Take a woman of few means who lives in a village, give her the basic materials to create a design, pay her a nominal rate for her work, transport it to your store, slap on a fancy label, add a sob story about the woman’s circumstances, promise that the proceeds will go back to the society… and wait for the ‘pity factor’ to bring in some moolah. That seems to be the commonly understood definition of ethical fashion these days. But does the buyer even understand what ethical fashion really is?

“Ethical fashion is a subset of fashion that focuses on fairness and transparency from sourcing to production and making sure everyone involved in making the product is compensated fairly,” says Ayesha Mustafa, owner of online luxury clothing and accessories platform Fashion Compassion which sells ethical brands from the Middle East and Asia.

This requires brands to take the environmental aspect into account by, let’s say, using eco-friendly materials. Additionally, it means taking care of employees by providing them comfortable working conditions and even compensating them for their handiwork at a rate that is higher than the market rate dictated by comparative machine-work. Fair trade considerations — such as eliminating unnecessary middlemen and putting artisans directly in contact with the designer — also factor in.

Still, it seems that purveyors of ethical fashion in the west give far too much importance to the environmental facet whereas locally ethical fashion labels give more importance to the people involved in the production process. However, isn’t a truly ethical brand one that balances both aspects equally well?

“As hard as you might try, it’s impossible to be sustainable in every way. For instance, if you’re shipping or transporting your goods from one country to another, you are still adding to your carbon footprint. This is why ethical fashion continues to be subjective,” says Ayesha Mustafa.

Syed Moiz Farooq, CEO of a Lahore-based apparel company Looptex, takes the definition of ethical fashion a bit further. “Ethical fashion is all about leading a responsible and honest lifestyle as a human being. Wearing ethical fashion and leading an unethical lifestyle is a big contradiction and is not sustainable.”

Sustainability is a buzz word often dropped by ethical designers but few buyers fully understand it. When it comes to ‘people’, sustainability would mean providing artisans with a constant source of income that can be continued for a long time and not a one-off investment in their skills. But with ‘environment’, sustainability would mean ensuring that the materials used in the design can be replaced or replenished.

When it comes to the players in the ethical design market, a discussion on ethical fashion can’t seriously begin without mentioning an iconic model-turned-fashion designer and UN ambassador Bibi Russel from Banglandesh. She has played a revolutionary role in bringing ethical fashion to the limelight and uniting ethical fashion designers from different South Asian countries on one front.

There are many people who are working on the revival of crafts in Pakistan. Shubhinak, owned by Farooq’s company Looptex, is a brand that has been striving to incorporate all aspects of ethical fashion, including social, environmental, health and safety of workers and workplace, fair wages, compliance with local and international laws. It engages 800 female artisans from Chitral and plans to bring that number up to 5,000 artisans in the next three years. Polly&Me works with female artisans from Chitral and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to make luxury hand-embroidered accessories. The brand which is an initiative of Cath and Ange Braid, works with these artisans through a partner cooperation called Mogh Limited. Every female artisan who makes a Polly&Me bag is a shareholder of Mogh Limited. Although there are many more ethical brands like these available in the market, awareness about them remains limited.

“For ethical fashion to really gain momentum in Pakistan, it’s paramount for consumers to understand the repercussions of their buying habits. Although ‘fast fashion’ is very alluring, it has numerous adverse effects on both the people and the environment,” says Ayesha Mustafa. By ‘fast fashion’, Mustafa refers to clothing that moves from the catwalk to the store in the shortest time possible to capitalise on a certain trend.

However, Farooq from Looptex disagrees about the awareness levels. “Pakistani people have a high level of awareness about ethical fashion and a lot of appreciation for such products. Until recently, Pakistan was naturally sustainable and an organic country. Our previous generations hand-knitted, crocheted or embroidered their clothing. However, it is becoming tougher to make the younger generation appreciate the value of craftsmanship.”

Besides lack of awareness, there is also the notion that ethical goods cost more. This is partly true, because of the high costs associated with producing ethical goods — money has to be spent on sourcing eco-friendly materials and maintaining fair trade business practices. But ethical fashion doesn’t always have to be expensive.

“We have managed to keep Shubhinak’s prices fair by constantly innovating, lowering our own margins, and maintaining efficiency and cost effectiveness, without compromising on quality,” says Farooq.

