November 7-13 2010
Truth and Daring Inside the London Film Festival
june 13-19 2010
june 13-19 2010
november 7-13 2010
Cover Story 18 Truth and Daring in London Inside the London Film Festival
Feature 28 Riot Act A history of Pakistan comedy 32 Where Chai and Colonialism Collide A visit to the Railway Heritage Museum at Golra Sharif
Comment
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34 October in Khairpur Erum Haider’s experiences at a flood relief camp
Workplace Matters 42 Think Before You Send A guide to business email etiquette
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Review 38 What’s new in books, film and theatre
Regulars 6 People & Parties: Out and about with beautiful people 16 Tribune Questionnaire: Sherry Rehman on Sisyphus 44 Horoscope: Shelley von Strunckel on your week ahead 46 Ten Things I Hate About: Being in love
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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
Fall Fashion Gul Ahmed launched its fall collection in a glittering ceremony attended by fashionistas and socialites.
Someha Khalid with Khursheed Haider and Kazim Pasha
Sayeda Leghari and Shabana
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Ziad Bashir, Frieha Altaf, Shehnaz Basit, Zain Bashir November 7-13 2010
Zurain Imam and Fauzia
june 13-19 2010
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Bina and Saima
Saba Ansari
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Mr Zaki and Mr Ziad with a guest November 7-13 2010
Shahi Hasan and Hira with a guest
Guest
Guests
june 13-19 2010
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Nieni, Huma Adnan and Sayeda Mandviwala
Nazneen Tariq and Humaa Taher
Issac
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Altaf and Huma Adnan November 7-13 2010
ia
Nashm
Jenni with her sister
june 13-19 2010
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Mrs Ziad Bashir, Mrs Zaki Bashir and Mrs Zain Bashir
Shehnaz Basit
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Hina Magsi November 7-13 2010
Mariam. Anisa Rashid and a guest
Usman
Shaheen Saeed and Rukaiya Adamjee
june 13-19 2010
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Art Alert Art lovers showed up at the Vogue Art Gallery in Lahore.
Maliha and her daughter
Mona, Saira Shafi and Saira
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Aalia, Aamer Sohail and Naushaba November 7-13 2010
Javed Mawaz and Ishaq Khakwani
Nasira and daughter
Dr Farzeen
Siddiqua Begum
Shaheen, Rukhi, Obaida and Aalia
Sadia
Amna and Zarah
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“No one is important enough to hate. So far.” Politician Sherry Rehman on existential heroes, the need for coffee and living each day like it’s your last. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
That is an oxymoron. Happiness is always imperfect, like nature.
I would want a photographic memory, like a computer scanning a life.
What is your greatest fear?
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
I can’t be giving ideas to the ISI now...
My daughter, the artist drama queen.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
My inability to suffer fools.
MA Jinnah with another 15 years to live.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Where would you most like to live?
Emotional blackmail.
Here in Pakistan.
What is your greatest extravagance?
What is your most treasured possession?
Gauloise Blondes cigarettes.
My dog, Byron, who is unwilling to be my chattel.
What is your current state of mind?
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Free at last.
No coffee at a meeting going south. Seriously? Having no country
What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Neutrality… often a tedious fig leaf for amorality. On what occasion do you lie? To myself when tired. What do you most dislike about your appearance? The Rehman proboscis. Which living person do you most despise?
to go home to, like a political exile.
If you didn’t do your current job, what would you choose to do? Watch this space. What is your most marked characteristic? Burning all candles at all ends. Who is your hero of fiction? Sisyphus in daylight.
No one is important enough to hate. Well, so far.
Which historical figure do you most identify with?
What is the quality you most like in a man?
his passion.
Emotional intelligence. What is the quality you most like in a woman? Intellectual wattage.
Jalaluddin Akbar for his pluralism and vision, Mansur Hallaj for
Who are your heroes in real life? People with middle-class incomes donating to charity above their means.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
What is your greatest regret?
“Can I call you back?”
Regrets are for wimps.
When and where were you happiest?
What’s your favourite quote?
Am still happy.
Live each day like it’s your last.
Which talent would you most like to have?
How many hours of loadshedding did you experience yesterday?
The ability to empty my mind at any point.
As many as you did surely. Express must have big generators. a November 7-13 2010
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COVER STORY
truth and daring in Sixteen days of lights, flashing cameras and action on the red carpet. 16 days of stars in photographable designer frocks and directors with grand cinematic visions.
By fifi haroon
For 16 days, the eyes of global filmdom were on London and its 54th Film Festival. The Festival is known for its focus on World, European and in particular British Cinema. It may not be as glitzy as the big three (Cannes, Venice and Berlin) or as definitive for independent cinema as Sundance, but London is a major premiere venue with a huge cinema audience already in place.
There are also enough gala screenings and photo-ops to please the paparazzi: this year alone Hilary Swank, Keira Knightley, Ju-
lianne Moore, Michelle Williams, Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, Freida Pinto, Javier Bardem, Minnie Driver, Mark Rufallo, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield walked the red carpet.
Add to that Danny Boyle (receiving a special award) and Martin Scorcese (talking about the British Film Institute’s archives) and you have a formidable line-up.
The Festival, however, started off with a bang of a PR strat-
egy and a whimper of a film. The gangly yet entrancing Keira Knightley scampered across the carpet to occupy her seat at the
press conference desk, following the purposeful stride of a con-
fident, blonde-topped Carey Mulligan. It would be difficult to
Photo by Ali khurshid November 7-13 2010
london conjure up a more picturesque moment to launch the opening
day; British cinema’s most successful female exports to Hollywood together on one stage to promote the film version of Booker
prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro’s acclaimed novel Never Let Me Go. And yet the movie, a somewhat tortured, desolate look at
sequestered mortality, curiously foretold the mood of this year’s festival, which was replete with slow, bleak films. A lack of op-
timism that was not totally out of keeping with a world preoccupied with recession, welfare cuts and pockets of unending war.
With Ishiguro present, the mood of the press conference seemed
quaintly deferential. The glamorous cast and director talked at length about how crucial it had been to remain true to the cele-
brated writer’s vision of stoic clones groomed at a sheltered board-
ing school to serve as organ donors for privileged prototypes. Such hallowed reverence for the original sometimes handicaps a film; Alex Garland’s screenplay is smart but overwhelmed by the need
ing and Keira Knightley, known more for her ability to embody
traditional Englishness better than most of her generation, is fairly well cast as the deceptive, but eventually regretful Ruth who seduces Tommy away from Kathy. “I hadn’t read the book,”
she cheerfully admits, “but when I did it was just so astonishing and unique.” She didn’t instantly take to her character’s devi-
ousness: “I didn’t like her and it’s tricky playing people you don’t like. But then it was great to be a villain for a change,” she adds with a chuckle.
Perhaps most missed in Never Let Me Go were the bigger villains;
the state which perpetrates the large organ donor programme
and creates a two-tiered society of haves and have-nots is never seen in a story where eventually everyone has to let go.
