NOVEMBER 22-28 2015
17
Last man stringing
Peshawar’s last rabab makers keep the music playing
32
Where love and art collide
South Asian diaspora bond over cinema in North America
battle of the Fitness boot camps are all the rage, but are we missing the point?
BULGE
NOVEMBER 22-28 2015
17
Last man stringing
Peshawar’s last rabab makers keep the music playing
32
Where love and art collide
South Asian diaspora bond over cinema in North America
battle of the Fitness boot camps are all the rage, but are we missing the point?
BULGE
NOVEMBER 22-28 2015
Feature
Last man stringing
Cover Story
Battle of the bulge
Khurram Shahzad and his family are the only rabab makers left in Peshawar
Fitness boot camps and our obsession with quick fixes
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22
Feature
Unravelling faces Portrait artist Sabir Mughal paints a grim picture of his profession
30
Feature
Where love and art collide
Celebrating South Asian films in North America
32
Regulars
6 People & Parties: Out and about with beautiful people
34 Reviews: Books and movies 38 Positive Pakistanis: Educationist Mashall Chaudhri
Magazine Incharge: Dilaira Dubash. Senior Subeditor: Ali Haider Habib. Subeditor: Komal Anwar Creative Team: Jamal Khurshid, Essa Malik, Mohsin Alam, Talha Ahmed Khan, Hira Fareed, Maryam Rashid, Eesha Azam and Sanober Ahmed Publisher: Bilal A Lakhani. Editor: Kamal Siddiqi For feedback and submissions: magazine@tribune.com.pk 4 Twitter: @ETribuneMag & Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ETribuneMag Printed: uniprint@unigraph.com
PEOPLE & PARTIES Samira, Fatima, Amna and Zainab
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PEOPLE & PARTIES Saba Salman
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16 NOVEMBER 22-28 2015
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PHOTO CREDITS FAROOQ USMAN
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Zeenat Saeed Ahmed
Zahra Sethi
Lastman Khurram Shahzad and his family are the only rabab makers left in Peshawar
Khurram Shahzad, 25, has learnt the art of rabab making from his father and grandfather.
BY HIDAYAT KHAN
PHOTOS BY MUHAMMAD IQBAL
DESIGN BY MARYAM RASHID
The sound of the rabab has a magnetic lure. The nylon or gut strings evoke a soulful serenade, tugging at our heartstrings. Originating from central Afghanistan, the instrument is a staple of Pakistan’s Pukhtun populated musical landscape. Yet, the art of crafting a fine rabab has taken a hit in recent 17 years, with the number of rabab makers swiftly dwindling. NOVEMBER 22-28 2015
In Peshawar, 25-year-old Khurram Shahzad and his family are the last remaining torch bearers of this intricate exercise. “Everyone loves the rabab. Demand for this instrument is not limited to Pakistan. Social media has shaped our business and what was earlier limited to Pukhtuns has now spread all over the world,” shares Shahzad. He says many educated boys have picked up the instrument but, unfortunately, very few good rabab makers remain. Tucked away in the narrow streets of Shah Qabool Bazaar, Dabgari, Shahzad’s workshop is more like a small hujra. At any given time of the day, one finds customers and guests sitting on charpoys, some struggling with simple melodies, others skilfully manipulating the fret board with nimble fingers. Dabgari was once known for hosting musicians and having several shops to cater to their needs. Today, only Shahzad’s shop bears testament to those glorious days. It was Shahzad’s grandfather, Ustad Samandar Khan, a recipient of the Pride of Performance award, who founded the shop. “Learning how to play the rabab is much easier than making it. Years of struggle and hard work go into becoming an expert rabab maker,” explains Shahzad. It takes three years to just learn some of the basics of this craft, that too with a lot of dedication and in the presence of teachers who are eager to impart their knowledge and skills, he adds. Shahzad demonstrates how he makes the boat-shaped body of the rabab from the refined trunk of a mulberry tree. This single piece of trunk is hollowed out with the help of a machine. Rababs are made from a single bough. The lower part is known as the sound box. The process was much more difficult earlier, but machines have now made it easier for a whole bough of a mulberry tree to be hollowed in no time. The hollow bowl of the sound box is divided into two sections connected by a narrow tunnel formed by indentation on both sides of the instrument. The lower 18 sound chamber is covered with chamra or goatskin, NOVEMBER 22-28 2015
Rababs are made from a single bough. The lower part is known as the sound box. The process was much more difficult earlier, but machines have now made it easier for a whole bough of a mulberry tree to be hollowed in no time
It takes nearly a month to carve out intricate designs on the peg box and the lute.
