Movie Review: Dedh Ishqiya
“Dedh Ishqiya”, one of the most probable, unconventional new-age sequels from Bollywood, is a hard movie to categorize: it is a lumpy, sharp-tasting mix of emotions that’s immaculately written, directed and acted – and yet isn’t remarkable. The opening, with the black screen voice over story about a female parrot that corrupts a pair of […]
A Moving Art Gallery without Walls
In the summer of 2002, two Pakistani artists were brought to Smithsonian Folklife Festival along with a 1976 Bedford truck. They were Hyder Ali and Jamiluddin from Karachi’s Garden Road area, famous for vehicle decoration. As outdoor artists-in-residence they decorated the Bedford top to bottom in front of curious onlookers at Washington, D.C. Now, that […]
Have a Dabba @ Home
I recently happened to watch Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi, a 2012 Bollywood movie with the cast of Boman Irani and popular accomplished choreographer –turned-director Farah Khan. The romantic comedy revolves around two middle-aged Parsis, Farhad and Shirin and their baffled courtship which they try to work out into a happy marriage. The film […]
Pakistan: Culture Revisited
Ten things we love about Pakistan Under the head, one in a collection of beautiful writings in theCritical Muslim issue 04 on Pakistan, the editors include People, Poetry, Classical Novels, Young Talent, Paklish (That is how English got decolonized in Pakistan), Ingenuity or the can-do attitude of the Pakistani people, Sweets, Mountains and Mangoes, Missiles, […]
Babasaheb’s Pakistan
Pakistan can’t be undone. It could have been, we desired as children gloating over the prospect of a well-organized cricket team-‘our’ batsmen and ‘their bowlers’-panning out as an undefeatable and formidable sporting monolith. The concern of Ayesha Jalal, post Partition, was more serious, transcending as it is the verve and glamour of sports towards the […]
The Ahmedi Question
I have grown up struggling against the Ahmediyyah sect in my locality. But however hard I tried to keep away from the sect; I have been increasingly drawn to its cultural elements. The western hip-hop, with its underpinning in the Nation of Islam, is one of the most vocal features of contemporary Muslim culture. The […]
The Faithful as a Nation
Nations are born in the hearts of Poets; they prosper and die in the hands of politicians. – (Iqbal) PHILOSOPHICALLY and ideologically, Pakistan is the legacy of Iqbal. To say this, however, is to overstate the significance of his role. Pakistan is the outcome of the struggle of Indian Muslims during the British Raj; it is […]
Ambiguities of Pakistan
‘ Go to Pakistan’ in India means ‘Go to hell.’ When a BJP leader Giriraj Singh exhorted the voters either to back Narendra Modi in the ongoing election or to go to Pakistan, nobody was really shocked. First, it’s BJP’s exhortation, despite the party’s recent attempt to bury the hatchet of chauvinism in its drive […]
“In Pakistan We Have Selective Islam”
My Generation grew up at a time when colonial hang up was at its peak. Our older generation had been slaves and had a huge inferiority complex of the British. The school I went to was similar to all elite schools in Pakistan, despite becoming independent, they were, and still are, producing replicas of public […]
JINNAH: THE ELUSIVE TRAGIC HERO
Qaed-e-A’zam Muhammad Ali Jinnah who learned the alphabet of politics at the feet of Dadabhai Naroji and was gently initiated to the altar of Indian politics by a giant political seer Gopala Krishna Gokhale was admirably sung as the “Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity” by Sarojini Naidu, the nightingale of India.But, later he was treated […]
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