In contrast, British-Pakistani writer Ayub Khan Din’s belated
follow up to the infinitely funny East is East takes one back to a more idyllic Pakistan in the mid-70’s. West is West follows George
to reassure Ishiguro’s readers of remaining true to the book. On
screen, the permutations of a “what if?” sci-fi medical police state set unconventionally in the past — the 1990’s to be precise — come
across as faintly incredible for recent history. And the love story
of Kathy H ( Carey Mulligan) and Tommy (Andrew Garfield) is so obviously doomed that it doesn’t invite emotional investment.
Or perhaps it is the inevitable discomfort brought about by the film’s dispassionate acceptance of mortality.
What holds Never Let Me Go together is some fine acting: Carey
Mulligan is the caretaker of the film, narrating most of the story
and telling it well. Andrew Garfield’s Tommy is boyishly appealNovember 7-13 2010
COVER STORY Khan (Om Puri) back home to rural Punjab with two sons from his British marriage as he attempts to make amends for abandoning his first wife (Ila Arun). Sequels to a cult hit are notoriously risky and West is West can’t quite rise to the challenge of its
predecessor. It’s perfectly watchable, even likable but just not as sharp or funny.
Where it does work is when George’s youngest son Sajid (a spir-
ited debut from Aqib Khan) roams the Punjab, playing match-
maker for his orthodox elder brother (Emil Marwa). “I am an annoying teenager so I was just playing myself,” laughs Aqib Khan. There are also more laughs to be had in the inevitable culture-
clash when George’s Crimplene clad second wife Ella (Linda Bassett) arrives in the village.
But Ayub Khan Din’s bucolic utopia seems another country;
the mid-70’s was a changing time for Pakistan, with most oppo-
sition leaders in detention and ZA Bhutto attempting to woo the expanding religious vote bank. West is West doesn’t hint at any of those contradictions in the family’s quest to re-establish its Paki-
stani roots. Whereas East is East had a sound grip on the political ramifications of being brown and British in the seventies, George
Khan Ka Pakistan is locked into a nostalgic time warp curiously punctuated with Sai Zahoor in a cameo appearance singing the Coke Studio version of “Toomba”.
Appropriately, the cast of West is West arrived at the film’s pre-
miere in a vividly painted Pakistani bus, with Aqib Khan looking every inch a new star in a shiny achkan. Makes sense for a film which ultimately packs the country into a tourist’s suitcase.
Shot in 16 mm the enigmatic psychological thriller Black Swan
is Darren Aronofsky’s follow up to The Wrestler. At first glance the
two films appear to be polar opposites; what exactly does the grotesque, theatrical world of wrestling have to do with the delicate,
graceful milieu of the ballet? Surprisingly, everything. Aronof-
sky creates comparable worlds of physical pain and fearful ambition which collide with disastrous ramifications.
Evoking memories of Michael Powell’s Red Shoes, Black Swan tells
the story of Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) a soloist with the New York City Ballet, whose preoccupation with perfection enhances
her first lead performance as the angelic white swan but limits her from conjuring up the the fire and fury needed for her seductive black twin. Chastised incessantly by the company’s Svengali artistic director (Vincent Cassell) for this shortcoming and
smothered by her troubled mother (Barbara Hershey), Nina becomes unhinged, spiralling into paranoia and self harm.
This is a fascinating film handled by a brilliant auteur who
paints a canvas equally enthralling and disturbing with master-
ful strokes. “I knew I wanted to get the camera right onstage with the dancers,” explains Aronofsky, who lets us hear each gasp up close. At the same time he clearly believes in cinematic illusion:
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“I’m not into making it look real, I’m into stylisation.” It’s a bril-
liant ploy; combining both the majesty of the performance and the deep anxiety that accompanies it. And, as if on cue, Tchaikovsky’s mesmerising score adds a perfect sense of high drama.
Despite the ubiquitous stuffed pink toys that inhabit Nina’s
bedroom this is not a pretty tale. “The world of ballet is very in-
sular and notoriously hard to enter,” muses the director. “Usually
when you’re shooting a film around them people are flattered but in ballet they just don’t care.” Mila Kunis, who plays the se-
ductive Lily, the newest addition to the corps and Nina’s possible rival, adds: “Both actors and dancers are really competitive, but
I’ve never met anyone as disciplined and ambitious as a dancer. The physical part of the role was just so challenging.”
Black Swan avoids the daintiness of ballet, opting to emphasise
its demanding physicality, bulimic purges and all. The camera
confronts scraping feet and bleeding toenails unhesitatingly as
the audience winces. Natalie Portman is magnificent in the title role; dancing many of her scenes herself, and capturing Nina’s
constant anxiety expressively. There is only one road forward for both her and this film — and it leads to the Oscars.
November 7-13 2010
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COVER STORY Added onto the festival playlist at the last minute, Sofia Cop-
pola’s Somewhere is the kind of film that seems like it’s going no-
where even while its characters travel across the world. There are no huge dramatic moments or grand revelations: the camera lingers and then lingers some more, magnifying everyday household chores or sometime even a setting into something monu-
mental. This is real life close-up: mundane, lonely, uncomfortable — even for a celebrity.
Stephen Dorff stars as Johnny Marco, a grungy Hollywood star,
sort of Johnny Depp but not quite as attractive, who lives holed
up in the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Los Angeles. Johnny spends his life sleeping around or falling asleep, sometimes combining
the two. You see him travelling to Italy to collect an award with his daughter, Chloe (a brilliantly natural Elle Fanning); a scene which apparently went down particularly well at the Venice Film Festival where Sofia Coppola picked up the Golden Lion.
Apart from the beautifully modulated moments between
Johnny and his daughter, Somewhere can sometimes come across
as flat as Holland. This is a quiet film, perhaps too quiet. It will leave most audiences perplexed. Some will appreciate it as a director’s movie but unlike Sofia Coppola’s endearing debut film,
this one may well be lost in translation. Freida Pinto stars in Miral
as a schoolgirl who grows up cloistered in a refugee school run by social activist Hind Hosseini (Hiam Abbas) but ends up becoming
embroiled in the Intifada in East Jerusalem. That the film chooses to tell the story of the Palestinian resistance from a female perspective raises expectations. The heavy-handed way that it is told brings them crashing down.
Director Julian Schnabel turned up on the red carpet in his
trademark pyjamas accompanied by Freida Pinto, writer Rula Je-
breal, on whose life the film is based, and Yasmine Al Massri, the Lebanese actor who plays Miral’s damaged alcoholic mother. One look at Rula Jebreal and you can guess why Schnabel cast Freida Pinto in the lead role: the two look uncannily similar.
Wearing “Alexander McQueen from head to toe,” Freida Pinto
apparently researched the role by staying with a Palestinian fam-
ily for several weeks. “Coming from India, East Jerusalem wasn’t a cultural shock but it was very emotionally upsetting, especially when I interacted with Palestinian children who have witnessed so much hatred in their short lives. I felt right at home though.
When I went to the Al Aqsa mosque they just let me walk in. They thought I was Palestinian!”
Schnabel, who is Jewish himself, was half humorous, half
touchy when I asked him about how the Jewish community in
the US took the film. “They took it fine,” he countered, “Why shouldn’t they?” I could have come up with a few reasons — for one, all the Jewish characters save one are demonised — but his PR thought it may be time to move on. They were probably right.