Learning how to play the rabab is much easier than making it. Years of struggle and hard work go into becoming an expert rabab maker Rabab maker Khurram Shahzad
A portrait of Shahzad’s grandfather, Ustad Samandar Khan, who is a recipient of the Pride of Performance award.
whereas the one adjacent to the neck is covered with a thin wooden plate. The carved peg box is made out of a separate piece of mulberry wood that is attached to the neck of the instrument which some musicians call the ‘Taj of rabab’. The rabab generally has three main strings, also called the ‘melody strings’, which are made of gut or nylon and stretched over a bridge made of bone, running to the pegs at the Taj. “Even these strings are imported from India as they are not produced locally,” says Shahzad. There are also a number of ‘sympathetic strings’, which local artists call tarab. They pass under the bridge, ranging from nine through 15, depending on the size of the rabab. The tarabs run to the friction pegs located at the side of the rabab. On the finger board of the instrument, there are four to five nylon frets. Shahzad says that usually no colour is applied to the body of the rabab. However, some musicians like decorative carvings on its body. Shahzad says that he can make two simple rababs in a week. However, the carving and intricate decoration on the peg box and the lute can take up to one month, increasing the price of the instrument, which ranges from Rs8,000 to Rs35,000. The rabab usually comes in two sizes. According to Shahzad, professionals who play it in a studio with a microphone in front of them like rababs which are smaller than those used for performances in hujras or other open spaces. “The rabab has a long history of evolution,” says Waqar Atal, a virtuoso rabab player, who also runs a centre to impart his knowledge to the youth. “It has existed for decades and has become a part of our culture, tradition and poetry.” He adds that the rabab may have come to our part of the world due to a cultural interchange that happened in the past. “Some people believe that it is the predecessor of the sarod, a vital instrument in Indian music.” The origins and inspiration behind the instrument may be somewhat unclear but what is not up for debate is that people like Shahzad are making sure the rabab is here to stay.T Hidayat Khan is a Peshawar-based reporter for The Express Tribune. He tweets @hidayat_khan26 NOVEMBER 22-28 2015
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COVER STORY
battle of the BULGE Fitness boot camps are all the rage, but int? are we missing the point? BY MARIAM GABAJI
DESIGN BY EESHA AZAM
It may be easier to follow the crowd than lead ehind sometimes but the science and methodology behind ining different fitness approaches is key to attaining his is the optimum means for a healthy lifestyle. This probably why fitness boot camps are often seen as a one-stop solution to shedding those extra ient: pounds, with many forgetting the key ingredient: sustainability.
The transformation Karachi was hit fast and hard in April 2013 when the 422 Day Challenge initiated Plan Overhaul. One look at their marketing keting strategy on Facebook, tight lean abs and the promise to make tarted change inevitable, and they had people hooked. What started out as a fad became a trend. Others followed their lead soon ses at after and more boot camps propped up, different classes y less fitness studios made an appearance on the previously rd to, diverse schedules; people had something to look forward ty and besides the promise of the never-ending eateries in the city the occasional movie at the cinema.
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COVER STORY Strength exercise: Overhead tricep extension with TRX bands specifically targets the back of your arms in order to tone them. PHOTO COURTESY: MUV
“People are afraid to try out new things. Spinning doesn’t just mean peddling away for 45 minutes. You work your upper body and core as much as your legs by doing push ups and crunches and lifting light weights, while continuously working your legs whether it’s on the saddle or off it Trainer at Studio X Faruque Faruque
Karachi is as fad-conscious as they come, so a ‘quick dedicated fix’ to its fat problems and the promise of a body as toned as the next superstar had residents it queuing up for the registration lines. Plans were changed, meet-ups were cancelled and rendezvouses ignored as people rushed from their homes or offices to get to the Moin Khan Academy or the Pavillion End Club in Gulshan-e-Iqbal for a 45-minute intense workout in the evenings. Similar boot camps are 24 now making inroads to other cities NOVEMBER 22-28 2015
like Lahore. “Everyone was talking about it; so, my friends and I decided to give it a try,” says Husna Azad Nosherwani, a former participant of the 42 Day Challenge. “Open skies and working out with people you knew was motivating. The only downside to the boot camp was that there were way too many people so if you weren’t loud enough, there were more chances of you doing the wrong pose and no one correcting you.” According to Nosherwani, the meal plans they were given were easy to follow as they had your usual every day food. But, like her, another participant and winner of the boot camp, Ali Kanch, believes there were too many meals that needed to be
eaten so it was not always possible to follow the meal plan due to busy work schedules. For everyone, even other fitness experts, the 42 Day Challenge was a benchmark of sorts; a benchmark of meeting people’s expectations and delivering results. But the hardest thing to do is to ensure their sustainability. That’s where the problem lies for those aiming for a certain body type. That’s when you know you cannot be looking at fitness as just a fad, or something that can be achieved over an X number of weeks — it has to come from within and it has to aim for the long run. As they say, ‘fitness is a journey, not a destination’.
