The Express Tribune Magazine - October 18

OCTOBER 18-24 2015

V

A Samar Minallah Khan The human rights activist and documentary film-maker on her fight against compensation marriages

OCTOBER 18-24 2015

Travel

Cover Story

A portrait of peace and diversity

Samar Minallah Khan: A vital voice The human rights activist and film-maker fights against compensation marriages

Singapore charms you from the moment you land here

16

22 Feature

The forgotten lord of Larkana

Honoured by the Raj, Wadero Ghulam Kadir Dayo remains obliterated from history

34

Portfolio

Where East meets West Between the spices and raw meat, Empress Market bears reminders of the British Raj

29 Regulars

6 People & Parties: Out and about with beautiful people 37 Reviews: Movies 38 Framed: Woven history

Magazine Incharge: Dilaira Dubash. Senior Subeditors: Sanam Maher and Ali Haider Habib. Subeditors: Komal Anwar and Aesha Munaf 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

Amna, Mahvish Hasan, Saadia Bilwani and Farzeen with a friend

Myra Hashmi

6 OCTOBER 18-24 2015

Aisha

Annie Bilwani

PHOTO COURTESY WALNUT COMMUNICATIONS

Mahvish Hasan Salon & Spa celebrates its 4th anniversary in Karachi

PEOPLE & PARTIES

Amina Malik

Anabiya

Zara’s Salon showcases key bridal looks at her new salon in Karachi

Asma

8 OCTOBER 18-24 2015

PHOTOS COURTESY TAKE II PR

Al-Karim and Uzma

Saima, Rubbiya and Maria

Sana and Saim

Esha

Fabiya

PEOPLE & PARTIES

United Nations Development Programme hosts ‘Educate a Girl Climate Summit’ at the Arts Council in Karachi Shaheen Khan

Fouzia Khan

Jeannette Faruque

Alycia Dias

10 OCTOBER 18-24 2015

Natasha, Zoya, Aadarsh and Mehwish

Seema Mulk

Mahin Khan

PHOTOS COURTESY TUD PR

Tara Uzra Dawood and Sara Phillips

PEOPLE & PARTIES

Mehak Elahi

Fatin Gondal

Noor Jahan

Meesha Shafi

12 OCTOBER 18-24 2015

Ammara Hikmat

Amal Khan

Maheen Kardar

PHOTOS COURTESY LOTUS PR

The Pakistan Fashion Design Council (PFDC) in collaboration with L’Oréal Paris presents the fifth PFDC L’Oréal Paris Week 2015 in Lahore

Hassan Sheheryar Yasin

Nadira Omer Khalid

Mahnoor Wali

Munisa

PHOTOS COURTESY LOTUS PR

Fatima Zaman

Maryam and Nina

Naz Mansha and Iqraa Mansha

Purnaiya Awan

13 OCTOBER 18-24 2015

PEOPLE & PARTIES

Mr and Mrs Awais Mukhtar

Sana and Yousaf Haroon

Sara Raza and Naheeda Raza

Mr and Mrs Hamid Mukhtar

Mr and Mrs Mohsin Zaki

14 OCTOBER 18-24 2015

PHOTOS COURTESY REZZ PR AND EVENT

Amir Aman and Sarah Amir

Awais Mukhtar launches Khas Lifestyle store in Islamabad

Ameena Khan and Fahadullah Khan

PHOTOS COURTESY REZZ PR AND EVENT

Madhu Asim and Naveen Saad

Dania, Kanwal, Sabeen, Qurat and Nimra

Hina Muneer and Sameera Maari

Kashmala Tariq and Nazish Awais

15 OCTOBER 18-24 2015

TRAVEL

A portrait

of peace

and diversity Singapore charms you from the moment you land there

BY NAVEED HUSSAIN DESIGN BY EESHA AZAM

16 OCTOBER 18-24 2015

woke up to a melodic, saccharine voice. “Fasten your seat-belts, please. We’ll be landing at Changi International Airport in about 15 minutes,” announced a flight attendant onboard Cathay Pacific B777. The sky was partly cloudy. The sun peeped in and out of clouds floating past, the rays glinting off my window. Down in the Singapore Strait, bulk freighters and gigantic cargo ships looked like small paper boats. Changi airport is one of the best in the world — but in Singapore’s equatorial downpours, it sometimes becomes a dangerous airport to fly into.

