Boris Becker – Inside
By Boris Becker
HarperCollins
ISBN: 978-000876902-4
342pp.

As I walked past Ike’s cell, I looked in.

No Ike. Just this Zac.

He had his back to me. Like he was looking around. Taking something. Planting something. So I spoke up.

‘Hey, hey, this is Ike’s cell. What are you doing in here?’

He came straight at me.

‘Who the **** are you?’

Former tennis champion Boris Becker recounts his dramatic fall from grace and the lessons he learned behind bars in a new memoir

My name is Boris. This is Ike’s cell. You’re not Ike. So what are you doing in here?’

I had my tray of food in my hand. That didn’t feel like much to have between us. He was bigger than me, maybe mid-thirties. His hands were clenched and coming up fast.”

At first glance, this passage seems lifted from a novelisation of a Hollywood classic, or a page from an upcoming thriller set in the American prison system. But it is neither. The Boris in this story is very real — Boris Becker, the German former World No 1 tennis player, who won six Grand Slam titles along with an Olympic gold medal.

The excerpt is taken from Inside, which chronicles the sportsman-turned-author’s time in prison in 2022 following bankruptcy charges. Becker was sentenced to jail for two and a half years in the UK for hiding assets and loans that were required to be disclosed to creditors and the bankruptcy trustee, though he was released after only eight months. In the book, Becker not only reflects on the naivety that led to his incarceration but also recounts his experiences first in HM Prison Wandsworth and later in HM Prison Huntercombe.

Before picking up this book, one might expect Becker to discuss life after tennis — how he has stayed fit and relevant over the years and his views on the modern game. Instead, his prison experience forms the core of the narrative, a subject that comes as a surprise, especially since the cover offers no hint of the ordeal within.

The book offers an unflinching account of Becker’s time behind bars — how he managed to stay safe among hardened criminals and how incarceration reshaped him as a person. He credits his former girlfriend-turned-third wife, Lilian, for her strength on the outside, while also detailing the harsh realities of two of the UK’s toughest prisons.

Imagine watching Escape from Alcatraz or The Shawshank Redemption, but with Becker in place of Clint Eastwood or Tim Robbins. Replace the supporting cast with Becker’s real-life acquaintances, and you have the makings of a compelling Hollywood drama, where things that should only happen in prison happen.

While Becker is candid in the first half of the memoir — accepting responsibility for his fall from grace — he also names those he believes contributed to his downfall. He questions his lawyers’ competence at times and sometimes blames himself for trusting the wrong people. Not only does he talk about his version of the events, but he also blames his very first Grand Slam win at Wimbledon for everything bad that happened to him, because that’s when his life changed.

The second half shifts focus to prison life: how he adapted to an unfamiliar environment, bonded with inmates from around the world, and found unlikely sources of support within prison walls. He reveals the many odd jobs he did to survive in prison, such as teaching inmates, working in the gymnasium, and even translating from German to English for two German felons.

Readers may be surprised to learn that Becker was incarcerated at the same time as the British-Italian fraudster Giovanni Di Stefano, or that he learned of Queen Elizabeth II’s death while behind bars. He was most excited when he heard that tennis star Novak Djokovic remembered his former coach and even invited his family to Wimbledon while Becker was incarcerated.

Every chapter in this memoir begins with excerpts from letters Becker received during his imprisonment — reminders of the support he continued to enjoy from fans worldwide, and which helped him endure his ordeal. The narrative is interspersed with flashbacks to pivotal moments in his tennis career — from his historic Wimbledon triumph in 1985 to his later defeat by German compatriot Michael Stich in a Grand Slam final. These memories serve as both escape and reflection, helping him maintain his sanity during confinement.

At the time of this book’s publication, Becker is trying to get his life on the right track as a free man. But what were the circumstances that led to his deportation from England after his release from prison and his arrival in Germany? That’s something worth the reader’s time. The situation has been explained in a very dramatic manner, just as Becker described his time spent in a prison cell or playing chess. Add to that a football tournament among prisoners, and the book occasionally feels like a cinematic experience reminiscent of Sylvester Stallone’s Victory, rather than the account of a fallen sports icon grappling with financial missteps.

Inside is more than just a survival story; it is a deeply personal narrative delivered with striking honesty by a man who has seen life at its highest and lowest. Becker confronts his mistakes head-on, while also speaking candidly about his relationships — his former wives, his partner, his friends who stood by him and his sons, who did not abandon him during his darkest days.

The book also includes a selection of photographs — some featuring fellow inmates, others capturing moments of support and solidarity. Ultimately, it delivers a simple but powerful message: it is never too late to start again. Becker may have lost everything at one point, but he did not lose hope. He found light in life’s darkest moments — and if he can, perhaps anyone can.

The reviewer is a broadcast journalist who also writes on sports, film, television and popular culture. X: @omair78

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, May 10th, 2026

Chasing Shadows in Borrowed Light
By Safinah Danish Elahi
Liberty Publishing
ISBN: 978-6277626877
294pp.

In the opening paragraph of The Kite Runner, Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini’s narrator reflects on the past as an untamed beast that “claws its way out” at the most unexpected moments. With this familiar yet prosaic observation, the narrator invokes one of literature’s most enduring tropes.

Fiction writers often peel back the layers of their characters’ histories to make them more three-dimensional, realistic and intriguing. This technique opens a doorway into their hidden emotional lives and even allows them an opportunity to identify and address their traumas.

Poet, publisher and novelist Safinah Danish Elahi’s oeuvre also harbours a preoccupation with the past. However, her three novels don’t employ the motif in a clichéd manner, where scandalous revelations about characters overshadow their emotional and spiritual growth. Instead, turning the clock back to a bygone era serves as a clarion call, urging people to recognise their responsibilities to themselves and others.

In Eye on the Prize, fragile bonds remain intact because the characters choose to overlook an adolescent mistake in order to protect those who are vulnerable. The Idle Stance of the Tippler Pigeon explores the lingering echoes of a traumatic childhood tragedy in the life of two unlikely friends. As they deal with their dilemmas, the protagonists learn a valuable lesson about empathy and humanity.

Across time and space, four friends discover that the past is not something left behind — but something that shapes the present

Chasing Shadows in Borrowed Light is built on a similar template, insofar as it offers yet another captivating exploration of how the past seeps into the present. Like her previous fictional offerings, Elahi’s third novel places the turmoil of a troubled girl at its epicentre.

Above all, this new work, like The Idle Stance of the Tippler Pigeon, adopts a multi-character perspective. However, each character’s viewpoint is filtered through a detached third-person voice, rather than the immersive first-person perspective employed in Elahi’s sophomore novel. This stylistic shift constructs a barrier between the characters and readers, thereby lending an aura of mystery to the narrative.

A quick glance at the back cover text promises a poignant tale about adolescent friendships that evolve as time, distance and dark secrets threaten old affinities. The plot is deceptively simple yet layered. Saira, Ashar, Usman and Areen once lived in Karachi, the city of their teenage triumphs, rebellions and emotional catastrophes. Now, three of them have fashioned new homes for themselves in Australia and the US, and inhabit different spheres largely detached from their roots. Nevertheless, their destinies remain inextricably linked to Karachi because of a secret that scars all of them, especially Areen.

Years later, when Karachi-based Saira receives an unsettling message from Areen — now an artist in New York — she reaches out to Ashar and Usman to enlist them in yet another attempt to ensure their friend’s well-being. Fuelled by habit, or a desire to protect their struggling companion, Saira, Usman and Ashar slip back into their predefined and well-rehearsed roles. It does not take them long to realise that the thrills and terrors of the past run the risk of obstructing the dynamics of the present, leading all four of them to revive their forgotten, transgressive selves.

The twists and turns of Chasing Shadows in Borrowed Light cannot be delineated without revealing spoilers. The strength of Elahi’s narrative lies in its ability to deviate from the predictable path and employ numerous methods to draw readers into this suspenseful work. The narrative is sculpted as a mosaic, and readers are encouraged to piece together a sea of fragments into a cohesive whole. Instead of following a linear trajectory, the story alternates between past and present, specifically 2008 and 2022.

The reader’s curiosity is initially sparked by a succinct prologue, in which ravenous flames lick every corner of a room and reduce it to ashes. As the “flames glow bright orange like the sun in its prime”, fear instantly finds residence in the room. Through this opening sequence, readers gain an inkling of the personal and emotional degradation that haunts the pages of Elahi’s novel.

The sinister undertone of Chasing Shadows in Borrowed Light is reinforced by an omniscient yet reserved narrator. Resembling a strategic poker player, the all-knowing, wily narrator conceals their hand and allows key information to fall gradually into the reader’s lap. These techniques transform the novel into an intricate puzzle for readers to solve.

The plot is deceptively simple yet layered. Saira, Ashar, Usman and Areen once lived in Karachi, the city of their teenage triumphs, rebellions and emotional catastrophes. Now, three of them have fashioned new homes for themselves in Australia and the US, and inhabit different spheres largely detached from their roots. Nevertheless, their destinies remain inextricably linked to Karachi because of a secret that scars all of them, especially Areen.

The centrepiece of Elahi’s third novel is the final section, which skilfully employs the second-person perspective to reveal the fragility of Areen’s fractured mind. This proves to be an effective technique, as it achieves a level of intimacy and discomfort that a first-person account might not have conveyed.

Driven by quiet but chaotic restraint, the final section begins to resemble the pages of an emotionally disturbed artist’s diary. The peculiar darkness of Areen’s mind is mirrored in the urgent, affecting prose, which reminds readers of the importance of therapy in addressing the burdens of unresolved traumas.

Elahi’s novels have sought to eliminate the stigma surrounding mental health. Chasing Shadows in Borrowed Light consolidates this commitment by urging us to prioritise our own psychological well-being while also recognising the plight of those who must carry the debilitating weight of emotional trauma.

Elahi ought to be commended for the profoundly original title of her new novel that, incidentally, echoes her characters’ emotional trajectory. Throughout the novel, the four friends are haunted by the shadows of the past, which they pursue and seek to escape in equal measure.

Ashar struggles to cope with a painful history of grief. Saira is driven by the muscle memory of empathy she once exercised as a silent witness to Areen’s traumatic experiences during their teenage years. Usman, who has escaped and created some semblance of a stable future for himself, is still guided by the pleasant memories of someone he once abandoned. Areen carries the trauma of an abusive childhood, compounded by the guilt of the actions she took to shield herself from harm. The group gradually learns to deal with the futility of their individual pursuits, except for Areen, who plunges deeper into an emotional vortex.

Beyond its focus on the psychological journey of its cast of characters, Chasing Shadows in Borrowed Light captures the complexities of Pakistani expatriate life without relying on stereotypical assumptions. Furthermore, the novel carries faint echoes of Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography, albeit without its political dimensions.

Stripped of this layer, Elahi’s new work emerges as a more personal glimpse into the lives of ordinary Karachiites grappling with childhood trauma, and their complex relationship with home amid the pressures of globalisation.

The reviewer is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Typically Tanya and No Funeral for Nazia.

X: @TahaKehar

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, May 10th, 2026

Shenila Khoja-Moolji’s insider ethnography, Rebuilding Community: Displaced Women and the Making of a Shia Ismaili Muslim Sociality, primarily examines intergenerational care work provided by women for co-religionists in the face of war, displacement and the trauma of forced migration.

The book’s focus is on diasporic Khoja Shia Ismaili women from the Subcontinent who faced multiple, often violent, displacements from India, East Africa and what was once known as East Pakistan.

This work of scholarship was made possible by the extensive time the author invested in building personal relationships with her interlocutors, whose stories and histories form the basis for the core argument that the work presents: that the community’s women have unceasingly performed undocumented and unacknowledged acts of service [seva] to steadfastly reproduce the ethical infrastructure necessary for a continued flourishing of their faith.

At the outset of the book, detailing the period from 1890 to 1970, the author frames the farmaans [diktats] of the imam [religious leader] as the impetus for the migratory routes that women, led by their patriarchs, took to access a safer future for themselves and their children, rooted firmly in their faith. It was this same faith that they drew strength from during arduous journeys with limited access to core necessities such as adequate food.

Across continents, Khoja Shia Ismaili women stitch together community, memory and belonging in this rich ethnographic account

Here, the reader is also introduced to early pro-female interventions by the imam in the examples of his encouragement of girls to pursue higher levels of educational and professional attainment, an offshoot of which was seen in women in the Zanzibar Khoja community of the time being empowered with bicycles that afforded them ease in commuting and enabling their professional quests.

In the early 20th century in Zanzibar, the book reveals that women from the community created makeshift shops in their homes’ porches to supplement their husbands’ meagre incomes. These women did not just perform acts of care for their families but also laboured long hours to add a source of income to their households, in addition to opening their homes to community members who had recently arrived on the shores and needed help settling into the alien country.

Moving through the chapters, we learn of the centrality of the jamaatkhana [community space for gathering and worship] to the community and of the vital role of women in creating makeshift jamaatkhanas within their small homes, to ensure the continuity of faith practices even in times of flux.

At the outset of the book, detailing the period from 1890 to 1970, the author frames the farmaans [diktats] of the imam [religious leader] as the impetus for the migratory routes that women, led by their patriarchs, took to access a safer future for themselves and their children, rooted firmly in their faith. It was this same faith that they drew strength from during arduous journeys with limited access to core necessities such as adequate food.

As Khoja Ismaili communities found their footing in the new lands that they were forced to make ‘home’, primal importance was given to the near-immediate establishment of a formal jamaatkhana. Within the formal jamaatkhana, the author spotlights communal work — such as cooking meals, washing dishes used in daily and communal feasts, sweeping floors and cleaning toilets — that became women’s work.

Through the retelling of the personal histories of the interlocutors, we learn that the women performing these acts of service did so not for any gain or acknowledgement, but from a place of devotion to their faith, which continued to carry them through the peaks and valleys of their lives — lives forged through continual challenges and upheavals.

By focusing on the daily ‘mundanities’ (cooking, cleaning) that allow sacred spaces such as the jamaatkhanas to operate, readers come to realise the impossibility of practising faith in familiar ways in the absence of the women who take proud ownership of their roles in the continuation of acts of service. These acts make the sacred spaces functional, so that other members of the community may experience within it all that falls within the domain of the spiritual.

As the book journeys through time and space, it reaches women from the community belonging to the North American diaspora. Here, the author explores culinary placemaking through cookbooks. These cookbooks, authored by Khoja Ismaili women, serve dual roles: as records of a sensorial history of the community through its foods, as well as serving future generations with a record of their roots, so they may, in turn, recreate a sense of communal belonging. This is provided through familiar foods that hold the history of a people that have traversed impossibly difficult terrains without ever losing sight of the faith that binds them.

The author includes second-generation accounts of the Shia Ismaili diasporic experience, again with the lens on women, towards the final pages of the book. Here, we see a dynamic display of this generation’s acts of seva manifesting through art, academia and technology in unique ways.

From digital seminars and academic dissertations that don’t shy away from the anti-Black racism of the community during its time in East Africa, to artwork that beautifully depicts the contemporary anti-Brown discrimination faced by women from the second generation, we see a complex tapestry of women from the community engaging with the faith tradition that they have inherited and proudly made their own.

Engaging with Shenila Khoja-Moolji’s work as an outsider to the Shia Ismaili community, as this reviewer has, enriches readers with insight into a faith group that, in our national context, is sometimes actively ostracised. To any Muslim interested in learning about the multitudinous ways Islam manifests in the times we live in, this book rewards the curious reader with a glimpse into the sacred material and non-material worlds through which the community continues to thrive.

Its focus on women’s acts of care as vehicles for communal continuity provides yet more evidence of the importance of women’s work in the arena of faith propagation, a space that has far too long been perceived as the domain of the masculine.

The reviewer is a communications professional with over 13 years of experience across publishing, advertising and television

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, May 10th, 2026

In recent years, we have seen emerging on the literary horizon of the Urdu world a sustained Jaun Elia frenzy among the young. While in many ways this is a reassuring tidal vogue, what we have here is a grand display of a complex figure that has a Janus face, for in the mêlée of a rowdy popularity, one of the faces of Jain Elia has become obscured.

Indeed, this mêlée has thrown into the blind spot a deeply philosophical and mythological aspect of our poet’s creative thought — his creative thought that is symbolic and abstract, often hauntingly self-referential, grounded deep in real or imaginal far-history.

This hidden aspect of Jaun Elia integrates the whole gamut of Western philosophical milieu, from Pre-Socratics and Plato through Ibn Sina to Wittgenstein, and it comes laced with the scriptural and mystical traditions of the ancient Near East, especially Mesopotamia: that is, the valley of Tigris and Euphrates reddened with the blood of Hussain and Hallaj.

This is a bit of a mouthful, and it certainly is, since this Jaun Elia can be dauntingly multilayered, intricate and undulating, not so easy to grasp. His shattering epic Ramuz (an unfamiliar, far-fetched word meaning “secret codes”) threatens to defeat the ordinary reader due to its intimidating vocabulary and terrifying metaphysical and mythological swings. And here is the Jaun Elia drowned out in the loud cheer of crowds thronging the streets of the Urdu world, a Jaun Elia we do not know.

Recently, Dr Nasir Abbas Nayyar wrote on these pages of Dawn an elegant essay unveiling before us the Janus face of Jaun Elia, pointing out that there is much more in the Elia repertoire than the hype. This article of mine can be considered a reinforcement of Nayyar sahib’s timely essay.

But it ought to be acknowledged that already, many years ago, my beloved senior friend and Jaun Elia’s nephew, the late Syed Mumtaz Saeed, had pointed out emphatically that the greatness of this poet lies not in his crowd-pleasing ghazals (monorhyme lyrical poems with thematically independent verses) but in nazms (thematically connected body of verses), and that he was so given to the sonorous cheers of musha’iras that he ignored nazm writing. As for the grand Ramuz, Mumtaz Saeed sahib says that it has the possibility of becoming one of the greatest nazms of Urdu. Did our poet ever complete this epic? Who knows…!