Pick your battle “Just remember, we all started somewhere. None of us were born this way, lifting weights and doing the crow pose,” says Aqil Amin Sattar
of AQ Power Yoga, which started back in 2009. According to Sattar, who is known as AQ, these programmes can be pretty intense but he believes they are a great way to kick-start one’s journey to a healthier lifestyle. “As long as you’re in good health, you can go through a boot camp for a better core, to increase your strength, endurance and flexibility. That is what we teach,” he says regarding his own boot camp, which is a five-week programme comprising of highintensity interval training (HIIT) and power yoga. Sattar does not believe in taking hundreds of people in one go and instead divides the number of participants in different sessions so that everyone gets the personalised attention they deserve. Faruque Faruque, a trainer at Studio X, which was founded 12 years ago, believes boot camps are all the rage now, especially since the 42 Day Challenge made an appearance and got even the laziest of the lot interested. “We got so many requests from our clients that we had to start it,” says the certified health coach regarding their boot camp, which began in November last year. “People want to sweat and say ‘oh wow that was insane’. The women who come to us have one motivation: losing weight.” It is the attention people seek that keeps them motivated besides the results. Mehak Taherani, co-founder of a newly-established fitness studio called MUV and a certified personal trainer, affirms this stance. She
says she noticed that people really wanted to be told what to do; they wanted to be corrected, they wanted to learn teaching points for each position. “If you don’t even know how to squat, you need to find a place that can properly guide you,” says Taherani. “People don’t take out time to properly educate themselves. When they sign up for a boot camp they think ‘yeah yeah we’ll manage’. But there’s just so much risk of injury if you do a move incorrectly that you cannot afford to have a laid-back attitude.”
Mix and match: It is human nature to get bored of the same thing over time, especially for the modern man constantly in search of stimulation. “Recently, I’ve felt that people want to learn a skill; they’ve been in tune with the concept of learning since school and then continued it during university and then their jobs,” says Taherani. “So, bearing this in mind, our kickboxing classes have gotten a great response and even people who work long hours have started taking time out for them,” she added. According to Taherani, men too have become more accepting of power yoga; it is as tough an exercise as any other and no one is a better example of this than AQ himself who has established his institute based on this concept of fitness. Even the good old-
Abdominal-toning: Instead of doing basic sit-ups, use a medicine ball to work on the oblique and core muscles for better results. PHOTO COURTESY: Studio X
COVER STORY
fashioned cardio classes need their variations and for Faruque, introducing their latest spin class was just the pick of pace they were trying to give their clients. “People are afraid to try out new things. Spinning doesn’t just mean peddling away for 45 minutes. You work your upper body and core as much as your legs by doing push ups and crunches and lifting light weights, while continuously working your legs whether it’s on the saddle or off it,” says Faruque. The young trainer added that group exercises were a great motivation for sustainability. “When you are working together towards a certain goal, the more intense your workout will be and the better results you’ll see.”
Weightlifting: It is your body intelligence that guides you to open up to the concept of weightlifting; the strength of mind that tells you to motivate yourself for each rep. According to Faruque, most women, even those who are more educated in the fitness industry and know that lifting weights does not make them ‘big’, are reluctant to join. “A lot of women who come to us say they just want to lose weight and refuse to listen to us or even educate themselves from online material which clearly states that it is impossible for them to bulk up,” she says. Those who even picked up weights stuck to just 1kg, despite having the ability to lift more, out of fear, she adds. Faruque further explains that women need to understand that their hormones will
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not allow them to become heavy, men have to put on more weight and then lean down with sufficient protein in their diet to achieve a ‘muscular body type’. AQ reiterates the fact. “When you’re looking to lose weight, weight training will help burn the fat.”
Nutrition: The science behind getting the right body is a battle fought and lost by many.“We promote meal plans under the banner of Flexible Dieting at MUV,” says Taherani. “We believe that for you to reach your goals, either performance or aesthetics related, you need to be aware of what your macro split is: how much protein grammes, how many carbs and fat grammes you should be getting in a day to lose body fat rather than lose weight. Any crash diet you do promotes a caloric deficit and to sustain the results, you need to lose body fat.” According to Taherani, 20% of your day’s intake can be from anything you want as long you’re fitting it in your macros. “Sometimes I end up having a Mars ice cream bar or any other bar that I know the nutritional facts for and I try to consciously fit it in my macros.” Faruque, like our other fitness experts, believes people are constantly trying to change their weighing scale. “I’m still the same weight I was three years ago, before I started to eat healthy, but that doesn’t matter. Losing inches is what should concern you. When you’re doing intense workouts including weight training,
your scale will show you the additional pounds because of your muscles being built, not the fat that you’re losing.” In their interviews, the fitness experts also punched hard on one fact: not all carbs are bad. You need them to sustain your workout, to give them the right intensity to achieve results. “You can substitute white rice and bread with their brown counterparts,” says Faruque. “If you end up eliminating them completely your body will crave [them]. And after a certain point, bringing them back in your daily diet will only bring the fat back and make you feel bloated.”