We landed safely. In stark contrast to Karachi’s Quaid-eAzam International Airport, Changi’s ambience exuded affluence. It is the diversity of greenery here that truly leaves one amazed. Terminal-I has a cactus garden, showcasing dozens of species of cacti and succulents from Asia, Africa and North and South America. The fern garden at TerminalII is landscaped with giant Tasmanian tree ferns, featuring

tropical ferns from the oldest rainforests in the world. The Changi Airport Orchid Garden features spider orchids, Singapore’s famous hybrid butterfly orchids, and moth orchids from the Orchid Island of Taiwan.

As I was looking for the exit, I ran into a young, smiling airport staffer. “Can you please guide me to the main exit?” I asked. “Are you going to some hotel?” he replied in sing-song tonal English (in Singapore, the English accent is peppered with Mandarin, Malay and Tamil words — some people call it Singlish). “We offer tourists a free ride,” the young man continued, pointing to a counter some 50 yards away.

And so my journey began. The bus cruised through busy downtown districts, serene, sleepy residential neighbourhoods and refreshing botanical gardens. The architecture is a unique mix of pre-war styles: traditional Malay houses, temples of Chinese immigrants, and classical colonial architecture. After World War II and as Singapore 17 OCTOBER 18-24 2015

began to emerge as a major global sea lane, its architecture, too, began to be shaped by international trends such as brutalism and postmodernism.

Singaporean society is a vivid portrait of diversity, a multicultural kaleidoscope. It was an idyllic island of Malay fishermen until 1819 when British colonial administrator Sir Stamford Raffles, the architect of modern Singapore, arrived.

Subsequently, merchants and migrants flocked in from the southern provinces of China, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Ceylon and the Middle East in search of a better future here.

I was in Singapore for a threeday seminar hosted by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). The day after I arrived, I met with nearly two dozen invitees to the seminar from South, Southeast and East Asian countries and as far as Fiji.

At the WIPO’s head office, top local businessmen proudly told their success 18 stories, while WIPO executives fed us OCTOBER 18-24 2015

as much information as they could.

They wanted us to swallow and digest as much as we could in the brief time that we were there.

Around 2 pm lunch was served. A small canteen at the WIPO offices offered dishes completely strange to my taste buds. Like its ethnic diversity, Singapore serves up a true melting pot of flavours and food. Chinese cuisine is a major player in the local gastronomy as Cantonese dim sum, Hainanese chicken rice, Peking duck, Hokkien mee (fried noodles) and popiah (spring rolls) are some of the popular Chinese dishes. But you will also find halal Malay food, South Indian vegetarian thali and North Indian biryani in restaurants across the country.

For the next two days we had the same schedule. A commute to the WIPO head office, a long session of presentations, lunch with WIPO executives and then back to our hotel. After we returned from dinner on the second night, fellow journalists Rhaydz Barcia of The Manila

The architecture is a unique mix of prewar styles:traditional Malay houses, temples of Chinese immigrants,and classical colonial architecture Times, Revolusi Riza of Indonesia’s Trans 7, Vijay Narayan of Communications Fiji Ltd and Jacqueline Wari of Fiji’s The National — who had become friends by now — decided to go on a sightseeing trip.

I’d already seen the legendary Mermaid of Denmark, and wanted to see the famous Merlion, the half-lion, half-fish must-see icon of Singapore.

Merlion symbolises the country’s

humble beginning as a fishing village when it was called Temasek, ‘sea town’ in Old Javanese. Its head represents Singapore’s original name, Singapura, or ‘lion city’ in Malay. It was built by local craftsman Lim Nang Seng and unveiled in September 1972 at the mouth of the Singapore River.

However, when the Esplanade Bridge was completed in 1997, Merlion could no longer be viewed clearly from the waterfront. In 2002, it was relocated 120 metres away to Merlion Park.

The next day, we went to the iconic Raffles Hotel for dinner with the WIPO family. The most famous luxury hotel in Singapore, Raffles, named after the city state founder Sir Stamford Raffles, epitomises the island’s colonial history.

The hotel’s main building, designed

by RAJ Bidwell, is a beautiful example of neo-Renaissance architecture with tropical touches like high ceilings and extensive verandas. The hotel is said to have played host to literary legends like Somerset Maugham, Herman Hesse

and Rudyard Kipling.