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The Kids are All Right, Lisa Cholodenko’s lesbian family drama
went down a treat at the London Film Festival. The film puts a November 7-13 2010
Apart from the beautifully modulated moments between Johnny and his daughter, Somewhere can sometimes come across as flat as Holland. This is a quiet film, perhaps too quiet. It will leave most audiences perplexed.
new twist on the dysfunctional American family with two moms
instead of one. Ironically, the two women still fall prey to tra-
ditional roles with Nic (Annette Benning) playing the dominant provider role and Jules (Julianne Moore) cast as the more moth-
erly, suppressed housewife. The family begins to fall apart when the two kids search for their biological father, bringing Paul (Mark Rufallo) into everyone’s lives. Nic is threatened, Jules is
grey suit and apologetically explains that he didn’t forget to iron
cover the parents aren’t.
ing major stars like Rufallo, Annette Benning and Julianne Moore
seduced and the kids — well, the kids are all right until they disCholodenko handles that mid area between comedy and drama
remarkably well. The film is both funny and moving. By placing
The Kids are All Right in a familiar family milieu Lisa Cholodenko brings the Sapphic into the mainstream. I ask her about this on the red carpet, where she is accompanied by her girlfriend (the
film is apparently partly autobiographical) and she looks pleased: “See, that is exactly what we were trying to do! We weren’t looking for an exclusively Lesbian audience. We wanted the film to be
it. Apparently “it’s designer — it’s meant to be crumpled!” Castgives the film commercial clout. The latter, looking stunning in
a teal sleeveless shift, walked the red carpet in the highest heels imaginable, chatting and posing for pictures with the crowd.
Moore is impossibly tiny in real life, but incredibly charming. Plus she champions the film’s cause articulately: “It isn’t a film
about gay rights it’s a film about human rights. Sexual preference is the human right to make that choice.”
The films in the London Film Festival were also about choices
seen by people from a variety of backgrounds.”
made by directors — artistic, political, dramatic, emotional and
ence. “It’s about time that we had a mainstream film with lesbi-
the illusion; the important thing is it keeps us enchanted, in love
Mark Rufallo agrees that the film reaches out to a diverse audi-
an characters isn’t it?” he counters. Rufallo is wearing a crushed
commercial choices. Cinema can tell the truth or it can enhance and above all — it keeps us coming back.a
November 7-13 2010
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REVIEW
june 13-19 2010
june 13-19 2010
COVER STORY
bestoftherest By ALEYHA AHMED
127 Hours
“An action movie with a guy who can’t move”? Sounds curious.
But 127 Hours is far more than this humble description by its Acad-
emy Award winning director, Danny Boyle.
James Franco (Milk, 2008) stars in this true story about Ameri-
can mountain climber Aron Ralston and the 127 hours he endured
trapped under a boulder, in a ravine in Blue John Canyon, Utah. A modern reminder of John Donne’s cautionary poem No Man is an
Island, Ralston who leads a selfish thrill-seeking life in which he takes his relationships for granted, doesn’t tell anyone that he is
going to Blue John and is ultimately faced with the harsh reality
that no one is going to save him. The film is “not a survival film” according to Boyle; it is about Ralston’s rediscovery of his own humanity.
The film is a paradox; depicting the static physical and mental
‘journey’ Ralston embarks on in this life-defining ordeal. Boyle creates a world in which the frenetic desperation of the situation is brilliantly captured alongside the solemn contemplations of a
man faced with his impending death. With the help of cinematographers Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak, the simple brutality of the vast landscape is perfectly juxtaposed with the fragility of one man’s life.
Transforming an immobile 127 hours into a gripping tale is an
impressive feat and one accomplished to the high standards we have grown to expect from Danny Boyle. Combined with a be-
guiling score created by AR Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire, 2009) that embodies this incredible tale, 127 Hours is a must watch.
Mars Sci-fi slacker animation film Mars, created by former Maths and
Physics boffin, Geoff Marslett, is the sort of film that really an-
noys me. Stunningly made (the film’s unique look is described by Marslett as “half way between a graphic novel and a hand-coloured photograph”) and overlaid with a fresh and quirky script, it is yet to have a distribution deal in the UK.
Starring cult figures Kinky Friedman as President of the USA
and musician Howe Gelb, the film tells of three astronauts and their journey to Mars. Some critics have condemned the film for
a lack of antagonistic forces within it, but it wouldn’t have its
charming slacker feel if it wasn’t this way. A visual delight, Mars is a cult classic in the making and Marslett, a director to watch.
262 November 7-13 2010
The Pink Saris The ‘Pink Saris’ or ‘Gulabi Gang’ are a group of women from India’s Untouchables caste, living in Uttash Pradesh. The gang,
led by Sampat Pal Devi, herself a middle aged untouchable,
all dress in pink as a symbol of solidarity against the abuses they and other untouchable women have suffered in the community. Directed by award winning British documentary
filmmaker Kim Longinetto, Pink Saris looks at different cases of
abused women taken on by Sampat Pal. Well-known for her documentaries on women who take their rights into their own hands, Longinetto’s films are usually empowering and uplift-
ing. However, as the film progresses, focusing on an uneasy choice for a heroine in Sampat Pal, Pink Saris takes on a surprisingly eerie tone.
Sampat Pal’s task is by no means an easy one, but when she
returns a runaway daughter-in-law to her husband’s abusive family, to settle scores with her own ex-husband’s family, we
begin to question how much she truly believes in her own doc-
trine and how much of her women’s liberation rhetoric is bluster and self-promotion.
By the end of the film, we question whether the pink colour
worn in solidarity by these women is in fact a symbolism of their freedom or a constant reminder of their ostracism. InBased on the debut novel by Michael Muhammad Knight, published in 2004, of the same name, The Taqwacores is an indie
film about the Islamic punk movement. Set in Buffalo, New York, Knight’s book told of a fictitious underground Muslim punk movement. So many have been inspired by the book,
that this imagined movement has now become a reality and
has spawned bands such as The Kominas and Al-Thawra, both in the film’s soundtrack.
stead of being given a staple portion of documentary black and white hope for these women’s rights fighters, we are left with
the grey reality of the huge task these women face against a close-minded society and, at times, against their own social conditioning.
A fascinating and well-directed cinematic insight into the
lives of the real people this self-professed ‘largest democracy in the world’ tries to keep hidden.
A portmanteau of the words ‘taqwa’ meaning love and fear
of Allah and ‘hardcore’, the punk rock subgenre, the Taqwacores
is a provocative but humourous drama about a young Mus-
lim student, Yusef (Bobby Naderi) who decides to move out of college dorms and into a house full of like-minded Muslims.
What he ends up with are a group of young Muslim contra-
dictions, including a burqa-wearing ‘riot grrl’, who make him question who he is and who he wants to be.
What the film lacks in a well-developed storyline, it makes
up for in swagger and resolve. The Taqwacores maintains a clear
and heartfelt message as it portrays the struggle felt by many young Muslims in reconciling their Muslim identities with living in the West.