COVER STORY
THE DOMINO
EFFECT April 2013 December 2013 January 2014
FIT in 5 Depilex Boot Camp
November 2014
Studio X
December 2014
Fitness 360
February 2015 July 2015
NOVEMBER 22-28 2015
Ultrafit health & fitness
November 2014
January 2015
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42 day Challenge
AQ Power Yoga Health Act MUV
Detoxing: It is a long debate that has put the fitness industry on opposite sides. “Absolutely no! No detox,” exclaims AQ. “I believe people need to introduce salads and fruits into their diets than go on these weird detox programmes.” Taherani has similar sentiments. “Supplement your diet with these juices if you must, but do not make it your diet. Our body detoxifies on its own. Everything comes down to the math your body works with,
because no one is exempt from the caloric intake laws or the caloric burning laws.” On the opposite side of the argument, Faruque, who is also the co-founder of The Ultimate Detox, feels one has to go through the detox process to fully understand it. “It prepares your body for fat loss; it doesn’t necessarily mean you will lose weight. When I went through it myself, I could feel my skin glow and energy levels improve after the detox process.” With the fitness industry booming in Karachi, and more people turning this into a long-standing profession, it is upon us to take charge and feed off their motivation. Sustainable fitness goals will only help keep you grounded, for the road to victory in the battle of the bulge has no shortcuts. T Mariam Gabaji is Sports editor at The Express Tribune. She tweets @mariiiamg
“As long as you’re in good health, you can go through a boot camp for a better core, to increase your strength, endurance and flexibility. That is what we teach Yoga instructor Aqil Amin Sattar
Strong core: In the L-Sit, all body weight rests on the hands, with the torso held in a slightly forward-leaning orientation. A variety of supports can be used to execute this motion.
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PHOTO COURTESY: MUV NOVEMBER 22-28 2015
FEATURE
Unravelling faces
Portrait artist Sabir Mughal paints a grim picture of his profession TEXT AND PHOTOS BY MUHAMMAD SADAQAT DESIGN BY ESSA MALIK
A childhood obsession to scribble on walls with charcoal grew into a lifelong preoccupation to depict the underbelly of society for Sabir Mughal, a septuagenarian portrait artist and calligraphist from Abbottabad. Mughal, 76, was born to lower-middle class parents from Nawanshehr, a town north east of Abbottabad, a city now known world over as the place where Osama bin Laden was hunt down by US Navy Seals. Mughal’s elder brother, Ghulam Hussain, also a calligraphist, inspired him to take up art. However, Mughal’s parents had other plans for him; they wanted him to join the army and discouraged his inclination towards art. “Once everyone in the house went to sleep, I would start scribbling on walls with charcoal and just keep practicing for hours,” says Mughal. He adds his parents were often at a loss to dissuade
Once everyone in the house went to sleep, I would start scribbling on walls with charcoal and just keep practicing for hours Portrait artist, Sabir Mughal Sabir Mughal at work in his studio.
(Left and Top): Mughal’s artworks are mixed media. He employs tube paints, watercolours, oil paints and charcoal. him and eventually let him accompany his elder brother to his studio. In turn, Hussain honed his brother’s skills and helped him become a disciple of Nazeer Hussain, a renowned painter from Abbottabad. There, Mughal learnt the basics of calligraphy and portraits. His portraits were not just faces of people, they were a commentary on society, often highlighting social issues. However, with no art galleries to display and sell his work, it became increasingly difficult for Mughal to support himself financially through art alone, and he started
painting banners and signboards to get by. The meager income he earned from this was barely enough and Mughal eventually joined the Pakistan Army’s transport department, serving there for 25 years. “My service at the Pakistan Army never became an obstacle and I continued to practice after duty hours,” he shares. As soon as Mughal retired from the army, he devoted all his time to art. He rented out a shop in Abbottabad, but business was hard to come by, forcing him to sell his artwork in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi, where his pieces fetched better prices.