Before I departed Singapore, I wanted to buy something for my son, Mikael, as a souvenir. My Indonesian and Vietnamese colleagues promised to take me to a market before we left for the airport for our long journey back home. The next morning, we set off for Bugis Street, the island’s famous retail shopping market. In the 1950s, Bugis Street was the sleaze pit of Singapore where flamboyantly dressed transvestites would parade themselves, attracting sailors and servicemen from overseas. Today, Bugis Street has undergone a massive facelift, and houses nearly 800 shops selling inexpensive clothes, shoes, accessories and food, and offering beauty services.

Shopping in the narrow alleyways of this undercover market crammed with shoppers was fun. Surprisingly, Bugis Street resembles Karachi’s Zaibunnisa Street in more ways than one. I bought some T-shirts and chocolates for my son and some gifts for my wife — all

for less than 100 Singaporean dollars.

My colleagues also shopped for friends and families before we returned to the hotel one last time. Back in the hotel, we quickly packed and left for Changi airport. I left Singapore that day — but a part of me refused to come back.T Naveed Hussain is national editor at The Express Tribune. He tweets @navidjourno

Merlion symbolises the country’s humble beginning as a fishing village when it was calledTemasek, ‘sea town’in Old Javanese OCTOBER 18-24 2015

19

COVER STORY

V

A Samar Minallah Khan The human rights activist and documentary film-maker on her fight against compensation marriages

BY ALIZEH ABBAS | DESIGN BY MARYAM RASHID

REC Samar Minallah Khan is an inspiration. She is a woman who has dedicated her life to the cause of putting an end to the inhuman practice of compensation marriages in Pakistan.

Known in film-making circles as ‘the crusader with a camera’, Samar is a trailblazer in her own right, who has used the medium of documentary film-making to bring about social change in the country.

Samar’s debut documentary in 2003 ‘Swara — A Bridge Over Troubled Waters’ was the first step towards breaking the silence on this culturally-sanctioned violent act and a year later it led to a law (Section 310-A of PPC) being passed against compensation marriages.

Having won numerous national and international awards for her work, Samar was most recently honoured with the Global Leadership Award at the 14th Annual Vital Voices ceremony in Washington DC. Vital Voices celebrates extraordinary women from across the world who work fearlessly to bring about social change in their communities.

As The Express Tribune sat down with the film-maker to discuss her incredible work, Samar said her latest award meant a lot to her personally. “Somehow I always felt my vision was targeting a particular local audience, but I never realised that internationally a larger audience would be able to relate to what I believe in,” she said.

Recalling the ceremony, where four other amazing women from Cameroon, Myanmar, Tunisia and Guatemala were honoured and which featured former president Bill Clinton as the chief guest, Samar said, “I was pretty terrified because it was a jam-packed auditorium and we had to speak like one speaks at TEDx … but it all went well.”

00:00:00

Samar with children from rural Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa during the shoot of her documentary.

PHOTO COURTESY: SAMAR MINALLAH

A few good men

The aspect of Samar’s work which led to the award is a common feature in her films: to have men and boys on board.

Samar said one of her goals is to celebrate men of the community as change-makers, heroes and silent partners in the struggle to end violence against women.

“I’ve come across some amazingly brave fathers who stood up against these customs in remote communities.

I feel it’s very difficult for them and extremely brave to challenge your own culture and your own traditions.”

When she started documenting compensation marriages in the tribal areas and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) in 2003, Samar was an angry activist and feminist who thought all men were horrible. “But over a period of time I realised I was wrong and that if we have one or two men who think the way we think when it comes to this injustice, I feel we can always work with those few good men.”

Moreover, she realised that if these men become your allies it is much easier to work in their communities as one then has the ability to challenge a particular mindset instead of a gender.

Recalling a similar incident, Samar said there was once a mosque’s imam from Swabi who came to an event 24 where she was speaking and said that from that day, he OCTOBER 18-24 2015

would condemn Swara marriages in his madrassah. “This was a big breakthrough for me,” she said.

Samar also vehemently believes in engaging young boys in this dialogue from an early age so they start looking at women with respect.

Getting behind the lens

Samar studied Anthropology at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, and went on to the University of Cambridge where she received an MPhil in Anthropology and Development.

At Cambridge, she attended a class on ethnographic filmmaking and realised there was much more to documentary film-making than she had previously thought.

“I was always interested in studying and researching the culture of Pukhtun women as I myself come from K-P. So when I returned to Pakistan, I realised film was the medium I wanted to explore.”

Initially, Samar began writing for news magazines and other publications but the feedback she received, despite being positive, was not what she was looking for. The educated class was not her desired audience; she wanted to reach out to the Pukhtun community directly affected by these practices. So, she decided that film, and that too in a regional language, would be the best tool to generate a dialogue on these issues.