The Taqwacores
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feature
riot act A look at some of Pakistan’s greatest comic icons
BY Maliha Rehman
In a particularly funny episode of Kamal Ahmed Rizvi’s comic masterpiece from the 60s, “Alif Noon”, the conniving Allan, played by Rizvi himself, convinces his befuddled, susceptible friend Nanha, portrayed by a wide-eyed, utterly lovable Rafi Khawar, that begging would be an ideal way to earn some extra cash. And so, Nanha takes position in front of a bus stop, clad in a torn kurta and with bandages adorning his face, loudly proclaiming, “Jo de us ka Allah bhala karay, jo na de us ka fittay munh.” He proceeds to mistake a man’s wife for his daughter and another man’s daughter for his wife and gets taunted, shoved and slapped in the process. When all else fails, he decides to beg as a woman, from under the shroud of a burqa. The hilarity comes to an end in typical “Alif Noon” fashion — with people crowding around Nanha and beating him up. The episode is a laugh riot mainly because of Nanha’s antics but it also pushes all the right but-
tons. It pinpoints begging, a problem that existed in Pakistan back in the 60s and continues to do so even now. In the beginning, the two friends are shown sitting together, criticising the beggars
that approach them. But then, “Alif Noon” is a comedy and the moral discussion is quickly wrapped up and the plot becomes side-splittingly funny. After all, nothing tickles the jocular vein more than a sensitive satire of something that would normally make us feel very sad.
Many of Pakistan’s best comic shows have run along similar lines: tongue-in-cheek, perceptive
satires of society. It’s only in recent times, with the influx of media channels and the growing in-
fluence of Bollywood, that we have had to put up with comedians delivering jokes in a Jonny Leverinspired slapstick style. Their jokes are usually repetitive, often forgettable and borderline vulgar.
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We may laugh initially but really, the Pakistani audience, over the years, has been bred on a much more refined, intelligent brand of comedy. November 7-13 2010
kings of comedy Anwar Maqsood, Kamal Ahmed Rizvi and Moin Akhtar
A case in point is another drama from the 60s: Khawaja Moinuddin’s “Taleem-e-Balighan”. The
long play focuses on an unruly group of adults being taught by an aged, scurrilous, impoverished master sahib (Mahmood Ali). The cast features some of Pakistan’s finest actors, including Qazi Wajid, Subhani Ba Younis and Qasim Jalali playing the roles of the wayward student body to the hilt.
Master sahib enthusiastically beats up his students with his stick; his wife shouts out insults from inside the house since she can’t venture in front of ‘ghaair mard’; the butcher, who is also the class
prefect, waves his knife in front of master sahib when aggravated. But amidst the nonsensical hi-
larity, “Taleem-e-Balighan” has a very clever script, with master sahib making frequent acerbic references to a number of issues like sectarian prejudice, illiteracy, corrupt government officials
and poverty. Here’s an example: when the milkman enters, master sahib asks him why yesterday’s milk was so much better than the usual supply, to which he naively replies, “Master sahib, kal paani ke nalkay bund thay” (the water taps were closed yesterday). There are a great deal of insinuations in this play, cloaked in the guise of comedy.
As far as insinuations go, though, nobody is better at making covert wisecracks than Anwar Maq-
sood. In some of his most memorable work, Anwar Maqsood has teamed up with comedian Moin Akhtar and conducted uproarious, sharp-witted question-and-answer sessions. Moin Akhtar is a marvel at impersonations — in the most recent of these ventures, “Loose Talk”, he starred in almost 245 episodes masquerading as a bullied husband, a Bengali baba, an Indian poet, a corrupt police
official and an unscrupulous chaudhary sahib amongst other characters. Maqsood, as the interviewer, furrowed his brows and solemnly tried to make sense of the belligerent answers given by Akhtar’s character.
The script was funny but Maqsood’s work almost always includes astute, well-constructed cri-
tiques of current happenings. Shows like “Fifty Fifty”, “Show Time”, “Aangan Terha”, “Half Plate”, “Studio Dhai” and the “Silver Jubilee Show” are icons in Pakistani comic history. While these pro-
grammes showcased some rollicking instances of slapstick comedy, they also included a healthy
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dose of Anwar Maqsood’s signature sugarcoated sarcasm. “Studio Dhai”, another Anwar Maqsood-
November 7-13 2010
feature
Moin Akhtar, Omar Sharif and Saad Haroon
Moin Akhtar interview-based show, actually got banned for its bold script. One sequence from “Fifty Fifty”, the highly popular comedy skit show dating back to the 80s, pokes fun at the very
Pakistani urge to converse in English even though we may be terrible. Called Bashira in Trouble,
it is allegedly the first Punjabi movie in English, claiming that the actors took “six month-long language training courses” for the movie. The skit begins with Bashira daku bradnishing a gun at Ismail Tara, at which Tara raises his eyebrows and says in a deep Punjabi baritone, “Tach me nat
Bashiriya.” And then, in another scene, Bashira’s girlfriend, played by Bushra Ansari, tells him he’s a liar at which he exclaims, “Jast you shut up.” “Fifty Fifty”, incidentally, brought some of
Pakistan’s most prolific comedians to the forefront: Ismail Tara, Zeba Shehnaz and Bushra Ansari, with her uproarious impersonations of Salma Agha, Tahira Syed and Madam Nur Jehan.
Another writer who ruled PTV back in the 80s, is Hasina Moin. The dramas penned by Hasina
Moin were mainly romances, with glossy, affluent characters cavorting around the city, running
along the beach and carelessly dressed in Tee-jays (Pakistan’s one and only ‘fashionable’ boutique back then). Her dramas were always pure, unadulterated entertainment, the comic sequences cleverly woven into her stories with such expertise that they rendered her characters all the more lovable and unforgettable. In one scene from “Ankahi”, the heroine Sana, staples her boss’ tie to
some important papers in her new secretarial job. Incidentally, that particularly scene has been replicated in quite a few Indian movies, where Hasina Moin’s happy-go-lucky concoctions are apparently quite popular.
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Omer Sharif is another Pakistani comedian who has a large number of fans across the border,
From his first foray onto the stage back in the late 70s, to his various ventures in movies and televiNovember 7-13 2010
>> Pakistan’s best comic shows: 1. Fifty fifty 2. Taleem-e-Balighan 3. Alif Noon 4. Studio Dhai, Loose Talk 5. Aangan Terha 6. Ankahi 7. Omer Sharif’s shows 8. Ulta Seedha 9. Perfume Chowk 10. Vee-jay <<
sion talk shows, Sharif has time and again proven himself to be a comic genius. A lot of his jokes
are completely spontaneous and at any given time, he will have impromptu impersonations, song parodies and jokes up his sleeve. His jokes may be audacious, but he is careful to sugarcoat them,
and somehow, nobody gets insulted. Whether playing the role of a libidinous scientist in a stage
drama or hosting a prestigious Bollywood awards function or interviewing a famous politician, he knows exactly how to get the crowd rolling in the aisles. In a talk show that he is presently
hosting, I have watched Omer Sharif brazenly grill his celebrated guests only to have them answer smilingly. Amongst others, Mustafa Khar unabashedly answered questions regarding his multiple marriages, Sharmila Farooqi spoke frankly about her time in prison and Arif Lohar only laughed
at pointed remarks about his weight. A large number of the comedians currently gracing our TV screens honed their talents under Omer Sharif’s tutelage. Performers like Shakeel Siddiqui, Rauf
Lala and Sikander Sanam began their careers with Omer Sharif’s stage plays and have now been able to establish fan followings of their own.