This provided him with the encouragement to persevere. Mughal’s artworks are mixed media. He employs tube paints, watercolours, oil paints and charcoal. Most of his paintings depict societal ills, such as injustice, oppression, poverty and economic disparity. Mughal says the pieces are an extension of his conscience because he pours all his feelings on canvas. His favourite topics include death and countryside culture. He has also made portraits of military leaders including Napoleon Bonaparte, Salahuddin Ayubi and Genghis Khan.
Mughal maintains artists from Indonesia, Iran, the subcontinent and Malaysia all have their distinct styles. He refers to Sadequain, Abdur Rahman Chughtai, Anwar Kamal and Ismail Gulgee, whom he claims reside in the hearts of their innumerable fans because of their inimitable styles. While Mughal is not too worried about the appreciation for art diminishing anytime soon, he is unhappy with the hike in prices of paints and other art material. Had his determination been fickle, Mughal would have been deterred by the financial constraints but, fortunately, there is little to pry Mughal away from his passion, and he vows to portray his country’s culture in all its colourful glory, even the aspects shrouded in darkness. T
Muhammad Sadaqat is a reporter for The Express Tribune in Hazara division. He tweets @MSadqat NOVEMBER 22-28 2015
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FEATURE Cinema transcended borders at the fourth Washington DC South Asian Film Festival (DCSAFF) at the end of September. South Asian films met under one umbrella, as is the practice at diaspora festivals. Director Sarmad Khoosat represented Pakistan with a rough-cut of his first feature film Manto, as did Huma Mustufa Beg with her documentary Walls and Veils. Also screened was an eightminute short film titled Reclaiming Pakistan by Lisa Donato, which featured interviews of activists from the organisation Pakistan For All, including Muhammad Jibran Nasir, and footage of their protests.
Where love and art collide South Asian diaspora bond over cinema in North America
A total of 14 features, 10 short films and one documentary each from India, Pakistan, the United States and Canada were screened at the three-day festival. “The main goal of DCSAFF is to provide a platform in the US capital to screen films from South Asian countries, and films made by South Asians in any place in the world that has cultural subjects,” says Festival Director Geeta Anand BY AMNA R ALI Singh in a recent conversation. DCSAFF screened its first Pakistani film, Lamha DESIGN BY SANOBER AHMED by Meher Jaffri in 2013, followed by Josh by Iram Parveen Bilal in 2014. “We seek latest and meaningful films from Pakistan and would love to have Pakistani sponsors support our festival, in kind or financially,” says Singh. This year, DCSAFF showed films such as Court (2014), India’s official entry for the 88th annual Academy Awards, directed by 28-year-old Chaitanya Tamhane; South Indian film-maker Anant Mahadevan’s Rough Book (2015); Bengali auteur Aparna Sen’s Saari Raat (2014) and premieres of Suman Ghosh’s Kadambari (2015) and Nitin Adsul’s Partu (2015). The festival also screened late director/actor of Raincoat fame Rituparno Ghosh’s 2012 film Chitrangada and late cinematographer Rajan Kothari’s Das Capital (2012), as a tribute to the legends. Director Shonali Bose’s Margarita with a Straw, starring Kalki Koechlin as a young rebel with cerebral palsy, screened at DCSAFF after a fabulous run at festivals around the world, including its North American premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in 2014. Pakistan’s Manto (rough cut) was an apt fit in an exciting repertoire of Indian Parallel Cinema and contemporary independent cinema, with its history of cerebral, sensitive fare and realistic, issuebased film-making that gets international recognition at film festivals around the world. “To see Sarmad Khoosat in all his youthful humility and his unassuming and honest portrayal of Pakistan’s most prolific short story writers, highlighted how times are truly changing for Pakistani artists and intellectuals,” says Dr Maliha Ilias, a Washington DC resident who went to see the film. “Manto, the writer, didn’t put much stock into boundaries and limits. Neither should we.” Khoosat was also part of a director’s roundtable discussion at DCSAFF titled ‘Understanding Identity and Socio-Political Norms through South Asian Films’ along with Bengali Huma Beg’s documentary Veils and Walls on rural women’s film director Suman Ghosh, renowned film-maker and 32 political activism in Pakistan. actor Aparna Sen, who is also known in her other avatar as NOVEMBER 22-28 2015
Immigration attorney Sheila Murthy, director/actor Sarmad Khoosat, Philanthropist Debbie Driesman with her husband Frank Islam and television host Nilima Mehra. PHOTO COURTESY: THE FOURTH WASHINGTON DC SOUTH ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL.
