SEPTEMBER 6-12 2015
Portfolio
Highway to Hunza
Cover Story
Stateless Meet the world’s least wanted people: Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims
Travelling more than 11,000 km to witness a perfect sunrise
2815 Feature
Amazing grace
Asha Bhosle reflects on Bollywood, why Pakistani lyricists are the best and tiffs with Atif Aslam
Spotlight
Candy crush
A childhood love for fudge led to a successful business selling the sweet treats
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Feature
Culture club Bluegrass lent itself perfectly to a collaboration between American and Pakistani musicians
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Regulars
6 People & Parties: Out and about with beautiful people
44 Reviews: Movies and TV
50 Framed: The mark of the lion
Magazine Incharge: Dilaira Dubash. Senior Subeditors: Sanam Maher and Ali Haider Habib. Subeditor: Komal Anwar Creative Team: Jamal Khurshid, Essa Malik, Mohsin Alam, Talha Ahmed Khan, Hira Fareed, Maryam Rashid, Eesha Azam and Sanober Ahmed Publisher: Bilal A Lakhani. Editor: Kamal Siddiqi For feedback and submissions: magazine@tribune.com.pk 4 Twitter: @ETribuneMag & Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ETribuneMag Printed: uniprint@unigraph.com
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Abdul Majid Yousufani
Naveen Sorraiya Butt, Feroze Junejo and Yasmin Hyder
Sonia Hasan, Nasir Masroor, Wren Ray and Misbah Hasan
6 SEPTEMBER 6-12 2015
PHOTOS COURTESY NEW WORLD CONCEPTS
Pakistan Customs and IATA hold an MOU signing ceremony in Karachi
PHOTOS COURTESY NEW WORLD CONCEPTS
Naheed and Tariq Huda
Natalie Herballes Abdullah Hamed Al Shamsi and Jameel Yusuf
Sadia Sheraz and Arma Hasan
Harry Mana
7 SEPTEMBER 6-12 2015
PEOPLE & PARTIES Sarwat Gillani and Fahad Mirza
Sania Saeed
Sonia Hussain and Wasif Muhammad
8 SEPTEMBER 6-12 2015
Ishita
Moor premieres in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad
Joshinder Chaggar, Shaz Khan and Samiya Mumtaz
PHOTOS COURTE SYSYNTAX COMMUNICATIONS
Kanwar and Fatima
Mr and Mrs Ahmed Ali Butt
Amna Babar
Pepsi launches its new campaign ‘Chamke Hum Se Pakistan’ in Lahore
Mehreen Syed
10 SEPTEMBER 6-12 2015
Shoaib Malik and Shahid Afridi
Attiya Khan and Tariq Amin
Shiza Hassan
PHOTOS COURTESY CATWALK EVENT MANAGEMENT & PRODUCTIONS & PR
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Shahi Hassan
Syma Raza
Onaiza Ali and Ali Moeen
Hassan Sheheryar Yasin
12 SEPTEMBER 6-12 2015
Hina
Zoe Viccaji
Uzma Ramzan
PHOTOS COURTESY CATWALK EVENT MANAGEMENT & PRODUCTIONS & PR
PEOPLE & PARTIES
PORTFOLIO
Highway to Hunza Travelling more than 11,000 km to witness a perfect sunrise TEXT AND PHOTOS BY KOMAIL NAQVI DESIGN BY SANOBER AHMED
With summer in full swing, my journey began 11,000 km away and across the Atlantic Ocean in Toronto, Canada. As the plane swiftly ascended into a canopy of clouds, I had an inkling that this was going to be an incredible travel experience.
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PORTFOLIO
Brothers selling fresh honey along the roadside.
I never once asked, “Are we there yet?” I was ‘there’ the moment my plane had touched down. I was home, I was in Pakistan
Cricket with a view.
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A sight of the poplar trees from Altit Fort. In Islamabad, I embarked on the road trip of a lifetime. With hours upon hours of driving through breathtaking terrain, I never once asked, “Are we there yet?” I was ‘there’ the moment my plane had touched down. I was home, I was in Pakistan. As the sun played tag with the moon, I kept my eyes peeled for vistas outside the car window, so that I wouldn’t miss a thing. I had heard countless stories and seen dozens of photographs of this place and now the landscape was slowly unveiling itself right before me. I cannot identify the precise moment when it happened, but I had fallen in love. The majestic mountain peaks of the Hindukush, Karakoram and Himalayan trinity reached for the scatter of stars above. The crystal-clear rivers mirrored my journey on the highway, as if paving the path to my destination. The land morphed from the lush green hills of Naran, to the barren lands of Chilas. I was close, I could feel it. SEPTEMBER 6-12 2015
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PORTFOLIO
Boats carrying passengers and their vehicles across Attabad Lake. And then, there it was: Hunza Valley, in all it’s glory, parted itself like a welcoming embrace. It is a valley close to the heavens. The long wait for this moment was finally over and, as I waited in the dark for sunrise, I had goosebumps. As the first ray of light sliced through the sky and illuminated the mountaintops golden, I was mesmerised. I had just a few seconds to take the perfect shot but all thoughts of getting the picture I had travelled so long to capture escaped me and I put my camera down, dumbfounded by the beauty. It struck me that what I was experiencing could not be seen through a machine’s viewfinder or on a printed sheet. In order to truly appreciate what Gilgit-Baltistan has to offer, one has to see it with a naked eye. The highway to Hunza is not a journey, it is an experience.
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It struck me that what I was experiencing could not be seen through a machine’s viewfinder or on a printed sheet
A girl shelters herself with an umbrella as it begins to rain.
People climb a rock to gain the best vantage point at the Eagle’s Nest, Hunza.