Yes, Jaun Elia can be a far cry from his familiar image as a frivolous poet of the “sharm, dehshat, jhijak, pareshani” [shyness, terror, hesitation, disconcert] fame —

Tablet of the Journey

I am exhausted —
From this end to that end,
Yes, I am too exhausted!
Edge after edge there is a journey of the vision of light
And there is exhaustion
Exhaustion is rapture begotten by journey
And I overflow with rapture

On the eyelashes of the empty chambers of Nothingness,
the vision in light weeps.
Now descends fog in its eyes
and fog puts on spectacles.
Obliterating its own estimations.

I am exhausted, from this end to that end, Too exhausted! When the journey was reckoned,
Then, what a particle of the speck
revealed to me remains an intimate affair
Which I shall not entrust to anyone
The reckoning of the journey is a personal matter of the particle.

The night of being is spread from galaxies to galaxies
I am inscribed by the dust of time
That inscription which is written on the very whirlwind of the dust
I am that inscription which has been read here in the fog
of the lost vision …

(Ramuz)

The Sophist

One who exists
Is the one who is bent every moment
On an effort to keep me away from
My refined thoughts and
My lauded ideas

So it came to pass last night
that the one begotten by Protagoras
born of defiled seed
tossing and turning on my bed
said without being prompted:
“words are higher than meanings.”

“Yes, words are manufactured
They are the gifts of thousand upon thousand years of
Fear-creating innovations of speech —
They are lineages,
Lineages which have their authenticating chains of narrators
Then, words have a history
And meaning has no history.”

(Shayad)

Is this the same Jaun Elia we popularly know?

The columnist teaches at the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi. All translations are by him

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, May 10th, 2026

In the opening moments of Vladimir, Netflix’s new erotic drama series, the protagonist M (Rachel Weisz) is sprawled on a couch in her negligee, writing in her notepad. She leans towards the camera, then stares into the lens to address you, the viewer, on your couch.

In film and television, this is called “breaking the fourth wall.” It is a ploy of metafiction: a kind of self-aware mode of storytelling.

The fourth wall is the invisible plane through which the camera observes the action. To break the fourth wall is to play with — or sever — audiences’ suspension of disbelief, and abandon the norms of screen narration.

The history of breaking the fourth wall is almost as long as the history of cinema itself. Edwin S. Porter’s film The Great Train Robbery ends with an outlaw firing his gun directly towards the camera. Back in 1903, audiences ducked for cover.

From Fleabag to Vladimir, why is an age-old visual storytelling ploy becoming so common on our screens?

Nearly a century later, director Martin Scorsese paid homage to Porter in Goodfellas (1990) in a scene where Mobster Tommy DeVito (Jo Pesci) fires his gun directly at the screen. Here, the fourth wall break is used in an existential moment for Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) — rather than for pure shock.

In fact, the shock value of the technique has depleted over time, as audiences have become more media literate.

Making the invisible visible

The fourth wall breaks from early cinema fast disappeared with the industrialisation of the medium. The rise of the American studio system privileged some film techniques over others.

The “Classical Hollywood” style — think Casablanca (1942) — was built on a premise of invisibility, from the carefully directed eye-lines of actors, to “continuity” editing that stitched together different camera angles.

In Breathless (À bout de souffle, 1959) Jean-Luc Godard opted for jump-cuts and “direct address.” This is when a character speaks to, or looks directly at, the viewer. Today, direct address is used widely across genres, from Barbie (2023), to Marvel’s Deadpool films (2016, 2018, 2024), and Jane Austen adaptations such as Persuasion (2022).

On television, we’ve seen women creators and characters explore the power of direct address in a recalibration of the “male gaze.” One example is Phoebe Waller-Bridges’ confessions to the camera in Fleabag (2016-19). Cinematographer Tony Miller notes how creative camera choices work in conjunction with direct address to make viewers “complicit in her [character’s] journey.”

The direct gaze

A fourth wall break is not always dialogue-driven. In Persona (1966), film auteur Ingmar Bergman directed his actors to stare deep into the abyss of the camera lens, delivering existential malaise.

This direct gaze has been remediated for streaming programmes, including in the intense close-up shots of Carmy (Jeremy Allen-White) in the final season of The Bear (2025), and knowing glances from the troubled Rue (Zendaya) in Euphoria (2019-26).

Fourth wall breaks can also be graphic. In Pulp Fiction (1994), Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) traces a square of light on the screen with her finger instead of calling Vincent Vega (John Travolta) a “square”. And in Michael Haneke’s films Funny Games (1997, 2007) a home invader literally “rewinds” the story when a victim kills his accomplice. These kind of wall-breaks call attention to the invisible membrane of the screen.

As filmmaker Mark Cousins attests in The Story of Film: An Odyssey, the medium has advanced over time through innovation and the recycling of techniques such as fourth wall breaks.

Is breaking the fourth wall back in vogue?

With the dominance of literary adaptations for the screen (and IP-driven screen stories in general), we’re likely to see more cases of direct address, as screenwriters seek to creatively refashion texts for the screen. Vladimir, for instance, is an adaptation of Julia May Jonas’ 2022 novel of the same name.

While breaking the fourth wall may have lost its shock value, it remains a bold storytelling device which, if done well, can set apart one screen production from another.

Actor Matt Damon recently pointed out how streamers such as Netflix are discussing the potential to reiterate “the plot three or four times in the dialogue” of a film, to account for people who scroll on their phone while listening to “background TV.”

Having a character speak directly to a distracted audience may be one way to return their gaze to the bigger screen.

Hyper-reality in unscripted TV

Breaking the fourth wall sits within a wider envelope of “metafictional” storytelling.

As screen culture becomes increasingly aware of its own machinery, unscripted genres such as reality TV are not merely breaking the fourth wall, but abandoning the conceit of separation entirely. The boundaries between cast, camera, story producers and audience have become increasingly porous.

Alex Baskin, executive producer of the long-running series Vanderpump Rules (2013-25), describes this as “hyperreality”. In the wake of Scandoval, the cheating scandal of Tom Sandoval, the reality TV cast started to intervene in the producers’ narrative arcs by speaking on camera about audience feedback, and providing meta commentary on their own “edits”.

When Ariana Madix (Sandoval’s ex) refused to film with him, it disrupted plans for a neat season finale based on his apology. Madix left the set, effectively ending the entire show. Fellow cast member Tom Schwartz called it a “plot twist.” Unsurprisingly, Scorsese is a fan of the show.

Meta and hyperreal storytelling will continue to be on the rise as screen creators seek to imbue a point-of-difference in a congested market — serving an ever-distracted audience.

The writer is Associate Professor, Media Arts & Production at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia

Republished from The Conversation

Published in Dawn, ICON, May 10th, 2026

Its reverberations have endured beyond history, finding lasting expression in cinema. Nearly 140 years later, from Hollywood to Bollywood, the question of workers’ rights persists as a powerful and recurring theme. Pakistani cinema too has dealt with this theme, depicting the working class through various lenses — at times charged with revolutionary zeal, at others woven into romantic storylines and occasionally framed within a moralistic discourse.

The period from the industry’s early years to the mid-1970s is often regarded as its formative and creatively vibrant phase. Although Pakistani cinema was still in the process of establishing its identity, films centred on labour and class struggles and not only reflected social realities but also earned critical recognition.

Anwar Kamal Pasha’s Inteqaam (Revenge, 1955) stands out as one of the earliest Pakistani films to foreground the divide between mill owners and workers, bringing class tensions to the cinematic forefront. In that era, films typically featured Sabiha Khanum and Santosh Kumar as the lead pair, with M. Ismail as the authoritative industrial patriarch, Alauddin as the villain, and Asif Jah providing comic relief.

Revisiting blue-collar, worker-centric films is not just an exercise in nostalgia, but a reminder of how Pakistani cinema once successfully engaged with class struggle, labour rights and social inequality

Inteqaam had one difference, which cost it heavily. Alauddin, famous for villainous roles, was eager for a song of his own. After listening to ‘Dugduggi bajaa ke zara mela laga ke’, he traded his scheming manager’s role for Asif Jah’s role as a street entertainer who sang the song. Eventually, neither could do justice to their parts, and the film fell flat.

In M.A. Rasheed’s Aas Paas (Nearby, 1957), Alauddin delivered a breakthrough performance in a positive, socially conscious role, portraying a man who stands up to an unjust system. The famous courtroom scene in which Alauddin proclaims, “Mere saath bhook ko bhi phaansi pe latkaa do, ya insaan ko uss duniya mein bhej do jahaan anaaj nahin ugta, bhook nahin lagti!” [Let hunger also be sent to the gallows with me, or let man be sent to a world where wheat doesn’t grow and hunger is non-existent!] says it all.

Subsequent films such as Hasrat (Desire, 1958), Aadmi (Man, 1958), Sasural (In-Laws, 1961) and Mehtab (1962) saw Alauddin comfortably embodying the persona of an “awami” (people’s) hero and landing the song ‘Gol gappay wala aaya’ in Mehtab. Alauddin reigned throughout the mid-’60s, until Mohammad Ali rose to prominence.

Jago Hua Savera (1959), also known as The Day Shall Dawn, brought global recognition to Pakistan. Rooted in the lives and struggles of fishermen, it culminates when a fisherman, overwhelmed by emotion after completing his boat, dies. This landmark film — Pakistan’s official submission to the Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category — was directed by A.J. Kardar, with the screenplay by Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Although the film began production during a democratic period, it was released during the era of Ayub Khan, when the country was moving into the American camp, and there was little space for anything perceived as ‘communist’.

In West Pakistan, the divide between the capitalist and the worker was clearly depicted in director Hasan Tariq’s debut film Neend (Sleep, 1959). Starring Noor Jehan, the film told the story of a servant exploited by her employer. Neend was among the early works of the renowned dialogue writer Riaz Shahid, whose literary sensibilities were deeply shaped by Faiz, who recognised the sharpness in his prose and advised him to try writing for films. Thus, Riaz Shahid brought a distinctly progressive voice into cinema.

Neend also marked the first time that the popular hero Aslam Pervez appeared as a villain — a mill owner — while Noor Jehan portrayed Sanwari, a poor coal picker. Her vulnerability becomes the reason she is trapped by a wealthy man. However, when she wakes up for her rights, no one can stop her.

Although 1966 belonged to Waheed Murad’s Armaan [Longing], it was Iqbal Shehzad’s Badnaam [Notorious] that left a lasting impact and immortalised Saadat Hasan Manto’s short story Jhumkay [Earrings]in celluloid history. Badnaam follows Deeno (Alauddin), a tonga driver who works tirelessly to be able to purchase a pair of earrings for his wife Hameeda (Nabeela) — only to find out she already has them. Suspecting infidelity, he confronts her with the iconic line, “Kahaan se aaye hain yeh jhumkay? [Where have these earrings come from?]”, before casting her out.

Years later, he faces the same dilemma when his daughter accepts similar earrings from a man, while Hameeda’s return as a fallen woman brings the conflict to a tragic end. A striking moment comes when Deeno addresses the globe he bought for his daughter’s education, turning it into a symbol of the wider world as he demands accountability: “Ae dunya aur dunya mein rehnay waalon, meri aankhon mein aankhein daal kar jawab do! [O’ this world and its inhabitants, look me in the eye and answer me!]” — a searing question directed not just at his circumstances, but at society at large. Riaz Shahid’s dialogues were crisp, poetic and hard-hitting.

Waheed Murad’s Samandar (Sea, 1968), portrayed the struggles of a working-class fishing community rising against a corrupt leadership. Its use of a boat race invites comparison with the tonga-versus-lorry race in Naya Daur (New Era, 1957), starring Dilip Kumar. Unlike Naya Daur, Samandar culminates in the tyrant’s fall and the reassertion of collective agency.

In 1969, Nadeem set out to produce Mitti Ke Putlay [Clay Puppets], and invited Faiz to its launch. However, its production only gained momentum after Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto announced a new labour policy in February 1972, following widespread nationalisation.

While the policy promised worker benefits, it also cautioned against unrest — promises that soon rang hollow. Disillusionment grew and, in June 1972, a sit-in at Karachi’s Feroz Textile Mills ended in police firing and the death of mill workers. Director Ehtesham drew on these events, shaped by his left-leaning sensibilities. Production delays, including his heart attack, pushed Mitti Ke Putlay’s release to February 1974, by which time the political fervour had subsided. Though it failed commercially, Mitti Ke Putlay earned recognition with a labour award at the Tashkent Film Festival.

Around the same time, actor Tariq Aziz announced a film initially titled Jiye Bhutto [Long Live Bhutto], later renamed Kala Sooraj [Black Sun], and it was eventually released in 1975 as Sajan Rang Rangeela [The Merry Lover]. Completed in 1973, the film faced censorship delays and was released late, leading to its failure. Tariq Aziz played a labour leader opposite Deeba, while Rangeela played a double role: an investor and his son. The film was a huge flop, and Tariq Aziz subsequently moved to Karachi for work. Had it clicked, he would never have worked on the popular Neelam Ghar, which became his lifelong identity.

After Gen Ziaul Haq came to power, Urdu films declined while Punjabi films became more prominent, with the focus shifting from industrialists and workers to feudal lords and peasants. Following the decline of the communist system, filmmakers no longer considered this theme suitable, and what had once been a powerful subject gradually became a thing of the past in Pakistan’s film industry.

Revisiting these films today is not merely an exercise in nostalgia; it is a reminder of cinema’s potential as a medium of social reflection and critique. In an era where economic disparities continue to widen globally, Pakistani cinema has an opportunity to rediscover and reimagine these narratives for a new generation — bringing the voice of the worker back into focus, where it has always belonged.

The writer is a vintage cinema enthusiast.

He can be reached at suhaybalavi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, ICON, May 10th, 2026

Zanjeerain | Hum TV, Wed-Thurs 8.00pm

Acclaimed writer Farhat Ishtiaq returns with a story about revenge and generational trauma.

Bibi Jan (Samiya Mumtaz) regrets that she was unable to love or care for Torsam (Usman Javed) because he was the son of her husband’s second wife. This turns him into a bitter, violent man, forcing others to bend to his will, including local dhaaba owner Rabiya (Sajal Aly), who despises him. Meanwhile, Mudassir (Ameer Gilani) is a regular visitor to Bibi Jan’s family because of his close friendship with her sons, Sar Buland (Danyal Zafar), Sardar Sherdil (Ahsan Khan) and Sohrab (Raza Ali Abid).

Director Shehzad Kashmiri’s aesthetic sense works overtime, picturising salt mines, acres of grazing land and the bleached-white ancestral havelis of the powerful, reminding us of a Pakistan not often seen on our screens. However, behind the beauty of the land is the cruelty of another feudal Zaffran Khan (Adnan Siddiqui). Dark secrets from the past haunt the present, and more tragedy is foreshadowed in Shehr Bano (Sahar Hashmi) and Sar Buland’s relationship. Like most Farhat Ishtiaq series, this show builds intensity steadily, so expect the audience to grow by the fifth or sixth episode.

Dr Bahu | ARY Digital, Fri-Sat 8.00pm

For an arranged match fina­lised with their parents’ full vetting and approval, Salman (Shuja Asad) and Dr Saniya (Kubra Khan) have faced significant family pushback after their marriage. Most of the issues stem from Salman’s domineering father Dr Shahnawaz (Shahzad Nawaz), a prominent doctor and CEO of two hospitals. Salman is the rebel, not a doctor, and he works to save his relationship and respects his wife.

Dr Shahnawaz’s elder son, Dr Faizan (Adeel Hussain), is ruining his marriage by cheating on his well-meaning and talented wife, Minna (Hajra Yamin), with another woman, Mahnoor (Mira Sethi), and has never stood up for his wife. Writer Sanam Mehdi draws a sharp comparison between the three men, highlighting how partnership and consultation better nurture love and stability than authoritarian and submissive models of behaviour.

Salman seems like a romantic ideal far from reality, but Shuja Asad’s strong performance is an excellent comeback, especially after the criticism of his role in Ae Ishq-i-Junoon. Becoming a female physician is highly prized in Pakistani culture, but it can become a poisoned apple that weighs an achiever down. This is great entertainment with a light critique of social issues.

Humrahi | Geo TV, Fri-Sat 8.00pm

Beautiful visuals and a story of self-sacrificing love have become another successful vehicle for the hit pairing of Danish Taimoor and Hiba Bukhari.

Criminal don Ghazi Yusuf’s (Shahzad Nawaz) ruthless opposition to his son Sayhaan’s (Danish Taimoor) marriage to Dr Elif (Hiba Bukhari) melts as he discovers his son’s life-threatening heart condition. A rare blood type and heart condition make a cure difficult, but (surprise) Elif has the same rare blood type! Elif is a deeply compassionate soul who loves Sayhaan and, despite knowing his weakness, she decides to marry him. How will Ghazi Yusuf react when he finds out that Elif holds the key to saving Sayhaan within her?

Babar Javed is a renowned director but the pace of this show is slow and contemplative, even though Zanjabeel Asim’s script needed a more suspenseful, thriller-style presentation. However, even the unbelievable miscasting of Shahzad Nawaz as a gangster has not slowed the show down, as the masses tune in for their favourite couple.

What To Watch Out For (Or Not)

Aik Mohabbat Aur Sahi | Green TV, Coming soon

Teasers introduce us to a serious, practical female lead (Maya Ali), focused on her career after learning that life is not a fairy tale, while Ahad Raza Mir is the easygoing guy who reminds her that it still can be.

Published in Dawn, ICON, May 10th, 2026

Her point was simple but powerful: Shakespeare’s works are likely to survive and flourish not only in English, but through translation, adaptation and reinvention across the world. Inspired by this, I asked four of my colleagues around the globe to share some Shakespearean adaptations in other languages that you might enjoy.