Konkona Sen Sharma’s mother, and actor/producer Vivek Vaswani. The discussion was moderated by Dr Kiran Pervez, the South and Central Asia chair at the Foreign Service Institute, US Department of State. “Sarmad Khoosat is well aware, and sensitive to the changing nature of the Pakistani film industry,” observes Naghmana Khan, an energy management analyst in Washington DC, who attended the session as an audience member. The jury at DCSAFF gave Pakistani cinema due accolades with a Special Appreciation Award for Beg’s documentary Veils and Walls about the impact of rural women on the Pakistani electoral process, and Sarmad Khoosat received a special Award for Contribution to Pakistan TV and Films. Miss Pakistan USA (2015) Sarish Khan and Ex Ms World Pakistan (2012) Zanib Naveed were also invited to grace the red carpet event this year. Pakistani talent and subjects also made their mark early September this year at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) where Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy presented her documentary A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers, which she co-directed with Indian film-maker Geeta Gandbhir. Actor Ali Kazmi starred in Canadian director Deepa Mehta’s Beeba Boys, and director Davis Guggenheim’s intimate portrait of Malala Yousafzai, He Named Me Malala also screened at TIFF before its international release in October. Manto (rough cut) went Ivy League when it screened at the HarvardBrown Pakistani Film Festival 2015 in October, founded and coordinated by Mustafa Samdani, Research Assistant at Harvard University’s South Asia Institute, and co-curated by Pakistani academics Asad Ahmed at Harvard University and historian Vazira Zamindar at Brown University. In discussions at the festival, film-makers, academics and the audience pored over the revival of Pakistani cinema, which Khoosat preferred to call ‘rejuvenation’ of an already existent cinema culture, where now films are coming out in their new avatars. As cinema grows in Pakistan, one hopes many upcoming films will go to international film festivals and South Asian diaspora film festivals with the support of the Pakistani community, especially in the US, the UK and Canada.
Directed by Sarmad Khoosat in a biographical drama film based on the life of Pakistani short-story writer Saadat Hasan Manto.
The main goal of DCSAFF is to provide a platform in the US capital to screen films from South Asian countries, and films made by South Asians in any place in the world Washington DC South Asian Film Festival Director Geeta Anand Singh
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Amna R Ali is a freelance journalist who writes about arts and culture. She tweets @Amna_R_Ali NOVEMBER 22-28 2015
A loose bond
The 24th film of the James Bond franchise, Spectre, falls prey to sketchy story and patchy screenplay BY ALLY ADNAN
The magnificent opening sequence of Spectre is a marvel of both art and technology. Filmed in downtown Mexico City during the colourful Día de Muertos parade, it uses an extended continuous tracking shot to land James Bond (Daniel Craig) in the midst of breathtaking action. The camera follows Bond masterfully as he leads a masked woman to his hotel room, leaves her unfulfilled and waiting, leaps from one rooftop to another, attempts to kill the villainous Marco Sciarra (Alessandro Cremona), slides down a collapsing building and gets into a hair-raising helicopter battle right above the jubilant masses in Zocolo Square. Thrillingly staged by director Sam Mendes and magnificently shot by cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, the recklessly energetic sequence is a visual masterpiece and truly the work of a master. It is not the only spectacular sequence in Spectre, the 24th official Bond film in the franchise that spans more than five decades. The film is a number of stupendous sequences shot with perfection in some of the most picturesque locations in the world. Unfortunately, these sequences, albeit great individually, do not add up to a worthy film. The sketchy story and patchy screenplay fail to tie the flawless sequences into a coherent film. A number of the set-pieces, designed to evoke nostalgia for ‘60s Bond films, serve to remind one of the guilty pleasures that earlier Bond films afforded viewers and how Spectre fails to deliver the same. Spectre is a very long, listless and tiresome film that lacks grace, continuity and romance. And it is very boring. Spectre sends Bond on a global chase, triggered by a cryptic message from former boss M (Judi Dench), searching for super villain Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz) who heads the nefarious organisation, Spectre. While his new boss M (Ralph Fiennes) struggles to defend the continued need of the Double-O programme in London, Bond follows Oberhauser’s trail from Mexico to Italy to Austria to Morroco, romancing two ladies — Lucia Sciarra (the voluptuous and grossly 34 underused Monica Bellucci) and Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) — NOVEMBER 22-28 2015