Komail Naqvi is a photographer and product manager at Bell Mobility, Toronto. He tweets @komailn SEPTEMBER 6-12 2015
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Amazing Grace On the eve of her 83rd birthday, Asha Bhosle reflects on Bollywood, why Pakistani lyricists are the best and tiffs with Atif Aslam BY SCHAYAN RIAZ DESIGN BY EESHA AZAM
PHOTO COURTESY WASSERMUSIK FESTIVAL PUBLICITY
Asha Bhosle and her sister Lata Mangeshkar SOURCE: HTTP://WWW.ASHABHONSLE.COM/
Asha Bhosle is no ordinary octogenarian. With over 12,000 recordings to her name, she is the world’s most quintessential female singer. In early August, performing for the very first time in Berlin, Germany, as part of the annual Wassermusik festival, she absolutely commands the stage with the same wit and dynamism that has made her the reigning queen of playback singing for the past 50-odd years. During her set, she shares anecdotes about the productions of her greatest hits, which she then sings, proudly proclaiming in between the songs that she is going to be 83 in September. She also plays drums with her bare hands. A day before the concert, Bhosle spoke to The Express Tribune in the hotel suite she is staying in, just off a famous shopping mile, the Kurfürstendamm. Her son Anand makes sure that she arrives on time and she does, clad in a turquoise sari, wearing a long pearl necklace. It’s her first time in this country and she says, “It was always a dream of mine to come to Germany. To come and see Germany.” Even though she speaks little English, Bhosle has long since managed to cross-over, collaborating with several Western artists such as Boy George and Michael Stipe. She knows that her audience is not only made up of desis, but locals too. And it’s a touching picture the next day, when Indians or Pakistanis quietly translate Bhosle’s Hindi anecdotes for the Germans in the audience. Bhosle knows who her audience is and what it wants from her. “Our Pakistanis and Indians will come for our film songs — not the contemporary ones — the old songs, which were well-written. They will come for good lyrics and good songs. I have chosen iconic songs for them,” she explains. “For the foreigners, I have brought my father’s classical songs.” Bhosle’s father was a classical singer and drama artist. That classical rendition is the evening’s highlight, because it is indeed so different from all the usual stuff one has gotten used to hearing from her. And Bhosle seems to put all of her emotions into the song, closing her eyes and hitting every single note perfectly. Come to think of it, singers, at least Bollywood playback singers, are actors as well. Bhosle agrees with this thought. “Singers always plan on how to ‘act’ a song, be it sad or romantic. We act so much that the actors on screen don’t have to act that much. They just have such pretty faces so that they don’t have to act.” I sense some bitterness here so I ask whether she feels actors undeservedly get more credit than playback singers. “Maybe, because actresses can be seen and are more beautiful,” she muses. “However, no artist is thought of less than any other. Like me, or Lata, Kishore, Rafi, or Mukesh, we all got the same respect that a film artist did. Because without us, there would be no work for them. But, today, every film artist has started singing. Salman sings, Shah Rukh sings, they sing their own songs. So it seems like singers aren’t required anymore. No one pays attention anymore. Those songs aren’t well-written.” Today’s music seems to be a sore spot for Bhosle. “[The actors] think they can sing like professional singers. But the songs aren’t well-
RD Burman and Asha release an album. SOURCE: HTTP://WWW. ASHA-BHONSLE.COM/
written. Bo Bo Bo Ko Ko Ko, such songs! Anybody can sing that, but it has no meaning,” she feels. “If you give them lyrics like tu jahan jahan chalega, mera saaya saath hoga, or hum intezaar karenge tera qayamat tak, perhaps they won’t be able to sing such songs.” While there are a small number of good lyricists in India who do actually write songs that ‘mean something’ (such as Varun Grover), overall words seem to have lost their profoundness. For that, Bhosle looks to Pakistan. “Today, good lyrics and wordings only come out of Pakistan. People really know their Urdu there. Even though in India, there are many who know Urdu, they don’t write it well.” While Bhosle has sung for Pakistani films, she still listens to a lot of Pakistani songs. “I have been listening to Ghulam Ali since the 50s. I am a big fan of his. I am also a very big fan of Mehdi Hasan. You see, I love songs, I love music and that is what I believe in. If the music is good, then everything is good. And then it is also ours, irrespective of where it comes from.” I ask Bhosle about the various talent shows she has participated in, particularly Sur Kshetra with Atif Aslam. While TV promos hinted at fights between Aslam and her, I ask Bhosle if it was all media-manufactured. “Look, Runa Laila was on that show too and she is from Bangladesh. She is my friend. We were all laughing and joking around. Asking each other for advice. But that Aslam, I don’t know, maybe he was taught by someone from the channel that he had to fight with me. Or maybe it’s his nature, I don’t know. Our own Himesh Reshammiya, the Gujarati, he was so quiet. But Aslam constantly tried to rile me up. And I have to say that it was wrong, I was never taking any sides. I also gave good marks to Pakistani singers. I am always only concerned with the singing. My religion is music and I never lie about that. A singer has no religion, but music. Whoever sings well, I will embrace him. So I don’t get Aslam’s behaviour. But I suspect someone from the channel told him to do it for ratings.”
About the future, Bhosle is quite downbeat. Not only is she disappointed in superstar actors crooning their own songs, but she is generally sceptical about the kind of songs being produced today. “I won’t badmouth today’s songs, but they are only made for discos. The lyrics are very cheap,” she says. “Kids sing songs like Halkat Jawani and so forth. That’s not music. It’s a really bad phase for lyrics. And there will be worse songs coming out. I don’t like it, but people do. Even though, deep down I don’t think any parent would like it if their daughters sing such songs.” It’s an interesting point, and one that comedy sketch group AIB brilliantly spoof with Every Bollywood Party Song, an outcry against the copy-paste material the Hindi film industry produces. The song has gone viral, proving that many feel that way about the likes of Yo Yo Honey Singh and the faux party-in-a-music-video trend.