“I’ve come across some amazingly brave fathers who stood up against these customs in remote communities. I feel it’s very difficult for them and extremely brave to challenge your own culture and your own traditions Recalling one of her first experiences, Samar said, “Once I went to a village in Matta, Swat where a woman was working the fields with her daughter. Someone had told me that a girl was given in Swara so I just went up to her to ask if she knew about the incident and surprisingly the woman’s daughter was the one given in Swara. I had just learned how to use a video camera and the mother and daughter both volunteered to narrate the horrific tale. Something that really hit me was when the daughter said, ‘I couldn’t do anything, I was helpless.’ When I went back to Peshawar, her words kept haunting me and it was then that I decided to pursue this issue,” she recalls. “Why should a murderer get away with his crime and an innocent girl be made to pay the price of his crime for the rest of her life,” she asked herself then.

Narrating another tale, Samar said a man from Mardan called her once and said a local jirga was going to decide if his eightyear-old daughter Marina would be given as compensation. “I was surprised that the father was really upset and was willing to do anything to save his daughter. I went to the jirga and asked them if I could address the elders. As I was properly dressed and could speak the language, they allowed me to do so. I told them what our religion and law says on the issue and pleaded that the father can give them anything but his daughter. The jirga then decided to take money instead and then, in what is still the happiest moment of my life, I went up to Marina’s father to tell him he that will not lose his little girl today.”

The first film

“Later on, I made my first documentary on Swara in Pashto. It helped break the silence on this issue since people could see the images and hear the voices of those affected. I realised then that this was the best medium to bring about change,” Samar recalls.

Samar with her daughter Sarah.

PHOTO COURTESY: SAMAR MINALLAH

Compensation marriages

S

amar recalls that, originally, Swara was a symbolic custom. A girl would be sent to a person’s family on a horse or mule to settle a score and be sent back the same day with gifts. The very fact that she was sent was enough since she is the honour of that family. But with time, we have seen that this custom has evolved and become more violent as people changed it for their own convenience, she says.

In Balochistan, the practice is called Irjaai, in Sindh Sang Chatti, in Punjab Vani and in K-P Swara.

It is practiced identically in all four provinces. It takes place whenever a father or a brother or an uncle commits a murder or any other serious crime and a council of elders decides to hand over girls from the criminal’s family to the victim’s family as punishment. If a girl or girls are given as Swara, the criminal goes unpunished. Girls who are given as Swara are meant to be treated inhumanely for the rest of their lives.

“When I screened the documentary at the Peshawar Press Club, local journalists there weren’t happy with what they saw as they weren’t expecting that a Pashtun would make something that would betray the community

Though her main target audience is the tribal community, Samar also wants to leave an impact on policy-makers and the media.

“When I screened the documentary at the Peshawar Press Club, local journalists there weren’t happy with what they saw as they weren’t expecting that a Pashtun would make something that would ‘betray’ the community. So, I was a bit taken aback when I realised everyone was upset with me.”

However, the following day, Samar realised that despite the journalists’ coverage of the event, the issue had left an impact and they would eventually realise they have to highlight these things through the media.

Samar tried not to get discouraged and went ahead with her work. After much advocacy, in 2004, the law was changed and a new section was added to the Pakistan Penal Code (310-A) wherein whoever gives or takes girls as compensation can be arrested for three to 10 years. “There were a lot of encouraging incidents in this journey and I realised this was something I wanted to continue for the rest of my life.”

Samar admits that just having a law against something does not make the problem go away though. That is why she reaches out to law enforcement agencies and regularly visits the judicial academy and the police and meets with policemen at the district level throughout Pakistan to train and inform them about the law and how it can be enforced.

Samar shares a light moment with a girl during a shoot.

PHOTO COURTESY: SAMAR MINALLAH

Samar’s awards along with her graduation picture.

PHOTO: HUMA CHOUDHARY

She has also been involved in training students at the Civil Service Academy in Lahore. “This has been a very positive experience for me because these young officers are posted across the country and even if three out of 20 are sensitised by my work, they can bring about change.”

Change,one action at a time

Owing to her anthropology background, Samar looks for unconventional means of communication to send her message across. “I convinced a truck artist in Peshawar to paint an image from my documentary along with a verse from the Holy Quran saying whoever commits a crime will have to pay the price. After one of the truck drivers did it, several others wanted it too.”