and fighting three villains — Sciarra, Mr White (Jesper Christensen) and Mr Hinx (Dave Bautista) — along the way. Bond’s eventual face-to-face meeting with Oberhauser is a letdown; the revelation of the implausible grudge that the villain holds against Bond and his true identity is neither thrilling nor a surprise. Spectre is the fourth Bond film featuring Craig and the final one in a set that was designed to rebuild the entire Bond franchise by redefining the history, psychological make-up and personality of the secret agent, and by reintroducing elements of his world, in order to meet the intellectual, cultural and entertainment needs of 21st Century moviegoers. The film fails spectacularly at tying the loose ends of the threads that were first introduced in Casino Royale (2006) and subsequently explored in Quantum of Solace (2008) and Skyfall (2012). Spectre’s forced connections to its three predecessors are both implausible and inelegant. It is an unworthy finale to a wonderful set that included Casino Royale, the finest film of the franchise. Bond films, like a lot of action movies, cannot and do not need to stand up to real world scrutiny. They only need to have a semblance of truth in the fantastic world they depict. Viewers happily invoke the suspension of disbelief required to enjoy these movies, but Spectre demands more. It needs the complete cognitive estrangement of viewers and a total leave from intelligence and common sense to be enjoyed. In a world plagued with religious battles, environmental threats, political uncertainties, nuclear proliferation, health scares, increasing poverty and escalating hunger, the world of Bond is increasingly irrelevant and unbelievable. It is difficult to believe in the existence of a single villain who holds power over the entire planet and can yet be taken out by an agent representing an empire over which the sun set a very long time ago. Rating: Ally Adnan lives in Dallas and writes about culture, history and the arts. He tweets @allyadnan
Lacking bite Sony Pictures Animation makes another visit to Dracula’s monster-lodging establishment in Hotel Transylvania 2, a sequel to the 2012 film that found the overprotective Count (voiced by Adam Sandler) trying to dissuade his beloved daughter, Mavis (voiced by Selena Gomez), from going out into the world and interacting with humans. Despite his efforts, Mavis falls in love with a mortal, Johnny (voiced by Andy Samberg), and as the sequel commences, the couple ties the knot and subsequently becomes parents of a son named Dennis (voiced by Asher Blinkoff). Count readily takes to his responsibilities as a ‘vampa’ — a vampire grandpa — and dotes on his half-human, halfvampire grandson, while hoping the child will inherit his traits. But when Mavis decides to move to a human neighbourhood, away from the dangers of the monsters’ locale, Count makes it his mission to help Dennis find his inner monster and convince the family to stay. He enlists his monster friends — including Frankenstein (voiced by Kevin James), werewolf Wayne (voiced by Steve Buscemi), Griffin the Invisible Man (voiced by David Spade), a mummy named Murray (voiced by Keegan-Michael Key) and Blobby the Blob (voiced by Jonny Solomon) — to assist him in scaring his grandson, hoping fear will cause Dennis’ fangs to sprout. There is nothing exceptional about how events unfold, nor does the film make any attempts to try something original or different. The result is amiable but not particularly inventive. With Genndy Tartakovsky returning as the director, the movie retreads the same ground as its predecessor, basically focusing on Count’s parental neurosis and delivering the same messages of acceptance and embracing change. The execution is obvious and safe, while the thin plot seems to have been stretched and padded with gags to make a full feature. To its credit though, the film is — or at least tries to be — warm and full of energy. It is competently animated and does succeed in delivering the occasional laugh, but few of its punchlines are clever enough to merit praise, and some simply feel tired. On the whole, the movie will please younger viewers more than it will entertain their parents (grown-ups are also likely to find most of the voices overly familiar, a gripe that young kids will not have). In the hands of a more creative studio and writers, Hotel Transylvania 2 could potentially have been a lot more impressive. As it stands, this animated feature is watchable but largely unmemorable and ultimately inconsequential.
Not particularly inventive, animated film Hotel Transylvania 2 is still likely to hit home with a younger audience BY SAMEEN AMER
More animated offerings Coraline (2009) A curious girl (Dakota Fanning) finds an idealised copy of her world behind a secret door in her new home, unaware that the alternate world holds a dark secret. ParaNorman (2012) A boy (Kodi SmitMcPhee), who speaks with the dead, tries to save his town from zombies that have arisen because of a centuries-old curse. Frankenweenie (2012) A young scientist (Charlie Tahan) conducts an experiment to bring his beloved dog Sparky (Frank Welker) back to life, but faces unintended consequences. Rating: Sameen Amer is a Lahore-based freelance writer and critic. She tweets @Sameen
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BOOK
Tangled up in blue A series of short stories, The Lovers and the Leavers questions preconceived notions about love BY HURMAT MAJID
More books on South Asian relationships: The Lovers and the Leavers by Abeer Y Hoque consists of 12 stories told with the aid of photographs and poems. The book brings to us an array of complicated feelings, thoughts and choices that the characters make life as they overlap with each other. The stories span over a number of years and readers get a glimpse of the lives of the characters across three continents. On one hand, we see Komola, a maid in a hushed manor in Dhaka, as she begins an ill-fated liaison with a goodlooking, mystifying bloke. On the other hand, best mates Rox and Ila are seen making choices about love, lust and morality. Komola’s nephew is shown dealing with problems of his own, while his mother flees, mysteriously ending up by the sea in Chennai. The stories gradually expand outward, while Hoque tries to give each character more emotional complexity and power. The effect of moving across generations, and bouncing from different places leave the stories lacking depth and texture. But just when a reader is about to notice the lack of substance, they encounter beautifully composed lines such as, “The beauty of 36 belonging isn’t that it lasts forever, but NOVEMBER 22-28 2015