Still, on the surface, it seems that only a privileged niche from Pakistan is picking up ethical goods. “Ethical fashion is picked by educated and responsible citizens who care about the society and environment they live in,” says Mustafa. “They are well-aware of social issues and believe in giving back in ways that can create a sustainable change in people’s lives.”

Farooq agrees: “Shubhinak’s products are for all those who share our philosophy irrespective of what income group they belong to.”

One of the biggest questions that almost all consumers should ask an ethical fashion label is how they make sure that all suppliers and partners in the chain remain ethical. Choosing suppliers that follow the same philosophy and building long-lasting relationships is one of the challenges these brands face. “We do our groundwork and make them fill out an extensive questionnaire which helps asses what aspect of ethical fashion they are working on: Are they reviving crafts? Are they empowering communities?” says Mustafa, explaining how Fashion Compassion works.

On the other hand, Shubhinak not only complies with Global Organic Textile Standards for its finished products, it makes sure its supply partners also comply with the same standards.

With all this importance given to the ‘people’ element by local ethical fashion designers, are the artisans compensated fairly?

“In the open market, hand-embroidered or hand-crocheted items are sold at very low prices, which leads to unfairly low wages for the artisan,” says Farooq. “Buyers pressure artisans to compete with machine-embroidered or crocheted laces and the poor artisans can’t earn a decent living.”

Shubhinak lets artists command their own price and make products at their own convenience. But keeping the wages fair and maintaining low margins comes with its own set of challenges. Take, for instance, the difficulties associated with transporting goods from Lahore to Chitral in unpredictable weather conditions and challenging terrains.

At Polly&Me, artisans are paid per piece for the accessory textiles, depending on the design, size and technique. “Mogh manages all payments to the artisans and the prices are set after discussions with centre supervisors,” explains Cath.

When an artisan stitches or weaves something for a brand linked with Fashion Compassion, they are paid for the raw article there and then. “The aim of all the brands associated with Fashion Compassion is to pay the artisans for their work whether the product gets sold or not,” Mustafa says. “The brand then adds value to that article and then keeps the profits that come from selling that high-end product.”

Another forgotten and often ignored aspect of ethical fashion is its advertising. For a brand to be truly ethical, should it advertise and add to the already high levels of consumerism? Those in the business argue that advertising is essential to get your brand across to people. It is integral for an ethical brand to educate the market and create a space for itself — and that can only be done with advertising. But even if we concede that advertising is necessary, shouldn’t ethical brands portray real women with real bodies who actually buy those pieces? Putting a skinny runaway model makes young girls emulate those unhealthy body types, and promoting this image can’t be ethical. However, most ethical brands appear to be using models to advertise their products.

Besides high-end brands, a lot of NGOs have also ventured into ethical fashion recently. Since NGOs have a humanitarian goal while brands and designers are concerned with profit-making, some people are of the opinion that it makes more sense for ethical buyers to choose the former.

For the regular woman on a budget, an easy way to take the ethical route to fashion is to resist the urge to shop the latest trends, and instead be creative and redesign or refurbish your old clothes. And then there are the treasure troves that are our mother’s and grandmother’s old clothes — your Dadi’s sari will look just as sophisticated on you as it did on her 40 years ago. It’s about time our fashion choices not only reflect our style but also our conscience. Let’s not get swayed by unethical brands and try to do our bit to use fashion for creating change.

Published in The Express Tribune, Ms T, February 24^th, 2013.

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The name of the campaign is based on the statistic that every third woman is beaten; and with a total of seven billion people in the world, this translates into a grave reality of one billion abused women.

The seminar began with short speeches made by Pakistani women working for the rights of women and a performance by Kermani and her protégé. It seemed like the perfect way for women to express their outrage against abuse, demand change, rise against the injustices women suffer all over the world and play a role in ending violence against women.

However, the lack of preparedness demonstrated by the organisers at the seminar made it almost painful to watch. Even though the esteemed panel of female judges, writers and activists had strong points to make about OBR, the way they were just called on the spot by organisers to talk about the concept seemed unprofessional. But the beautifully orchestrated performance Aao Raqs Karo (Come and Dance), based on the poetry of famous thinker and poetess Fahimda Riaz sung by Gulshan Ara Syed and Tina Sani, started right on time and delivered a strong message — it more than made up for the seminars’ misgivings.