In Lahore, Samar asked an artist to design and develop a Pukhtun woman character, Khor Bibi, whose messages against child marriages, honour killings and Swara were painted behind rickshaws and became very popular.

Passionate about film

Giving advice to upcoming film-makers, Samar says, “I want to tell the youth that if you’re really passionate about something, you can even make a film with a mobile phone as it just has to be something that comes from your heart.

Tell a story if you believe in it, regardless of whether it will resonate with an international audience or win an award.”

Dispelling the myth that one needs expensive equipment to start shooting a documentary, Samar says she started off with an ordinary camera and without any experience

in film-making. Her passion was the driving force. “I just have to make a film when I am disturbed or upset,” she shares.

Mother-daughter duo

Samar’s daughter Sarah accompanied the film-maker on all her trips. “Even if I was in the tribal areas shooting something, she and my son Salaar would be sitting in the background; so, I guess love for documentaries came naturally to her,” says Samar.

Sarah, who graduates from school soon, made her first documentary on the impact of pesticides on cottonpicking girls and women in Multan. Her first film won her the second prize at an international film festival.

Samar’s protégé hasn’t looked back since.

Talking about family support, Samar says she is very lucky to have such a supportive spouse. Her husband is a government servant in Lahore, while their son Salaar studies at LUMS. The couple has always encouraged their children to follow their heart.

Samar realises that it’s a long, difficult road ahead, but believes that change will come, albeit one step at a time.

She also acknowledges the dangers of her work; people are killed for questioning traditions and customs in the tribal areas, especially women. “I always knew that it would be difficult and will get dangerous at times, but when you see a girl being saved from this horrible custom, it’s all worth it.”

Alizeh Abbas is an Islamabad-based freelance writer. She tweets @alizehkabbas OCTOBER 18-24 2015

27

WHERE EAST MEETS WEST Between the spices and raw meat, Empress Market bears reminders of the British Raj

BY FERYA ILYAS PHOTOS BY ARIF SOOMRO DESIGN BY SANOBER AHMED

The century-old Empress Market stands in the busy business district of Karachi.

The regal exterior of this 19th Century building.

PORTFOLIO

A merchant waits for customers at his shop for teacups.

16 OCTOBER 18-24 2015

The historic market is a one-stop shop for buyers from Saddar and beyond.

Despite its depleting magnificence, Empress Market continues to evoke romanticism and is visited by hundreds of customers and visitors daily

A

A seal on one of the gates at the entrance of the colonial-era market.

melodious voice drew me inside the colonial building. I followed the sound, dodging flies and quieting the urge to sneeze with the aroma of spices wafting up my nostrils. The sound grew louder as I walked over the broken white marble steps, now buried under years of dirt. I reached the centre of the market — the place where the rhythmic tone was emanating from. An elderly man sat in his jute and wood chair, periodically singing a jingle: “Chipkaliyon aur khatmalon ka sabsay takatwar dushman, money back guarantee kay saath, phir mat kehna nahi bataya!”(The most powerful enemy of lizards and bed bugs with money back guarantee, then don’t say that no one told you about it.)

Like a teaser to a movie, this old man sets the tone for the shopping experience at Karachi’s Empress Market.

The outside of this British-era building looks like the site of a turf war between political parties, with posters of various leaders shamelessly plastered at the entrance and party flags hoisted everywhere.

The political theatre is not the only thing that stops

Fresh and delicious teatime snacks on display to tempt customers.

17 OCTOBER 18-24 2015

PORTFOLIO

32

one from praising the regal exterior of this 19th Century building; sitting near one of the busiest intersections in Saddar, it is difficult to admire Empress Market with ancient public buses emitting smoke, small stall owners playing harsh audio recordings and the sun shining mercilessly.

However, all the noise and pollution begins to disappear in the background as you enter the gates. It’s a pity that the glorious structure of our imperial past is abused everyday with no regrets; the Gothic-styled windows are cemented in the most unflattering manner and the green steel gates, which once marked the limits of this bustling marketplace, now stand ignored just like another accessory.

Despite its depleting magnificence, Empress Market continues to evoke romanticism and is visited by hundreds of customers and visitors daily. From spices, sandals to ‘siri paye’ — the market is a one-stop shop for everything needed to run a household.

An unending variety of red chilies, sacks full of multicolour pasta and dry fruits from across Pakistan are exhibited in its narrow lanes. The meat market — which gives the look of a warzone with blood splattered everywhere — supplies boneless chicken, cow tripe and goat liver six days a week.