that you think it will,” which make up for the lacking narrative. The web of stories leaves readers sufficiently moved to ponder over questions surrounding love and morality. The book also openly questions idealistic concepts like ‘love lasts forever’, redefining it as mundane. The dialogues are minimal and the characters’ introspective narratives are far more powerful and thought provoking. We are offered a constant analysis of the characters and their circumstances. It is like sitting with an old friend and listening to a long complex story about the lives of people. The nostalgic impact of listening to those stories is such that you feel you know the characters as well as the person narrating them. Hoque presents us with beautiful stories which are heartbreaking at the same time, leading us to the discovery of characters that are unique, yet relatable. They would, at some level, remind readers of someone they know or once knew. The writing style is simple, straightforward and flows easily, although the lack of description sometimes leaves too much room for interpretation.T
Salt and Saffron A girl attempts to understand her complicated family history and to find the truth about the family curse of ‘not-quitetwins’. The entrancing tale of Dard-e-Dils is spread across seven generations and two sides of the border, with the present generation struggling to find a middle ground between the past and the present.
Twilight in Dehli Set in 1911, the book tells the tale of a pre-Partition romance, depicting the loss of an entire culture and way of life. The novel addresses the change witnessed in the social and cultural climate of the Subcontinent between the key events of British occupation and Partition.
An American Brat A young girl struggles to find her true self as she experiences an identity crisis when she is made to choose between her Pakistani upbringing and the American culture that she is exposed to during her three-month holiday there. Hurmat Majid is a subeditor at The Express Tribune. She tweets @bhandprogramme
POSITIVE
PAKISTANIS
Beyond teachers and textbooks Mashall Chaudhri of Reading Room Project helps students from low-income areas self-study through the Internet BY RAMSHA JAHANGIR
Founder of Reading Room Project, Mashall Chaudhri. PHOTO COURTESY: MASHALL CHAUDHRI
T
here may be thousands of schools in Pakistan imparting education to millions of children across cities, towns and villages, but what’s the point if the next generation of this country is not learning anything? By having a system structured around unqualified teachers and backdated academic content, the quality of education is bound to be abysmal and our children doomed to failure. With the aim to better train children for the challenges of tomorrow, Karachi-based organisation Reading Room Project (RRP) is helping students use the Internet as an alternative mode of education. In the pilot project launched two years ago, RRP founder and director Mashall Chaudhri introduced Internet-based learning at a school in Karachi’s Shah Faisal Colony, enabling 34 students to seek knowledge beyond traditional means. They were taught how to use the Internet, computers and educational web resources. It only took a few months for the RRP team to see for themselves the power of digital literacy in facilitating critical thinking and polishing research skills. “The students recognised how learning could become an actionable process outside the world of books and classrooms and decided to evaluate every bit of information that came their way,” shares Chaudhri. She believes education, in its true sense, challenges the mind to think beyond what is being taught. “Children have an excellent intuition and this childlike curiosity should be fostered by giving them the space to think outside the box.” Though RRP focuses on self-learning and digitalised 38 access to information, Chaudhri recognises the significance NOVEMBER 22-28 2015
of teachers in imparting knowledge to students. “Initially, we wanted to minimise the role of teachers by digitally assisting children, but in time we have come to realise that the support provided by a tutor is irreplaceable. Children need someone to look up to and so do we.” As RRP continues to equip students with self-study skills, a challenge remains to carry on its process beyond their labs. Working in low-income communities, chances are students will not have access to computers after they graduate from RRP programmes. However, Chaudhri shares how her students prioritise digital needs and persuade their parents to get a computer for them to learn. “We were amazed to see our student, Anum, walk into the lab one day with a computer of her own. Such willingness to learn keeps us motivated.” The modules are designed to train students in blog writing, Adobe Photoshop and uploading information online, along with several other tools in order to enhance technical skills of students from digitally-backward schools. “We don’t want children with such great potential to be left behind in our technology-driven future,” she says. In coming years, RRP also intends to share its expertise and content with other schools. “Our plan is to collaborate with non-RRP teachers and schools; so, that the benefits can be passed to more students at the national level,” says Chaudhri. Despite the financial constraints, the organisation has managed to cater almost 200 students since its inception. Ramsha Jahangir is a freelance writer currently pursuing her bachelors in social sciences. She tweets at @RamshaJahangir