1. Goliyon Ki Raasleela

Ram-Leela (2013) Hindi, based on Romeo and Juliet

Ram-Leela is as heady a mix as Shakespeare’s own play, in equal parts comic and tragic, tender and flamboyant. Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali relocates the action of Verona to an Indian town riven by two criminal clans: the Rajadis and the Sanedas. Violence saturates daily life. Bullets spill from spice jars and a Rajadi child urinating on Saneda territory ignites a vicious brawl.

In such a world, can love bring peace? The leads’ scorching chemistry makes us hope. My students practically swooned during a screening. At the end, soulful lyrics such as “Tera naam ishq/ Mera naam ishq” [Your name is love/ My name is love] frame the film’s Romeo and Juliet — Ram and Leela — through love rather than their hate-fuelled lineage.

The film also gives depth to its Lady Capulet and nurse figures, while Leela is sensual, witty and brave. Juliet exactly as Shakespeare imagined her.

Varsha Panjwani teaches at New York University, London, in the UK and is the creator and host of the podcast Women and Shakespeare

Six non-English movies that have been adapted from William Shakespeare’s works that you might find enjoyable

2. Otel·lo (2012)

Catalan, based on Othello

An award-winning work of Catalan cinema, Otel·lo transposes Shakespeare’s play to a contemporary film studio. Such a meta-narrative approach feels in line with the play’s focus on the enticing power of storytelling — famously embodied in the character of Iago as its arch-villain.

Blending documentary, mockum­entary and thriller aesthetics, the film turns Iago into an unscrupulous filmmaker willing to cross every boundary in the name of art. With his role played by the actual director of the film (Hammudi Al-Rahmoun Font), the adaptation skilfully integrates form and content. We are, like Othello, manipulated into thinking that the fiction he has created is reality.

The film asks: to what extent are the images we absorb real? What purpose do they serve? And how do they affect our views on gendered and racialised minorities?

Inma Sánchez García is Lecturer in European languages and Culture at the University of Edinburgh in the UK

3. Throne of Blood (1957)

Japanese, based on Macbeth

The genius of Throne of Blood is that, despite being set in 16th-century Japan and changing almost everything about the original, it is immediately recognisable as the Scottish play. It’s considered by many to be the greatest Shakespeare film ever made.

The mist-swirled locations, the screeching flute and ominous drumbeats, the spooky old lady in the forest and, above all, the samurai, barking orders and getting lost on their horses, can mean only that “Macbeth doth come.” The final scene, when Washizu’s (Macbeth’s) soldiers turn on him with a hail of arrows, may even represent an improvement on Shakespeare. Meanwhile, his poker-faced lady clearly wears the kimono-trousers in their marriage.

Daniel Gallimore is Professor of Literature and Linguistics at Kwansei Gakuin University, Nishinomiya in Japan

4. Bhrantibilas (1963)

Bengali, based on Comedy of Errors

If you asked me to pick a favourite Shakespeare film, I’d probably surprise people by saying Bhrantibilas. It’s one of the earliest filmed Shakespeare adaptations in Indian cinema. It was also the inspiration for the globally popular Indian film Angoor (1982).

What I love about it is how confidently it relocates Shakespeare’s farce into a Bengali urban world without ever feeling like a dutiful “literary” exercise. A huge part of its lasting appeal is Bengali superstar Uttam Kumar. It’s pure pleasure watching him play the twin roles — Antipholus of Syracuse and Antipholus of Ephesus, identical twins separated at birth, whose accidental reunion causes chaos. His comic timing is razor-sharp, and there’s also an ease and charm that makes the confusion feel human, never mechanical.

Decades on, audiences still return to Bhrantibilas, often knowing every gag by heart, which says a lot about its cultural afterlife. For me, it’s a perfect example of how Shakespeare survives not through reverence but through reinvention — absorbed into popular cinema and kept alive by star power, humour and sheer re-watchability.

Koel Chatterjee is Lecturer in English at Regent College, London in the UK and the creator and host of The Shakespop Podcast and The Shakesfic Podcast.

5. Rahm (2016)

Urdu, based on Measure for Measure

Measure for Measure has long been regarded as a “problem play”. Disfavoured among Shakespeare’s works for centuries, it hit stages again in the 20th century and reached new audiences through its resonances with the #MeToo movement.

A local leader tells a devout woman that if she loses her virginity to him, he will spare her imprisoned brother’s life. This film shifts the action from early modern, Catholic Vienna to an ambiguous period in Islamic-era Lahore. Moderate and extremist versions of faith contend against the backdrop of the city. This film’s billing as a thriller, and status as the only big screen version of the play, help raise it from obscurity.

Sarah Olive is a senior lecturer in English literature at Aston University, Birmingham in the UK

6. To The Marriage of True Minds (2010)

Arabic, based on Sonnet 116

This freely available short film expands on one of Shakespeare’s shortest forms: the sonnet. It riffs on Sonnet 116, heard at countless weddings: “Let me not to the marriage of true minds… admit impediments.” Here, its Arabic translation provides both the backstory to — and future hope for — an asylum-seeking couple in a same-sex relationship, Falah (Amir Boutrous) and Hayder (Waleed Elgadi).

The story of their journey by sea, and shots of a tossed-about paper boat reference the poem’s sea-voyage imagery. Over 12 tense minutes, we hold our breath to see whether the Iraqi poet and his childhood beloved will overcome the impediments of religious conservatism, on one shore, and an apparently hostile asylum system on the other.

The writer is Senior Lecturer in English literature at Aston University, Birmingham in the UK

Republished from The Conversation

Published in Dawn, ICON, May 10th, 2026

But that’s okay. This adaptation of Michael’s life — directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Equalizer), written by John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator), and produced by Graham King (Bohemian Rhapsody, The Departed) — is a perfect recap-cum-balancing act.

A film that’s neither ‘Dangerous’ when it comes to pushing narrative boundaries, nor ‘Bad’ when it comes to storytelling, nor a ‘Thriller’ when it comes to keeping you hooked on unexpected plot turns, nor just ‘Black or White’. It gives you just enough “best of” moments to keep you engaged, but plays it safe by toning down the creativity.

For the most part, the way Fuqua, Logan and King tell the story suggests that their priority is to present the most dramatic, mellow and generally palatable representation of Michael’s life. It is a straightforward account of what people already know, presented in a way where the drama doesn’t shatter the ceiling, or introduce the kind of human frailty and fallibility that might sully Michael Jackson’s image.

Michael is a harmless, good enough film about a musical icon who didn’t care to be just ‘good enough’

Like I said earlier, it is a balancing act — one that only delves into the first half of the pop icon’s life; a story about a young man freeing himself from his father’s shackles. It is a hard sell, let me tell you, because the angle is all bark and no bite.

In 1966, we see Michael as a young prodigy (Juliano Krue Valdi) whose ambition is kept in check by his dad, Joseph ‘Joe’ Jackson (Colman Domingo). Joe, a steelworker from Gary, Indiana, is an enterprising, hard man who wants his children, The Jackson 5, to be a perfect music band. That means late-night rehearsals on school nights without a peep. When Michael, the shining star of the group, objects, he gets the belt.

The young Michael — though he loves his family — bides his time and, within two years, his charisma and talent lands the band at Motown Records, the biggest label for African American artists. Success comes quickly, and the family quickly moves from their small house to a mansion.

Michael grows up, now played by his real-life nephew, Jaafar Jackson, who blurs the lines between sincerity and parody with a committed performance. We see his quirks (he calls his pet giraffe, llama and his chimp, Bubbles, his friends), some human depth (he visits terminally ill children in hospital wards), his yearnings (he fancies the infantile escape from reality that Peter Pan represents), his technical and creative ambition, and his soft, diabolical side.

We see his ‘Smooth Criminal’ ways when he uses his new record label power to fire his dad. By the time the film nears its two-hour runtime, one wonders how it will culminate Michael’s journey, when there is just so much left to tell.

You won’t like the answer: with an ending card that reads, “His story continues.”

One film, in this case, isn’t enough. The better, darker parts of Michael’s life are definitely just around the bend in a sequel that has already been greenlit. Perhaps that one will have the guts to not be this sterile or merely stick to the surface.

Despite the lack of daring storytelling-wise, the production is top-notch, and the songs force you to involuntarily swing back and forth in your seat, but that goes without saying — this is a harmless, good enough film for a man who didn’t care to be just “good enough.”

Released by HKC and Universal, Michael is, unsurprisingly and perhaps amusingly — given the studio-rated ‘U’ (Universal) — suitable for audiences of all ages.

The writer is Icon’s primary film reviewer

Published in Dawn, ICON, May 10th, 2026

A documentary titled Intertango — A Connection for Life, directed by the German filmmaker Hanne Weyh, will be screened at the Arts Council in Karachi on May 16. The project explores tango as an ‘intercultural phenomenon’ and features dance enthusiasts (read: dancers) from four countries — Japan, Argentina, Russia and Pakistan. You might ask, who is the dancer from Pakistan? Well, he’s a passionate music and art lover — and former commissioner of Karachi — Iftikhar Shallwani. He has also authored a book titled Tango Travels: A Life in Embrace. All this clearly means that, sometimes, it takes four, and not two, to tango — but also a whole lot of flair.

Respect, Please!

In a recent TV interview, Lollywood star Reema Khan did not sound happy (it wasn’t about that particular interview, mind you). She thinks podcasters, who have come up in large numbers in recent years, don’t treat their guests with respect. As an example, she cited a podcast conversation with her contemporary, Meera, in which the podcaster’s questions left her feeling “disheartened”. Instead of focusing on an artist’s work, some podcasters home in on their guests’ private lives, she said. We are with you on this one, Reema K. Everyone deserves a little respect, even if they live in the spotlight.

Cheat Heat

Last week, actress Saba Faisal created quite a stir in society. Addressing women, she said, “If your husband cheats around, he’ll come back to you eventually.” Obviously, most netizens and showbiz stars raised their eyebrows at such a statement. Actress Mansha Pasha expressed her opinion on Instagram pretty powerfully: “Instead of trying to raise awareness of the toxic traits society still instils in men today, please do not use public platforms to keep reinforcing the habits that are not only against all morality and religious teachings, but are the cause of a lot of family problems and mental trauma for both partners and children alike.” Agreed. But let Saba F live the life she wants to live.

Film City In The Making

Here’s another feather in the already well-decorated cap of the Punjab government vis-à-vis its efforts in helping our film industry stand on its feet. On April 29, the Punjab Film City Authority Bill was passed by its provincial assembly by a majority vote. The proposed authority envisages a ‘film city’ which will house moviemaking schools, music academies, and production houses, with the infrastructure required for such activities. The whole effort, according to Senior Minister of Punjab Marriyum Aurangzeb, is to develop ‘screen tourism’ and film production capacity. Great initiative! Well begun is half done.

Turtle Ick

Emily Blunt is back in the news with the release of her film The Devil Wears Prada 2, in which she stars alongside Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. Since her new film is about fashion, during an interview with TV host Jimmy Fallon, the British actress talked about her husband, actor/director John Krasinski’s sartorial choices. She said that, at the Golden Globes, he wore a turtleneck and looked like a young Michael Caine, giving off a 1960s vibe. “But normally, a man in a turtleneck gives me the ick,” she added. She can be Blunt, that one.

Idiotic Sequel

All of you who liked or loved director Rajkumar Hirani’s 2009 box office hit 3 Idiots, brace yourself. A sequel to the film is in the works. This has been confirmed by the star of the movie, Aamir Khan, himself. Retaining the original cast (Aamir K, Sharman Joshi and R. Madhavan) and with the same man in the director’s seat, the story is set a decade after the events of the first instalment. Well, all we can say is that, even in the first film, Aamir K hardly looked like a college or university student. Seventeen years (of filming) on, we hope he will, in the words of the late musician Prince, act his age, not his shoe size.

Published in Dawn, ICON, May 10th, 2026

“Indian music comes and trends for a few days, but the music that comes out of Pakistan stays — especially our qawwali. It is part of our identity.”

— Shaan Shahid, actor

“The original time lapse in the script of Kafeel was 27 years. Subuk was 26, Javeria was 25 when she got married, and the youngest, Tania, was 18. Due to casting changes, the time lapse was reduced, which led many people to feel the drama was showing very young children getting married.”

— Umera Ahmed, writer

“Marriage is a waste of time. Even research suggests it benefits men more than women.”

— Quratulain Baloch, singer and songwriter

“The people delivering our food and driving us around spend their entire day on the road. With petrol prices rising, things are getting even harder for them. If you can, please tip them generously. It’s the least we can do.”

— Sajal Aly, actor

Published in Dawn, ICON, May 10th, 2026

It is a hot afternoon when I arrive at Sheheryar Munawar’s office at Three’s Entertainment, his production house. As I wait for him, I get a chance to take in his office.

The walls are painted purple and film posters hang around the room. A chandelier fashioned out of green wine bottles hangs above. A floor lamp with a stand that resembles a gun is in a corner. The room has clearly been curated by someone who cares about aesthetics.

When Sheheryar enters, he matches the image in my mind: slightly long hair, stubble, shirt buttons casually undone. Before we even settle into conversation, he says that he is someone who is honest but controversy-averse, remarking that people often have “huge egos and small hearts.”

As the conversation progresses, it becomes clear that Sheheryar is brimming with opinions, although he believes not every thought is meant for the public.

Actor, writer, producer and director Sheheryar Munawar is revelling in his ‘second innings’ on television. But he has strong opinions on art versus commercialism, on what he wants to engage with personally, on human nature and on constantly improving himself. How does he do it all while also playing cricket, savouring food, learning music and building Lego worlds?

FROM A-LEVELS TO ADS

Sheheryar’s entry into the industry did not begin with acting as one might expect. He started modelling soon after his A-levels and later studied at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), where he pursued a degree in finance with a minor in advertising.

While studying advertising, he was also starring in TV commercials which gave him the chance to see how they were made. “It was almost like I was getting on-the-job training without having graduated. In my advertising classes, I wouldn’t say I showed off, but I would mention that I worked in ads for various brands… I had bragging rights,” he remembers with a laugh.

He briefly worked at Engro Foods and later joined Rocket Internet, the venture capital firm that launched Daraz in Pakistan. By his own account, he was doing well and had a stable career trajectory ahead of him. But life had other plans.

While he was studying at IBA, he had also worked in a number of TV dramas, including Meray Dard Ko Jo Zuban Miley and Zindagi Gulzar Hai. And, as more acting offers came his way, he decided to chuck it all and pursue a career in acting full time.

THE ACCIDENTAL ACTOR

“I started getting a lot of calls for acting assignments and, although I was enjoying my job, I decided to quit and pursue acting. I tend to give 150 percent to whatever I do, I’m a bit of a workaholic that way. I felt acting would be an interesting experience — something new to explore.”

Surprisingly, however, acting didn’t captivate him too much at first. After collaborating with director Asim Raza on an ad, he was drawn to the world behind the camera, and eager to uncover the “method behind the madness.” Starting as an intern, he rose to assistant director (AD), then helmed commercials himself.

Together, Sheheryar and Raza launched Vision Factory Films and co-produced movies such as Ho Mann Jahan and Parey Hatt Love, in which Sheheryar wore the hats of both actor and producer.

Then came what he calls his “second innings” in television in the 2020s. And this time, he enjoyed acting more than the first time.

“I’ve enjoyed this phase much more, largely because working behind the camera gave me a very different kind of understanding of the work. I’m able to enjoy my characters more now. When I take on a role — I usually do just one project a year — I go in fully prepared.” As he talks, he gets up to show me some of his scripts with his notes in the margins. Clearly, he is a thinking actor.

Curious, I ask what makes this “second innings” so enjoyable — has his time in production and direction changed the way he approaches acting?

He pauses, considering the question. “I think it’s a combination of all those things,” he replies. “When I was working as an AD and spending time behind the camera, I was constantly learning. I was also reading a lot of books on acting and its different schools of thought, including An Actor Prepares.”

THE APPEAL OF IMPERFECTION

I remark that his recent roles are shaded in grey, and are far more complex than the straightforward heroes of his early days. He nods in agreement.

“It’s a conscious effort, but it’s also about the depth of the characters I’m playing now,” he says. “A human being is never perfect. Nobody is. We’re not meant to be. So, even if a writer gives me a seemingly perfect character, my job is to find the imperfections within him.

“I don’t just enjoy playing the virtues — I’m far more interested in the flaws. Machine-made things can be perfect, but there’s more beauty in something handmade — in its irregularities, in the marks of the craft.”

He gives the example of his character in Ae Ishq-i-Junoon. “On paper, Rahim was the ideal brother — dependable and loving. But I played him in a way that kept the audience slightly uneasy, as if something wasn’t quite right and they kept wondering if he was hiding something.”

He adds: “As Winston Churchill once said about a man he despised, ‘He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.’” That, in many ways, captures the essence of building a character for him. “It’s about deciding which virtues or vices and imperfections will make them likeable.”

FILM VERSUS TELEVISION

Given that he has worked in films and TV, I ask him which medium he prefers.

“I’d say both have their own strengths,” he says with practised ease. “In films, everything is larger than life — not just the characters, but the entire scale of production. From the sets to the supporting cast, from elaborate sequences to dances and costumes. Even the promotions are larger-than-life. That’s what makes it exciting.”

Television, on the other hand, is a very different challenge, as a narrative can span 35 episodes — sometimes even longer. “As a lead in a 35-episode drama, you’re looking at roughly 70 to 80 days of work, often with 12-hour shoots,” he points out.

“But what television demands — and offers — is having to sustain a character over a long arc, and it really polishes you as an actor. I enjoy both the processes, but they’re very different.”

ON PRIVILEGE AND PERCEPTION

Given that he is the nephew of producer and the founder of the Hum TV Network Sultana Siddiqui and that his father was also on the board of directors of Hum, I ask him whether people thought things came to him easily or if he was ever labelled a “nepo baby”?