The event wasn’t just held for the elite and privileged women of Karachi. It was free and open for all and the diverse audience consisted mostly of working women, factory workers and their children who need this information and knowledge.

Kermani took the audience on a visual journey back to the Stone Age, when a woman was integral and played a key role in most activities. From there on, the performance settled on the Neolithic Age when farming became popular. Through dance, she showed the ways women helped mankind with progression and survival. But as humans advanced and time passed, some men became arrogant and made women their victims.

The sequences in which men were shown physically abusing women were so well-acted by the male performers that they almost became hard to watch. All the female performers, especially the younger ones, had a grace which was uniquely their own.

Like all writers, poets and creative geniuses, Kermani through her dream-like performance and art demonstrated her interpretation of the reasons behind the abuse of women. It seemed that to Kermani, abuse came down to imprisoning a woman under a chaddar. This was evident when three women were shown writhing under a black cloth.

The question then to be asked is, are women who are not under a chaddar not being abused? Are Western women who were not buried under dark layers safe from rape or molestation?

But like all visionaries, whether or not one agrees, Kermani has delivered her message, in a colourful and meaningful escapade.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 19^th, 2013.            

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These girls are celebrating the opening of one of the Deaf Reach schools for the hearing impaired in Gulistan Jauhar on Saturday. This school is one of the many campuses set up in Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Nawabshah and Lahore by Family Education Services Foundation (FESF) that cater to over 800 deaf students from kindergarten to matriculation.

Even more touching than the sight of these girls performing is the story behind these schools. An expatriate couple, Richard Geary and Heidi, had been living in Pakistan since the early 1980s. After they discovered their son, Michael, was deaf, they were exasperated by the lack of options available for children with special needs in Pakistan.

Hence, they started a school of 15 students in two rooms, donated by someone, in Saddar, where both Heidi and Richard and their other son, Aaron, taught. When Michael passed away a few years later, the couple decided to set up more deaf schools in his legacy.

During his speech on Saturday, Geary – who now serves as FESF’s executive director – instantly captured the audiences’ attention by referring to the deaf as a “cultural minority” as opposed to a disabled group. “Just like any different culture, they speak a language most of us don’t understand.”

He then went on to quote some grave statistics on hearing-impaired children. “Nearly 1.5 million children in Pakistan are profoundly deaf, yet only two per cent get a chance to attend school,” he said. Teaching these students is also not easy given there is no universal sign language, he added.

In Pakistan, students study Pakistan Sign Language, which has barely been documented in books. Given this lack of resources, FSEF has taken the initiative of creating a visual dictionary with signs for 10,000 words in it. With this open source video dictionary in place, parents will be better able to understand their hearing-impaired children, teachers will have an easier time explaining concepts and the students will have easier time learning.

FSEF also works on providing students with the skills to take up different vocations, such as sewing, weaving, embroidery, tailoring, arts and IT. Graduate of these programmes have succeeded in getting jobs in companies, such as United Bank Limited, Engro, DHL, Alfalah Bank, etc. The students who attended the monthly cooking classes given by Chef Philippe of the Sheraton Hotel were, in fact, hired by the chef to be on his team.

The new campus building, which has a large courtyard, airy classrooms and art and vocational training rooms, has been donated by Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority.

Zainab Burney, a philanthropist at the event, admitted that she felt ashamed. “I can’t believe that these people from other countries have spent so much of their time, funds and energy on a section of our society that we Pakistanis don’t even acknowledge exists.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 10^th, 2013.

All eyes were on at least 30 Pakistani women who came out on the streets of Karachi on Tuesday to cycle, have fun and make a point.

Although the number of cyclers was far below what was expected (171), the group of 30 women gathered outside Butlers Cafe at 7:30am and rode their bikes all the way from Zamzama to Sea View and back.

As cameras clicked around them, the women felt like celebrities with media vans, police, rangers and male cyclists following their every move and supporting their initiative in every way. Early morning drivers, nashta eaters, pedestrians stared at them with what looked like a combination of shock and envy.

None of this would have been possible if Anila Weldon, founder of Weldon Moms, and her friends Sameer Beg and Yahya from cycling group Critical Mass had not taken the initiative a few weeks ago to arrange this well-thought out and equally well-executed event.