Today, good lyrics only come out of Pakistan. Even though there are many in India who know Urdu, they don’t write it well
– Asha Bhosle
“I think slowly people will realise what they are singing,” Bhosle says hopefully. “Even the kids. And then they will eventually stop.” Time will tell, but it’s refreshing, the way Bhosle always tells it like it is, never mincing words. There is only one misstep on the evening of the concert, when she introduces her granddaughter Zanai, who sings a few contemporary songs. It’s pure nepotism, because the girl is horribly out of tune and cannot sing, at least not yet. When Bhosle returns, people dance, on songs like Dum Maaro Dum or Chura Liya Hai Tumne Jo Dil Ko. Bhosle is in her element throughout, proving that she still very much has it. Schayan Riaz is a Germany-based writer who tweets @schayanriaz SEPTEMBER 6-12 2015
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Meet the world’s least wanted people: Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims BY UMER BEIGH
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DESIGN BY MARYAM RASHID
The sound of the killings dogged 44-year-old Khadijah Banoo as she fled from her village of Taammi Cheung in Myanmar on that night in September 2012. She held the hands of her three daughters and son, dragging them with her as she ran, desperate to flee the violence that had made her a widow. She crossed the border into Bangladesh in October and for 10 days, trekked through Ramu, a town in south-eastern Bangladesh. From there, she travelled to India and pinned her hopes on the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) for getting refugee status. Khadijah and her children are members of Myanmar’s 1.3 million-strong Rohingya population. A Buddhist majority nation, Myanmar officially recognises 134 ethnicities, but the Rohingya Sunni Muslims are not part of this group. The United Nations considers them the most persecuted minorities in the world, as the government in their home country refuses to recognise them as citizens. According to a law passed in 1982, the Myanmar government categorises the Rohingya as illegal migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh. There are more than 200,000 Rohingya refugees currently living in Bangladesh, but the country refuses to claim them as its own. Thus, the Rohingya are caught in a grey area between nations, scrambling for survival during what Human Rights Watch (HRW) calls ‘an ongoing ethnic cleansing’.
The UNHCR has registered 6,000 Rohingya refugees in India, most of whom live in makeshift camps. PHOTO: ZUHAIB MOHAMMAD KHAN
COVER STORY
Who are the Rohingya? The plight of the Rohingya is not new. According to a 2013 report by the non-profit Physicians for Human Rights, more than 260,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar between May 1991 and March 1992 over “human rights abuses committed by the Burmese military, including the confiscation of land, forced labor, rape, torture, and summary executions”. Following Myanmar’s transition from military-led government to rudimentary democracy in 2010, the government has turned a blind eye to the activities of the ‘969 movement’, an extremist group of Buddhist monks. According to a 2013 Reuters report, the 969 movement is led by a monk named Wirathu, a man who calls himself ‘the Burmese bin Laden’ and who calls for a boycott of Muslim-run shops and mosques (called ‘enemy bases’). Since 2012, an estimated 140,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar. Massacred, imprisoned and excluded from the official census in Myanmar, the Rohingya have been refused asylum in Malaysia, Indonesia and been subjected to human trafficking in Thailand. According to some estimates, 280 Rohingya have been killed in the last three years and more than 140,000 have been forced from their homes. Myanmar’s Rohingya have been ghettoised in camps outside Sittwe, the capital of the western Rakhine state. It is believed the Rohingya are descendants of Arab traders. However, Myanmar’s government disagrees. “Rohingya are neither Myanmar’s people nor Myanmar’s ethnic group,” the consul general, Ye Myint Aung, reiterated to The Express Tribune. Today, Rohingya live in exile in Pakistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Thailand. Saudi Arabia, however, is home to the highest number of Rohingya refugees, with roughly 33% of those who have fled Myanmar living there.
Life in India Khadijah and her children live with 121 other Rohingya families in New Delhi in the Kalindi Kunj area, which lies at the juncture of the New Delhi–Uttar Pradesh border. So far, 6,000 Rohingya refugees across India have been registered by the UNHCR and 4,500 of them have received official documentation of this new status. Sitting inside a dimly-lit makeshift tent in the camp where she lives, Khadijah is closely watched by male members of her community as she speaks to me. “My husband would be taken for forced labour by government forces in our home in Myanmar,” she recounts. “One day, when he resisted, they beat him savagely.” Just weeks before she fled her village, her 30 husband, 43-year-old Abdur Gaffar was picked up for labour SEPTEMBER 6-12 2015
duty and never came home. She believes he was killed by government forces. Soon after, police officials began harassing Khadijah’s daughters. “They threatened us,” she says. “The men in uniform would often show bad intentions towards my daughters.” Fearing for their safety, Khadijah decided to run. Her fears were not misplaced. In February 2013, 13 women, including teenagers, were subjected to prolonged rape by Burmese security forces in a village in the western state of Arakan. All the women were Rohingya. HRW states that such sexual violence against Rohingya women is common, while prosecutions for rapes committed by security forces are rare. “I preferred exile for the sake of my daughters, even though I was unbearably scared,” explains Khadijah. The patch of land in Kalindi Kunj where Khadijah now lives was given to the refugees by the Zakaat Foundation of India, an organisation that has been helping them since March 2012. To the left of this settlement is Darul Hijrat, where another 61 families live. Inside the makeshift camps, young men spend their days loitering or waiting for work, while the women remain indoors. Half-naked children dart around the camp and the elderly are confined to their beds. Twenty-eight-year-old Mohammad Sarafaz, who lives in the camp, is among a handful of literate residents here and has worked as an interpreter for the UNHCR. He calls the treatment of his people a ‘planned genocide’. “The government in Myanmar totally curbed our movement,” he says. “They imposed taxes on anything we owned. We were deprived of the right to vote and had no access to education or health facilities.” In India, however, things are not much better. An estimated 25,000 Rohingya asylum seekers are struggling to survive in the country after fleeing Myanmar. According to the UN refugee agency, 5,500 Rohingya refugees and asylum-seekers are spread across the states
According to a law passed in 1982, the Myanmar government categorises the Rohingya as illegal migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh. However, Bangladesh refuses to claim them as its own