There are many other comedians who have, time after time, made us laugh. Munawwar Zareef,
with his comic timing, facial expressions and spontaneity, is one of the forerunners of Pakistani
comedy. His movies, dating back to the 50s, are still a rollicking treat. And then there’s Athar Shah Khan, who gave us the goofy Jaidi in the 60s. Bushra Ansari continues to delve in comedy. She recently wrote the drama “Dolly ki Aayegi Baraat”, in which she also took on the hilarious role of
a temperamental, make-up laden Faisalabadi woman with a promiscuous Chaudhary husband.
Azfar Ali’s drama series, “Sub Set Hai”, portraying the cataclysmic lives of a group of Karachi-based teenagers drew in quite a few guffaws — as do Jawad Bashir and Faisal Qureshi’s occasional ventures.
A modern-day development in the realm of Pakistani comedy has been the entry of stand-up co-
medians who usually perform in English in front of live audiences. They sing, sometimes dance,
stand on stage for an entire hour and coax the audience into laughter. The improvisational comic troupe, Blackfish, ruled the roost for some time. Now, the troupe’s creator, Saad Haroon, has launched out on his own, performing in major cities, often along with fellow comedian Danish Ali.
Still, it is the older lot of comedians that we recall most fondly and that we want to watch again
and again. Quite often, I hear comedians delivering Omer Sharif’s jokes, passing them off as their
own. I once asked Omer Sharif about this outright plagiarism. He just shrugged. “People recognise the jokes as my own, even if somebody else is delivering them. These comedians are passing up the opportunity to build their careers by plagiarising. I’ll just come up with more fresh material — what will they do when they run out of jokes to copy?”
They just don’t make comedians like that anymore. a
Their jokes are usually repetitive, bordering on the vulgar and often forgettable. We may laugh initially but really, the Pakistani audience, over the years, has been bred over a much more refined, intelligent brand of comedy.
31 November 7-13 2010
feature
where chai and colonialism collide A visit to the Railway Heritage Musuem in Golra Sharif By SABA IMTIAZ
Grime and germs aside, trains do have a strange romanticism about them. Even a 16-hour trip on Pakistan Railways can’t destroy the sense of adventure a train journey promises, far removed from the clinical process of boarding a flight and hours of aerial insulation. The romanticism may be Bollywood’s fault — after all, the
railways have been ingrained in one’s memory thanks to the
haunting sounds of trains in Pakeezah, the mad capers of Shahid and Kareena Kapoor in Jab We Met and Shah Rukh Khan reaching
out to Kajol in that last scene of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.
We have our former colonial overlords to thank for the trains,
still used by thousands of people on a daily basis. Last year, the government ran an advertisement in local newspapers. Headlined ‘Massage of Public Interest’, the slogan read: ‘Railways is your asset, Protect it’. And while no one may want to protect the
state asset, the British Raj’s legacy has been frozen in time at
the Railway Heritage Museum in Golra Sharif, about 30 minutes away from Islamabad.
The museum isn’t of the hallowed, antiquity-packed variety
— a blessing for those with an aversion to dusty rooms overrun with hordes of tourists. It opened in 2002 with the help of fund-
ing by the European Union and is housed in two rooms that were originally part of the railway station. The station master points
out the sturdy furniture, working fans and light fixtures, and the grills on the windows (“Made in London!”) which date back
32
to pre-Partition, and the tour guide plays a few notes on the piaA station master’s coat and guns used by railway station guards. November 7-13 2010
no to demonstrate that it still works.
Advertisements for tea, placed originally in Bahawalnagar
The museum is also home to a private railway car built for
the Raja of Jodhpur’s use in 1888, and then gifted by him to his daughter.
A motley crew of artefacts is on display from the heyday of the
North Western Railways. Lord Mountbatten’s crockery, gazettes,
clocks and photos, gas heaters, guns used by guards at train sta-
tions, first aid boxes, fireplaces and a station master’s old coat have all found a home here. For inexplicable reasons though, the
museum also houses a railway communication system captured from Indian territory during the 1965 war. The station master,
who also gives visitors tours of the museum, gravely intones, “Consider this a symbol of our victory.”
For all intents and purposes, the sun doesn’t seem to have set
on the Empire at Golra Sharif railway junction.
The most amusing sight of all is a series of advertisements
placed by the British government in the late 1800s to convince the subcontinent’s population about their newest import: tea. One poster details the method of making tea through diagrams,
and another describes the cost and benefits of tea. Another shows three men — Hindu, Muslim and Sikh — enjoying a hot
Old kettles on display at the Railway Heritage Museum
The most amusing sight of all is a series of advertisements placed by the British government in the late 1800s to convince the subcontinent’s population about their newest import: tea. One poster details the method of making tea through diagrams, and another describes the cost and benefits of tea.
cuppa. Much has changed since the ads were placed, but at least the tradition of serving tea on board a train hasn’t. Angrez to chale
33
gaye, chai chorr gaye? a
November 7-13 2010
COMMENT
october in
khairpur By Erum Haider
At 3pm, the thick, dry air of the afternoon filled the tiny ward and I felt myself falling asleep, watching the medical in-charge and her assistants. Standing in rural Sindh in the dry October heat it was difficult to imagine precipitation of any kind visiting this area. But the monsoon rain and flooding in August had been the heaviest in living memory. We â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the cameraman and I â&#x20AC;&#x201D; were covering teams of dedicated and highly qualified doctors as the flood victims faced their toughest challenge yet: hunger and poverty. On the opposite end of the ward, a large woman sat on a bed
cradling a baby. Next to her was a young teenage girl; I realised with a start that she was probably the mother.
QUEEN
34 november 7-13 2010
As I walked over, the girl looked up at me with enormous, tired
eyes. She had tiny brown freckles on her nose and cheeks, and curly sun-bleached hair. She couldn’t have been a day over 15. “How old are you?” I asked her.
“Four days,” the woman said, beaming down at the infant.
The baby shifted in its sleep, bringing two fat little arms towards its chest. The girl looked over at her daughter. I looked around for a translator.
“Ask her how old the girl is,” I whispered to Dr Komal. My
translator dutifully repeated the question in Sindhi to the large
woman, pointing at the young girl. The woman stared at the girl and then blankly at Komal.
Maybe they speak a different dialect, I suggested.
My translator persisted. After some vigorous gesturing and ex-
changes in Sindhi I was told that the lady had no idea how old the girl was since she was her daughter-in-law. “She’s been with us for four years,” the woman offered.
In all this time the girl hadn’t said a word. Any attempt to
speak to her was interrupted by the mother-in-law. After considerable persuasion the lady handed the baby over to the girl and
was escorted by the attendants to the door. “She doesn’t under-
stand anything,” the woman hollered back at us. “What do you want to talk to her about, anyway?”
