meethapani

  A Theatre of the Absurd @maraybhai100 uploads reels that resemble no other in the prolific world of Pakistani memes. Pakistani memes, like their Indian cousins, are brilliant nuggets of self-reflective humour, reaching their true genius during the recent skirmish between India and Pakistan. Maray Bhai’s reels have more in common with the existential Theatre of the Absurd than the usual amusing reels.    They are off-the-wall, pure chaos beginning in a calm pseudo-scientific tone using Google Maps, and the Solar Smash app, as if about to offer a solution to regional crises. They soon derail into an existential distraction, as the lines he draws over countries, turn into doodles of animals or people. Behind the levity there is the shadow of real regional issues and the existential threat of war and nuclear annihilation.   The Theatre of the Absurd describes plays written in the aftermath of WWII that reflected a chaotic, and illogical world, where one accepts, ...

  House Full Pakistan once had 2,500 cinemas bringing romance, music, tragedy and action to both city and town, all but replaced today by a handful of multi screens in a few big cities, with ticket prices only a few can afford. As journalist Qaisar Kamran wrote, there was a time “when a ticket cost less than a meal” and “for a few hours, everyone could sit in the dark and disappear into a story”.   Movie reviewer, Muhammad Suhayb, takes us on a cinema-hopping journey of the past: to Empire Cinema near Civil Hospital where Pakistan’s first-ever film, Teri Yaad (1948) was screened, to Regal, now Regal Trade Center, where   Dilip Kumar and Noor Jehan’s Jugnu (1947) completed its Silver Jubilee. Naz (now Naz shopping center) and Nishat ( now a commercial building after it burnt down in 2012) were called Radha and Krishna after the names of the owner’s children. The central role of cinema is best understood by a story of Mehboob Khan’s Ailan, released all over India on A...

  Does Truth Matter? We are said to live in a “post truth” world. In 2016 the term was named Word of the Year by Oxford Dictionaries. While the immediate motivation for the term may have been a description of Donald Trump’s “war on truth”, in reality the subversion of truth has been a strategy used for millennia by rulers, their emissaries and their spies. From the Trojan Horse to the falsehood of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, certainty and doubt, trust and deception keep exchanging places, confusing the general populations.   History is riddled with double speak. While one hand is held out to help, the other is filling a pocket. Where the world sees genocide in Palestine, Zionists see the promised land. Artist Khalil Chishtee made a sculpture with plastic bags of two men embracing while each holds a gun behind his back.   Taking liberties with the truth is justified by advertisers, by politicians, and by defence lawyers.   It is considered acceptable be...

  Taking Care of the Little Things The American poet, Emily Dickinson, said “take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves”. The words seem timid in a time that urges big ideas, big conglomerates, and policies that are applied with a broad brush on a global canvas. Individual acts can grow into movements. Abdul Sattar Edhi, the award winning social worker of Pakistan, would be seen trundling a wheelbarrow through markets collecting funds for healthcare, ten rupees at a time, or standing with arms outstretched for donations in the middle of the traffic. The Edhi Foundation single handedly gave hope to a whole generation and established a methodology that others emulate. A.K.Khan, a horticulturist from Allahabad who migrated to Karachi, not only transformed a dusty city into a green oasis, but he introduced the concept of landscaping domestic gardens in the city, establishing it as a profession for others to follow. Societies focus on human ac...

  Controlled by Design Design is often considered a luxury, yet the reality is that nothing can be manufactured without first being designed. It can be as simple as an envelope or pencil, or as complex as a car or space rocket. While some designers such as Charles Eames, Milton Glaser, and Zaha Hadid, have become household names, the vast majority of products we use every day are anonymously designed down to the shape, colour and location of the tiniest screw on a laptop. No one knows the name of the first craftsperson who designed the stucco muqarnas of Nishapur, Iran in the 9 th Century, a style that spread across the Islamic world, or the very first woven paradise carpets or illuminated Qurans.      Design is the purposeful fashioning of something, usually products, architecture, or graphic design. It is also the design of systems, from the structure of how a bank functions, education systems, government structures or the design of roads to manage traffic flo...