Myanmar’s Rohingya have been ghettoised in camps outside Sittwe, the capital of Myanmar’s western Rakhine state. PHOTO: AFP
The UNHCR says that many Rohingya children living in camps in India are working to support their families instead of attending school. PHOTO: ZUHAIB MOHAMMAD KHAN
of Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Jammu, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Refugees live in Hyderabad, New Delhi, Indian Kashmir’s Jammu, Jharkhand, Noida, Mewat, Saharanpur, Muzaffar Nagar, Aligarh, and Mumbai. Without adequate access to medicines, clean water, food and shelter, families living in camps in these areas depend on the charity of locals and NGOs. Fatima Banoo, who lives in a slum along Sona Road near Gurgaon, Uttar Pradesh, says her children and the elderly members of her family had diarrhea a few weeks ago as they did not have clean drinking water. “The water sometimes has sewage mixed in it,” says 54-yearold Halima Khatoon, who makes a living by collecting plastic bottles from trash. Her son suffers from kidney stones and cannot work and the INR100-150 (Rs157-235) that she earns a day is spent on medication for herself. Many refugees make less than INR4,000 (Rs6,260) a month. The crisis the community faced came to light in April this year after hundreds of refugee families demanded their rights as per their refugee status. Many refugee families say that when they take their children to schools, the authorities deny them admission, demanding proof of identity and other documents. “Where can I get all these documents from?” asks 44-year-old Amir Hussain, a father of four. “Had we not fled our home in fear for our lives, perhaps I would have had those documents and other belongings.” The UNHCR promised to help these families by providing assistance under refugee rights. However, the parents say it did not make a difference. “It turned out to be a fiasco,” says Abdur Kareem, who migrated to India in 32 2009. “The police was supposed to verify our identity, but SEPTEMBER 6-12 2015
The men in uniform would often show bad intentions towards my daughters. I preferred exile for the sake of my daughters, even though I was unbearably scared Khadijah Banoo, refugee in New Delhi
there remains a trust deficit between school authorities and us. They do not want to trust us.” The UNHCR says that many Rohingya children are working to support their families instead of attending school. Many families who live in the refugee camps yearn to return to their home country. “We didn’t come to India to live here forever, nor do we want that,” explains 24-yearold Shiraz Ahmad, who works as a part-time labourer and earns about INR500(Rs783) a week. “Many of us lived in three-storey homes in Myanmar and we don’t want to live in this miserable condition where people judge us when they see us.” The refugees have been treated with suspicion in India. In 2013, the Bangladesh government claimed militant groups were goading the Rohingya to avenge ‘atrocities’ perpetrated against them. A senior Indian intelligence official stated in June this year, “Given the persecution the Rohingya have faced at home, it could be cannon fodder for jihadist organisations.” However, many say this claim is unfounded. “The Rohingya version of Islam is liberal, not radical,” insists Ravi Hemadri, director of the Development and Justice Initiative that works with Rohingya refugees.
Unequal treatment
According to the United Nations, Myanmar has relegated over a million Rohingya to the status of stateless people — they account for 10% of all stateless people in the world Without adequate access to medicines, clean water, food and shelter, families living in camps in India depend on the charity of locals and NGOs. PHOTO: ZUHAIB MOHAMMAD KHAN
The Bhartiya Janta Party’s manifesto states, “India shall remain a natural home for persecuted Hindus and they shall be welcome to seek refuge here.” Soon after BJP took power in May 2014, India has become a safe haven for Hindus seeking asylum from Pakistan, Bangladesh and other neighbouring countries. “Hindu refugees from Pakistan and Bangladesh would be treated like any other Indian citizen,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said. At presently, a total of 19,000 migrants have been given visas in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, 11,000 in Rajasthan and 4,000 in Gujarat. Officials say there are approximately 200,000 Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan now living in India. The government’s stance is clear: as long as the Rohingya obtain a valid visa and a refugee card, like these other refugees, there is no major problem. “The government of India is concerned about the Rohingya at a humanitarian level,” said Vikas Swarup, the official spokesperson of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. “However, as far as the issue of giving them refugee rights is concerned, you have to speak to the Ministry of Home Affairs.” According to Sameer Patil, a security analyst at the Mumbai-based foreign policy think-tank Gateway House, India determines its stance towards these refugees as per its own foreign policy interests, just as any other country. “Relations between India and Myanmar are cordial and India would not like to disrupt them by the issue of Rohingya refugees,” Patil feels, adding that many of Myanmar’s own Muslim neighbours such as Bangladesh have turned away the Rohingya refugees. “It would be unfair to suggest that India is the only erring country in this case,” he concludes. However, as these countries shirk their responsibilities towards the Rohingya, the refugees are left with nowhere to turn. “When you have two sons, you treat them equally, don’t you?” asks 23-year-old Noor-ul-Amin, who migrated to India some three years ago and now lives at Kalindi Kunj, working as a labourer to make ends meet. “India gives refugees from Somalia, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan all the rights they deserve according to the UNHCR. They are treated with respect, but we are not.” Noor-ul-Amin says the Indian government does not facilitate with the Rohingya’s education or access to basic facilities. These refugees can only hope that the Indian government hears their cry for help, just as it does the pleas of asylum-seekers from around the world who live here. Umer Beigh is a freelance journalist from Indian Kashmir. He studies at Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution in New Delhi. He tweets @_umerbeigh
CANDY CRUSH
A childhood love for fudge led to a successful business selling the sweet treats Text and Photos by Rasti Ahmed Design by Hira Fareed
The Karachi Fudge Company launched in December 2014 at The Crafter’s Expo, an annual event that serves as a platform for home-based businesses, artisans and craftsmen, in Karachi. Soon after, we were invited to be a part of the Karachi Eat Food Festival in January this year. In the days leading up to the festival, one thought was on a loop in my head: Oh my God, I need to make a lot of fudge. And hot on the heels of that thought, was the question: “What am I going to do with all the fudge that I don’t sell?” At that point, the company was only a month old and I did not know how Karachi’ites would respond to it.