He responds with ease without the slightest hesitation or irritation: “My first proper lead role and hit came very early in my career — in Aasmanon Pe Likha — which was with Geo. That was one of my first substantial roles. That came from a network I had no familial connection with.

“After that, I worked primarily with ARY. And there’s no blood relation there either — ARY is simply one of the leading networks in the country. Naturally, if you’re doing one project a year, your chances of success are higher when you’re working with a channel that has strong reach and viewership.”

He also points out that he has worked with Hum briefly and that too early in his career in dramas in which he had smaller roles. “There could be many assumptions or gossip around that, but the reality is quite straightforward. I can honestly say that whatever I’ve achieved has been through my own work. I produced my first film at 26. Nobody had anything to do with that except my own efforts.”

MESSAGING OR ENTERTAINMENT?

Calling Sheheryar simply an actor hardly does justice to his range — he is also a writer, director and producer. He’s penned and directed two short films, Prince Charming and Budhi Ghorri Laal Lagaam, and he urges me to watch them.

When I bring up the lack of diversity in dramas, he gently pushes back.

“If you watch Prince Charming, you won’t even realise I’m talking about postpartum marital depression,” he says. “I start off with a woman, and it appears as if she’s cheating on her husband in her own house.”

That, he explains, was deliberate: “I wanted to grab you. I spoke in a language I know will make you tick. In the end, I left you with a message about postpartum marital depression. And you become more empathetic towards women as a result. I gave you a message, but I also entertained you at the same time.”

He sees polarisation as a major issue in the television industry. “Some filmmakers are very commercial while others sermonise.”

He is blunt about content that doesn’t connect with audiences: “You call it art. I’m sorry, if people don’t watch it, it’s not art. If an expression is not creating an impression then, logically, it’s not an expression. It becomes a self-indulgent rant.”

He is also critical of filmmakers who say that they don’t care about ratings. “Then why are you in this business? Write a diary instead. Maybe someone will publish your memoirs.”

FINDING THE MIDDLE GROUND

For him, the solution lies in finding a middle ground. “You need to say something important, but in an entertaining manner — so people actually want to watch it and don’t feel that they are being preached to.”

He explains further. “Even a hakeem [traditional healer] gives meethi dawa [sweet medicine] — you need to sugarcoat medicine to make it work. The hardest thing is finding that middle ground between art and commercial storytelling. And that’s exactly what we’re trying to do at Three’s Entertainment.”

He cites the recent Fahad Mustafa and Mahira Khan-starrer Aag Lagay Basti Mein as an example of positive messaging delivered through entertainment.

“I loved the film. It was entertaining. But it also touched on something very interesting — the golden paint that the beggars are made to wear. Through the film, they entertained you, but also showed the plight of such beggars. At the end of the day, that was something you took away — that this is wrong and we need to do something about it.”

THREE’S COMPANY, ONE VISION

As the conversation moves towards the production house, he calls in Sonya Khan, his partner in the company (the third partner is Salman Iqbal, her husband who heads ARY). She echoes Sheheryar’s views and adds that, at the end of the day, TV is a consumer-driven business.

“When you’re in this business, you can’t just produce what you personally like. You also have to consider what the audience is ready to watch. It is about balance — you want to educate and evolve their taste, but you can’t impose it all at once. It has to happen gradually,” she says.

THE MANY PASSIONS OF SHEHERYAR

Curious about how he juggles so much, I ask if he ever finds time for anything beyond work. To my surprise, his list of hobbies is long.

“I’m a very sporty man,” he responds. “I play a lot of cricket as well as padel and squash. I’m also a voracious reader and a film enthusiast, with a long list of comfort movies I revisit. Documentaries, true crime and history [genres], fascinate me.

“My passion for history also runs deep — I love reading, watching and discussing it. Politics and political theory intrigue me too — Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince is a favourite. I love philosophy and psychology.”

Some might call some of his interests dry, but he finds them fascinating, especially the ones related to understanding human behaviour. “I love studying human behaviour because I feel like, when I write, it allows me to get into my characters. Even when I act, it really helps me to understand how people think and what makes them tick. Something that really excites me is trying to understand how people think.”

Music is another love. “My wife also sings, and we even have a ustaad who gives us lessons. I’m also a Lego enthusiast, building massive, intricate sets meant for adults with 16,000 or so pieces. I was also into aeromodelling and remote-controlled planes. I’ve always been a bit of a nerd. I have a very active mind, so I need to keep it occupied with things that allow me to create constructively, as opposed to being destructive and think about people.”

He also calls himself a foodie — he loves to eat and sometimes even travels to pursue his love for cuisine. “Last year, my wife and I spent a week in Thailand simply to savour the food. For me, food is a major factor in choosing travel destinations. I also adore Turkish food.”

A STUDENT OF THE CRAFT

With so much on his plate (no pun intended), it’s impressive he manages it all, I tell him. But can he be pinned down?

“If I had to describe myself, I’d say I’m a student of the performing arts. Acting, directing, producing — they’re all interconnected. Directing sharpened my acting, and both helped me become a better producer. They are really just different roles within the same creative machine.”

He adds: “These days, acting feels like a luxury — a chance to have fun without stress. Producing is the toughest job, while directing and acting together is still manageable.”

So, what’s next for Sheheryar Munawar?

He says he’s looking forward to his role in the forthcoming play Dar-i-Nijaat that Three’s Entertainment is currently making in addition to other serials. Though he keeps details under wraps, he shares that the role is challenging, and he’s working to add layers to it and his face lights up as he talks about it.

As the conversation winds down, I ask Sheheryar if there’s any particular character he has played that he most identifies with. “Rahim [from Ae Ishq-i-Junoon],” he shoots back immediately. “He had an inherent need to be good, but he also had to face his own demons — and I think that’s my journey too. At the core, I believe everyone needs to ask themselves what their purpose is. For me, it’s simple: keep improving at everything I do. That’s why I think I’ve been sent into this world.”

This sense of purpose — to keep improving and to keep searching for and bringing out imperfections — seems to be what defines and drives him.

The writer is a member of staff. Instagram: @mamunadil

Published in Dawn, ICON, May 10th, 2026

The Aglaonema ‘Super White’, a hybrid cultivar in the Araceae family, is known for its predominantly white leaves with dark green mottling along the edges. This cultivar is commonly referred to as Chinese Evergreen.

As an imported plant, it is not widely available at nurseries and is usually found at outlets that specialise in exotic varieties. The plant can also be ordered from online plant sellers, including those based in other cities. When purchased online, the Super White arrives in a plastic pot, with leaves wrapped in newspapers. The plant does not require immediate repotting or transfer to a larger container or open space.

Initially, place the plant near other plants to help it acclimatise to its new environment. It should also be watered thoroughly until water runs freely from the drainage hole. As a slow growing plant, it requires minimal care. New leaves typically emerge in between four to eight weeks, during which time the roots gradually establish themselves within the pot.

Once the roots start to emerge from the drainage hole of the pot, it is time to repot the plant into a larger container. Depending on the age of the plant at the time of purchase, repotting may be required after one to three years.

Not all houseplants want constant attention. But when it needs to be repotted, the Super White likes a careful hand…

When preparing the space for transplanting the Super White, gardeners must be mindful of a few things. Do not use nursery soil, as it starts to compact with time, which can hinder root growth and plant development. A better option is to use a potting mix that provides an airy texture — with good tilth, looseness and adequate aeration.

For an economical option, materials such as perlite, coco coir or coconut husk can be handy and are also easily available at seed stores and online. These materials can be used on their own or mixed with nursery soil. Their combination can provide enough aeration and water drainage to support the roots of the newly shifted plant.

The plant should be carefully removed from the pot, after watering it beforehand, to ensure that the soil along with the roots remain clumped and intact. It is easier to remove the plant when the pot is plastic. In the case of a clay pot, do the following. First, gently tap the outer wall of the pot. Then, invert the pot while supporting the plant and soil surface with your palm.

While inverted, use your thumb to gently loosen the soil emerging from the pot’s drainage hole. As the plant slides out from the rim of the pot, still inverted and balanced on the palm, overturn it and place it carefully into the prepared space. After putting the plant in its permanent place, fill the space and cover it with a fine layer of compost. Insert a small wooden stick with the plant for vertical support.

Sometimes, the content of the pot does not slide out easily. In such a case, break the pot from the outside to get the content. This can be done by carefully cracking the pot using a tool such as a small spade or hammer.

Once the Super White has been transplanted, water thoroughly until excess drains from the pot. The newly prepared pot should be kept away from sources of extreme heat. It should be away from direct sunlight exposure as well. The plant should be placed in bright light and in places with better humidity. Soon, the Super White will start thriving and its striking foliage will add character to your garden or indoor space.

Please send your queries and emails to doctree101@hotmail.com. The writer is a physician and a host for the YouTube channel ‘DocTree Gardening’ promoting organic kitchen gardening

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 10th, 2026

Until Banchan, Karachi diners dismissed live Korean barbecue (BBQ) as a gimmick. People would line up at every new place claiming to have a Korean menu, only to lose interest almost immediately, as if the excitement had never been real. The only appeal, it seemed, was its newness and the curiosity people had for it, thanks to K-dramas, but it was never enough to earn loyalty.

Banchan, a restaurant that quietly opened right next to BBQ Tonight — another beloved eatery in the city — changed all of that.

BANCHAN

When it started to offer Korean BBQ on its menu, it did so without fanfare. People discovered it by “stumbling upon” it. For a long time, people did not even post it on their Instagram. Then word spread fast — and suddenly Banchan was running on back-to-back reservations. You could not even go on a random Tuesday and find a table. It was packed like every day was a weekend.

At its core, it offered a live meat-grilling experience. If a hotpot lets you cook ingredients in a bubbling broth at your own table, Korean BBQ lets you cook marinated meat over a grill — also at your table.

For years, live East Asian BBQ in Karachi was a novelty that couldn’t hold its audience. The question used to be: why would I pay to cook my own food? Nobody’s asking that anymore

What makes it exciting is all the side dishes that accompany it — known as banchan in Korean cuisine. You get pickled radish, kimchi, a dipping sauce and a host of other pickled vegetables that brighten up your table because the fermentation process sharpens their colour.

When Banchan did Korean BBQ, it really worked on helping people understand what it was offering, unlike the restaurants that had tried and failed before it. So, it did not just draw the curious diner who had watched a K-drama but also those who like to have good food in Karachi.

The social media posts on their page remained minimal but they trained their servers to almost be intuitive with their service. You could do the barbecue yourself if you wanted, but the servers knew when to step in — and they cooked the meat exactly right, every time.

And just as the meat would start to grill, the sides would fly out from the kitchen effortlessly, covering your entire table — so there was just enough room to eat. Conversation could wait.

A big thing in our city is trust. Can diners count on a place to deliver the same food experience over several visits? For Banchan, consistency never seemed to be in question.

And now that the city had warmed up to the idea of live East Asian BBQ, it was inevitable that another place would follow.

KAOROU

That place was KaoRou.

KaoRou is a restaurant that opened on Khayaban-i-Nishat in DHA Phase VI. It offers live BBQ and a variety of pickled sides to go with it.

The difference? KaoRou’s take is inspired from North Chinese cuisine rather than Korean.

The marination of the meat and the sides is where you can spot a variance. In the North Chinese take, the marinade leans towards cumin-heavy savoury notes, while in Korean BBQ, the meat tends to be sweet-savoury. The sides in Korean BBQ are numerous and included in the meat order but, in North Chinese BBQ, they have to be ordered separately.

KaoRou is also designed to be more spacious, so it never gives off the “packed” feeling that Banchan does. It spans two floors, offers private dining rooms and features a “dipping sauce” station that lets you assemble your own customised sauce to go with your BBQ order. The station consists of many medium-sized golden bowls, which contain ingredients such as peanut sauce, chilli oil, oyster sauce, green onions, sesame seeds, minced garlic and more that you can add to a small container, in whatever quantities you like, to make your own sauce.

While Banchan has become a trusted fixture that people readily recommend to visitors, KaoRou is yet to earn that same trust.

But one thing is for certain — the concept of live BBQ is no longer seen as a sham. There are fewer murmurs of “Why would I pay to cook my own food?” and a greater excitement for trying things that seem unfamiliar.

Banchan’s appetisers — corn tempura among them — have converted even the most sceptical diner. Similarly, KaoRou’s cheesy corn, pickled eggplants, boiled peanuts and pickled garlic have found their own following.

When it comes to dessert, Banchan has kept the menu familiar, with tiramisu and chocolate mousse. KaoRou’s dessert menu ventures into a chilled fruit and sago pudding that goes much better with the meat heavy dinner.

It seems like the initial reluctance to live BBQ has paved the way for the concept to exist in a more refined format — where it meets customers’ expectations of quality of food and a dining experience but without compromising authenticity.

People are no longer lamenting, “Oh no, another live BBQ place in Karachi.” They are finally thinking: What’s next?

The reviewer is a food writer and a digital content creator. Instagram: @GirlGottaEat

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 10th, 2026

Dear Auntie,

I am a 20-year-old man. I belong to a small village in District Nagar, Gilgit-Baltistan. I am writing not with a problem, but with a feeling I find difficult to express.

When I was 11 years old, my family sent me to Karachi to study at a madressah. During that time, a very kind and generous family took me in. They treated me with care and encouraged me to pursue formal education, alongside my religious studies.

With their support, I enrolled in a school and successfully completed my matriculation. They then motivated me to continue further and I completed my intermediate from Gulshan College. Later, with their continued encouragement, I gained admission to Iqra University (Main Campus), where I am now in my final year.

Even today, they are guiding me to pursue an MBA and continue my education. Their kindness, support and belief in me have completely changed the course of my life.

‘How Do I Repay A Family That Changed My Life?’

However, sometimes, I feel confused and overwhelmed when I think about how to properly thank them. Words seem insufficient for the generosity they have shown me. I deeply appreciate everything they have done, but I don’t know how to express my gratitude in a meaningful way.

I would sincerely appreciate your advice on how I can acknowledge and repay such kindness, even in a small way.

Grateful

Dear Grateful,

What a refreshing letter. It truly warmed Auntie’s heart. The feeling you have in your heart is rare and very precious. Your gratitude is genuine and a reminder to all of us to stop our busy lives and think about the countless blessings we have in our lives. The fact that you, at a very young age, are pausing to think about how this family helped you, says a lot about the kind of person you are.

How does anyone repay such kindness? Also, I don’t think that such kind and generous people are waiting to get repaid. The right thing to do would be to honour what they have done for you.  To begin with, you can simply tell them everything you have written to me in this letter. Tell them that their support has literally changed your life. You can also write them a letter telling them all of this.

Also, simply continuing with your education and working hard to build a career is another way to honour their support. Go ahead and finish that degree, and if an MBA is your thing… do it. Live a life that will make them proud of you.

Another way to share your gratitude is to help them out in any way that you can. Help out around their house whenever you can, without being asked. Be respectful and helpful. This will mean more than any grand gesture that you might be considering.

But the best way of honouring this family is to pay it forward and help change someone else’s life. It can be another student from a remote area, who you can support when you are able to.

Also, your story and your deep feelings of gratitude tell me that this family, who supported you, also saw something special in you. They were not wrong about you.

So, don’t look for the right words to express your feelings. Express yourself verbally in whatever way you can. More importantly, take action that honours the family’s kindness and which shows why their kindness was worth it. May God give all of us this problem.

I send you love and good wishes for your journey ahead.

Disclaimer: If you or someone you know is in crisis and/or feeling suicidal, please go to your nearest emergency room and seek medical help immediately.
Auntie will not reply privately to any query.
Please send concise queries to:
auntieagni@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 10th, 2026

In the early 2020s, the Belgian political theorist Anton Jäger coined the term “hyperpolitics”. He noticed that, in this day and age, politics seemed to be everywhere and in everything but was not catalysing any real change. At least not the way politics used to in the 20th century.

The last century was an era of mass political activity (‘mass politics’) driven by large political parties, unions and macro-ideologies. According to Jäger, until the 1980s, political life was anchored by “thick institutions” that acted as a bridge between the individual and the state. But by the 1990s, “post-politics” had set in and replaced mass politics.

In the era of post-politics, the polity became increasingly consumerist in nature and governance was left in the hands of technocrats. Conflict was suppressed and political parties became hollow after delegating important economic and social tasks to ‘experts’ serving the interests of large banks and multinational corporations. Then, from the early 2010s, a sudden return of political energy filled the vacuum left behind by the docility of post-politics. It is this energy that Jäger calls hyperpolitics.

But this energy is nothing like the one that had carried countries towards widespread change and even revolutions in the 20th century. That energy had begun to wane from the 1980s, increasingly replaced by an emphasis on the well-being of the ‘self’ through consumerism and the commodification of identities.

Once anchored by ideologies and movements, politics is now increasingly performed through aesthetics and consumption, as ‘allegiances’ are signalled through brands rather than a sustained struggle

Mass politics started suffering fatigue and the individual became the “new self.” But the new self wasn’t the rugged, reflective and morally ambiguous manifestation of individualism of previous eras. The post-political individual was a ‘sensitive’, self-centred person entirely invested in their own ‘happiness’ and ‘contentment’. In a way, they were more manageable for governments and multinationals.

They consumed politics like they did consumer brands. In fact, corporate brands began to define the identities of these individuals just like political ideologies had done before the 1980s. They ‘became’ the brand they wore, drank, ate etc. In her 1999 book No Logo, the Canadian author Naomi Klein wrote that corporations shifted from selling products to selling ‘meaning’. In 1968, the French sociologist Jean Baudrillard had predicted that objects would no longer be valued for their use but for what they say about the owner’s identity. He was right.