Critical Mass is a cycling movement and group which started in the US and has more than 1,700 members in Pakistan today. They have been cycling for a few years and have taken rides all the way from Sindh to Balochistan; ridden to Quaid Azam’s mausoleum on independence day hoisting flags on their cycles and have never let a Sunday or an Eid day pass by without cycling.

“When you cycle early morning in Karachi, you experience the city in a completely different way. You feel the dips, uphills, downhills – you know every pothole by heart. Even the air feels fresh, and the roads look beautiful when you’re on a bicycle. It’s almost impossible to experience those things in a car,” says a young girl while riding her bike as I follow her slowly in my own car.

Another cyclist, Zarmina Ahmed shares, “Each time I wake up early morning, offer my fajr prayers and get ready to go out cycling with Anila and a few friends. My 17-year-old son always looks at me funny and says ‘Mama, why can’t you be like the other mums’.” Despite coming from a highly educated background, she still sometimes gets flak for cycling on the streets by her family.

But can she really blame them for being protective? It’s safe to say Karachi is quite unsafe, but these eager women, regardless of the situation in the city, are unstoppable.

While the cyclists continued slowly towards Sea View, I stopped by a growing line of men, women and children sitting on the side of a road waiting to be fed breakfast by a small dhabba. I asked the women if they understood what all the police cars and media vans were chasing. “Aurat cycle challa rahi hay (a woman is riding a cycle),” one of the women, Rakhshanda, pointed out.

Asked whether she would join them given the chance, another woman, Razia Bibi said, “Why not? Cycles don’t need petrol; neither do we need to pay any fare unlike in buses.”

However, one of the women was not impressed. When I asked her if she would participate, she shook her head and pointed towards her mouth, clearly meaning to say: Is cycling really a priority when one is going to sleep hungry?

I pose the same question to one, Mustansir Bandukwala, when the cyclers return from their 10km ride. “A joy ride on a cycle is possible at this time but to take this on a larger scale does not seem practical at the moment. There are so many other issues at play in Pakistan that our priorities are focused elsewhere. Culturally speaking, it will also not be accepted easily.”

But Anila and her friends have a different story to tell. “When they see us biking, a lot of men in cars give us a thumbs up or scream ‘Pakistan Zindabad’. We always go out early morning and till now we’ve never been harassed,” Anila said, but added, “Maybe it’s because the hooligans are dead asleep at the time.”

On the way back, I stopped to ask a driver washing his employer’s car his opinion on women cycling. “Islam does not allow it,” he said. But when asked to elaborate, the driver simply says, “Women should not be out on the streets. My wife and daughter stay at home and they have never spent a single night going to sleep hungry. When everything is provided to women, they don’t feel the need to get out.”

Although Tuesday’s event might have been successful in selling the concept of cycling in certain circles, it will take a long time for cycling for women to trickle down and be embraced by the average Pakistani.

View a slideshow of the event here.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 6^th, 2013.

KARACHI: “Aunty, ap ko cycling bhi nahin ati” [Aunty, you don’t even know how to cycle], a shocked seven-year-old girl Roma tells me as she swerves her cotton candy-coloured Barbie bicycle dangerously near mine. Well, as dangerously as a bicycle with sky blue tassels and training wheels can be.

I wonder what is more offensive, being called an “aunty” or her loud statement that I don’t know something as simple as cycling. She’s right on both accounts – I can’t cycle at all and I’m also tethering to aunty-age. That does explain why I’m sitting on top of a more serious-looking cycle on Khayaban-e-Roomi.

I am practicing for a women’s only cycling event that is being held on Tuesday. The cyclists will set out from Butler’s Cafe, Zamzama, at 7:30am sharp and will return to the café after an hour of cycling. The event is free, however, all participants wanting their pictures taken have to pay Rs500 before the ride. Men are also encouraged to participate if they can bring along a woman or their business cards.

Iqbal Bhatti and Sameer Beg, who are members of a cycling group called Critical Mass, have arranged this training session for cycling newbies. They take turns running in the heat with me and my bike. Each time, they let go, I scream, “Don’t let go” and land almost face-first on the gravel. I brush my knees and assemble my ego, pick up my bike and try again.

Samia Zafar, who hasn’t ridden in many years, has also come with her husband to practice for an event that Critical Mass member Anila Weldon initially started for her female friends on Facebook, which has now turned into a mini revolution for women. After posting a few pictures of herself riding on the streets of Karachi, she received so many “likes” that she opened the event for all women. Within just a few days, “171” women have marked “attending” on this event.

