The events of 1971 were a part of the history long before I was born but even years later in the mid 80s as a primary school child I could smell the stench of the vicious broth we had cooked to suppress, degrade, demoralize, dominate and disgrace our very own people, the people of Bangladesh.

I remember being a student of class 4, one day I heard a fellow student use the term “Bhookay Bengali” as a derogatory remark to another fellow student of a slightly dark complexion. That day when I got back home I asked my mother why Bengalis are called hungry? And why the term Bengali is considered a derogatory remark ? It is when she told me how we over powered them used them to our advantage, made them work hard for us and paid them less then half of what they deserved and in terms of respect we gave them none.

It was this day this I first realized how in human we had been to these people. But as time passed and as I grew older historic events, stories and accounts of the events of 1971 kept coming to my knowledge. The picture kept becoming more and more gruesome, the scale went up to a level where it literally became a haunting scene. It painted an undeniable picture narrating the shear brutality we showed towards our Bengali sisters and brothers.

yesterday an evening of literary reading was held at t2f, a local café and the book which was read from was “Fault Lines” an anthology of stories of 1971 by noted authors from both Bangladesh and Pakistan and a few others from this same region, compiled and edited by Niaz Zaman and Asif Farrukhi, both of them eminent writers and noted literary figures from Bangladesh and Pakistan respectively, who were present for the evening along sides with noted writers Intizar Hussain, Asad Mohammad Khan and the editor Books and Reviews (DAWN) Saima Hussain to read out their contributions and share their stories, views and thoughts with the audience.

The event started with the Urdu version of “Fork Lift No. 352″ a story by Asad Mohammad Khan. Which followed by a thoughtfully placed question by Asif Farrukhi: “Do we yet have any competent “driver” for the faulty “fork lifts”, to run them smoothly, and how would we know if the drivers are competent or not ?”. We may blame the faulty fork lift or the driver for his incompetence to trace the fault in time, but form the damage that has already been done have we yet learned something or not ? Was the question which instantly popped up in my mind.

The event continued, Intizar Hussain shared his views of the time and Asif Farrukhi  read an excerpt of his writing from the book while Niaz Zaman followed by sharing her story of those years in history, and her views and expressed her grieve for the unjust sad and later much regretted events which effected the common people of both the sides. 

By looking at the whole picture specially with the prospective I hold, it was not too difficult to see that we had pushed the people of Bangladesh to a point where they were actually cornered and were left with not many options at their hand.

 It was Only three days back when I came across this link, a link which narrated an incident of a horrifying war crime committed against some innocent women. the people we deliberately rendered poor and helpless we victimized, just because we could and yesterday’s event left me with a heavy heart, I had always been ashamed to meet the eyes with any Bengali, although I was not a part of the brutality which was unleashed upon the innocent people to favor just a handful few but still I feel the guilt. For these Crimes and incidents I do not blame the army, I do not blame the foreign elements, I don’t blame anyone else but my self. Me, and the people who took advantage of them, who never stood-up for them, who never raised their voice against the unjust, We never talked to our children about it, we never told the stories we should have been telling. Was this not our responsibility ?

But it is yet not too late to began correcting what we have done wrong in the past and to start with we should first realize and accept our own faults and not to repeat them, We should also bring the stories which were either censored at the time or remained unpublished and unknown and for that matter this book “Fault Line” published in Dhaka and being distributed here locally by the Oxford University Press is an excellent progressive step and hopefully more such books and anthologies will follow. Also as Bloggers, writers and journalists it is time to use the mediums we have in our reach to bring out the true stories images and events of the history with a neutral stance. Not to derogate one another but to make our people realize of their mistakes and the best way to do it is to find our own faults.

In relation to the topic (As someone mentioned yesterday) a group has been formed on facebook to submit our apologies to the people of Bangladesh, I have joined this group and I would suggest that all of us should do so as it will help us sort out our deference’s on a more public level.

1971, was bitter year for both Pakistan and specially for what now is Bangladesh, but now lets take lessons from our own mistakes and try not repeating our selves with the same mistakes again and again in history.

Just wanted to change the mood to some light topic. So, Aamir Khan’s “Taare Zameen Par” is premiering in Karachi (Prince Cinema, Capri & Cineplex) along with nationwide releases in Lahore, Hyderabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Multan & Gujrat. There was this news of Aamir Khan arriving for this event but looking at the current situation, you can guess the answer.

Initially banned in March, under a regulation that says it cannot be shown as it has been shot entirely in India. Besides, no Pakistani actor is starring in the film. However, the ban was lifted with the statement: “The ordinance gives the government the power to grant exemption from any provision. We found Taare Zameen Par to be educative and informative — in short, an outstanding movie,” said Azfar Shafqat, the chairman of the Pakistan Censor Board.