According to the Polish-British sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, when everything, including politics, is treated as a consumer choice, the individual becomes more manageable. Since consumerism is about instant gratification and disposability, long-term political commitment or ideological struggle becomes too time-consuming or boring for the modern individual. Consequently, the idea of individualism also transformed.

One way to demonstrate this is through studying the way lead (male) characters in films evolved. The classic 20th century idea of individualism wasn’t detached from mass politics as such. It was very much part of it. Take the example of the cynical, hard-drinking and chain-smoking character played by Humphrey Bogart in 1942’s Casablanca. He seems uninterested in the political affairs of the world, but ends up contributing to America’s war effort against the Nazis. He realises that his anger towards a lover who had left him was far smaller an issue than the war.

Clint Eastwood’s brooding and detached character in the Dollar trilogy, directed by Sergio Leone in the 1960s, is a loner and a cynic who doesn’t say much but ends up accepting the circumstances that compel him to aid the helpless against thugs.

Quite a number of films across the 1960s and 1970s romanticised this nature of individualism. Amitabh Bachchan’s ‘angry young man’ roles in 1970s’ Bollywood films were in the same mould. Nikhat Kazmi wrote in her book Ire in The Soul that Bachchan’s characters were largely shaped to channel the anger of the people during a turbulent period in India.

However, Bachchan’s Kala Pathar (1979) is an interesting case of the transition that was to come. The angry, brooding character played by Bachchan in the film suddenly embraces ‘normal life’ by plunging into a satisfying romantic partnership. This meant that he didn’t have to bother anymore about fighting his inner demons nor carry the burden of an exploited collective (in this case, a community of coal miners). And unlike his previous angry individual films, he doesn’t die in this one.

By the 1990s, Bollywood films had completely discarded the brooding loner who accepts circumstances that compel him to fight for the people. As the idea of 20th century individualism faded into the docility of the post-politics era, the new ‘aspirational’ lead characters became sensitive souls seeking gratification through lush romantic relationships and corporate brands.

Designer homes, attire and brands became necessities for ‘happiness’ and even for self-actualisation. Religious rituals in films also became extravagant and an expression of sacralised joy. Therefore, faith was also commodified as a consumer product to ‘better oneself.’

But as all this was manifesting the era of post-politics, hyperpolitics exploded on to the scene. Yet, nothing changed much. According to Jäger, since post-politics had emptied established institutions, people entered the hyperpolitical arena as self-gratifying individuals rather than as members of a collective, cohesive body.

Jäger identifies technology as the catalyst. He wrote that social media allows for “low-cost, high-decibel politicisation.” Anyone can participate. To Jäger, though, this participation focuses more on expression rather than on sustained canvassing. In the absence of traditional institutional power to influence material conditions, hyperpolitics redirects energy toward symbolic battlegrounds, where personal consumption and language serve as primary signifiers of collective identity.

The classic Peshawari chappal, for example, which the populist politician Imran Khan preferred to wear, became a brand identity (‘Khan chappal’) that replaced traditional platform-based politics. Supporters became the brand by adopting a specific aesthetic of Khan. Buying and wearing this item functioned as a political act. Not a very convincing portrayal of mass politics, though.

This is an example of consumerist politics, a leftover of the post-politics era but ubiquitous in the era of hyperpolitics as well. The recent boycott movements against certain brands also demonstrate this. For example, most individuals feel they cannot influence the actual conditions in Gaza, so they redirect their energy into ‘consumer-activism.’ They manage their political emotions by curating their social media presence to show they are the ‘right kind of consumer’ because they consume local brands. Of course, for most, an actual physical protest outside the factories of the boycotted brands is out of the question.

To Jäger, this nature of activism produces “high heat” but “low light”, resulting in a culture defined by intense moral outrage and aesthetic posturing that rarely translates into substantive policy shifts or reform.

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 10th, 2026

Sana Dar’s solo exhibition ‘Life in Colour’ at Islamabad’s 8B2 Gallery is a celebration of the duality and complexity of life, expressed in vivid, pure colours.

We’re immediately struck by the juxtaposition of intricate detail and a wild, free expressionism in her work. Geometric paper, painstakingly hand-cut, gives us structure to backgrounds and skies, crisscrossing the (sometimes metaphorical) canvas like branches of a tree — intricate, precise and repetitive.

Layered on to this are spontaneous, textured and dramatic paint expressions, mirroring the fractal nature of the cut-outs, but with the randomness of natural fractals — wet paint pressed to wet paint and pulled apart gives the same natural geometry as a retreating wave leaves on the sand.

We see that the artist is exploring the nature of complementary opposites — like the light and the dark, sunset and sunrise, two forces that work together to make each other better, richer, more impactful.

As Dar puts it, “The theme of duality in my work explores my experience and emotional understanding of opposing forces that have always existed around us… It’s not the same as polarity, which talks about extremes. I’m commenting on concepts that need their opposite to exist and am trying to understand how to best balance and live in harmony with them.”

A recent exhibition in Islamabad combined precision and a sense of colourful spontaneity to striking effect

Dar further explains that, through her work, there’s a certain comfort with duality, but through her art she’s also trying to find more balance in her life: “I prefer the night and find the moon more charming than the sun — it’s quiet and calm, and there is something about this time that gets my creativity flowing. I have, however, made my peace with the day and the sun. I understand that the mind and body require warmth and light to thrive.”

Similarly, she is combining her genetic duality in her work – fine, precise and clinical cutting, inherited from her surgeon father; spontaneous, expressive and free-form colour from her artist mother.

As a whole, the experience of the works is a meditative one as we’re drawn into the canvas. The richness of the colours — deep blues, greens and pops of yellow and red — creates a vibrancy that is pleasing. As we stand further back, we’re almost expecting scenes to appear à la Monet and his Water Lilies, but instead we’re seeing a calm balance of colour, form and texture.

Dar also introduces an element of light into her work through glass-sandwiched frames, equally striking from both sides, hanging almost like a portal into a different dimension. Similarly, over 30 specially made light-box frames showcase a cascade of colourful paintings that truly comes to life when the lights are on, with each functioning as a unique piece.

Overall, we come away from the show with a pertinent reminder that duality and opposition don’t have to mean polarity and extremism. Like opposites on a colour wheel, sometimes our differences can help each other to shine, rather than being a cause for disharmony. A reminder the world could sorely use today.

‘Life in Colour’ was on display at 8B2 Gallery in Islamabad from April 11-May 7, 2026

The writer is an Australian based in Pakistan. She is an avid enthusiast of contemporary Pakistani art and culture

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 10th, 2026

Style is a refinement in behaviour and the cultivation of poise. Style is expressed in the way a person walks or converses, by the cadence of language, by the spaces we choose to live in. Style shows confidence, presence and personal power, often communicated without the need for words.

Unlike brute force, style cannot be fought with or overcome. It is a quiet challenge that does not seek a reaction. While it can be mocked, it cannot be destroyed. It is the result of a cultivated intentionality that becomes part of a personality. Style is like the softest notes of a piano or violin that the listener knows can build up to a powerful intensity that will make hearts tremble.

The former Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed in February this year, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran, Abbas Araghchi, through all the warmongering rhetoric, impressed the world with their soft-spoken manner and the slight smile of the wise dealing with the foolish. No angry fist shaking. Instead, we witnessed the Persian tradition of taarof, a complex, ritualised politeness, and zerangi or shrewdness.

Persian influences in the Subcontinent date back to the sixth century, first becoming the official language of Punjab in the 11th century, and then across the whole region with the rise of the Mughals. Classical Urdu, while absorbing Sanskrit, Arabic and Turkish vocabulary, retained greater Persian influences, in both language and cultural expression.

Although the modern world is increasingly taken over by speed and standardisation, there are still faint glimmers of style serving as a culturally embedded mode of expression

Etiquette required khush-asloobi, husn-i-amal and andaaz-i-bayan, terms that reflect the preference to behave and speak with elegance and grace. Even anger is ideally expressed as shikwa, a gentle reproach often couched in poetic terms, rather than shikayat, a direct accusation. Muhammad Iqbal wrote. “Andaaz-i-bayaan garche bohat shokh nahin hai/ Shayad ke utar jaye tiray dil mein miri baat [Although I am not a master of rhetoric/ Perhaps my words may still enter your heart].”

Despite the dilution of cultural traditions across the world by colonial influences and migration, the real deflection of style came from industrialisation and the economics of mass production. With its accompanying tools of marketing and incentivising, the space for unique self-expression was reduced, instead offering carefully curated identities, whose needs could be profitably manufactured.

The cult of individualism, which sounded like personal liberty, was offered to deflect attention from the loss of individuality, resulting in isolation and anonymity, severing ties to community.

Resistance came mainly from art, including the Arts and Crafts movement and Romanticism, which were soon marginalised as elitism — pretentious, privileged and exclusionary. The impact was felt across the board, from reproducible city planning and architectural styles, to supplanting traditional localised entertainment with worldwide release cinema and sports federations that could be monetised.

Yet, while systems have changed, people have not. Researchers have found by documenting the eye-tracking of subjects, that there was a preference for decorated building facades over modern buildings with bland facades. The exquisite muqarna ceilings of Spain’s Alhambra attract 2.6 million visitors annually.

Aesthetic pleasure is felt not just by artists but is experienced by everyone. It could be a beautiful sunset, the formation of starlings flying in large groups, the satisfaction of arranging furniture or folding a paan [betel leaf] into a neat gilori.

Countries where industrialisation has not taken over remain connected to the gracefulness of traditional styles: a village woman walking across parched earth with the movement of a flowing river, a man folding a turning 20 yards of muslin into an elegant turban. A young boy in a roadside tea shop has made an art of ‘meter chai’ — pouring tea from a great height. It is not just about what you do, but how you do it — with confidence, care and a style that makes it your own.

Increasingly, the homogenising aim of modernity is rejected, charged with the crime of a divided world, horrific wars, the plunder of the earth’s resources and disrupting climate balance. Across the world, there is renewed interest in mudbrick houses, organic food and slow movement. In Pakistan, literary and cultural traditions have been largely maintained at a community level, but they are now finding a place in the national narrative.

As the Persian poet Hafiz Shirazi reminds us, “The words you speak become the house you live in.”

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist.
She may be reached at
durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 10th, 2026

Walking is generally considered one of the most effective ways to learn the geography, layout and ambience of a city. It gives you the luxury to stand and stare at architectural marvels, monuments and even buildings that might be of little interest to the common eye.

It is the same luxury Welsh poet W.H. Davies mourned when he wrote “We have no time to stand and stare” in his poem Leisure.

This becomes especially evident when one recognises a peculiar characteristic of big cities: no matter how much one walks and explores them, there is always something left unseen and undiscovered. In my hometown Lahore, I have walked nearly 20 kilometres in a single afternoon — and still come home feeling I have missed something.

During a recent trip to Mall Road, I pulled up near the corrugated iron sheets placed a few paces south-east of the historic Pak Tea House cafe. The sheets were blocking the view of the government’s ongoing project in the area around the Neela Gumbad [Blue Dome] shrine.

A boys’ hostel in Lahore built more than 100 years ago and in continuous use until a few years ago now lies empty and forgotten…

I went into a nearby street, shouldering my way through the bustling crowd near the Kutchery Road entrance of New Anarkali, before finding the passage that could lead me to Ewing Hall.

Ewing Hall was constructed in 1916, before the partition of British India, to serve as a boys’ hostel. It was named after Dr James Caruthers Rhea Ewing, the long-serving and highly venerable principal of the Forman Christian College — now the FFC University (FFCU).

But finding this hostel is no easy task, which is between seven and eight kilometres from the university campus. Its primary access point now is a narrow walkway along the wall of King Edward Medical University. Being above six feet, I could see that an enormous stretch of land had been dug up beyond the iron sheet; the government’s ongoing infrastructure project had torn open the ground, leaving a crater-like void where a street once stood.

Despite the hindrances, I made a beeline for the hostel, where I was greeted by hostel staff, including Sharjil Sohail, who is the construction and maintenance manager at the FCCU.

While entering the main building, I noticed the plaque to my left side, bearing the following words: “This plaque was installed on 13 December 2016, to commemorate the centennial celebration of the construction of this building. Ewing Hall has served as a residential hall for FCCU students since its inauguration and is the oldest building in continuous use at the University.”

What was surprising was that there were no students in sight, even though the adjacent lawn was mowed, and the passageway and veranda were clean. The moment I stepped into the dormitory and was hit by silence, I asked Sharjil whether there were any students residing at the hostel.

“As far as I know, it was occupied by 70 to 75 students last time in 2018,” he informed me. We then entered the dining room, which had neatly arranged upturned chairs on tables. The settled dust on the furniture signalled that the last meal had been served years ago.

As Sohail raced through his descriptions of the hostel and its history, I pushed open the door of a room where two charpoys, facing each other, were placed against the walls. Ostensibly, two students could move in at any time and — armed with a table, chair and lamp — start residing there.

Curious and without noticing any technical fault, I asked Sharjil why students could not occupy this hall anymore. “The building is more than 100 years old now and it is not safe to allow students to occupy it without renovation,” he said, as we moved from one administrative room to the next and through the three-storey structure.

Comparatively, these administrative spaces were orderly — with personal computers, chairs and even some colonial relics properly arranged, as though staff would arrive for work at any moment. But who would they serve if the place is not brought back to life — with laughter, exam jitters, endless discussions and mealtimes?

Standing in that empty dining room, I found myself wondering what it had looked like full — the noise, the argument, the meals shared between strangers becoming friends. I later reached out to someone who had lived there.

Jahanzeb Jahan, a senior lecturer at Lahore’s University of Education, still remembers his room clearly. “I had a cubicle room on the second floor and, every night, the window gave me an enchanting view of Anarkali Bazaar,” he said. “It was an exquisite experience to feel the hustle and bustle from my quiet room.”

Life at the hostel wasn’t without its own peculiar charms, either. Jahanzeb says that some of the best discussions took place in the mess over meals, bringing together students from diverse backgrounds and cultures. “The lawn was serene, and greenery was luxuriously spread all over,” he added.

Before leaving Ewing Hall, I looked again at the two charpoys in that narrow room — still facing each other, still waiting. The lawn outside was mowed. The veranda was swept. Everything was maintained, and nothing was alive.

Ewing Hall is not a ruin. It is a building that works perfectly, minus the people it was built for. That distinction matters — because restoration here requires will, not miracles.

The Walled City Lahore Authority and FCCU have both the mandate and the means to act. As historian F.S. Aijazuddin has asked: you can buy new bricks from a kiln, but from where will you buy history? Ewing Hall has survived 109 years and a partition. The one thing it may not survive is indifference.

The writer is a storyteller with an MPhil in English. He can be contacted at usama.malick183@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 10th, 2026

Gaddafi Stadium witnessed an unbelievable moment last Sunday night, when a local boy who once collected balls outside the boundary 20 years ago lifted the Pakistan Super League (PSL) trophy in the same stadium.

To witness this historic moment, the largest crowd in Pakistan’s cricket history was recorded, as 32,461 fans joined the celebration in which Babar Azam, the captain of Peshawar Zalmi, was crowned for the first time in his PSL captaincy tenure.

A sea of yellow was seen in the stands to support Peshawar Zalmi but, deep down, everyone knew that this crowd had turned up in strong support for primarily one player. And that player was Babar Azam.

This season has been an absolute dream for Peshawar Zalmi, where they faced only one defeat — that too in their last group stage game, which was a dead rubber for them. Other than that, everything Zalmi did worked in its favour. The awards ceremony after the final was evidence of it, with five of the seven individual awards going to its players.

After over five weeks of interesting clashes and fine performances from so many players, the Pakistan Super League 11 has concluded with Peshawar Zalmi and Babar Azam lifting the crown. Here’s looking back at some of the biggest takeaways from the tournament…

It was not a season where only one or two performances or a couple of players took Peshawar Zalmi to the next stage. All of their key players performed. Despite a couple of their key pacers from Bangladesh returning to their country for national duty halfway through the tournament, this didn’t hurt Zalmi, as their young bowlers Ali Raza and Mohammad Basit didn’t let Zalmi feel that absence.

Babar Azam, who has always been under criticism for his captaincy, turned the tables in this PSL season. Coming from a forgettable World Cup campaign, it was a big burden on Babar’s shoulders, not just to lead the team but also to score runs himself at a strike rate expected of T20 batters.

Fulfilling all expectations, the season came as record-breaking for Babar Azam, piling up two big hundreds to his T20 record and scoring 588 runs to join Fakhar Zaman for the most runs in a single PSL edition. He also struck those runs at a strike rate of 145.9 and ended with an average of 73.50.

An amazing moment in PSL 11 came when, in the first game where fans were allowed into the stadium, Babar welcomed his supporters with a daddy hundred in the qualifier in Karachi against three-time champions Islamabad United.

However, leading Zalmi to the most wins in PSL history and their second title, Babar was not the only performer. In batting, he was joined by Sri Lankan star Kusal Mendis, who was just 38 runs behind Babar’s tally, with 550 runs and with a higher strike rate of 168. Mendis also had one hundred and four fifties to his name.

Following Babar and Mendis’ starts, Abdul Samad and Aaron Hardie injected those much-needed finishes in the season. In the big final against Hyderabad Kingsmen, where Zalmi lost their reliable pair of Babar and Mendis early, Samad and Hardie took responsibility and, from 40 for 4, took the team home.

Despite this year not being a bowlers’ season, another Zalmi star, Sufyan Muqeem, went against all odds and became the first-ever specialist spinner in PSL history to clinch the ‘Player of the Tournament’ award.

With 22 wickets in his pocket, Muqeem had been the leader of the pack throughout the season. A big difference between the two teams in the final was Muqeem’s spell, where he took a solitary wicket but conceded only 23 runs, with an economy of 5.75.