Within 10 minutes, Samia is riding to perfection. Me, I’m still acting less like an “aunty” and more like a little girl. Ten minutes later, Mrs Faiz, Roma’s mother, gets on the bike, with her husband’s arm around her to help her balance.

An hour later, I still don’t get my balance. I look sadly at Riaz Bhai, the official guy who loads all bicycles and is putting mine back on to the Suzuki van and make a final request. “Can I take Yahya’s bicycle home today so I can pratice?” I ask hoping that the absent Yahya who has lent me this bike won’t mind.

It’s only 12 hours to the biking event that takes place at 7:30, and I know I’ll spend all hours praticising on the rooftop of my house. Revolution or no revolution – this aunty will not be mocked by a Barbie biker!

Published in The Express Tribune, February 5^th, 2013.

But imagine a culture where art is not locked up in galleries and fairs like it is with us, but instead surrounds you all the time; imagine a city where every citizen gets to wake up to bright punches of colour and breathes in inspirational words every day; imagine a place where artists are provided with cheap living spaces and haunting, yet inspirational post-war buildings and factories as workspaces; imagine a society where everything from dustbins to bathrooms, street walls to buildings, bridges to shopping stores, trains to buses, are covered, no, decorated in edgy, Andy Warhol-like alternative art.

For people who actually live in Berlin, a city like that does not need to be imagined — it already exists.

Maybe it was luck or maybe it was destiny, but while I was working in Berlin, both my workplaces turned out to be situated in the hippest, indie-alternative neighbourhoods of the city such as Oranienburger Strasse and Mehringdamm. And so my coffee and lunch breaks were mostly spent in art squats, rubbing elbows with struggling artists from around the world and sometimes getting unwarranted drunk kisses from old hippie homeless men who also inhabited the same neighbourhood. I absolutely loved everything about it — maybe not the drunk unwarranted kisses but definitely the art scene.

You would think that when art surrounds you all the time, it loses its power; that you become immune to its brilliance and it fails to provoke you. But I can testify that street art never gets old, and almost every day you find something new that speaks with your emotions and moves you.

My favourite art haunt was Tascheles (Yiddish for straight talking). This devastatingly beautiful, broken down and bomb-damaged building from the early 20th century is spray painted and graffitied to every inch of its body. The building hides behind wintered old trees and is right opposite one of the oldest synagogues of Berlin.

Like Tascheles’ exterior, its interior has lived through an equally colourful past. It has been used as a Nazi prison, a shopping mall, then an art studio and workshop, a nightclub, and a cinema. Sadly, by the time I came back to Karachi, the art squat had been vacated by artists. Consumerism and rising property dynamics had forced these artists out of their thriving joint.

While it’s sad that Berlin is slowly changing too and the creativity and liberty which was given freely to artists after the fall of the Berlin Wall is also being restrained, what saddens me more is that the average Pakistani will never get to experience that kind of uninhibited, free art.

And with no such provocative art in Pakistan and only jadoo and aamil advertisements, political slogans and party symbols on our walls, how can anyone ever be inspired for change?

A week before Karachi-based artist Asim Butt’s death, a young couple driving by Sunset Boulevard late at night saw Butt painting a wall. When they stopped to appreciate his work, he said it was probably his last piece. “Everything I paint, it gets painted over,” he had said forlornly.

Maybe if we had given Butt the same liberty these Berliners have, he’d still be alive and painting evocative murals at Saddar, Khadda and Empress Market for us.

Isn’t it about time we claimed back our public spaces the way Asim Butt once did?

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3^rd, 2013.

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During the three months that I spent in Berlin this year, I learnt to envy the typical German woman. She lives in the same universe as me, she walks the same Earth as me, sits across from me at work, yet the rules that she lives by in her country, the opportunities that are open to her and the independence that she experiences everyday — these are all things I could never imagine for myself  in my own country, not in this lifetime.

However, this envy goes to another level when I see a German woman whizzing by in her second-hand bicycle while I trudge along with my heavy bag. The heavy bag I carry has not so many physical contents as emotional ones. Because I packed with me from Pakistan all the arguments I’ve had over the years as to why a woman should not dare to get on a bike. And despite all my best efforts, I still haven’t learnt how to ride one.