We sold out on the first day of the Karachi Eat Food Festival. And on the second day. On the third day, I had several very angry visitors at the company’s booth, complaining that they had waited three days for some fudge but it had been sold out each time. I’ve never been happier about being yelled at. Today, the Karachi Fudge Company is just under a year old. The company was born from a passion of cooking combined with the desire to add a modern twist to a childhood classic — the little cubes of ‘milk toffees’ we would buy from school canteens. I wanted to bring back that sense of anticipation I would feel upon reaching the front of the queue at the canteen during recess and the sweet taste of victory once you got your hands on the precious packets of milk toffees that the canteen stocked. The idea was simple: the Karachi Fudge Company would invoke childhood sentiments that, just like the city of Karachi, leave you craving for more. Initially, we started with three flavours: caramel and vanilla, mocha, and chocolate. Today, we offer nine flavours including mint, chilli, peanut butter, lavender, coco-anut, and orange, as well as a line of Karachi Cheese Cakes (cappuccino, double chocolate, lemon meringue, vanilla, and citrus burst) 36 and Ooey Gooey brownies. SEPTEMBER 6-12 2015
I had several very angry customers complaining that they had waited three days for some fudge. I’ve never been happier about being yelled at
We also produce a series of Infused Sugars that combine 100% natural spices, herbs and flowers to produce sugar tinged with the flavours of lavender, cardamom, chilli and cinnamon, vanilla and lemon. Initially stocking at just a few shops and supermarkets, the company has now expanded to nationwide delivery. The business has steadily grown as I have been invited to supply dessert tables for events, most recently the Ladies Fund Awards hosted at Governor House, Karachi. We’ve proudly helped many families celebrate the sweetest moments in their lives by offering customised wedding favours and baby announcements, birthday presents and Eid gifts. A graphic designer by profession, I gravitated towards a career in advertising after I graduated. However, working for someone else was never part of my long-term plan. Ideally, I imagined, retiring while I was young enough to make the most of my life. “Freedom, here I come!” I would think when considering quitting my job in advertising. But achieving this freedom has come at the unexpected cost of some very hard work. Pursuing my passion for food and desserts in particular, I trained as a pâtissier at the International Centre for Culinary Arts in Dubai. While learning to bake breads, cakes and cookies was one thing, making candy is a totally different ball game. Candy-making is a science — you have to factor in elements like humidity and the slightest change in cooking temperature can drastically affect the outcome. Failing to account for these variables can lead to a disaster faster than you can gobble down said candy. The difference between
Make it work 1.Don’t put it off: Striking out on your own will be the most rewarding thing you ever do, and it will also be the scariest thing. Letting the uncertainty stop you is something you will regret later. 2.Don’t listen to naysayers: Having a good support system and people who believe in you helps. Equally, have the conviction to pursue your dreams even if you do not have the benefit of this support. 3.Don’t worry about failure: Failing is the best thing that could happen to you. Failure is a modern concept: you do something and it may not work out, so you keep at it till it does. This is called ‘gaining experience’ and it’s very different from ‘failing’. It makes you grow and it makes you wiser. Not ‘failing’ doesn’t make you smart, it just means you haven’t really challenged yourself. 4.Don’t burn out: Take breaks. Take them often. You can’t give 100% when you aren’t 100% yourself. 5.Don’t sell yourself short: Invest in yourself. Nothing will give you better returns than what you put into yourself.
making caramel, toffee and fudge is literally a matter of seconds and gas marks. Hundreds of batches later, I can now tell when the fudge is ready just by a whiff of the product. With my background in advertising and graphic design, it was instinctive for me to envision The Karachi Fudge Company as a brand. I wasn’t just putting fudge on the market that people may or may not enjoy — I was committed to an idea, a logo, a design and an identity. This approach is invaluable in the long run as it provides you with a blueprint for what will and will not work for your brand. My family has been very supportive of the idea of starting up my own business. When the idea for The Karachi Fudge Company first came to me, my mother and brothers were far more excited than I was. Their confidence in my dream kept my doubts about the decision to leave my 9-5 job or the dream to start a confectionery company with no clue how to go about it at bay. They never let me think I couldn’t do it. The journey leading up to the moment when the fudge was launched at the Crafter’s Expo was exciting, but ultimately, it was nerve-wracking to stand there on that day and wonder how people would respond. I had no idea how the business would do and that’s an intimidating feeling. I confess to thinking that being your own boss was a break from being tied down. It most certainly is not. One
of the key motivating factors to making your business work is that you’re working towards making your own dreams come true. With this realisation, the levels of responsibility, the number of hours you put in, and the stress increases dramatically. You’re involved in every aspect of the business and your decisions have farreaching consequences. On one occasion, I had to dispose of 1,500gms of fudge the day before a delivery because someone had been careless about where they had kept it. It wasn’t that the fudge had gone bad, but had I let this mistake slide, they would have done the same when I wasn’t looking. The fact you have others relying on you for their livelihoods also weighs heavily on your mind. I have a team of five people working for me and if they see me slacking off it instantly reflects in their attitude as well. Ultimately, however, these factors drive me to do more. My daily routine sees me switching between several hats, from dealing with procurement to accounting to marketing and sales. It is nowhere near as easy as my paid employment was. What makes it all worth it? The satisfaction of seeing my hard work materialise into something special makes every second count. Rasti Ahmed is the creator of The Karachi Fudge Company. She tweets @itsy_mitsy and you can follow her on Instagram @the_karachi_fudge_ company
CULTURE CLUB Bluegrass lent itself perfectly to a collaboration between American, Sindhi and Baloch musicians
BY UROOJ JAWED | PHOTOS BY ATHAR KHAN | DESIGN BY SANOBER AHMED
Music is felt; it needs no words as it is a language in its own right. Imagine watching an American folk music band rehearsing local melodies with Pakistani folk singers, playing songs that transcend borders, differences and eliminate a divide between the two groups. The Kentucky Winders, comprising of Nikos Pappas, Seth Folsom, Nick Lloyd and Jesse Wells, arrived in Pakistan in the last week of August following an invitation by the United States Embassy. “Pakistanis are exposed to all kinds of American culture, from fast food restaurants to pop music and movies, but this is a more realistic depiction of our culture,” explained Mark Kendrick, the embassy’s public affairs officer. “This isn’t Hollywood, this is our culture and we wanted to share it with the people we work with.”
