, The Gulf News, Tatler, French and Chinese Vogue and now The Express Tribune Magazine.

Gemini May 21 – June 20 There’s a difference between airing your

views, which you do, and expressing those thoughts precisely.

Aim for the latter, since others will respond, and often make decisions, based on your words – although you won’t necessarily

know it. Any such confusion surfaces during November’s last five days, when your ruler Mercury’s clashes with Jupiter and Uranus mean events are so fast-paced there’s no time for discussion.

Cancer June 21 – July 21 Allow the heightened feelings that accom-

pany today’s Full Moon to overwhelm what are otherwise valuable discussions, and you could be facing battles of the ego in-

stead of resolving problems. This may require that you swallow your pride or be silent when you’d far rather challenge others.

Within days you’ll be calmer, viewing situations – and others – more rationally, and relieved you said so little.

Leo July 22 – August 22 Knowing you’ll need to make changes is

one thing, but being forced to undertake them because of others’ whims is another matter. Situations may be unfair and certain individuals heavy-handed. But actually, the changes in question are timely. Battle them and before the end of the month you’ll realise why it’s time for you, and certain arrangements, really must move on to the next stage.

Virgo August 23 – September 22 Think carefully about how you ex-

press your views. While you may be factually accurate, during the recent run up to today’s Full Moon everybody’s been on edge.

You’ve been be more critical and others, overly sensitive. The issues in question do indeed need to be discussed, but you can do

so more profitably and precisely later in the week. By then some may even have resolved themselves.

44 November 21-27 2010

Libra September 23 – October 22 Don’t make the mistake of as-

suming that differences with others or obstacles are an indication something’s gone wrong. Actually, they’re about focusing

on potential problems now, while you can discuss them, then brainstorm to put things right. True, this requires patience and that exactly the kind of conflict you avoid. But it’s better than

discovering these further down the line, when they’d be far worse.

Scorpio October 23 – November 21 Thus far you’ve successfully

navigated around potentially explosive issues, so when today’s Full Moon boosts the general anxiety level, you’ll all the more determined to remain cool. You’d regret it. Both the feelings and

the facts in question need to be aired, and now, while misun-

derstandings are minor enough to discuss without unnecessary drama. Besides, what you learn will revolutionise your perspective on situations and others.

Sagittarius November 22 – December 20 With Mercury, the cou-

rageous Mars and, as of Monday, the Sun all in Sagittarius, you’re pivotal decisions to make. But not just yet. Invest time in learning as much as you can about your options, including those you’re not particularly interested in pursuing. By early the

New Moon in your sign in early December, both those situations and your perspective on them could have changed considerably.

Capricorn December 21 – January 19 Obviously you prefer to make

decisions based on solid facts. At the moment, however, life is not being at all forthcoming in that department. Instead you’re getting uncertain circumstances and vague promises. Instead of

fuming or forcing issues, take a break to reflect on you – where you

are now, how far you’ve come and what’s missing. The resulting insights could substantially alter your thinking and objectives.

Aquarius January 20 – February 17 Everybody has an opinion and

they’re sure you’ll want to hear it. While some of what’s said is

interesting, a few insights make you realise you’ve been ignoring certain events that could reshape your life. Obviously you’d

like more facts, but because these are linked to ongoing changes, you’re better off getting involved. That way you’ll be the first to hear about new and important developments.

Pisces February 18 – March 19 Listen to what others have to say.

This reveals whether they’ve important facts to offer. But on no account should you allow certain individuals’ urgent pleadings

to influence your views on what’s wise now or future plans. Once

the weekend’s over and the Full Moon’s unsettling influence no

longer holds sway, the mood will be calmer. You, and others,

For more information, to order personal charts and to download & listen to detailed audiocasts, visit www.shelleyvonstrunckel.com

will be relieved you remained rational.

45 November 21-27 2010

THE HATER

10 things I hate about ...tv news

1 2 3 4 5

By Nadir Hassan

The dunce on the street. You know the guy; he’s

being interviewed only because he was in the vicinity of something producers consider news. His insight, such as it is, consists of saying “you know” a lot and

plastering a massive I’m-so-excited-to-be-on-TV grin on his face.

The Mini Me analyst. News anchors are supposed to be

objective so any time they want to slip a bit of political commentary in, they’ll invite an analyst-for-hire,

someone who will say exactly what the anchor wants him to say. But we can trust him; he wears an expensive suit.

The apocalyptic teaser. “Are you aware that you might die tomorrow? Join us after the break and we’ll tell you how.”

6 7 8 9 10

Casual racism. You will never see a dark face on news channels. After all, the survival of Fair and Lovely depends on it.

The vague Pakistan connection. Never fear, news channels will find the cousin of a Pakistani citizen

who was shopping at a mall three blocks away from a fire in Michigan.

The child-like fascination with technology. This

particularly materialises during elections. Anchors get so aroused by their BlackBerrys, touch screens and other assorted thingamajigs they can barely contain themselves.

The dancer in the background. There’s always this one jerk, usually lurking in the shadows, who likes nothing better than to add a bit of flavour to a beeper by gyrating madly. He is to the dunce on the street what Bonnie was to Clyde.

Important hair. You know why there’s a dengue

epidemic in the country? All the spray that should have been used to fumigate our cities is keeping up the hair of vain anchors.

46 November 21-27 2010

The illegible ticker. News channels have discovered

a new font. It allows you to only read one out of every three words before disappearing from view.

The expert for all seasons. No matter what the topic, this chameleon will become an instant expert. He throws in a bit of jargon, comes to some sweeping conclusions and calls on the government to do more. a

june 13-19 2010

june 13-19 2010