With the smell of raw meat deeply embedded in the nose, one enters the pet market only to have it replaced with the stench of bird droppings. Cats and kittens wrap each other in a furry display of affection while birds of all shades and sizes sit calmly inside their cages. Their neighbours — the otherwise restless bunnies — take an afternoon nap while their owner tries to sell his fancy cages to a foreign customer.

But just like a city, a market is defined by the people who run it and Empress has its own share of unique characters.

As you stroll through the alleys sidestepping sunrays piercing through the tattered tents, you see shopkeepers impeccably dressed in shalwar kameez for Friday prayers, reading newspapers and churning out analysis fit for the 9pm telecast; beggars strategically positioned at all entry points to guilt trip buyers into handing out charity before they run out of money; tea boys run around ensuring smooth supply of caffeine and inside gossip and upset shop owners reprimanding reporters for filming TV packages on hiked prices in their midst.

The shopkeepers, like members of a sprawling family confined to the Victorian building, are the pulse of this historical landmark which — even after years of neglect — takes you a century back in time. With little attention and care, Empress Market could be a masterpiece on Karachi’s heritage trail but maybe it is destined to be admired for being abandoned. T Ferya Ilyas is a senior subeditor at The Express Tribune. She tweets @ferya_ilyas OCTOBER 18-24 2015

With little attention and care, Empress Market could be a masterpiece on Karachi’s heritage trail but maybe it is destined to be admired for being abandoned A shop stacked with colourful kites for those fond of kite-flying.

Enjoying a brief moment of freedom, playful roosters stand atop their cage.

A vendor displays exotic birds caged inside eyecatching knitted traps.

33 OCTOBER 18-24 2015

Forgotten Lord of Larkana FEATURE

Celebrated and honoured by the Raj, Wadero Ghulam Kadir Dayo remains obliterated from history

BY Z ALI DESIGN BY SANOBER AHMED PHOTO CREDITS: COL (R) HASSAN IMAM

Some people make a significant mark in their time but are lost in the annals of history due to neglect or deliberate erasures. One such person is Ghulam Kadir Dayo (18721942), who hailed from Larkana — a city put on the map by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his daughter Benazir Bhutto.

Ghulam Kadir Dayo was a man of towering political and social stature in Ratodero — a taluka in Larkana — which was once a stronghold of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s father, Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto.

Dayo not only contributed to education, but also the maintenance of law and order, administrative writs of the government, access to government employment, and the recruitment of Sindhis to the royal army.

He won the acclaim of the British Raj, and received titles like the chair holder of Commissioner Sindh — whose authority over the province equaled today’s chief minister — and bench magistrate. The police issued him Arfinnamas — appreciation certificates — for his assistance in maintaining law and order.

He also received special acknowledgment letters from the commissioner for helping the police to solve two major cases of dacoities in 1902 and 1909.

34 In his book Land Lord Power and Rural OCTOBER 18-24 2015

Indebtedness in Colonial Sindh, historian David Chessman discusses this, saying, “The British administration introduced a special bench magistrate system to support good governance and writ of law. They were also recognised as chair holders or Kursi Nashin.”

To Dayo’s credit is the upbringing and education of one of the first two commissioned deputy collectors, Muhammad Ismail Kadri and Ghulam Mustafa Issani. Kadri, appointed deputy collector in the Imperial Services in 1923, was Dayo’s younger brother.

By 1913, Dayo was among the few enfranchised zamindars of Larkana who could elect a member to the Bombay Legislative Council, which had the status of an advisory body. After the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms in 1920, the number of seats grew further as three legislators were elected from Larkana alone.

Come 1923, Muhammad Ayub Khuhro, father of former Sindh education minister and historian Hameeda Khuhro, was elected to the Bombay Council from Larkana, along with Shahnawaz Bhutto and Karim Baksh Jato. Dayo and other landlords had Ayub Khuhro, who was a political opponent of Shahnawaz Bhutto, elected. This hinted at a political rivalry, which was brewing between the two families.

Hameeda Khuhro, who wrote her father’s biography, Muhammad Ayub Khuhro: A Life of Courage in Politics, mentioned the names of Wadero Sahid Khan Junejo, Syed Noor Muhammad Shah, Wadero Ghulam Kadir Dayo and a zamindar of Bakapur for supporting her father’s election.

Colonel (retd) Hassan Imam, grandson of Dayo, recalls his grandfather’s contributions to the communal harmony between Muslims and Hindus.