While many foreigners would balk at the thought of coming to Pakistan, the Winders paid little heed to the picture of the country, portrayed by the international media. “We were nervous at first,” admitted Lloyd, the bass player, when asked about their decision to visit Pakistan. “Friends and family members asked us if we’d gone crazy, but we knew that of a county of 20 million people, not all of them could have been fighting. And the people we have met so far have been just wonderful.” Karachi was not the only stop on the band’s itinerary, as they played for one night in Hyderabad as well. In Jamshoro, the band accompanied Sindhi folk singers and left the audience awestruck as they played Jeevay Jeevay Pakistan.
Meet the band
Hailing from three different states in America, The Kentucky Winders play what is known as ‘bluegrass’, a subgenre of country music that is influenced by jazz, as well as Irish, Scottish and Welsh music. Bluegrass traditionally incorporates the fiddle, banjo, upright bass and guitar. Nikos Pappas, who leads the band, lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and plays the fiddle while also working as a professor. Music in Nikos’ family goes as far back as 180 years and he jokes, “In my family, the in-laws have to give an audition if they want to get married to one of us.”
Friends and family members asked us if we’d gone crazy, but we knew that of a county of 20 million people, not all of them could have been fighting. And the people we have met so far have been just wonderful Nick Lloyd, bass player
While the Kentucky Winders played classics such as Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase and Milwaukee Blues, Akhtar Chanal twirled around the musicians in a traditional Baloch dance
Folsom, who plays banjo and guitar, moonlights as a carpenter. Lloyd plays and builds professional upright basses in Cincinnati, Ohio and Wells, who is also a professor, plays guitar. “The Kentucky Winders have come to Karachi regardless of their day jobs in the US,” Kendrick said. “They are not here because there is money involved, but because they love music.”
Music as a shared language
Baloch folk singer Akhtar Chanal joined The Kentucky Winders in Karachi.
For the band, the trip to Pakistan offered a unique opportunity to present their traditional American music in a land steeped in melody. All the members of the band said it was not difficult to play with Pakistani musicians. “Who needs words when you have music as a shared language?” says Pappas. Additionally, as Lloyd explained, folk music lent itself perfectly to the collaboration with the Pakistani musicians. “Folk music around the world is not very different, as the genre itself brings together a combination of numerous cultures,” he said. The band played at the M.A.D school in Karachi, as well as the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. The trip to Karachi did not just comprise of work: the band took some time out to visit the beach (where they gleefully rode camels) and popped in to see Frere Hall. In a special performance on August 28 at the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa), as part of the two-day Sangat musical programme, the Winders were joined by Sindhi folk musicians, Baloch folk singer Akhtar Chanal Zahri and students from the institution. The highlights of the evening were joint performances of Lal Meri Pat and Danay pe dana. While the Winders played classics such as Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase, Milwaukee Blues, Curly-headed Woman and Seth crooned a love song, All Night Long, Akhtar Chanal twirled around the musicians in a traditional Baloch dance. Students from Napa chimed in during a segment of patriotic songs such as Yeh Watan Humara Hai and Jeevay, jeevay Pakistan. The Kentucky Winders describe themselves as ‘curators’ of music rather than inventors. They play some of the oldest melodies in the genre of folk music, as they believe these songs have emotional resonance for the listener. The songs they choose, such as Curly-headed Woman, tell stories of love and loss or depict a way of life in rural America. The melding of these songs and the spirited contributions of the Sindhi folk musicians made for an evening of truly boundary-blurring music.T Urooj Jawed is a subeditior at The Express Tribune Web Desk.
