Shoaib Akhtar's retired life crisis?

If you are a baller (the chap who throws the ball in cricket), who has just ran out of work after a dozen years of perpetual hormone malfunction that caused disciplinary problems, injuries and media hype-what would you do when all that has ended? You would do what Shoaib Akhtar did. 

Tale of a silent socket

The tale of Pakistan and rest of the developing world. You can be Justin Bieber on Youtube, Ashton Kutchner on Twitter or Christiane Amanpour in Syria going live from the Lasbianese border, all our cyber-activism and online glamour will crumble once the wires stop responding, which they often do in Pakistan....

Holiday Bride by Amit Kaur

An amateur director from Bollywood, Amit Kaur, directed the Holiday Bride for her final film-making St. Xavier Mumbai. 

The movie raises a gender issue in Indian Panjab, whereby foreign passport holders marry young Indian girls only to abandon them later. This brings a lot of difficulties for the girl,  usually very young, not very educated or independent. Sometimes they end up raising their child or children alone, since divorce is often a taboo.

The dengue windfall

Medical stores have doubled prices of insecticide sprays, preventive lotions and medicines. According to them, wholesalers and dealers have revised the prices. Regular insecticide sprays that were originally priced at Rs100-200, now come for a whopping Rs400 or more. Lotions worth Rs50 or more now cost more than a hundred. Since the demand is much greater than the supply, black market has also thrived, and the suppliers are minting money.

Floods in Sindh

Floods have caused huge destruction in Pakistan's southern province, Sindh. One costly consequence of war, terrorism and politics is that it leaves no space for civilian causes in the international media and mindset. Last year the donations and international aid was compromised due to Pakistan's sinking image abroad. This year the help is minuscule. 

The Craft of Writing

Creative writing courses for aspiring writers seem like a new trend. These courses — usually — spanning two years — have no more than ten to twenty students in each batch, have accomplished writers as teachers ( big names like Salman Rushdie would prefer guest lectures while others may become artists-in-residence, though of course exceptions apply). 

Suffusion of a floral kind by Dua Abbas

Flora infuses so much of artistic creation that if one were to surround himself with books upon books and painted panels and canvases and then close his eyes, he would actually smell all those flowers compressed into words and folded in pigment. He wouldn’t smell the paper or the paintings, that combined smell of ink and book shops, wood and oil, he would smell roses and narcissuses and wildflowers.

Students, made in China

Chinese universities are about to give Western universities a run for their money within two decades, according to Professor Richard Levin, President of Yale University. While the West battles economic recession, cuts down university grants and budgets (the UK has cut 950 million pounds) and increases student fees, China’s economy — and higher education spending — is going from strength to strength.

Young, New and Funny

B Theatre Productions presented 'The Odd Couple' in Alhamra , Mall Road, from 7th to 10th September. The play is written the Tony award-winning playwright Neil Simon and directed by Awais Azhar. It revolves around two newly divorced middle aged roommates. 

When the towers were falling...

When the towers were falling, I found it bizarre and funny, gained a vindictive, childish pleasure. The atrocities US commited in Korea, Vietnam, Japan in 1945, its hegemony around the world, its support for dictatorships and Israel in Middle East were often commented upon.  I was in Grade 9th, sitting in my living room like many others in Pakistan before the advent of private news channels, not knowing how close a link our country has with the fall. 

Earning without deserving

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were a teacher-student trio, called the “gang of three” by Edward De Bono, for their contribution to human knowledge.

But as the world and Pakistan celebrated the Teacher’s Day this Monday, I couldn’t help but remember, the dozens of teachers who have taught me since the age of five.