He also supported the construction of schools and community centres for social upliftment. When World War I broke out, Dayo helped recruit 10 Sindhi soldiers to the Royal Army, besides making other monetary contributions. The Raj acknowledged his services through an Afrinnama.

“Coincidentally, the army opened a recruitment centre in Larkana (in 1999) in the same community centre which my grandfather had established almost a century ago,” says Imam.

By 1913, Dayo was among the few enfranchised zamindars of Larkana who could elect a member to the Bombay Legislative Council, which had the status of an advisory body

Ghulam Kadir Dayo of Ratodero, Larkana (1872-1942)

He credits a family friend from Larkana, late Ghazanfar Ali Issani — a veteran of World War II who later served in the police force retiring as a DIG — for guiding him.

“He suggested that I should write to the army chief to open the [recruitment] centres in Larkana and other parts of Sindh as the soil was fertile and carries rich history of valour,” tells Imam of his January 1998 meeting with Issani. “I put forward this idea to the military command. It was accepted and I was posted as the first recruitment officer in Larkana.” During his tenure, around 20,000 soldiers were inducted from the Larkana centre, from 1999 to 2001.

“I witnessed the fading of the myth of rampant antiarmy sentiments among Sindhis, watching tens of thousands of young men turning up to join the army.” 35 OCTOBER 18-24 2015

FEATURE Imam takes pride in his recruitment services because it makes him feel like he is following Dayo’s footsteps.

Leaving no trail behind Despite his significant political and administrative services, Dayo’s mention from official documents — maintained by the British bureaucracy– and the history of Larkana’s 20th Century figures, remains either obliterated or omitted. Except for a handwritten description in an official logbook of Larkana detailing around 1,000 acres of land ownership of Dayo and his brothers in Ratodero, whatever is known about him is through the reminiscence of his heirs or some of the Raj’s issued certificates and accolades preserved by the family.

“The Raj maintained a detailed record about all the important persons specially those who served the government. It was called the blue book,” Imam explains.

During his tenure in Larkana, Imam combed all official records at the offices of the Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner, DIG and SSP of Larkana to ferret out any official account or description of his grandfather. To his dismay, he did not stumble across even a trace of Dayo.

“The pages containing the entire record from 1902 to 1927 from the blue book at Larkana’s collector [divisional commissioner] office appear torn apart. They are missing,” he claims.

“Issani told me that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto personally ordered the destruction of those records,” asserts Imam. The political rivalry between the Dayo clan and Shahnawaz Bhutto’s family was fueled because Dayo supported election candidates who opposed Bhutto in all the elections till 1937.

Renowned biographer Stanley Wolpert quotes profusely from the 36 diaries of Shahnawaz Bhutto in his OCTOBER 18-24 2015

book Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan and found several references which point to the undeclared row between the two clans by citing Bhutto complaining that “a DSP Kadri annoyed him.”

“In those feudal times, the politics of our environment were essentially personal and tribal,” he wrote.

Shahnawaz also held the “influential zamindars” responsible for poisoning his father Mir Murtaza Bhutto in 1899.

From 1920 to 1934, Shahnawaz headed Larkana’s district board and chaired the city’s Central Cooperative Bank for several years. In 1930, he was knighted.

name from history.

The two clans also have varying accounts of who founded and established Ratodero in the middle of the 17th Century. Bhuttos credit their ancestor Sheto Khan and Wolpert, in his book, confirms this fact. According to the Dayos, their forefathers along with other tribes, and Hindu traders established it. However, the Imperial Gazetteer of India (V.21) states that Ratodero was formerly an encampment of a chief of the Jalbani tribe, Rato.

Dayo fell ill in late 1930s and died in 1942. His death effectively ended his

The Afrinnama issued to Dayo for his assistance in solving the 1902 Panjudero dacoity.

In 1937, Shaikh Abdul Majeed Sindhi who hailed from Thatta defeated Shahanawaz in the electoral contest over a seat in the Sindh Assembly with the support of tribal chiefs like Dayo himself. After his defeat, Shahnawaz left Larkana and shifted to Bombay and later Hyderabad Deccan in India, staying there until his death.

Imam subscribes to the idea of the strife between the two families and says there are various anecdotal accounts of clashes between them. He believes that ample reasons exist for attempts to wipe out his grandfather’s

political legacy as most of his kin joined public service and moved out of town.

Imam is in the process of writing a book about his predecessors, the places in Iran and Balochistan from where they migrated, and the tribes and history of Larkana.