FILM
MEAN STREETS Straight Outta Compton heads back to the crime-ridden neighbourhood that inspired gangsta rap’s most influential band BY ALLY ADNAN
The second half of Felix Gary Gray’s energetic, ambitious and inspirational film about the rise and eventual end of the pioneers of gangsta rap, the NWA. (Niggaz Wit Attitudes) band members, is very, very good. It is, however, a letdown after a truly magnificent first half, to make an understatement. Hagiography, sanctification, and a meticulous — and very boring — retelling of monetary and contractual issues hurt the second half of the film, which needed the same exuberance, energy and poignancy that filled that first half. That being said, Straight Outta Compton is still one of the finest films of 2015. Collecting a whopping $134.1 million at the box office in the US and Canada since its release, the film is now the highest-grossing musical biopic ever. The making of the film was as eventful — well, almost — as the story of the rappers it tells. On-set violence, an alleged murder by one of the principal cast members, ugly casting controversies, 44 the use of at least four writers and much else have added to the SEPTEMBER 6-12 2015
indiscipline, energy, tonal shifts, vigour and guts that are the heart and soul of the film. Straight Outta Compton is not meant exclusively for lovers of gangsta rap. Audiences who are not familiar with N.W.A. are likely to enjoy it as much as those who are fans of the band. There is a lot in the film that has little, if anything, to do with music. The film opens in the late 1980s, in the economically depressed and violent neighbourhood of Compton in Los Angeles, where cinematographer Matthew Libatique’s gloomy shots, together with on-screen titles, introduce audiences to the three band members who formed NWA. Eric “Eazy-E” Wright (Jason Mitchell) is a small time runner at the lowest rung of the drug trade. Andre “Dr Dre” Young (Corey Hawkins) is the very talented but unappreciated deejay at a local club. O’Shea “Ice Cube” Jackson (O’Shea Jackson Jr) is a high school student who writes poems. The three young men deal with abuse,
indignities and humiliation, amidst gang violence, drug trading, police brutality and rampant poverty, as they come together to form what would go on to become the enormously successful and influential NWA. The band’s debut album, Straight Outta Compton, ushered in the era of gangsta rap with its wildly successful single F*** Tha Police (a song that got the band a warning letter from the FBI for its profanity). Today that song is ranked at number 425 in Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list. Gray, with the help of his writers, cinematographer and supremely talented actors, accurately depicts the atmosphere that fostered the song, less a revenge fantasy and more a stinging indictment of police brutality and injustice. Gray explores how the 15-year stint that former chief of the Los Angeles Police Department Daryl Gates enjoyed from 1978 to 1992 was tragic for African-Americans. The controversial police chief all but institutionalised the unprovoked brutalisation, victimization and humiliation of young black men in the city. Gray’s film illustrates, with electrifying intensity, events that transpired during Gates’ tenure. He depicts the tremendous emotional and physical abuse that lay at the roots of the unrelenting anger that made NWA.’s music powerful and that got the band in trouble with the police, the FBI, conservative groups, parental groups, radio talk show hosts, censorious writers, and, of course, the sanctimonious Tipper Gore — wife of Al Gore and Second Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001 — throughout its existence. On its surface, the film is a traditional tale of a group of disadvantaged young men who fight their way out of tragic circumstances and reach the height of fame and success in the world of both music and culture. In reality, it is a complex, daring and tragic account of the effects of racism, injustice, betrayal, selfrighteousness, and censorship on American society. It is a highly intelligent film.
Collecting a whopping $134.1 million at the box office in the US and Canada since its release, the film is now the highest-grossing musical biopic ever Straight Outta Compton has many strengths — flawless performances, on-point direction, apropos cinematography, accurate evocation of the eighties, rousing music performances, social relevance, not to mention the welcome addition of new lyrics to some well-known songs — and evokes many emotions, including happiness, anger, frustration, frustration and sorrow; but ultimately, it ends up breaking one’s heart. Thirty years have passed and, yet, one continues to see headlines about events very similar to those depicted in the film. The unfortunate realities of being a minority in the United States of America are as palpable today as they were several decades ago. Current news headlines constitute a sad proof of the inescapable relevance of Straight Outta Compton. NWA. band members undoubtedly found fantastic success as musicians but seemed to have failed as First Amendment and minority rights crusaders. That is the real American tragedy.
Rating: Ally Adnan lives in Dallas and writes about culture, history and the arts. He tweets @allyadnan
Outlaw music The NWA’s Straight Outta Compton was released in 1988. It has been praised by Rolling Stone magazine as “one of hip-hop’s crucial albums” while Time magazine placed the record on its list of 100 greatest albums of all time, calling it “the hip-hop shot heard ’round the world”. The band members, all from Compton — south of downtown Los Angeles — did not play it safe, rapping about harassing women, driving drunk, and standoffs with cops and partygoers. The band stuck together from 1986 to 1991, and weathered criticism over explicit lyrics that were seen as glorifying drugs and crime, and disrespectful of women. The band’s music was banned from many mainstream radio stations in America, but this did little to dent their success.
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Baby mama drama
The BBC’s Call the Midwife celebrates a ‘feminine preoccupation’ in all its messy glory BY NUDRAT KAMAL
In 1985, American cartoonist Alison Bechdel came up with a litmus test for women’s representation in film and television. The Bechdel test asks three questions: 1) Is there more than one woman present? 2) Do these women interact with each other on screen? 3) Do these women talk to each other about something other than a man? It’s a test that any film or TV show of today should be able to pass, and yet in 2014, only 55% of all Hollywood films passed it. In this context, BBC’s 1950s drama Call the Midwife — a show about a group of nurses and midwives working in an impoverished part of London, providing health care to the area’s working-class women — seems all the more revolutionary for not only having a female-dominated main cast but also for its unabashed focus on pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood, perceived as decidedly feminine preoccupations. Loosely based on a trilogy of memoirs by 1950s midwife Jennifer Worth, Call the Midwife, which begins its fifth season in December, follows 22-year-old Jenny Lee (Jessica Raine) as she arrives in Poplar in London’s East End for her first nursing job. Lee lives in Nonnatus House with a group of nuns who are also nurses, as well as with three other young midwives, and the show depicts these characters’ professional and personal lives as they confront issues which are as relevant today as they were in the 1950s, especially in a developing country like Pakistan — poverty, lack of proper health care for pregnant women, big families living on low incomes, poor housing and living conditions. But despite the show’s unflinching look at grim social problems, Call the Midwife retains a tone of positivity and warmth that is quite unlike most of today’s increasingly cynical television. Despite the thread of sentimentality that runs through the narrative, Call the Midwife retains an exceptional amount of realism, particularly in its depiction of labour and delivery. Unlike in most films and TV shows where women give birth without so much as breaking a sweat or having a single hair fall out of place, Call the 46 Midwife is not afraid of getting into the nitty gritty of the sheer SEPTEMBER 6-12 2015