The girl’s name was Marvi. In her very quiet voice she told us
that she was brought up in a house with five sisters and three
brothers in Thul, Jacobabad. There were no schools in the village she grew up in, and none in the village she moved to when she
married. The baby in her lap had been delivered in a relief camp, “but my sisters-in-law all had their children at home.” “What does your husband do?” Komal asked.
Manual labour, came the reply. She reckoned he was twen-
ty-five years old, although she couldn’t be sure. He was much
older than her in any case, and they had been married for four
years now. They lived with five brothers and the mother-in-law in a one-room haveli. Four of the brothers had wives; each wife
had two or three children. I scribbled the figures hastily in my notebook. “Wait, that’s 26 people in one house,” Komal said in an awed voice. Do you have any rooms or partitions? No. You all
share one room? Yes. And this is your first child? The girl nodded in affirmation.
35 november 7-13 2010
“Did it hurt, the delivery?”
From the corridor, the mother-in-law could be heard arguing
with an attendant. The girl glanced at the door. “I feel a little weak, but it passes.”
“How old are you?” I asked again, quickly. Komal repeated the
question in Sindhi. Marvi looked blankly at us.
“I don’t think she knows,” Komal said to me. “What else do you
want to know?”
“Well, we have these community health questions to get
through… was the baby vaccinated?” I asked the girl, glancing
down at my checklist, looking up just in time to see her flick her palm towards the ceiling. “God knows.”
Komal asked her how many more children she wanted to have.
Marvi looked down at the tiny, plump baby, and then up at Kom-
al. I don’t understand, she said. I sighed and suggested we drop the conversation, but the doctor was adamant. Komal gently touched her shoulder and the girl turned around to face her. The
doctor said something in a voice so soft I could barely hear her. The girl nodded once, slowly.
The mother-in-law came bustling in and the interview was
over. We watched the girl hand the baby obediently over to the
woman. My translator was lost in thought for a moment, rubbing disinfectant over her palms.
“These people don’t like it when you talk about contraception
to the young girls,” said the doctor briskly as we made our way
to the lunch room. “You make immediate enemies out of them. The most you can do is talk about spacing out the eight, nine kids that they’ll end up having.”
“But you said something to her, right at the end — what was
it?”
Komal looked at me. “I asked her if she’ll have as many kids as
her mother in law wants her to have. And she said yes.”
Returning from Khairpur, it occurs to me that even the great-
est floods in living memory aren’t enough to hold our interest for
more than a couple of weeks. Nor, for that matter, is the world that found itself washed up on our television screen of particular interest: malnourished kids with scabies, poverty, a province
inured to the progress and wealth of the rest of the country. The truth is that the floods have done little to change the neglect and
invisibility of millions of Pakistani women living out their lives as bad statistics on the human development index. a
36 november 7-13 2010
june 13-19 2010
REVIEW
featured review of the week
book questioning history By Ammara Khan
Mario Vargas Llosa, the famous Peruvian-Spanish writer, has been awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt and defeat.” A leading contemporary writer, his work has necessitated recognition of the value of reassessing history through fiction. Along with many Latin American writers, including the famous Colombian writer Gabríel Garcia Márquez (Nobel Laureate 1982), Vargas Llosa worked as a journalist before he became a writer. Like Garcia Márquez he was initially influenced by modernist writers, especially William Faulkner and his radical treatment of intricate change in time. He wrote his doctorial thesis on Gabríel Garcia Márquez but, unlike him and many other writers from the Latin American boom, Vargas Llosa does not interlace reality with fantasy in the tradition of magical realism. His ethical obsession and general interest is politics and its impact on common people. Vargas Llosa started his literary career at the age of 27 with the publication of his first novel The Time of the Hero in 1963 which became a big success. Now 74, Vargas has published over 30 novels, essays and plays, including Conversation in the Cathedral, Captain Pantoja and the Special Service, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter and The Feast of the Goat. The defining feature of his writings is the perilous struggle with an increasingly oppressive reality that is sworn to the antagonism of the individual and his efforts to synthesise or reconcile with that reality. Vargas Llosa writes mostly in response to the crucial problems faced by the Peruvian society and how ordinary people feel about these political problems. He has primarily worked within the trends of both modern and postmodern narrative, employing the former as a tool of critique, of unraveling the corruption of the political, and the latter as the indulgence in the playful side of 38 experimentation, turning an aspiration to reveal the hidden truth November 7-13 2010
an oppressive reality Llosa’s work was a challenge to entrenched power
Vargas Llosa writes mostly in response to the crucial problems faced by the Peruvian society and how ordinary people feel about these political problems
of the world to the unmistakable commitment to heterogeneity, fragmentation and difference. Along with his narrative method, he broadened his thematic range and began to analyse the problems that are faced by everyone, irrespective of their geographical location. Earlier on a Marxist and a supporter of the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro, Vargas Llosa noticed the disparity between social idealism and public freedom and became an enthusiast of liberalism and democracy over the years. He opposed the nationalisation of public banks in Peru at one point. Often labeled a neoliberal, he ran for the presidency of Peru in 1990 but lost to Alberto Fujimori. An ardent reader of Sartre, Vargas Llosa delves into the essence of existence through his novels. For him, the novel represents an
exploration of the possibilities of human existence through various characters and their relation to their immediate location in time. Through its great thematic range, his fiction takes us beyond the existential presence of his characters to question the very essence of history. Along with his novels, Llosaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s non-fiction, numerous interviews and adventure into professional politics, present an accurate picture of his immediate ideological context. His gift for seeing things from a different point of view and providing a fresh perspective on the familiar marks him as one of the best Latin American writers. Extremely rewarding to read, Llosaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s works examine the vulnerabilities of power and their impact on people. Cultural specificity and historical rootedness are the hallmarks of his writing. 39 November 7-13 2010
REVIEW
theatre waiting for justice By sascha akhtar
After the sold-out performances at its premiere earlier in March 2010, Waiting returned to the Southbank Centre for a special oneoff performance this month. Western society underwent a transformation the day reality television was born. The question is whether society had already changed and so, by the economic laws of supply and demand, brought about the occurrence or if the television networks changed society by introducing voyeuristic programming. Whatever the case, we now view “reality” differently. “Reality” is the new escapism. We relish the details of people’s lives in stark, gory detail and nothing else will suffice anymore. Documentaries have had a renaissance in this new thirst for the “real”. In this socio-cultural landscape, there are openings for new forms to emerge both on screen and in theatre. Waiting, is a new media production that incorporates video projections, operatic vocalising and a form of acting that is closer in relation to the art of the “docudrama”. Victoria Brittain who is a former associate foreign editor of the Guardian, a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, on the editorial board of Race and Class, and on the national executive council of Respect Renewal is the author behind the work. Her reputation in some factions, mostly right-wingers, of the Western media is mottled, and she has been accused of being a supporter of all causes and people that are viewed to be enemies, as it were, of the Western state. One opening line of an article on an American blog reads, “Victoria Brittain has never met a terrorist, jihadist, or enemy of a liberal and multicultural society that she doesn’t admire”. In Waiting, she has assiduously gathered the stories of the wives, sisters and daughters of men who have been victims of the war on terror, after entering the UK as asylum seekers. The stories are diverse, ranging from a French-Algerian Muslim wife of a man who was kept in UK prisons year after year without trial, to a Jordanian-Muslim who, by way of Pakistan, ended up 40 in the UK only to have her husband picked up and bundled off to November 7-13 2010
Guantanamo Bay leaving her to care for five children, to an elderly English lady who started writing to Muslim detainees in a number of British jails and fell in love with one of them this way. Each story is told by the actresses playing the women in a warm, intimate setting sitting on an armchair or at a table, with lamps illuminating their faces in the same way one would have a heart-to-heart with a friend. This personalises the stories that are interspersed with both a female soprano and mezzo-soprano accompanied by a cellist whose voices echo the emotional tone of the content of the stories. The effect is magnetic and highly engaging. Video is projected from time to time to complement a story, and the proportion of each element making up the show is perfectly in tune with the highly-charged, sensitive content of the performances. There is a both a minimal and raw feeling to the musical accompaniment that sets off the heart-rending tales we hear from the five women. Certainly, the operatic women’s voices mirror the emotion that the audience feels for the struggles of these women. Waiting is a commentary on many issues. It makes us face the effects of the fallout of 9/11 and 7/7 on Muslims everywhere, but also throws a light on the UK justice system. It lends a fresh perspective to the war on terror, showing us how it continues to disrupt not just the lives of individuals but whole families and communities, who continue to wait and wait for their husbands, brothers and fathers to just come home, often not knowing where they are or why they have been taken. In the words of one woman, “I have to wait…yes waiting…one-and-a-half years waiting…waiting for the phone to ring.”