Runners-up Hyderabad Kingsmen must be disappointed for losing the final in the way they did, but their roller-coaster journey in their debut season has been another top story. After losing four consecutive games at the beginning of the season, Kingsmen were out of the tournament in experts’ eyes, though not mathematically. Then this team, led by an Australian who is himself not an experienced T20 player — Marnus Labuschagne, captaining a team outside of his own country for the first time — turned the tables and won the next four games on the trot.

Their qualification in the eliminator felt like a big achievement, but Kingsmen had bigger dreams, and they beat the seasoned performers, Islamabad United, in Eliminator 2 in a nail-biting finish. In a game that saw many ups and downs, United needed 28 off the last two overs, and Hyderabad’s Mohammad Ali conceded 22 in just one over. It felt like the Kingsmen were finally undone.

But then another PSL hero rose to the big occasion. Hunain Shah, younger brother of pacer Naseem Shah, did something that was not even in the imagination of the Kingsmen captain, who later in the post-match talk got emotional, and his tears were an acknowledgment of the unbelievable performance by Hunain, who made the impossible possible. The young pace bowler defended just 6 runs in the final over, conceding only 3 runs.

Hyderabad Kingsmen, who invested in the youngsters of Pakistan in the PSL auction and signed the most expensive local player of PSL, Saim Ayub, for 12.6 crores and emerging batter Maaz Sadaqat for 3.5 crores, would not regret it as, on different occasions, their stars also rose up when it counted.

After disappointing performances in the first seven matches, Kingsmen’s Usman Khan had told his captain he could be dropped since was not performing. But Labuschagne backed him and told him that he had belief in his teammates. Usman then delivered back-to-back match-winning knocks, including a blistering century when Hyderabad had to chase a big total against Multan Sultans in a must-win game. He also claimed the record of the most PSL hundreds, later joined by Babar Azam, both now having scored four centuries.

Moreover, with two more teams in PSL, it has become an even more interesting tournament for fans, where they now have three official rivalries to look forward to. One of the most famous rivalries remains, of course, between the Lahore Qalandars and the Karachi Kings, nicknamed the ‘PSL Classico.’ Now Rawalpindi vs Islamabad United has been announced and named the ‘Twin City Derby.’ This derby winner will retain the Golden Bail that belongs to the Rawalpindi Stadium. The third rivalry, between Karachi Kings and Hyderabad Kingsmen, has been named as the ‘Sindh Derby’, and also has an award to retain, the Sindh Taj.

In conclusion, it has been one of the greatest PSL seasons in recent years, despite fans only being able to watch the play-offs and final in the stadiums due to the ongoing security and economic crises as a result of the war in the Middle East.

Fans will now be hoping for similar levels of performance and consistency from the Pakistan national team, while a major debate has again emerged around Babar Azam. Once derided as ‘just not a T20 player’, people are once again wondering if, moving forward from his reinvention, he should open in T20s for Pakistan as well.

The writer is a cricket correspondent and digital content creator. X: @abubakartarar

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 10th, 2026

I still remember the slight intimidation with which I first opened Desmond Morris. I was a college student in the 1980s, full of curiosity but not always equipped for the English books that were beginning to widen my world. Before I reached him, progressive friends had urged me to read Insaan Barra Kaisay Bana.

That was the Urdu translation of a Soviet popular science work How Man Became a Giant, by Mikhail Ilyin and Elena Segal. That book had already nudged me towards questions of human origins, social development and the long story of how humans became what they are.

So, when I finally picked up The Naked Ape by chance at an old book shop, I did so with excitement but also with hesitation. I still have that old book in my collection. I struggled through its English, often reading slowly, sometimes with effort, but from the very first pages I felt that I had encountered a writer who would stay with me for life.

Desmond Morris, who died on April 19, 2026, aged 98, had that effect on many readers. He made human beings seem at once less grand and more fascinating. To the world, Morris was many things at once: zoologist, broadcaster, painter, public intellectual and best-selling author. To millions he was the man who wrote The Naked Ape in 1967 and startled readers by suggesting that, beneath all our culture, manners, institutions and conceits, we remained animals still marked by our biological inheritance.

Desmond Morris, who has died aged 98, was a zoologist, broadcaster, painter, public intellectual and best-selling author. Naazir Mahmood, who first encountered him as a college student in Gen Zia’s Pakistan, reflects on what it meant to find a writer who changed not just what you thought — but how you looked

To television audiences, he was the suave and observant naturalist who could make the behaviour of beasts and men seem equally revealing. To me, and I suspect to many readers in countries far from Britain, he was something even more memorable: a guide to looking at human beings without illusion and without piety.

That mattered especially in the Pakistan of my youth. The 1980s were the years of Gen Ziaul Haq’s ‘Islamisation’ programme, when public life was becoming narrower, more moralised and more prescriptive. Religion was not merely a matter of faith or inward life; it was increasingly made into a public language of discipline, conformity and regulation.

Certain ways of thinking acquired official favour. Certain questions became harder to ask freely. One felt that inquiry itself was being pushed into a smaller room. In such a climate, reading Morris was quietly liberating. He did not begin with what man ought to be. He began with what man is: a social animal, anxious, inventive, territorial, affectionate, vain and never fully removed from nature.

That was part of the shock of The Naked Ape. Morris asked readers to step outside their own species, as if observing it from a distance. Courtship, rivalry, grooming, aggression, status and ritual no longer appeared as purely social or moral phenomena. They became traces of older inheritances, survivals of the animal in the civilised. It was an unsettling way of looking at people and, perhaps for that very reason, it was exhilarating.

Morris did not flatter his readers. He dethroned them. Yet, in doing so, he made them more interesting. The human being in his books was not a fallen angel or a perfect rational actor, but a clever, restless, theatrical primate, forever decorating instinct with culture.

For a young reader like me, that was more than a new idea. It was a new habit of mind. Morris trained one to notice. After reading him, the world no longer looked quite the same. A handshake, a glance, a quarrel, a courtship ritual, a politician’s posture, a bureaucrat’s territorial instinct, a crowd’s nervous excitement: all seemed to contain deeper clues. Even where Morris oversimplified, he sharpened perception. He made observation itself feel exciting. He taught readers to distrust smooth surfaces and to watch behaviour more closely than words.

His influence on me deepened with time. The Human Zoo and Manwatching expanded the field of inquiry and made me, over the years, not only a more attentive reader but also a more attentive observer of society. In journalism, in teaching and in professional life, that instinct remained useful. Morris did not merely provide information; he altered one’s way of seeing. That is a rarer achievement than scholarly precision. Many writers know more. Fewer change the angle of vision through which everyday life is perceived.

Morris himself was a figure of unusual range. Born in 1928 in Wiltshire, he studied zoology at the University of Birmingham and later completed his doctorate at the University of Oxford. He went on to become a distinguished populariser of animal behaviour, a familiar television presence and a serious surrealist painter. In him the scientist and the artist seemed not to compete but to collaborate.

The scientist gave him discipline, evidence and method. The artist gave him irony, spectacle and a sense of the body as performance. He could write crisply because he observed visually. He could speculate boldly because he understood that ideas had to travel beyond the seminar room if they were to matter.

That Birmingham connection acquired a special meaning for me much later. In the early 2000s, when I went to the University of Birmingham for my doctorate, I often felt an odd and private pleasure in knowing that Morris had once studied there too. It was, of course, only a small coincidence. Universities are filled with ghosts of far greater and lesser people. But this one touched me.

By then, Morris was no longer simply an author I had read with difficulty in youth. He had become part of the formation of my intellectual life. To find that he, too, had passed through Birmingham gave that long association an unexpected intimacy. It connected the young student struggling through The Naked Ape in Pakistan with the older scholar pursuing doctoral work in England. It gave admiration a setting, almost a geography.

That is why Morris’s death feels to me more personal than the death of a famous author usually does. He belonged to a generation of public thinkers who could make science accessible without emptying it of seriousness. He wrote books that ordinary readers could enter but, once inside, they found their assumptions challenged. He was provocative, sometimes too sure of himself, sometimes too sweeping in his conclusions, especially on questions of gender and social behaviour. Some of his ideas have dated. Some deserve argument.

But that is not the same as saying he no longer matters. Writers endure not because they were correct in every detail, but because they opened a door that others had not opened in quite the same way.

The writer is a columnist, educator and film critic.
He can be reached at mnazir1964@yahoo.co.uk.
X: @NaazirMahmood

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 10th, 2026

They were visible on key points around their locality. No warning. No explanation. Just a cross in red paint, crude but deliberate, with CDA scrawled alongside — the signature of demolition.

Sahil lives in Allama Iqbal Colony in Islamabad’s Sector G-7, a neighbourhood that houses more than 1,000 Christian families. He has worked as a sanitary worker for the Capital Development Authority (CDA) for over two decades. His home — begun as a tent, finished in concrete — now bears the mark of eviction.

“How can we be expected to just abandon our own houses?” he asks. “We work for the CDA. We have lived here for 20 years.”

The CDA’s demolition teams have already destroyed several homes and shops in Allama Iqbal Colony. Resistance from residents temporarily stalled the bulldozers, but the red Xs remain — a daily reminder that their homes are on a list.

They built Islamabad’s homes, cleaned its streets and raised its children. Now the city’s metropolitan authority is demolishing their lives…

A BRUTAL IRONY

The Christian community of Islamabad forms the backbone of the capital’s most essential services. Men work as sanitary workers for the CDA itself. Women serve as domestic help across the city’s affluent sectors. They are the ones who keep Islamabad running — collecting its waste, cleaning its homes, maintaining its streets.

Yet the city has never produced a housing policy for them. The CDA has launched only one low-income housing scheme since the turn of the century — in the rural locality of Alipur Farash. It accommodated a few hundred households. The capital’s katchi abadis [informal settlements], by comparison, house an estimated 500,000 residents.

The 2023 census counts approximately 97,300 Christians in the Islamabad Capital Territory — about 4.26 percent of the capital territory’s roughly 2.3 million residents. Most fall into the lowest income bracket. Without informal settlements like Allama Iqbal Colony and Rimsha Colony, they cannot afford to live in the city they serve.

A single room in Islamabad rents for 30,000 rupees. Most of these families earn 45,000 rupees a month or less — hovering around minimum wage.

DISPLACEMENT REDUX

In Rimsha Colony, Sector H-9, the CDA decided that individual markings were unnecessary. The entire settlement has been slated for demolition.

Saba Farooq lives there. She works as a domestic worker, scrubbing floors so her family can eat. Her husband is a daily-wage labourer. Together, they built their home over years, pooling money from monthly wages.

“We have no option other than to leave Islamabad if they deprive us of our houses made with our blood and sweat,” she tells Eos.

Saba recalls that the CDA itself had previously shifted her family from Mehrabadi, another settlement on the outskirts of the capital, to what was then a jungle in H-9. They started from nothing and built again. Now the CDA wants them to leave once more, with no alternative housing offered.

Saba doesn’t know where they would go. There is no plan — not from the CDA, not from anyone.

‘I WAS BORN RIGHT HERE’

The demolitions have already happened elsewhere. In the localities of Saidpur Village, Bari Imam and Noorpur Shahan, the CDA has removed more than 800 structures.

Samiullah is 63 years old. He lived in Muslim Colony in Bari Imam until that operation. He was given two days’ notice. No rehabilitation plan. No place to go.

“I was born right here,” he says, his voice choking. “I am no longer capable of manual labour.” Samiullah says he has sent his family to live with relatives in Karachi. “But I cannot leave. I sleep alone under the open sky.” He gestures toward the rubble. “There were mosques here, madressahs here — everything has been erased.”

The demolitions have not only displaced families — they have pushed some of the city’s most vulnerable residents into a crisis with no apparent exit. Among the affected, the transgender community faces a unique horror.

Kashish had already been rejected by her family years ago. The settlement in Bari Imam was the closest thing she had to stability, where she had lived for 35 years. “Neither our families nor society accepts us,” she tells Eos.

“Now where do we go? A state is supposed to be like a mother, holding her children to her chest — but here we have been cast aside.”

THE OFFICIAL VERSION

Dr Anum Fatima, the chief metropolitan officer of the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad, maintains that approximately 750 deserving families from Bari Imam, Muslim Colony and Noorpur Shahan village were already provided alternative plots in 2001, with compensation paid in 2003. She states that all subsequent constructions were illegal. She claims 612 acres of state land have been recovered.

For current residents — most of whom say they purchased their plots — there is no relocation plan and no compensation. The CDA’s position is that all construction on state land is illegal, regardless of how long residents have been there. The same argument is being used to justify the demolitions in Allama Iqbal Colony and Rimsha Colony.

Dr Fatima says that the CDA is currently focused on removing shops and structures on commercial land in the Christian colonies in sectors G-7 and H-9 — giving residents time to arrange alternatives.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Abidullah, originally from Kashmir, had run his shop in Bari Imam for many years. It was gone in a morning. He stood by the rubble and said nothing for a long time. Thousands like him worked as street vendors, mechanics, tailors and plumbers. When their homes were destroyed, their livelihoods vanished.

The demolitions have also affected students at Quaid-i-Azam University, who rented rooms in Bari Imam. Many have missed exams or dropped classes.

Alia Amirali, a human rights activist who is associated with the left-wing Awami Workers’ Party, describes the CDA’s actions as “open class war” — targeting the working poor while allowing real estate mafias to build illegal schemes with impunity.

On April 16, the Federal Constitutional Court ordered the CDA to finalise regulations for Islamabad’s informal settlements while hearing petitions against the recent demolition drives in the federal capital.

Rights groups, including the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, have also urged the Supreme Court to uphold its 2015 stay order against forced evictions without resettlement plans. The stay order was issued after a 30-year-old settlement in Sector I-11 was demolished, leaving more than 20,000 people without homes.

But, as activists and legal experts point out, a stay is not a solution.

As Amirali notes, the only long-term answer is formal housing schemes. Otherwise, the bulldozers will simply push essential workers into a deeper crisis.

Back in Allama Iqbal Colony, the red X is still on walls around Sahil’s home. He goes to work for the CDA every morning. He comes home to the mark they left.

The writer is a Dawn correspondent.
X: @umar_shangla

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 10th, 2026

It lies wedged between the port, industry and the city centre, occupying Karachi’s south-western quarter, like a hinge between movement and settlement. To the south-west is the largest port in Pakistan; to the north-west, the Port Industrial Area and the Sindh Industrial and Trading Estate (SITE); abutting SITE is the Shershah Recycled Material Market; to the south lie the grain markets, wholesale zones, and the central business district.

The Lyari River cuts through it, flanked by highways that funnel goods and people toward the port and outwards toward Balochistan and the Afghan border. Lyari Town, administratively part of Karachi’s District South, is divided into eleven union councils and straddles multiple provincial and national constituencies, placing it perpetually at the intersection of political claims and shifting boundaries. It is represented by different political parties that share and contest these borders, a spatial fragmentation that mirrors Lyari’s social complexity.

Residents often refer to Lyari as ‘Karachi ki maa’ – the Mother of Karachi – a phrase that carries both pride and quiet grievance. It suggests origin, endurance and sacrifice, but also neglect.

Karachi’s old city settlement of Lyari occupies a distinct place in the Pakistani (and now in the Indian) imagination, coloured by politics, ethnicity, violence, sports and music. Despite being the oldest urban area in Pakistan’s largest metropolis, Lyari has no culture or history in common with the rural areas of Pakistan. What led to Lyari developing such a distinct social and cultural fabric, how has it evolved over centuries, and how does that history inform its situation today?

EARLY HISTORY

The settlement history of Lyari predates Karachi itself. The first known residents were Sindhi fishermen and Baloch nomads, Pawanda from Makran, Lasbela and Kalat, who arrived around 1725, fleeing drought and tribal feuds, four years before Karachi Port is supposed to have been formally established in 1729.

The name “Lyari” is said to derive from lyar, a tree believed to bloom in graveyards, a strangely fitting etymology for a place where memory, loss and survival coexist so visibly.

Local legend situates Lyari at the heart of Karachi’s mythic origins. It is here, according to oral supposition, that Mai Kolachi, the fisherwoman after whom Karachi is supposed to be named, lived with her seven sons. Six of them were killed by a giant crocodile, or a shark — depending on the version — until the last, Mororo, who was physically challenged, defeated the beast.

Today, the tombs of the six brothers sit quietly at a nondescript roundabout near a flyover in Gulbai, on the other side of the Lyari River, collecting dust amid traffic and infrastructural indifference. Mororo’s tomb lies in Masroor Air Base in Mauripur, Karachi, and the public has limited access to it.

By 1886, Lyari had already emerged as the largest of Karachi’s 24 districts, with a population of 24,600, and the only district with a population exceeding 8,000 at the time. It was one of the most densely populated Muslim areas in a city otherwise dominated demographically and economically by non-Muslims.

Yet this density did not translate into investment. As early as 1885, colonial records referred to the “Lyaree Quarter” as “a poor district of the city”, establishing a pattern of recognition without redress. Lyari is often described as an older human settlement than Dharavi in Bombay (now Mumbai), a comparison that underscores both its historical depth and its marginalisation.

The original settlement of Lyari by Baloch communities may have occurred under the patronage of the Rifa’iyya Sufi order. This affiliation continues to shape the religious and social landscape of the area. Before Partition, Pakhtun neighbourhoods existed in Lyari as well. Following the creation of Pakistan in 1947, Lyari witnessed further demographic layering with the arrival of more Pakhtuns, Sindhis and Mohajirs — including Memons. After the 1960s, Karachi’s rapid industrialisation drew Pakhtun migrants from Pakistan’s north-west into construction, textile and transport work and, over the last three decades, working-class Afghans, Bengalis and Burmese migrants. Migration here is not a singular event but a recurring condition.

Today, Lyari is often nicknamed “Little Africa” due to its significant Sheedi (mixed local and African ethnicity) population. Folk beliefs and healing practices rooted in Baloch and Sheedi traditions persist, with herbal medicines widely used and even imported from Iran. Livelihoods remain closely tied to physical labour: many residents work as daily wage earners, manual labourers, or construction workers, while others are returnees visiting from overseas employment in the Middle East.