effort and hard work that is involved in childbirth on the part of the midwives and the mothers. The show neither downplays this important part of womanhood nor romanticises it, portraying childbirth frankly, in all its messy glory. The group of nuns and nurses and their growing bond with each other is another delightful aspect of the show. Jenny is joined by the fashionable, boy-crazy Trixie, the quiet and thoughtful Cynthia and the awkward but large-hearted Chummy (she is among the best drawn characters of the show). The older nuns are also fully fleshed out, especially the ageing sister Monica Joan (Judy Parfitt), whose penchant for quoting obscure literature and fondness for cake as well as her funny one-liners make her a fan favourite. The show goes beyond having older characters exist just for comic relief or as a wise sounding board for the younger characters — Sister Monica Joan’s on-going struggle with dementia is the best and most nuanced depiction of the trials of old age on television, and Parfitt’s performance is undoubtedly the best on the show. Each episode is bookended with voiceovers by an older Jenny, voiced by veteran actress Vanessa Redgrave, and her reflections give the show an added sweetness. Throughout its four seasons, Call the Midwife confronts important issues, such as the elderly being driven out of their homes, working mothers facing judgment, black women dealing with the ingrained racism of the era and people dealing with the effects of World War II, which has only been over for a decade. In the end, however, the show is about a sense of community, of good people brought together for a purpose, of everyone doing the best they can. In its unapologetic embrace of a positive view of the world, as well as its unabashed feminist take on some of the most important women’s issues, the show is truly revolutionary. Rating: Nudrat Kamal is a freelance writer. She tweets @Nudratkamal
A hot mess A stale buddy comedy lets down its talented cast BY SAMEEN AMER
Some bad movies leave you with the sense that the project went awry despite the seemingly good intentions of its film-makers. Others leave you wondering whether any effort was expended at all during any stage of the making of the film, and how numerous people associated with it thought it would be a good idea to insult the audience by subjecting them to something this shoddy, lazy, and dim-witted. Hot Pursuit very vehemently falls in the latter category. The stale buddy comedy shamelessly employs the various clichés of the genre without bothering to come up with anything vaguely original or even mildly amusing. The story revolves around Rose Cooper (Reese Witherspoon), an uptight, by-the-books police officer who has been relegated to the evidence room after an embarrassing incident that has left her name synonymous with screwing up. Her chance to return to the field presents itself when she is tasked with the responsibility of helping escort a drug cartel informant’s wife, Daniella Riva (Sofía Vergara), to Dallas so that she can testify against the cartel’s notorious leader (Joaquín Cosio). But things, predictably, go wrong. The incompetent cop and the flighty witness — who are unsurprisingly polar opposites of 48 each other — find themselves on the run, SEPTEMBER 6-12 2015
chased by crooked cops and hitmen. Hilarity, unfortunately, does not ensue. The hackneyed humour simply doesn’t work. Borrowed banalities and recycled plot points await the audience at every turn of the film. The brunt of the blame falls on David Feeney and John Quaintance’s script, although why someone decided to green light this project after (presumably) reading the script remains a mystery. Director Anne Fletcher fails to bring any kind of personality or depth to the movie. The lead actresses have some chemistry, but the acting remains mediocre, with Witherspoon playing up her Southern accent and Vergara sticking to her over-the-top Latina shtick. The outtakes and bloopers suggest that the actresses enjoyed themselves while shooting the film, but even though it may have been fun to make, it certainly isn’t fun to watch. All Hot Pursuit does is make you wish the talent associated with it had opted to actually put in some effort and work on a fresh, intelligent female-led comedy instead. Its bland story, lame attempts at humour, dire gags, grating characters, and sloppy executions aren’t likely to impress any viewers and ultimately amount to nothing but 87 minutes of wasted time. Rating: Sameen Amer is a Lahore-based freelance writer and critic. She tweets @Sameen
More female-led comedies Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (1997) Two inseparable friends (Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow) concoct fake careers to impress former classmates at their 10 year high school reunion. Baby Mama (2008) With a minuscule chance of having a baby herself, a successful, single businesswoman (Tina Fey) hires an immature, working class woman (Amy Poehler) to become her unlikely surrogate. The Heat (2013) A textbook FBI Special Agent (Sandra Bullock) and a rebellious Boston police officer (Melissa McCarthy) must team up to take down a ruthless drug lord.
FRAMED
The mark of the lion As Pakistan observes the 50th anniversary of the 1965 war today, take a closer look at the Nishan-e-Haider BY HURMAT MAJID PHOTO COURTESY ISPR DESIGN BY SANOBER AHMED
T
he Nishan-e-Haider is the highest military award in Pakistan, given posthumously to only 10 people in the country’s history. Hazrat Ali (RA) was named ‘Haider’ by his mother, a name that means ‘lion’. The Nishan-eHaider, thus, gets its name from this moniker and is the ‘mark of the lion’. The award was established on March 16, 1957. The Nishan-e-Haider is given to soldiers who perform acts of great heroism in circumstances of extreme danger, or to those who demonstrate bravery of the highest order or devotion to the country in the presence of the enemy. On September 10, 1965, Major Raja Aziz Bhatti was awarded the Nishan-e-Haider for his valour as a company commander in the Burki area of the Lahore sector during the 1965 war, which marks its 50th anniversary this year. The Nishan-eHaider was last conferred in 1999 to Havildar Lalak Jan. Twenty-year-old pilot Rashid Minhas is the youngest recipient of the award to date. The Nishan-e-Haider medal (pictured) is manufactured by Pakistan Mint on orders by the Ministry of Defense and is forged using metal from the captured equipment of the enemy. T Hurmat Majid is a subeditor at The Express Tribune. She tweets @bhandprogramme
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