film oliver’s army By nadir hassan
In the two decades since the original Wall Street, Oliver Stone’s critical reputation has taken a well-deserved drubbing. The allflash-no-substance critique, which has been retroactively applied even to his best films like his Vietnam War trilogy and JFK, has only gained traction with the release of gaudy spectacles like Alexander and pointless biopics like W. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is guilty of all the sins ascribed to Stone, plus one: there is no particular need for this film to exist. Sure, the economic crash of 2008, like the Anything Goes decade of Reganonomics, is ripe for cinematic interpretation. But this tired retread of the original Wall Street shows as much creativity in dealing with the depression as the US government did. Want to show that the real-estate boom was a bubble waiting to burst? Oliver Stone will have a child blowing bubbles. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps isn’t Stone’s worst film; that honour will always be reserved for U-Turn. The film is partly saved by Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko who, after serving time for his crimes in the first movie, is now delivering anti-motivational lectures to college students about the evils of the financial industry. In a bid to get close to his estranged daughter (Carey Mulligan), Gekko takes a young trader (Shia LaBeouf) under his wing. Douglas’ performance is electric. His motivations are hard to pin-point as he becomes increasingly engrossed in the high-stakes world of finance. Amid more obvious metaphors of falling dominos, Stone wastes the acting talent, which also includes Frank Langella and Josh Brolin, at his disposal. Aimlessness and lethargy plagues the film. The director is more concerned with finger-pointing and blame-shifting in trying to uncover the true villains of the financial crisis than he is with narrative and character. The chief failure of the original Wall Street was its reception by the public: instead of being seen as a smooth, soulless anti-hero, Gordon Gekko was considered a role model by a legion of economics majors at Ivy League universities.
images, not people Amid obvious metaphors, Oliver Stone wastes the acting talent at his disposal Over-cautious in not repeating the same mistake, Stone becomes a preacher with a moral agenda. Given Douglas’ health problems, a feel-good Oscar nomination is on the cards. It would be well deserved given the paucity of material he has to work with. Oliver Stone, on the other hand, should never be allowed near a big budget, star actors and moralistic scripts ever again. Only that may teach him the virtues of subtlety. Then again, a man who looks up to Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez is unlikely to ever mellow. Stone has many weaknesses; it is his lack of modesty that shines through in every failed film. a
41 November 7-13 2010
WORKPLACE Comment MATTERS Email is, at times, an irresponsibly-handled medium and many organisations today are grappling with usage of business emails. Email policies often fail to provide a solution to workplace email issues, which can be a problem for the 1.4 billion users of the technology. One of the issues is overdependency on this medium. Par-
ticipants at my email etiquette workshops have time and again
complained that they receive too many emails. We end up using
email to accomplish tasks for which it is completely ineffective. It is only sensible to choose a communication medium which
best suits the needs of the task at hand. For example, if you want
think before you send
Using email effectively might mean not using it at all sometimes BY asma mustafa
to correct your subordinate on a mistake, meet him/her instead
of sending an email; if you’d like to explain a complicated proce-
dure to someone, demonstrate it; if you’re trying to solve someone’s problem, call them. Knowing how and when to use email sets managers and leaders apart in organisations.
The quantity of emails is also multiplied by the number of
times an email is replied to. At my previous workplace we had a
rule that if any email continues for more than two email chains,
both the sender and recipient should meet each other and discuss the matter. Email is best used for simple and short commu-
nication. Longer emails can be drafted when already-discussed matters need to be documented.
The way you communicate by email speaks volumes about
your personality. If you are courteous in real life, you’ll be the same when composing emails. Unlike face-to-face communica-
tion, where a lot can be conveyed by body language, in emails, tone and inflection are hard to decipher. Words and phrases
42 November 7-13 2010
which may be appropriate in a face-to-face conversation, such as, “Why did you...” “You must...” and “I don’t understand
your...” trigger a defense mechanism in recipients and should be avoided in emails. On the other hand, the same message can
have a more poitive impact with the addition of courteous words such as “dear”, “thank you”, “regards” etc.
Attention-seeking behaviour is evident in persistent “reply
all” users. Many participants at my workshops have said that when they disseminate information to users, they feel impor-
tant and useful. However, if the reply is not required by all recipients, it wastes their time and clogs their inbox. The constant “new email” notification acts as a distracter.
Where efficiency is great, it should certainly be paired with
effectiveness. Many of you who thrive on speed would recall a message which was intended for Asim Zaheer but was sent to Asif Zaheer. While address books have taken a load off our mem-
ory, its usage demands constant vigilance. Similarly, sending out an email with grammatical errors can create an impres-
sion of carelessness and irresponsibility. Double checking the
address list and running a spell check before sending an email doesn’t consume a lot of time but will surely save you from unnecessary embarrassment.
Effectiveness also needs to be coupled with efficiency. Delay-
ing a response with the intent to revert with complete informa-
tion can be avoided by simply acknowledging the email. It is okay to write “Thank you for your email. I will get back to you on
June, XYZ.” The sooner you reply to an email, the less the clutter in your inbox — allowing you to focus on other tasks. The oftne-
glected subject line can actually facilitate in getting a timely re-
sponse if the purpose, along with deadline (if any), is mentioned in crisp and meaningful words.