Amid economic precarity, Lyari’s youth has gained a reputation for athletic excellence — especially football — and for the unlikely yet powerful presence of female boxing clubs. But before turning fully to sports and culture, it is necessary to understand Lyari’s largest historical constituency: the Baloch.

THE BALOCH AND LYARI’S SOCIAL FABRIC

The Baloch presence in Lyari is layered, transregional, and internally diverse.

Baloch communities in Sindh and Punjab are understood as extensions of the Sulaimani Baloch, spread through conquest and colonisation, while those of Sistan are more closely aligned with the Mekrani tribes. The Iranian-Baloch, in particular, have long been associated with trade networks linking Lyari to Iran. For over a century, they have exported clothes, bed sheets, mangoes, rice, and goat meat to Iran, while importing wax, oil, fruit and other edible goods — activities concentrated in Lyari’s Chakiwara Market and Khajoor Bazaar at nearby Mithadar.

This migration intensified after 1928, following the subjugation of the Persian part of Balochistan by Iranian forces. Iranian Baloch migrants were generally better off economically than the Lassis from Lasbela or the Katchis from Katch in Balochistan. By the late 1990s, Baloch of Iranian descent constituted the largest share of Lyari’s Baloch population, with estimates placing Baloch residents at 40-50 percent of the total population at that time.

Employment patterns reflected Lyari’s geography show that many Baloch men work at the nearby port as stevedores, boatmen, donkey-cart pushers and date-palm packers, while others find work in Karachi’s earliest tanneries, oil-pressing mills and wool-washing factories. Women contribute through home-based labour, selling embroidery door-to-door or fashioning packaging from date-palm leaves; dates and palm leaves themselves are imported from Muscat and traded through Lyari’s Lea Market.

The Baloch and Makrani workforce at the port was among the first in Karachi to organise. Shortly after, railway workers and stevedores formed the Karachi Port Workers Union during a series of strikes in 1930, embedding labour politics into Lyari’s social fabric. Religiously, most Baloch settlers were Sunni Hanafis though, by the end of the 1990s, Lyari was also home to an estimated 50,000 Zikris.

Anthropologically, the Baloch are divided into two major groups: the Sulaimani Baloch and the Mekrani Baloch, separated geographically by Brahui tribes around Kalat. The Brahui — classified as Jahlawans (lowlanders) and Sarawans — speak the Brahui or Kirdgall language, while both Sulaimani and Mekrani Baloch speak mutually intelligible dialects of Balochi.

Iranian-Baloch traders dominate certain commercial spaces in Lyari, particularly in shops bearing surnames such as Sheerani, Askani, Hussainzai, Barakzai, Sarbazi, Mubaraki, Baranzai and Lashari. According to wholesaler Muzamil Yusuf, Iranian products are overwhelmingly stocked in these stores. Many Iranian-Baloch residents maintain close familial ties across the border, celebrate Iranian national events, and hold dual Pakistani and Iranian passports, moving fluidly between the two states.

The Rifa’iyya order remains symbiotically linked with this community, sustaining cross-border religious and social life. Iranian-Baloch traders are locally respected and known for their humility; Iranian female hawkers, in particular, are recognised, remembered and warmly received by shopkeepers in Khajoor Bazaar, where they receive attentive service and are extended trust.

Lyari’s political consciousness also has deep roots. Workers’ unions among stevedores emerged as early as the 1930s, while Lyari later became known as the birthplace of Baloch nationalism. One of the earliest nationalist organisations, the Baloch League, was founded here in the 1920s around figures such as Allah Bakhsh Gabol (1885-1972), grandfather of the former member of national assembly (MNA) Nabeel Gabol.

Postcolonial organisations, such as the Baloch Students Organisation (BSO), were also founded in Lyari, focusing on education and political awareness. Even Lyari’s dacoits historically maintained cordial relationships with Baloch nationalist leaders; Dadal, a prominent figure, was reportedly a close friend of Baloch politician Ataullah Mengal.

Yet, Lyari’s political history is inseparable from violence. Early criminal gangs emerged in the 1960s and were initially considered relatively harmless to residents. The 1980s marked a turning point. The Afghan War increased the flow of heroin and weapons into Karachi, transforming knife fights into gun battles and entrenching drug use and gang warfare in Karachi’s everyday life, and Lyari could not remain unaffected by it. During this period, Lyari earned the grim nickname “the Colombia of Karachi.”

Despite this, Lyari’s identity cannot be reduced to crime or poverty. Informal economies, cultural production, religious practice, and political memory coexist in ways that resist singular narratives. Even everyday spaces such as the JhatPatt market (see box) in Chakiwara, which has operated from 10am to 3pm since the late 19th century, function as social institutions rather than mere marketplaces.

A HISTORICAL MELTING POT

In Lyari, history is not sealed in archives. It lives in labour, migration, ritual and resistance, carried forward by communities who have learned to survive in poverty. If Lyari’s Baloch history anchors it to labour and politics, then its Sheedi presence pulls the neighbourhood into a much longer, darker and more global history — one shaped by slavery, oceanic routes, ritual survival and the reworking of African identity in South Asia.

The Sheedi (also referred to as Siddi or Sidi) community has been part of the social fabric of present-day Pakistan and India for more than six centuries. Archival records from Zanzibar show that, between 1860 and 1861, 237 Indian “slave” owners in Zanzibar held a total of 1,863 bonded individuals. By the mid-19th century, Indian merchants in Zanzibar had established clove plantations that required intensive labour, leading them to participate directly in systems of coerced servitude.

While Arab traders conducted raids into the African interior and forcibly transported people to coastal markets, many Indian financiers were involved economically in this trade, and some brought individuals of African origin to South Asia, where they worked primarily in domestic spaces.

African presence in Sindh predates European colonialism. When the first Muslim Arab army arrived in Sindh in 711 CE, it arrived with African soldiers. Under the Talpurs, according to the British explorer and writer Richard Burton, 600-700 Africans were imported from Africa into Sindh, with distinctions made between those born into households and those imported from Muscat — the former were often treated as family inmates. During the Abbasid period, enslaved peoples were also drawn from Central Asia, particularly Turks recruited as mercenaries, while East Africa remained a major source through routes passing Socotra and Aden.

By the 13th century, Siddis were being imported in large numbers by Indian nawabs and sultans. The most significant influx occurred between the 17th and 19th centuries, when Portuguese traders transported Africans to India. Karachi became a major depot: between 600 and 700 Africans were imported annually, three-quarters of them young girls, sold for 60 to 100 rupees. In 1837 alone, Commander Charles reported that no fewer than 1,500 Africans arrived in Karachi from Muscat and the African coast.

The Omani bonded labour economy tied Zanzibar — where 10,000 to 20,000 bonded people were traded annually in the mid-19th century — to Muscat, and from there to Karachi. Some African slaves (along with slaves of other ethnicities) reached Sindh through transactions along the Makran coast. Many Sheedis today trace origins to Oman or other Middle Eastern regions, while others locate ancestry in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Zanzibar, Mombasa or broader Bantu and Malawali lineages.

Bantu philosophy, as understood locally, emphasises adopting the identity of the land one inhabits rather than clinging to a past self. This ethos resonates deeply in Lyari, where Sheedis often identify simultaneously as African, Baloch, Makrani and Karachiite. Some trace spiritual ancestry to Hazrat Bilal Habshi (RA), the Ethiopian companion of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and Islam’s first muezzin [caller to prayer].

Others hold positions as khalifas, spiritual successors within Sufi traditions. Saints — Shah Abdul Latif, Saman Sarkar and Lal Shahbaz Qalandar — are seen as intermediaries between God and the Sheedi community. Ritual recitations (kalaams) invoking Lal Shahbaz Qalandar and Ghous Pak remain central to séances.

A prominent Urdu poet from Lyari, Noon Meem Danish, publicly identifies as the great-great-grandchild of an African from Zanzibar, remarking that centuries of cultural amalgamation have led Sheedis to proudly call themselves Baloch or Makrani. Genetic research supports these histories: population geneticist Lluis Quintana-Murci found that over 40 percent of the maternal gene pool of Makranis is of African origin.

Today, the Sheedi identity in Lyari is visibly political. Many celebrate Black Pride Month and align themselves with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Murals across Lyari reference African heritage, anti-racist solidarity and global Black resistance. One street is even named “Mombasa”, anchoring memory in place.

CULTURAL MEMORIES

Ritual life among the Sheedis remains rich and embodied. The Sheedi Mela at the shrine of Hazrat Manghopir is a week-long festival where men and women dance to the fierce beats of African call-drums known as mugarman, derived from the East African ngoma. Songs are sung in Swahili mixed with local languages, and ritual meat offerings are made to crocodiles at the sulphur lakes. If the crocodile accepts the offering, the year is believed to be auspicious.

This practice is shared by Hindu devotees as well. Afro-Arab dance forms, such as gowaati, lewa and dhamaal, persist, accompanied by Omani-style drums such as shindo, jabwah and jasser. The local Baloch actively participate, blending Baloch musical forms into Sheedi rites.

The lewa (or laywa) ritual occupies a special place in Lyari’s cultural geography. Found among communities that had contact with Tanzania, lewa is a complex polyrhythmic ceremonial dance performed with a double-reed oboe (surnay), multiple drums and a long bongo (mogholman). The dance takes place in the open air from evening until dawn and is sometimes described as an “African jungle dance.” Though often recreational today, especially at weddings, it can still induce trance states. Similar performances exist in coastal Oman, reflecting shared Afro-Baloch histories.

Closely related are guati and dhamali rites, animistic and Islamic healing rituals involving possession, trance and reconciliation with spirits. Guati rites range from light, liberating trances to heavy, week-long ceremonies (tobbok), while dhamali rites emphasise Muslim djinn and saintly invocation. Instruments such as the sarod, donali and tanburagaccompany these rituals. Though not formally part of Sufi orders, officiants (khalifay) often overlap with Zikri or Qadri traditions. Urs ceremonies at saints’ tombs, including Datar in Karachi, further extend these practices. Zar rituals, meanwhile, are found only in Iran’s Chahbahar and Karachi.

Lyari’s religious landscape is plural. Poor Hindu communities of Rajasthani and Marwari descent live in Narayanpura in Lyari. Temples such as Radha Gokul Anand Temple, Shri Ramdevji Pir Mandir and Bhagnari Shiv Temple mark this presence. Yet, erasure is ongoing. The historic Pamwal Das Shiv Mandir in Baghdadi was illegally converted into a Muslim shrine and cow slaughterhouse, following attacks on Hindu families.

Approximately 135,000 acres of temple land now fall under the Evacuee Trust Property Board. The Hanuman Temple in Lyari, demolished in 2020, was not protected as a heritage building — once Hindu residents relocated and property registration changed hands, idols were destroyed, and the structure was razed.

Kutchi communities also form part of Lyari’s social fabric. They migrated from their homeland of Kutch, bordering the Rann of Kutch, which is shared by India and Pakistan, to Sindh. The porters of Karachi are mostly of Kutchi origin and migrated to Karachi during the Great Famine of 1876- 1878.

CULTURE, SPORTS AND BEYOND

Music, like ritual, has always been central to Lyari. Between the late 1970s and 1990s, Lyari developed its own genre: Lyari Disco. It was one of the first non-elite areas of Karachi to embrace American and European disco music.

Small recording studios proliferated, where young Makranis fused disco beats with Baloch and African rhythms. Though initially circulated locally, a breakout hit by Sindhi singer Shazia Khushk brought Lyari Disco into national consciousness.

Sports offer another lens into Lyari’s resilience. Football is not just a game here; it is a social language. The Karachi United football club recruits many of its top players from Lyari and, according to CEO Imran Ali, young girls from Lyari camps show professional potential. Lyari houses the People’s Football Stadium, one of Pakistan’s largest, and boasts 98 registered football clubs, 11 grounds and two stadiums. Streets in Muhammad Ali Mohalla are divided by football flags; murals honour local heroes.

Filmmaker Ahsan Shah famously called Lyari “our little Brazil.” Football fosters cross-gender, cross-class interaction and offers pathways into education, corporate-sponsored teams, and stable income. Aftab, captain of Pakistan’s under-16 team in 2011, earned a monthly salary from the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP).

Boxing, particularly women’s boxing, is equally transformative. Girls in Lyari describe boxing as essential for survival in a volatile environment. The first female boxing club, Pak Shaheen, was established in 2015 by Coach Younus; within a few years, girls had already won three championships. Former boxer Shah Jahan trains girls, including his daughter, while encouraging academic education, even as he earns a living pulling a donkey cart. Girls as young as seven train with Olympic aspirations.

Art and performance continue this ethos. Lyari’s murals reflect local pride and global solidarities. Drum circles animate public spaces, while the MAD School in Karachi offers Lyari’s youth training in singing, theatre and performance, allowing participation in local plays.

ECONOMIC DECLINE

Economically, Lyari’s decline is visible in spaces such as Lea Market (Purani Sabzi Mandi). It was constructed in 1927 in Napier Quarters by the municipality. Historically, it was a pre-British trading hub. The market building was named after Measham Lea, a Karachi municipal engineer.

The market was divided into four two-storey buildings around a central courtyard, crowned by a clock tower that locals relied on for telling time. Separate sections housed dairy, vegetables, meat, fresh fish and dried marine products. Originally, three buildings; a fourth was added during Gen Ayub Khan’s era, carefully designed to match the original architecture.

Today, only 12 of the original 72 meat shops remain. There has been no electricity for 10 years. Traders blame the derelict condition for declining business, despite Lea Market once attracting customers from across Karachi. Over 60 hotels in the surrounding areas once hosted traders, travellers and patients from Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Iran and Afghanistan, especially before Ramazan. Beautifully designed troughs of the colonial era were utilised for watering animals, and now are used as podiums for informal khokhas [small shops], repurposing colonial infrastructure for survival.

Lyari cannot be understood through singular frames, crime, poverty, culture or resilience alone. It is a palimpsest of forced migration and chosen belonging, of drums and footballs, of shrines and stadiums, of markets that once fed a city and streets that still produce artists, athletes and political consciousness.

To walk through Lyari is to walk through Karachi’s buried origins and its unfinished future.

THE JHATPATT MARKET
Local markets and sellers were very far off, especially in Lea market. The women in Lyari found it a bit difficult to travel all the way to Lea Market and sell their goods; hence, the Jhatpatt [literally: Quick] market was established. It was like the usual markets. The items for merchandise were laid out from 9am-10am and, within the span of an hour, people would “quickly” buy whatever was essential for them.

Note: This article was first put together in March 2023. Conditions in Lyari have changed since then for the better, but density has increased, further congesting an already congested area.

Arif Hasan is an architect and urban planner.
He can be reached at arifhasan37@gmail.com and through the website www.arifhasan.org

Khadija Imran is a researcher whose work revolves around social and cultural anthropology

Hamna Syed is a researcher whose work centres on cultural critique and social realities

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 10th, 2026

Every person’s life is a series of transformations; some celebrated with fanfare and others unfold in the quiet spaces of our daily lives. Often, we focus so much on the milestone of growing up that we miss the profound evolution happening within.

Let’s talk about two different pages from the same life story: a girl and a woman. While the transition from a child to an adult is widely discussed, the transition from a girl to a woman and, ultimately, to a mother is overlooked.

The first lessons

A mother never becomes a mother just by giving birth; it’s a long process that actually starts the day she is born. When a little girl first picks up a doll or gently pats a younger sibling’s head, she is already beginning that journey.

She spends her childhood as a silent observer, playing in the corners of the house, while still watching how the women around her navigate the world. She mimics her mother’s tone, her way of comforting and even the way she sighs after a long day. In these early years, she isn’t just playing — she is unknowingly building the heart of the woman she will one day become, absorbing the lessons of care and patience before she even knows she’ll need them.

Some transformations are loud, others happen silently within. Becoming a mother is one of those journeys that begins long before the world sees it

A mirror in the house

She’s like a mirror. She doesn’t realise it just now, but she is constantly taking mental notes. She watches how her mother handles a guest, how she makes a meal out of almost nothing or how she hides her tiredness when the kids are around. She’s learning how to be the person who holds everything together.

Before she even knows what the word ‘responsibility’ means, she is already absorbing the quiet patience and the multitasking that will one day define her. She’s building her heart, bit by bit, through the simple act of watching the woman who came before her.

The world steps in

But as she grows, she leaves the toy world behind, although everything in her head, she is asked to start applying all that she has been learning all these years, to her practical life slowly.

Things get complicated. There is a profound irony in how society shapes a lively girl into a strong, independent woman, only to demand she suppress the very emotions that fuel her. She becomes aware of the gap between how she is treated and how she is expected to be. She is told to remain soft, even as circumstances demand a certain hardness. This triggers a silent, inner shift: the realisation that she possesses a heart strong enough to bury storms, yet delicate enough to shatter in a brief moment.

The silent transition

And then, the shift happens, without her realising, a silent battle for her identity where she meets unexpected expectations from people around her; to behave differently. More mature, but not outspoken; stronger, but not distant.

She starts to see her mother as an ideal, realising that this woman has been a silent source of strength all along, handling the chaos, the struggle and the pressure of a world that often tries to push her down.

She gradually learns the meaning of life and what it takes to be a woman, and eventually, a mother. Everything hits deeper. The dynamics of her life have changed. She quietly keeps observing, starts feeling more, and thinking more.

What once meant nothing starts to make sense as she slowly strengthens her bond with her environment and every person she is associated with. She realises she also has all those abilities to care, nurture and protect just like her mother.

Eventually, everything clicks. She finally sees how her mother handled it all — the children, the relatives, the neighbours and the endless juggle of managing a home and a life outside — often doing it entirely on her own. She realises her mother wasn’t just a parent, but the ultimate role model. She was the kind of mother who could hear what wasn’t being said and the person her children would always run to for peace after a long, hectic day.