The first rationale given to make Pakistani women stay away from biking is that if they went out in the streets of Karachi, Lahore or Islamabad on a bicycle, it would be inviting harassment.

But aren’t women already facing harassment when they ride public buses with men, take taxis, drive alone or even sit in the back of a motorcycle awkwardly holding a tiny infant? How would the harassment they face riding a bicycle be any different?

Then there are the reasonings of the moral police. Actually, there’s not much of an argument they offer after they declare cycling ‘haraam’. For some even a fully-covered woman travelling on a bicycle is supposedly promoting vulgarity and enticing men. One wonders if men are just innately enticed by anything that moves. But no, cycling is declared uncouth, unladylike and ‘westernised’. Of course, it’s more ‘ladylike’ to depend on a man for all your activities throughout your lifetime.

And then there are the circumstances and the realities on ground that are hard to argue with. Pakistan does not have the infrastructure to support this activity: no tracks and paths for bicycles, or the kind of roads that permit cycling. But my sisters in most of the developing world face pretty much the same problems, yet they are on their cycles everyday.

But all the reasons and baggage aside  — if we start doing this small painless activity, if we had the liberty to go as and when we please, Pakistani men could no longer control our lives. If we could go to school or work on our own, we’d be equal to them in standing. We’d be healthier, happier and more willing and motivated to break the chains that bind us. We could be contributing to environmental change, earning our living more independently and spending it as we please. In a country with high income disparity, biking would erase the differences between the rich and the poor.

And maybe that’s a scary thought for some.

Maybe these were the reasons why I was never taught how to ride a bike in Pakistan. And so as an adult when I saw the biking culture of Europe, I felt idiocy, estrangement and loneliness — all at the same time. It was hard for me to imagine cities where 50% of all trips to school and work were made on cycles. In Copehagen, there was a biking highway, a biking embassy, biking blogs, and even Presidents who cycle every day. And for immigrant women who have never had the opportunity to learn how to bike, there are special institutes where they are taught to face the streets.

Compare that to Pakistan, where we sit around forever and wait for someone to take us around.

I’m tired of hating cultures and all the liberties they offer. It’s hard to live a life of envy. It’s hard to walk with all this baggage. Quite frankly, I’d rather cycle with it!

So I’m sending out this message in a virtual bottle hoping that Pakistani women interested in learning how to bike will give me a shout out. I’m hoping that Pakistani organisations interested in this concept will help us get enough bikes to get us started with this activity. I’m hoping that people will volunteer to teach struggling biking newbies like myself to learn how to cycle. And we, in turn, can multiply this effect and teach more women.

For now, I’ll go back to dreaming what it would feel like to have Seaview’s sandy wind in my hair as I whiz by the colourful camels and horses and brake just in time for some delicious gol guppas. And when I do brake, I don’t end up with eight stitches or with gol guppas in my hair and the gol guppay wala in my arms.

Let’s all go out together for a bike ride.

Published in The Express Tribune, Ms T, January 6^th, 2013.

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1. Bridget Jones’ Mark Darcy

Darcy is stuffy, awkward and wears a reindeer jumper on Christmas, yet he has the audacity to list all the things wrong with our lady Bridget. And while Bridget – who is obviously low on self-esteem – might be swept away by his compliment: “I like you, just the way you are”, I find it deeply offensive. It’s like saying, “You might be defective and strange, but I’ll take what I can get.” 

2. Tom Hanks in You’ve Got Mail

This bookstore billionaire has the time and patience to sit behind a computer screen everyday and write long, flowery e-mails to a confused, antsy random woman. And he doesn’t just stop there, he goes on to befriend her in real life just so he can perfect his online persona and get her to fall madly in love with him. Stalker alert! 

3. Mr Big from SATC

This guy acts commitment-phobic when it comes to Carrie but goes on to marry the first bimbo he meets. To rub it in, he invites Carrie to the wedding and she is stupid enough to actually turn up. He then proceeds to cheat on his wife with Carrie and walk out of his marriage. When Mr Big and Carrie finally decide to tie the knot, he jilts her at the altar. If that’s not an emotional abuser, I don’t know what is!