  Dreaming Karachi Last Sunday a day long festival was held at the recently renovated Khalikdina Hall in the heart of the old city of Karachi. While Karachi’s public spaces are coming back to life as seen with the attendances at the Arts Council’s World Culture Festival, the performances at the National Academy of Performing Arts and the All Pakistan Music Conference, and new fringe cultural spaces like Nani Ghar, Meher Ghar and Kitab Ghar, seeing an abandoned heritage building once again milling with people of all ages from across Karachi, is a moving experience. The handsome portals of the Palladium building, for many years dark and silent, were filled with light and life as in the past. Arif Hasan, in his article, The Changing Face of Karachi, explains in great detail the circumstances that ‘orphaned’ the inner city. Karachi has awakened after three decades of fear. Much has changed in these decades. The culture of cinema which started with the Star Cinema on Bunder Road in ...

  Whispers Beneath the Sand Much like the waves of Karachi’s coastline – sometimes overwhelmed by Monsoon seas and sometimes stretched out alongside winter’s gentle ripple, the stories of this city appear and disappear with few traces. Who were the community of people whose flint tools from 2 million years ago were found on Mulri Hills opposite the University of Karachi, now buried under an apartment block? Why were stone megaliths erected in circles on the outskirts of Karachi? And more importantly, how have they survived for so long? Why was such a harbor so perfectly sheltered from the Arabian sea by the Manora peninsula not a thriving sea port in ancient times? Or was it? Mentions of what is today Karachi go back to at least the 3 rd C BC Krokola, Monrontobara, Kharacchi,   Rasal Karazi, Kaurashi, Karachar, Kalaiti Bunder, Ramaia, Kolachi, Kurrachee. But tantalizingly no more than names remains, except for the famous story of the seven sons of Aubhayo six of whom w...

  In The Same Boat   The Titanic was a magnificent luxury passenger ship that sank in 1912 , after hitting an iceberg. The First Class had luxurious suites, servants, French cuisine, private decks and a ballroom with an orchestra.   The second class was comfortable but not luxurious. While the third class, most of whom were seeking a new life in America, were housed on the lowest level, with simple food and shared cabins. Yet, they all faced the same fear and the same death in the icy waters of the Atlantic. The Titanic has since become a metaphor for human society. Some see it as an indictment of human hubris, others reflect on the class divisions and the unequal value of human lives between the privileged and the poor. One can move the telescope further away and look at the inequality of nations - divided between the highly developed and those much lower down the rung. Yet every so often nature makes short work of such differences. Celebrity homes were gutted al...

  Signs and Miracles A whale shark was pulled ashore onto a beach in Gaza on October 17, amid great cheers. Raed Elwan, one of the fishermen who helped bring the creature to shore, said “We felt the sea sent us a great blessing, as people in the camps had nothing to eat”. Whale sharks are only found in tropical waters and it is speculated it may have entered the Mediterranean from the Red Sea via the Suez canal.     The Gazan fisherman saw it as help from Allah, and soon parallels were made with the Expedition of Fish which took place in another October in 629 AD. The Muslim forces were suffering from famine, forced to eat leaves to survive, until a whale came ashore that fed them for several days. Signs and miracles are a part of all religions, a reassurance of divine presence. This is especially true of Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam: the parting of the Red Sea, Moses striking a rock to cause 12 springs to gush forth, Jesus multiplying loave...

  Degrees of Detachment   The Sumud Flotilla of some 40 boats with 500 people on board from 47 countries, including Pakistan, attempted to get to Gaza in a symbolic gesture to highlight the need to get aid to besieged Palestinians. “When the World Stays Silent, We Set Sail” states the Sumud website. The participants were everyday people—organizers, humanitarians, doctors, artists, clergy and lawyers. Sumud is a Palestinian term for steadfastness. This was the latest and largest of several flotillas from 2010, during which many lost their lives, were imprisoned or deported by Israeli authorities. The heroic nature of sailing fragile boats across the Mediterranean Sea to save a people in impossible conditions, is not lost given the legendary history of this sea traversed by heroes like Odysseus, Theseus and Jason with his Argonauts.   Is this a new generation of the Sea Peoples of 1177 BC that brought down the powerful empires of the Bronze Age? Fanciful speculation...