“I want the history books in our part of the world to accord due recognition to my grandfather for his services to the people and the government in his time.”T Z Ali is a hyderabad-based reporter for The Express Tribune.

MEMORIA Though not particularly revelatory, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck is still an intimate and captivating portrait of a complex individual

BY SAMEEN AMER

Even though it has been over 20 years since his untimely death, Kurt Cobain still remains one of the most popular and fascinating musicians of his (or any) generation. His life and death have both been the subject of several books and have also inspired a number of films, including the recent biographical documentary Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck.

Helmed by director Brett Morgen, the project serves as the first documentary about the singer made with the cooperation of his family. The film-makers were given access to the entirety of the Nirvana frontman’s personal archives which form the basis of the film. Footage from home movies, clips from live performances, audio snippets from Cobain’s recordings, and excerpts from his journals are meshed with recollections from his close friends and family members, including Cobain’s mother Wendy, sister Kim, father Don, stepmother Jenny, band mate Krist Novoselic, ex-girlfriend Tracy Marander, and wife Courtney Love.

The documentary offers a glimpse into the tragically short life of the rock legend, chronicling events from his childhood till his suicide tage of Heck in 1994 at the age of 27. Montage ubled young paints a grim picture of a troubled hild by man, who was scarred as a child his parents’ divorce, and then left struggling with feelings of rejection and abandonment after being een shuffled back and forth between he film relatives in his adolescence. The goes on to explore the effect of e on Nirvana’s sudden rise to fame use, Cobain, as well as his drug abuse, irth marriage to Courtney Love, birth an of their daughter Frances Bean ive Cobain (who was a co-executive e producer on this film), and the

infamous overdose in Rome a month prior to his death.

The result is an intimate portrait of a complex individual, delivered in a captivating, albeit uneven, biography. Cobain, once again, proves to be a riveting subject, explaining why interest in the singer has not waned in the last two decades. The highlight of the movie is the terrific archival material, especially the footage of the singer as a child which is in itself reason enough to watch the film. In its second half, though, the home recordings start feeling uncomfortably voyeuristic, and might leave you wondering whether it was really necessary to share his private moments with the world and dredge up his past yet again.

It’s also a little disappointing that despite being invasive, the content is not particularly revelatory. There isn’t much Montage of Heck tells us that we didn’t already know. What the film says about Cobain will probably seem more remarkable to casual observers than fans, because if you’ve read the books and seen the films that preceded this, there isn’t anything in this documentary that will truly surprise you. You might also be left wondering how reliable some of the interviewees (Courtney Love in particular) are, and why the circumstances around Cobain’s death didn’t get a mention.

Still, the project on the whole is extreme extremely compelling. The film is tonally and stylistically a triumph. It intrig intriguingly sheds light on the many facets of Kurt Cobain’s life, and whi while its focus is a bit skewed and a little too selective, Montage of Heck does succeed in creating an interesting po portrait of a talented but troubled individual whose music con continues to resonate with llisteners around the globe.

Rating: Ra Sa Sameen Amer is a Lahore-based freelance writer and critic. She fre tw tweets @Sameen

Other films about Kurt Cobain Kurt & Courtney (1998) Nick Broomfield’s investigative documentary is about the circumstances surrounding Kurt Cobain’s death and allegations that his wife Courtney Love had something to do with it.

Kurt Cobain: About a Son (2006) Documentary based around the audio interviews between Kurt Cobain and journalist Michael Azerrad.

Soaked in Bleach (2015) Based on the work of private investigator Tom Grant, the docudrama questions whether Kurt Cobain really committed suicide.

37 OCTOBER 18-24 2015

FRAMED

Woven History A rare surviving garment from the Mughal court was purchased for a paltry sum PHOTO COURTESY: V&A MUSEUM

T

his exquisite riding coat is one of the rare remnants of the grandeur of the Mughal court. An embroidered, man’s riding coat dating back to the 17 th Century, it is one of the rarest surviving pieces of Mughal dress and the finest example of the opulence and beauty of garments made for the court. The coat is made of white muslin and features silk thread embroidery. The dense embroidery depicts repeated patterns of animal and plant life in detail.

When this piece was first offered to the Victoria and Albert Museum in the United Kingdom in 1929, it was rejected. It was recognised as a rare treasure almost 20 years later and was purchased by the museum for £100. The coat is a living testament to the fact that between the 15th and the 17th centuries, courtly patronage produced some of the finest textiles ever made — in undivided India and the world.

38 OCTOBER 18-24 2015