Reviewing the movie in words is not enough. You have to see it to feel how different it is from the mundane pop-corn popping, style-masala mixture, Hollywood remakes. The movie makes a league of its own with re-creating how a child’s mind work, which is no easy task. It strikes a chord, but most importantly, it has been treated with such sensitivity and maturity that you’re left shell-shocked in amazement by the sheer impact it leaves at the end of this 18 reeler.

I’ve not been an avid fan of Aamir Khan; however, now I am because he comes through to his audience with a substantial story of a child that serves as a wake up call for every parent or parent-to-be. Every character in the movie is well defined. You would fall in love with the innocence of Darsheel Safary’s character “Ishaan Awasthi”, rage against a father who would not realize and cry with the mother who can understand like no one and a godfather teacher, Ram Shankar Nikumbh (Aamir’s character), who paves the way for a better tomorrow.

So, what’s your take on TZP?

My thoughts on the mega buster Race now playing across Karachi in select cinemas, starring Saif, Katrina, Bipasa, Akshay Khanna & Anil Kapoor

• Saif Ali Khans Sunglasses are the best thing in this movie.
• Akshay Khanna has more hair on his chest than his head.
• Biapasa makes hay burn and Katrina pale in ooomph factor.
• Atif Aslam and Indian movies are a match made in heaven
• Anil Kapoor should have played a panwalla in this movie, because he looks and talks like one.
• After all the twists and turns the movie is totally ruined by (get this) Saif flying!
• Glamorous locales or not in the end its a total masala flick
• For the love of god, we have experienced so much censorship in Pakistani cinema, was the censor board asleep when this goody bag landed? Read slowly Soft porn scenes…do not take children!

Verdict: If you watch movies for eye candy… then this is your Gladiator if not? you will be racing for the exit after the first half an hour.

My take? 6.5/10 (The 0.5 is for the locales)

‘Good Taste Required’ reads the tagline of this new website resource dedicated to listing the best the city has to offer. Came across it while searching for restaurants and it has a very decent selection of places.

Could use some Web 2.0 style features, such as commenting and photo uploading, but overall, a very nice resource.

Add your own places using the Suggest A Listing feature.

Not just another Pizza Hut rip-off, yet not as satisfying an experience as i expected it to be, La Pizza Pie, located adjacent to Anjarwala’s, opposite BBQ Tonite, is a new pizza joint i tried out last week.

The menu offers up soup, pizza, salad and pasta which is pretty much the staple of pizza houses in the city. We tried the Cream of Chicken soup, which turned out to be sour(?) and something Arabian pizza, which had very predictable ingredients, but with a spiraling mayonnaise topping which gave it a good luck while not adding anything to the taste.

The interior is small, cramped but not very unfriendly, and the staff is quite helpful. Good place to try out if you are bored with Pizza Hut.

As far as comedy routines go, Saad Haroon has it down pat. He has a jovial face, an infectious laugh and a complete set of theatrics and musical numbers which makes his comedy routines very engaging. The one place he lacks, however, is a collection of jokes, with many being recycled over a number of routines, Saad Haroon is a must see, if you haven’t seen him before. After that, its just pretty much the same.

On friday night, he performed at IVSAA and i went expecting an hour of gag-inducing laughter. What i got was almost a yawn during the performance, since… well… i had seen it all before.

But all was not lost that night. The evening was saved thanks to the theatrics of Danish Ali, a fellow comedian who appears with Saad on their TV show, The Real News (TRN). He started off the routine with jokes and gags about weird school names, parking tonight BBQ tomorrow (a pun on BBQ Tonight) and the ever engaging mortien and their sadistic method of killing a cockroach over 90 days (it says on the back of their can, Kills for three months) where he had another fellow, Umair, perform improvisational acting of a cockroach who was on his way to a 90 day death.

Overall, the evening didn’t do too bad, and though i wouldn’t go see Saad Haroon again anytime soon (or unless he adds new stuff to his act), he did pull off two acts, Saads words of wisdom, which was both thought provoking and funny and Aliens landing in Desi Land, which was funny because of theatrics.

Images courtesy of Raja Islam

Saturday night was when a one of a kind event happened! The funny was brought up front and center, right on the stage of PACC. Sami shah, in his second stand up performance, once again rocked the crowd and brought us all down to our knees laughing!

If you know sami shah, you know he’s going to be very predictable.. he’s going to rant, and being a geek, he’s going to rant in a superhero style! (Thank god his undies were the right side up though!) The show started, albeit half an hour late, with a jab at the advertising agencies of Pakistan, who’ve made us think that if we are fair, good things will happen to us. This continue, with various brands being taken down a peg or two, starting with fair and lovely and ending up with state life insurace’s beema policy! 10 minutes into the act, the guy had the audience in stiches!