4. Luc Teyssier in French Kiss

If you take away Luc’s gorgeousness and the picturesque Monte Carlo scenes, it’s pretty clear that this leading man used Meg Ryan’s character to smuggle his diamonds, put her in grave risk and constantly lied to her for his advantage. And yet, she put her life savings on the line to save this guy.

5. Edward Lewis in Pretty Woman

I’m not going to say much about the plotline but in real life this guy would surely be the biggest sleaze. The fact that he has to buy himself female company shows how unpopular with the ladies he is. And all he does is throw money at her without making any effort at all to get to know her.

Published in The Express Tribune, Ms T, December 16^th, 2012.

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I was so convinced that I was going to hate Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 that I had decided to write a Hater on it even before I saw the movie. A ‘Hater’ is a column we ran regularly in the magazine, in which you found things to hate about a certain subject. My charming bitterness had made me an expert at writing this column and I had already written one on Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1.

Circumstances were ripe for the bitterness to come flowing in full force: I had been walking for over eight hours that day and had eaten nothing at all. I was in a foul mood as I settled down to watch the movie.

But by the end of the film, the notebook page allotted to writing things I hated about the movie remained entirely empty. In fact, I only realised it was empty when the lights came on at the end of this two-hour show. It is generally a pretty entertaining film to watch.

While it’s still no thought-provoking, cinematic work of art and has its fair share of plot fails (like the vampire-cum-human child growing at an abnormal rate), it still packs in just the right amount of action, shirtless Jacob scenes and comic relief to satisfy any rom-com loving girl.

The best bit perhaps is the change in Bella. I hated her meek, milk-and-water personality and that sulky face during the last few films. In this final installment, she shows some spunk! Although it’s still vile to show young girls that you need to get your blood sucked out and almost die to stand up for yourself and fight a few battles, I’m just glad that Stephanie Meyer tried to make Bella into an almost positive role model towards the end.

There are also no gross sex scenes in this film in stark contrast to Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1, with Bella even refusing Edward’s advances in one scene. Her energy is all but devoted to her child.

The plot is fast-paced and is centred on the birth of Edward and Bella’s child Renesmee, the first vampire-cum-human. Since the the Volturi (vampire overloads) have no idea what this strange hybrid child is capable of, they decide to initiate a full-on war with the Cullens. The Cullens go in search worldwide of peace-loving and likeminded vampires who believe that Renesmee will not herald the destruction of the vampires. With this vampire community in place and of course the good old howling wolves in tow (thanks to Jacob’s obsession with Renesmee), they stand ready to battle the creepy Volturi.

As confusing and ridiculous as the plot sounds, it makes more sense when you actually watch it. Or maybe it made more sense to me because I was so tired. Maybe, I was so hungry that I was hallucinating all the good parts. Maybe writing all those Haters has flushed the bitterness from my system and I’m incapable of hating on anything anymore.

Or maybe, just maybe, Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 really is good!

Published in The Express Tribune, Ms T, December 9^th, 2012.

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As soon as my plane jerkily landed on Pakistani soil, I called up my eternally hairless, scrubbed out and blow-dried compadres and asked for salon recommendations. One that stood out for its prices, location and variety of treatments was the newly opened Sen Spa & Salon.

Being situated right behind restaurants Café Flo and Koel makes the salon a convenient place where you can easily get a blow-dry and then hop over for a steaming hot cup of coffee to your favourite joint before the Karachi humidity has its way with your hair. The prices are perfect; who else will offer a full body wax, a Thalgo facial and a manicure and pedicure for Rs3,800?

The entrance to the salon is beautifully decorated with stepping stones that lead you to the second floor. The instrumental oriental music playing in the background (no loud jhankars) and the faintest whiff of scented candles is sure to make your jetlag seem a lifetime away.

The Thalgo facial (treatment for anti-aging, hydrating, and purifying) they offer makes one feel young again. Getting a pedicure on enormous cushy, comfy couches is so much better than the usual discomfort which comes free with getting your toes prettied.

Another interesting activity started by the salon is the concept of “Sparties” (spa parties) for girls who are getting married. A bride can book the entire salon for a day and she and her friends can get as many beauty services as they like. They are also allowed to bring in snacks, games and prizes, making the salon a fun alternative place for a bridal or a baby shower.

The salon also has an informative and active page on Facebook titled “Sen Spa & Salon”, where one can easily book appointments on a day when you are too lazy to make a call.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13^th, 2012.          

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