Like a decent conversation, a well-written email also needs
strcture. Greeting the individual and introducing oneself (if
needed) in the opening, communicating the purpose along with two to four bullet points in the body of the email, specifying the deadline (if any) along with offering assistance in the closing paragraph has always worked for me. Often we miss out on of-
fering help by not writing statements like “Feel free to contact
me for any clarification” or “Do let me know if you need more
detail.” This depicts lack of ownership on the part of the sender. Today, life without email is hard to imagine. However, the
presence of one medium should not detract from the rest. What
At my previous workplace we had a rule that if any email continues for more than two email chains, both the sender and recipient should meet each other and discuss the matter. Email is best used for simple and short communication. Longer emails can be drafted when already discussed matters need to be documented.
you need to accomplish should always be kept in mind before choosing the medium. Email is as much a projection of your professional image as any other written or verbal presentation
and must be handled thoughtfully. Sustainable improvement in your emails is possible only by improving your personality and the way you communicate in general. a
43 November 7-13 2010
HOROSCOPE BY SHELLEY VON STRUNCKEL
Aries March 20 – April 19 Deal with business or financial matters
swiftly. This isn’t merely because these constitute the tiresome end to a tedious series of issues. It’s also because with Mercury
joining your ruler Mars in the more expansive part of your chart, the most inquisitive you are, the more you’ll broaden your horizons. And some of what you learn could bring exactly the breakthroughs you need.
Taurus April 20 – May 20 While you may not be entirely sure the
wisdom of others’ activities, leave decisions entirely up to them. 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,
This not only means any problems will be their responsibility,
it frees you to focus on the more personal matters that climax
around the Taurus Full Moon on the 21st. Ideally, by then you’ll
have learned enough that, should it be necessary, you’re ready to take a stand.
weekly and monthly horoscopes in 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 Tempting as it is to get involved in deci-
sions that will shape elements of your daily routine or working life, numerous changes are likely before anything is settled. Be-
sides, you need to invest time in untangling confusion involving one or two close relationships, personal or otherwise. This will require patience. Begin now and you’ll sidestep what could easily become tedious power struggles later this month.
Cancer June 21 – July 21 If you’re feeling uneasy about certain situations that mean a great deal to you, it’s no surprise. While
changes are unsettling, they’re also necessary, if not long over-
due. Now that things are organised, allow everybody involved time to become accustomed to those changes. Meanwhile, at-
tend to far more boring but equally vital changes in various obligations. These, too, will take time. And they, too, are vital.
Leo July 22 – August 22 After persistent difficulties on the home
front, a sudden change of heart or fresh approach brings genuine feelings of optimism. Enough you rightly feel you can leave
things to develop on their own while you attend to those matters, and those individuals, you’ve neglected over the past several
weeks. True, you can’t make up for lost time. But, believe it or not, you can begin again.
Virgo August 23 – September 22 Frustrating as recent disputes were, forget about attempts to have the last word. With the actual situations involved remaining in transition until late November, little is certain. Still, things are settled enough you’re finally able to focus on increasingly pressing matters involving
your personal or family life as well as various more worldly activi-
44
ties. Here, too, it’s about change, so any plans must be flexible. November 7-13 2010
Libra September 23 – October 22 While you’re familiar with Mercury’s retrograde period, with your ruler Venus in reverse motion
until the 18th, you’re facing reversals and personal questions.
Many of these involve the past and although they’re inconvenient, settling them enables you to say farewell to persistently
troublesome situations. Take it slowly, since it’s better to gather all the facts, make clear-minded decisions and deal with these once, and for good.
Scorpio October 23 – November 21 Because the recent Scorpio New Moon both brought very personal issues to a head and, equally,
shook up existing arrangements, you’re feeling overwhelmed.
So, withdraw and allow what must happen to take place with-
out attempting to influence events. This may be out of charac-
ter. But you’ll soon realise that things are far less fixed than you imagined. You can make any necessary changes over the coming weeks.
Sagittarius November 22 – December 20 The boost to your mood
and energy that Mars and, as of Monday, Mercury in Sagittarius brings you isn’t just welcome, you’ll need it to win others over
to your ventures. Eager as you are to get things organised, you’d regret hastily made arrangements. New ideas and offers during November’s second half could mean that what now would be a struggle is achieved, and with astonishing ease.
Capricorn December 21 – January 19 Because you’re responsible
for your own life, you respect others’ right to make decisions. So
unless you’re asked to intervene, you assume everybody else can – and will – deal intelligently with both opportunities and prob-
lems. However, nothing’s that straightforward and, worse, the difficulties of certain individuals could have an impact on you. The trick is to get only as involved as you must, and no more.
Aquarius January 20 – February 17 Obviously the discussion of po-
tential changes in fundamental elements of your way of living or working is unsettling. Still, it’s no surprise these are being considered. Ideally, you’ll recognise that at the moment you’re only
exploring these, nothing more. It’s superb aspects to bountiful Jupiter and your ruler Uranus, during November’s third week,
that could transform both your thinking and the actual situations you’re dealing with.
Pisces February 18 – March 19 There’s a difference between know-
ing decisions must be made and acting swiftly. Others may insist you commit now. But judging by the coming weeks’ rather exciting planetary activity involving Jupiter and Uranus, both in
Pisces, what seems best now could be exceeded by various new
For more information, to order personal charts and to download & listen to detailed audiocasts, visit www.shelleyvonstrunckel.com
ideas or offers. So instead of focusing on a single plan, aim high.
45
You’ve nothing to lose and everything to gain.
November 7-13 2010
THE HATER
10 things I hate about ......being in love
1 2 3 4 5
By Nadir Hassan
Itchy fingers. The desire to say something — say
anything — to her no matter what the time of the day.
Heard a good song on YouTube? Why not forward the
link? A decent line of poetry? Let’s recite it immediately.
Intellectual insecurity. Never fall for someone smarter
than you. All your time will be spent Googling books, the provenance of words and plot summaries of Tolstoy novels.
Perpetuating the career of Celine Dion. Something has to explain the baffling sales of “My Heart Will Go On”.
Sane people want to strangle themselves when they hear that song. Luckily for Celine Dion, love-struck fools aren’t sane.
Unleashing the inner stalker. “I will only peek at her Facebook albums.” Seven hours later, you’ve saved all her photos and read every inane post on her wall.
Spine-removal surgery. Sure, I’ve spent my entire
existence nursing a well-founded hatred for the novels
of Jane Austen. But the second she approvingly quotes
that horrible opening line about single men and their want of wives, I’ll become a life-long fan.
46 November 7-13 2010
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Paranoia. “What’s she doing talking to that guy on the street? He’s so much better-looking than me. Oh wait,
she was just asking for directions to the nearest bus stop.”
The Bond-villain scheming. Well, she gets off work at 6 pm, so if I take another two hours to file this report
maybe I’ll run into her on the stairs and then I can tell
her that her dress looks nice. Next thing you know, she’ll agree to marry me.
The blame-yourself-last syndrome. Didn’t get a reply
to your text message? It’s all the stupid cell phone company’s fault.
List-making. This advice may be futile but never make a positive/negative list about yourself. It’ll only show you that that your self-hatred has a basis in reality.
The inevitable anti-climax. If she never gives you a second look, you’ve just wasted a whole lot of time. If
she ends up dating you, you realise she was never worth the effort. a
june 13-19 2010
june 13-19 2010