The realisation

Eventually, everything makes sense to her. She finally sees how her mother handled it all — the children, the relatives, the neighbours and the endless juggle of managing a home and a life outside, often doing it entirely on her own.

She realises her mother wasn’t just a parent, but the ultimate role model. She was the kind of mother who could hear what wasn’t being said and the person her children would always run to for peace after a long, hectic day.

Stepping into the light

Slowly, she develops that same instinct to carry the weight for others. Even while she’s struggling to hold onto herself and meet everyone else’s expectations, she ends up becoming the one who shapes the people around her. She learns to walk with dignity, keeping her own identity while acting as a guide for the next generation. Now, she’s the one passing people with a smile and a brave face, quietly acknowledging the pain she carries while still choosing to be a source of strength.

She knows the gravity of taking a wrong step. This notion of the future of her children and the life they will get, depends on her, on the battle she fights today, keeps her motivated, lets her spend sleepless nights, leads her to make several sacrifices and moulds her into a woman of perseverance and patience.

The shift from ‘me’ to ‘them.’

She steps into a new zone of her life where putting her children first becomes her first priority. Her bucket list starts filling with the goals related to their care, education, upbringing, needs and wishes. She makes choices, chooses wise options and neglects a lot of them just for the good of her children.

Small things lasting forever

While all of this seems hard, arduous and sometimes unbearable, motherhood can be made easier with an appropriate support system and the sincerity of her children to her.

Her child’s smile makes her entire day feel complete. A small hug fills the moment with tranquillity. Some appreciative words make it all better. An acknowledgement makes her stand again, no matter how broken she is. And when she sees her children’s accomplishments, she suddenly feels all her pains and struggles have paid off so well.

The transition from a child to a girl, then to a woman and eventually to a mother doesn’t just happen overnight. It takes years of quiet observation, silent struggles and steady growth. It is a long, unseen journey of building a heart that can hold the weight of the world.

Because this journey is so demanding, we should strive to make the world a place where women can breathe and work freely — where they are actually supported in every role they take on, whether as a daughter, a sister, a citizen or a mother.

When women are treated with the respect and support they deserve, they do more than just manage homes or offices; they bring about revolutions and have the power to change the entire trajectory of the world.

This Mother’s Day, celebrate your mother’s life with something more than just a gift. Give her your time, your listening ear and a genuine ‘thank you’ for the silent battles she fought that you never even knew about. Sometimes, just being seen is the greatest gift a mother can receive.

Happy Mother’s Day

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 9th, 2026

From memories to meaning

This is with reference to the article “From memories to meaning” by Urwa Waseem (YW, April 11).

This thoughtful story beautifully showed how childhood memories and simple objects can carry deep emotional value. Kubra’s discovery of her old books is not just about nostalgia, but also about reconnecting with herself beyond routine and screen use.

The focus on the meaningful act of sharing gave a clear message: value is not always in keeping things, but sometimes in passing them on. Even small actions, like sharing books, can create a positive impact on others.

Areeba Khan,
Skardu

The lies we all live with

This is with reference to the article “The lies we all live with” by Sania Asif (YW, April 4).

I agree with the writer’s view that people often resort to lying in their daily lives, whether consciously or unconsciously, to avoid conflict, prevent hurting those close to them, or out of fear of losing someone they hold dear.

However, choosing to confront the truth ultimately strengthens relationships and helps preserve authenticity. Relationships built on honesty tend to endure, whereas those founded on lies are fragile and short-lived. Dishonesty breeds mistrust, making it nearly impossible to restore the same level of confidence once it is broken.

Muhammad Raza,
Sukkur

II

I agree with the views of Sania Asif in her article “The lies we all live with” that lying is often a part of daily life, even when we do not realise it.

Many lies may seem harmless, but honesty is still compromised. I also feel that self-deception is an important point. People often ignore their own problems and pretend everything is okay, which can delay real solutions. The article reminded us to be more aware of the words we speak and to value honesty where it really matters.

Aliyan Raza,
Dera Ghazi Khan

Phantom of my loneliness

This concerns the story “Phantom of my loneliness” by Masroor Atta (YW, April 11). The story hit me deeply, as if I were the one living it. There is no doubt that sometimes loneliness feels louder than actual company.

The writer showed that being alone does not feel bad at first, but slowly it can affect how a person thinks and feels. The story also showed how the mind can react strongly when someone has no real connection with others.

Hamza Humayun Tariq,
Rawalpindi

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 9th, 2026

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 9th, 2026

Ever wondered what made William Shakespeare so great that his work speaks even today, 400 years after his death? Celeste Davidson Mannis’ Who Was William Shakespeare? not only takes you into the era of the English language’s greatest playwright, but also explains the reasons behind what he did.

The book discusses every important aspect of Shakespeare’s life in simple, engaging language. Illustrations by John O’Brien add extra interest by providing a visual for what is mentioned on each page, such as the original home where the Shakespeare family lived, London’s condition when young Will decided to try his luck in the big city and the many theatres where he worked.

Not just that, according to this book, what Shakespeare became was influenced greatly by his family. Had his once-influential father not been in a position to facilitate the many acting troupes in his area, Shakespeare might not have been exposed to them. His decision to go to the city for a better life for his wife and children also played an important role in his development as a writer.

The book is divided into nine chapters: the first three cover his early life, and one is dedicated to his lost years, when he was away from his family and the public eye. It is in those ‘lost’ years that he is believed to have developed an interest in theatre. While he borrowed elements from earlier writers, the flavour he added made works like The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, Henry VI, Richard III, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, The Tempest and many other plays widely popular.

And if you had no clue that there was a plague that claimed hundreds of lives in England, or that Shakespeare and his team were among the first to have their own theatre to perform in, then this book will certainly be useful to you.

The latter half of the book examines how his foray into poetry made him wealthy in that era, how the reigning monarch helped him develop his out-of-the-box ideas and why he veered towards tragedy in his final years. He could not complete his studies like his contemporaries, but his observations were so sharp that even after five centuries, his work speaks louder than that of others.

Shakespeare’s work defined him as an artist far ahead of his time, and this book is a tribute to the great thespian.

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 9th, 2026

As exams are still going on in many schools, most kids are dealing with a lot of stress and anxiety. Still, special days often fall right in the middle of all the academic chaos, just like Mother’s Day. So don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.

You can keep up with your studies and still take out an hour to make a beautiful card for your mother. It’s simple, elegant and all it needs is your attention and creativity. The result is truly beautiful in its simplicity.

Most of the things you need are easily available, so let’s begin:

Things you need:

1. White glue or hot glue

2. Colour markers

3. Coloured paper (any colour)

4. Four to five barbecue skewers, or you can use toothpicks

5. Green craft tape or green coloured paper

6. Foam play dough (3–4 colours of your choice)

7. Scissors

Directions:

1. Wrap the green craft tape or paper around the skewers or toothpick to make it look like a stem; picture 2.

2. Fold the coloured paper into a card shape. I used beige, but you can choose any colour; picture 3.

3. Make 6–7 small leaves and 4-5 flowers from foam play dough in different sizes and shapes; picture 4.

4. Start pasting the stems on one side of the card with either hot glue or white glue, leaving equal space between them so you can paste leaves and flowers accordingly; picture 5.

5. Paste the flowers on top of each stem, and add leaves at intervals along them; picture 6.

6. Cut a grass shape from green coloured paper, about one centimetre wide and three inches in length, and paste it at the bottom where the stems begin; picture 7.

7. Write your message on a separate piece of paper using a marker. You can get creative and design a personalised message; picture 8.

8. Paste this message on the other side of the card.

Your simple Mother’s Day card is ready. Even during exam time, small gestures like this can mean a lot. A few heartfelt words can make your mother’s day truly special.

The writer can be contacted at ithecraftman@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 9th, 2026

Zalmi had previously lifted the trophy back in 2017, when they defeated Quetta Gladiators in the final. This year, however, the victory felt even more special — not just for the team, but for their captain, Babar Azam.

A captain’s comeback

Before the tournament began, there were doubts about Babar Azam’s form. Critics questioned whether he could deliver when it mattered most. But as great players often do, Babar responded in the best way possible — with runs.

He ended the tournament as the leading run-scorer, amassing a remarkable 588 runs at an average of 73.5 and a strike rate close to 146. His performance included two brilliant centuries and three half-centuries, making him the standout batter of the competition.

More importantly, he led from the front. Under his captaincy, Peshawar Zalmi dominated the tournament, losing just one match and excelling in every department — batting, bowling and fielding.

Cricket returns to the crowds

The tournament began on March 26 under unusual circumstances, as matches were played without spectators due to security concerns. However, the excitement returned in full force when Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif approved the return of crowds ahead of the playoffs.

Fans rushed back to the stadiums and every match from that point onward was sold out, bringing back the electrifying atmosphere that makes the PSL so special.

Hyderabad Kingsmen: The surprise package

While Peshawar Zalmi lifted the trophy, the journey of Hyderabad Kingsmen won hearts across the country.

Led by Australian player Marnus Labuschagne and coached by Jason Gillespie, their campaign began on a disappointing note, with the team losing their first four matches. But instead of giving up, they staged an incredible comeback — winning seven of their next eight games. Along the way, they knocked out former champions Multan Sultans and Islamabad United to reach the final.

Although they fell short in the grand finale, their fighting spirit and never-give-up attitude earned them a huge fan following.

Stars of the tournament

The PSL once again showcased outstanding individual performances, led by Babar Azam in batting and Sufyan Muqeem in bowling. Not only did Babar Azam lead the charts with his incredible consistency, but he also equalled Fakhar Zaman’s record of most runs in a single PSL season.

With 588 runs in 11 innings, he managed to beat the second-best batter by 38 runs, who was, incidentally, from his own team, Peshawar Zalmi. That batter was none other than Zalmi’s Sri Lankan import Kusal Mendis, whose 550 runs came at an average of 55, at a strike rate of 168, and with the help of one century and four fours.

Lahore Qalandar’s Fakhar Zaman was in prime form during the tournament and ended up as the third-highest scorer with 401 runs in 8 innings, at an average of over 55 and a strike rate of over 155. Wicket-keeper batter Usman Khan, who was instrumental in the emergence of Hyderabad Kingsmen, ended the tournament with 389 runs in 13 matches, and was closely followed by Multan Sultans’ openers Sahibzada Farhan and Steve Smith, who managed 380 runs each.

All these batters scored a tonne or more during PSLXI, lighting up the tournament. Mendis’s 109-run innings off 52 balls against Karachi Kings on 9 April was the highest innings of the tournament, which was followed by Sahibzada Farhan’s 106 off 57 balls and Steve Smith’s 106 off 50 balls against Hyderabad Kingsmen.

Fakhar Zaman’s 103 off 51 balls against Quetta Gladiators and Usman Khan’s 101 off 74 balls were match-winning knocks by far, but Babar Azam’s twin centuries put him ahead of the rest of the centurions. While one came against Islamabad United in the playoffs, the other was instrumental in his team’s victory against Quetta Gladiators in the lead-up to the playoffs.

What Babar Azam was to Peshawar Zalmi as a batter, Sufyan Muqeem was to the same team as a bowler. The left-arm Chinaman bowler proved his worth with 22 wickets in 11 matches, with many delivering match-turning spells.

Not only was his economy rate amongst the best in the tournament, but he was also one of the few bowlers to take 3 or more wickets in an innings regularly. Whenever his captain was in need of a breakthrough, he approached Sufyan, who delivered, ending the event with an amazing strike rate of 12.

Hyderabad Kingsmen’s pacer Mohammad Ali was second in the wickets list with 20 wickets in 12 matches, and was followed by Islamabad United’s Shadab Khan and Hyderabad Kingsmen’s Hunain Shah, who ended the event with 17, 17 wickets apiece in 10 matches.

Lahore Qalandars’ Shaheen Afridi and Karachi Kings’ Hasan Ali didn’t have a great PSL season, but used their experience to end the event with 16 and 15 wickets in 10 and 9 matches, respectively.

One player who was a revelation as a bowler during PSLXI was Peshawar Zalmi’s Iftikhar Ahmed, who may not have ended the tournament as a leading wicket-taker, but opened the innings with his bowling on a few occasions and even took 4 wickets for 21 runs in a match against the eventual finalists, Hyderabad Kingsmen.

The best bowling figures, however, were taken by Hyderabad Kingsmen’s Asif Mehmood and Lahore Qalandar’s Shaheen Shah Afridi. While the latter blew away Karachi Kings with his four wickets for 18 runs in one of the earlier matches of the tournament, it took the former just two overs to achieve the same figures in a match against Islamabad United.

Other bowlers to take four wickets in an innings during the tournament included Hunain Shah, Hasan Ali, Aaron Hardie, Faisal Akram, Sufyan Muqeem, and Ali Raza. As for the fielders, Kingsmen’s skipper Marnus Labuschagne took the most number of catches — 13 in 13 matches — during the PSLXI, and was followed by Zalmi’s Farhan Yousuf and Sultans’ Steve Smith with 10 catches in 11 matches each.

Youngster Maaz Sadaqat, with his 9 catches in 12 matches, and Chris Green, with his 8 catches in 10 matches, were next on the list, proving that sharp fielding can change the course of a game.

The future is bright

One of the most exciting aspects of this PSL season was the emergence of young talent, especially batters, since the national team is always in need of good ones. Young batters like Sameer Minhas (349 runs in 11 matches), Hasan Nawaz (291 runs in 10 matches), Maaz Sadaqat (260 runs in 12 matches), Shamyl Hussain (215 runs in 9 matches), and Abdul Samad (132 runs in 11 matches) impressed with their run-making ability and might soon reclaim their place in the national side.

As for the bowlers, pacers impressed more for a change this season. On one hand, there were Hunain Shah (17 wickets in 10 matches), Akif Javed (12 wickets in 8 matches), Ali Raza (10 wickets in 5 matches), Mohammad Ismail (10 wickets in 7 matches) and Mohammad Basit (10 wickets in 6 matches), while on the other, there were spinners like Sufyan Muqeem (22 wickets in 11 matches) and Arafat Minhas (9 wickets in 11 matches) who showed glimpses of brilliance and promise.

Among the most remarkable individual performances of the tournament were Ali Raza’s fiery spell that resulted in a hat trick against Karachi Kings and Hunain Shah’s last-over in the second eliminator, where he successfully defended six runs in the final over.

It would be interesting to note that amongst all the wicket-keepers from around the world, the one with the most dismissals was from Pakistan — Usman Khan — who ended with 13 dismissals in as many matches. His resurgence as a dependable bat would surely help the Pakistan side, who need to prioritise youngsters over experience to show the world that the next generation is ready to shine on the big stage.

A season to remember

PSL 2026 will be remembered as the tournament where Babar Azam silenced his critics and truly wore the crown of a king. With thrilling matches, dramatic comebacks and emerging stars, this season had everything a cricket fan could ask for.

It was also the first season to host as many as eight teams, and if all goes well next year, most of these teams might get to play in their home grounds, especially the finalists — Hyderabad Kingsmen and Peshawar Zalmi. If that happens, the tournament will break records and excite many fans who might not have watched a single match in the stadium yet.

And with that, the future of the Pakistan Super League looks brighter than ever.

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 9th, 2026

It’s obvious that as time passes, the weather is changing very rapidly and the intensity of the heat keeps increasing. The earth is the same, the sun is the same, but what has changed that the temperature has increased to such an extent that heatwaves are almost constant occurrences in summer?

Zubair was standing by his room’s window, looking at the scorching sun and the deserted roads outside, thinking about all of this. These same questions were running through his mind, and he was completely lost in his thoughts.

He went and sat beside his mother and shared his concerns with her.

His mother replied, “Son, all of this isn’t happening on its own. We humans have caused this. We have increased pollution on Earth to such an extent that we have become the reason for these changes. We cut down trees, pollute the air with vehicle emissions and factory smoke, and contaminate the oceans by dumping garbage, oil and chemicals into them. Climate change is the result of our own actions, and now we have to face the consequences.”

She further explained, “When I was your age, summer was hot too, but it wasn’t as intense as it is today. People didn’t fall ill so often or suffer from heatstrokes like they do now. Even in summer, there was a freshness in the air. People were not afraid to step outside. Daily life went on normally. But now, summers have become nothing less than a test for people.”

These words deeply affected Zubair. He realised that the rising heat was not just a normal change, but a serious warning. He quickly went to his room, opened his laptop and started researching further.

The more he read, the more shocked he became. He discovered that this was not just a seasonal issue, but a serious global problem called climate change. Ice in the North and South Poles is melting rapidly, causing sea levels to rise. Floods are occurring in many parts of the world, or there is a growing risk of them. This is not just Pakistan’s problem, but a global one. And the reasons are the same — deforestation, smoke from factories and vehicles, and pollution of all kinds.

Zubair wondered that if people knew about this, then why there were not enough efforts or actions taking place to improve the situation? It seemed that neither people nor governments were taking it seriously. But Zubair decided that even if he was young, he would not sit idle. He would do his part.

He went back to his mother, shared everything he had learned and told her that he wanted to bring a positive change. He asked if he could plant trees in the courtyard of their house.

His mother was very happy. She realised that, despite being young, her son was aware and concerned.

She smiled and said, “Yes, of course. You can plant as many trees as you like, not just in our garden, but in the neighbourhood too.”

Zubair also decided that he would spread awareness. He would talk to his family, relatives and friends, and even give a speech at school so that more people could understand the issue.

Soon, Zubair not only planted trees in his own house, but also in his neighbourhood with the help of his family and friends.

This is also a message for all of us. Together, through small steps, we can bring about a big change. It is our responsibility. If we keep thinking, “What difference will one person’s effort make?” nothing will change.

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 9th, 2026