His next pieces concerned the kind of people who work in banks, the job hunt and the kind of people who seem to have the same career aspirations as him and keep following him from place to place. How he knows that? Cuz they do the same thing, no matter which office he’s in. Up next was karachi’s dug up situation and the crazy 7 hour traffic jams we had whenever our dear ol’ president and the prime minister went to town. The performance ended on how the comic book world was slowly becoming so real, when our real life ‘heros’ (the general obviously) act like batman! mild mannered president by day… and The General during times of trouble!

All in all, it was definitely a performance not to be missed. A bit overpriced, at 400 a pop, but still very much worth every penny, as the over-filled auditorium of PACC would give testament to.
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Spider magazine, who recently started a regular section on blogging, covered the Pakistani cities part of the Metroblogging network in their September issue. The article is written by the talented Karachi based writer Hafsa Ahsan (who also writes the regular column Dot Com in Dawn’s weekly technology supplement Sci-Tech World). It isn’t up on the Spider website unfortunately, so you’ll have to go get a copy from your local bookstore to read the entirety of it, but here’s some of the praise we received:

Yes, the Karachi Metblog is definitely the place to discuss all things happening in Karachi from literary events and exhibitions to the traffic jams at Shahrah-e-Faisal and power break downs in specific areas. Every once in a while, a single post can attract a number of conflicting opinions leading to heated debate and arguments. However, the posts generally make for a very interesting read.

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On Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2002, I stood at the gate of my rented house in Karachi, watching my friend Danny Pearl juggle a notebook, cellphone and earpiece as he bounded over to a taxicab idling in the street. He was off to try to find the alleged al-Qaeda handler of “shoe bomber” Richard Reid in Pakistan. “Good luck, dude,” I called, waving cheerfully as he strode off, a lopsided grin on his face. His pregnant wife, Mariane, stood smiling and waving beside me as the taxi pulled away. A gaggle of parrots swooped through the trees above, squawking in the late afternoon sun.

Disregarding for a while, the subject matter of the movie, I decided to watch ‘A Mighty Heart’ for the simple reason that it was shot in Karachi. I was in for a disappointment. The movie, starring Angelina Jolie was majorly shot in Pune, India because the producers didn’t consider Karachi a safe location. While many a fan of the diva may have been greatly disappointed at this decision, it was the movie itself that disappointed me.

While I wholeheartedly condemn Daniel Pearl’s murder and console with his widow and the child, I see no point in sensationailsing such a sensitive issue. Thanks to the movie, Daniel Pearl has been eternetised, yet no one will remember Saud Memon nor the countless unidentified citizens who have been mysteriously missing for a long time. Not only that, Hollywood has successfully tarnished what little dignity we as the citizens of Karachi had.
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The final two days of the shanaakht festival, organized by the Citizens Archive of Pakistan, were just too good to miss! In addition to a full day of documentaries, talks, lectures, picture and art exhibits, each day ended on a high note.

The third day saw the live performance of Loose Talk, featuring the icon’s of pakistani television media themselves, Moin Akhtar and Anwar Maqsood. Running for over 5 years, having produced more than 280 episodes for television, Loose Talk has redefined how satire is delivered to the audience. Be it political, social or even religious! The live show was no less specatular! The duo had the audience in stiches from the moment Anwar Maqsood came on stage to introduce the performance. The skits included Moin Akhtar as a poet, a guy who hates cable TV, the cricket lover, a shop owner, the poor husband of a very healthy woman and finally a representative of PML-Q! Each performance was a gem in its own right, and its hard to say which was my favourite. And judging from the standing ovation and the over 5 minutes of continuous clapping the duo got, i was not alone in thinking so.

The next day brought with it, a concert aptly titled Rock your Shanaakht. An event which ended the whole festival on just the right note. The event started with a surprise stand up comedy performance by Saad Haroon, who had the audience in stiches about with parody songs like Pakistani Pie and Mr. Dakoo. Not to mention skits on the defence bubble, why there are no terroists in Pakistan, the mobile snatcher, why giving directions in defence is almost dirty and last but not the least, the dream (and big movie idea) which shattered when sonia ghandi stepped down from accepting the prime ministership of India. (The movie ofcourse was based on the love relationship between the two leaders). Next up were Taal Charisma, a new band formed by students of NAPA, another prestigious institution of the city nurturing the arts, and their new genre, Body Percussion. The rest of the evening was filled by performances from zaeb and hania (from lahore), ali alim and the aunty disco project. The festival ended with the whole crowd joining the artists on stage in singing our national anthem! Definitely not a night to forget!