  Occupying No Man’s Land No Man’s Land is a monograph of Amin Gulgee – a sculptor, a performance artist and a curator. That should be a comprehensive description, but it’s not. The more one hears and reads about Amin Gulgee the more the mystery deepens. No Man’s Land suggests that in between space of uneasy peace in a zone of conflict, a space in which Amin gathers the fragmented, the wounded and the heroic.   Sometimes he is Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People and sometimes his space becomes Théodore Géricault’s Raft of Medusa. The book has twelve essays by a wide range of curators, novelists, artists, academics, critics from Pakistan and across the globe. Amin asked the contributors to consider the book an invitation to a party. They could write whatever they felt like. A good place to start is in the middle with the interview by Maryam Ekhtiar, curator at the Department of Islamic Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Her neutral prompts offer an un...

  Listening to Nature Environmentalist Rachel Carson’s seminal book Silent Spring, warned the world of impending disasters, launching the environmental movement. The few lone voices raising the alarm has grown into universal concern.   2025 has shocked the people of the world across continents as they struggle to put out wild fires, succumb to flash floods,   pull bodies from under the rubble of buildings in the aftermath of earthquakes, take shelter from tornadoes, and hurricanes. Just as Pakistanis were coming to terms with impending drought, excessive rains have flooded the whole country. Voltaire said “Men argue. Nature Acts” – or perhaps reacts. Humanity may just be caught in Earth’s natural reset. However, many hold human hubris responsible, and indifference to the calls of nature.   While nature adapts and renews itself, humans remain rigidly intractable waiting for nature to bend to their ways. Mountains are cut, rivers are straightened, narrowed and da...

  The Colonial Playbook   This August the people of Pakistan celebrated 78 years of independence from colonial rule.   For most of these years the country has struggled to navigate stormy seas, replacing one captain after another in the hope of reaching peaceful waters. Is it the captain or the manual itself that needs to be replaced? In South Asia, approximately 20,000 British officials and troops were able to rule over 300 million people by employing local people encouraged to educate themselves in British legal, administrative, and military systems. These people took over the administration of the new states formed after independence, several generations removed from the systems of the Empires and many kingdoms of South Asia. While in initial years it was only practical to adopt the administrative structure of colonial rule, almost eight decades later, colonial laws remain firmly in place such as The Penal Code of 1860. Some strange sounding laws such as The Murd...

  Defined by Music “If I were a sound I’d probably sound like an old engine - reasonably quiet and a bit spluttery, and make a bit of a noise if someone puts their foot down.” This was one response to an informal survey asking people to describe what sound best describes them. Another person responded :   “If I was a musical instrument I would be an extremely down tuned 6 string guitar – metal and brutal”. If people were to be described as types of music, then perhaps a calm person would be a gentle melody, a free spirit would be a jazz improvisation. A person could be described as a powerful symphony, or one could even describe people or events as the nuanced komal or teevra notes of classical Indian music, expressing ghambhirta or depth of thought. Music is composed of sounds. The essence of life lies in movement which in turn produces sound – the rhythm of a heartbeat, breeze stirring leaves, the sound of footsteps or rain.   The tone in which words are spoken, a...

  Silent Stories of a City Houses hold stories in their walls – of family meals, getting home work done, friends visiting, scribbles on the walls, and the inevitable quarrels. There is a great sense of loss as buildings are pulled down. It is as if lives are sent to some no man’s land, to exist as shadows, soon to be dismissed as fanciful imagination. Watching homes tumble like flimsy cardboard structures in the recent flash floods across the world was a shocking reminder of the vulnerability of man’s claim on the earth. Family albums, carefully collected furniture and favourite clothes are turned into muddy rubble. Wars and natural disasters are seen as forces beyond the control of people. Some homes are abandoned as families disperse, some are erased by developers who only see property value instead of cherished homes. Karachi’s streets are being stripped of their history. Karachi was the Dubai of the late 19 th century, for the most part, bare sandy tracts upon which arch...