Let’s cut to the chase. Iron Man 3 did not strike a nerve. Maybe my expectations were too high.

The only save was the action sequences. Billionaire playboy Tony Stark’s (Iron Man) Malibu pad is blown to smithereens. There is a great rescue scene for 13 people thrown out of Air Force One mid-air. Robert Downey Jr is an amazing super hero, as always, but the story falls flat for most of the two and a half hours. In the third edition we see our hero still trying to come to terms with the invasion of Earth by Loki to subjugate Earth. Nick Fury, the director of an international peacekeeping agency, cobbles together The Avengers (Stark aka the Iron Man, Captain America, The Hulk, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye) as a team to save the world from the powerful Loki.

In Iron Man 3 our hero is shown still trying to come to terms with the New York invasion. For Stark, the success of The Avengers was a big deal. But he has since become a recluse because of his reliance on the Iron Man suit. His anxiety levels have escalated. He can’t sleep and this leads to problems with his girlfriend, Pepper Pots (Gwyneth Paltrow). At this point, new villain Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) enters. Kingsley’s character is a cross between Osama bin Laden and a warlord from Game of Thrones. However, he is just the face of evil — the real bad guy being Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), a stark raving mad scientist who our playboy slighted at a science convention in Switzerland years ago. Yes, the terrorist isn’t the bad guy for once. It is Killian who has a serum that can turn people into living bombs.

The tongue-in-cheek humour helps defuses the tension built up by Kingsley’s character. There are jokes about Croydon, British football and Downton Abbey — but I don’t think many people outside the UK would appreciate them.

There are some parts that the censor boards might bleep/blank out. No, not the making-out scenes but the ones in which Pakistan is mentioned with links to terrorism. The Mandarin is thought to have been in Pakistan (but they later find out that he’s in Miami). In another scene Tony Stark’s best friend Col James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) is shown making friends in a hostile Pakistan. I don’t know what part of the country they were trying to show, but it looked like a scene out of Aladdin.

Top 3 Robert Downey Jr movies

1. Less than Zero

You will barely recognise Downey Jr in Less than Zero, the 1987 movie based on a Bret Easton Ellis novel. He delivers to perfection the hopelessness and depths of despair of a young man who is sucked in by a heroin addiction. Not a movie to watch if you’re down but do get the soundtrack.

2. Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus

What could have been a tragic freak show ends up with Downey giving a moving performance as a man who suffers from hypertrichosis (extreme hairiness) in Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus. Although Downey wasn’t nominated for this movie, his performance as Arbus’s hirsute neighbour received great acclaim from all movie critics.

3. Chaplin

Downey once again pulls off a challenging character in this David Attenborough film. But his performance did not save the work which was criticised for being too formulaic as a biopic. Still recommended for Charlie Chaplin fans.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, May 12^th, 2013.

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Published in The Express Tribune, March 9^th, 2013.

“I believe there is going to be a shift in politics now,” he told The Express Tribune over the phone from Washington. “Bilawal is an emerging politician and will be successful.”

Siegel is an American lobbyist who was the former prime minister’s speech writer for two decades and helped her update her autobiography ‘Daughter of Destiny’. “It’s been five years, and I still don’t believe it,” he said. “The term ‘jeay Bhutto’ means a lot to us, it means that she is still alive.”

Siegel, who caught snippets of Bilawal’s speech which was in Urdu, has known him since he was a child. It is a little strange for him to call him a man now, he remarked, adding, however that the speech should not be seen as the ‘launch’ of his public career as Bilawal has been participating in politics since his mother was assassinated.

Siegel did not comment about his relationship with the young politician but said that Benazir always wanted Bilawal to be happy and have choices. “His happiness was her first priority,” he said. “If he wanted to go into the civil services, she would have supported him with her whole heart. This is why in her handwritten will she left the chairmanship of the party to her husband and not Bilawal – because she wanted him to have choices.”

Siegel also knows Bakhtawar and Aseefa. “I am proud of all three of them – with their father in jail and their mother running a party alone and watching her die in front of their eyes – I cannot imagine a more traumatic childhood. But they survived and flourished into kind and compassionate human beings. I see a lot of their mother in them. All three of them are devoted to make sure that she did not die in vain. They want to fight for what she believed in and stood for.”

Siegel, a partner at Locke Lord Strategies has worked with former American President Jimmy Carter and Vice President Hubert H Humphrey. He collaborated with Benazir on Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West, which was published after her assassination.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 28^th, 2012.

KARACHI: It doesn’t matter if you’ve spent 50 years or 15 days in Karachi, it has a way of getting under your skin. The target killings, Altaf Hussain’s face on every sidewalk, graffiti about urination in public, Sea View… the list is endless.

So when Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture graduate, Khaula Jamil, came up with the idea for an online postcard project, ‘Take me to Karachi’, it didn’t take long for it to go viral on social media. Now any Karachi’ite, whether they are in Berlin or Ulaan Baatar, can place an order on Jamil’s Facebook page and pay her PayPal account (this includes shipment).

The name ‘Take me to Karachi’ was inspired by graffiti saying ‘Chalo chalo, Karachi chalo’ that Jamil photographed in October 2007 near Sea View the week Benazir Bhutto was returning. “Everyone said it had the Karachi vibe,” she explained. “It also reminded me of when you’re abroad and you hail a cab and tell the driver to take you somewhere.”

Country roads, take me home

When Jamil moved back to Karachi after completing her Masters in Fine Arts and Photography at Parsons, The New School for Design, her iPhone became her new best friend. Using Instagram, Pixlr O’matic and other camera applications she captured a bit of Karachi wherever she went.

It certainly helped to land a job heading the Citizens Archive of Pakistan photography and video department, which gave her access to areas she wouldn’t normally visit. “I just started taking regular photos with my phone and started playing around with them,” she said while talking to The Express Tribune on Friday. “I didn’t plan on doing anything with them.” She was fascinated by the layers and complexity and wanted to add different textures. “I wanted to interpret Karachi in the funky way I saw it.”

A few people saw the photos and asked for prints to send to their friends abroad. There was no looking back after that.

The process of making a postcard is pretty simple. Jamil takes a photograph with her iPhone, adds the layers, edits them, adds general description or location and prints them using 100-gram or heavier printing paper. The postcards are laminated with a matt finish. She is considering framed prints as well.

So far the response has been “overwhelming”. Overnight the page had over 200 fans, 90 were her friends. “Pretty soon people started asking me how they could place orders. I did not plan a business, I still haven’t. People place orders and I try to accommodate. I get a lot of orders from Karachi, but also send many to Dubai, Singapore, the US and Germany.” She is in talks with a place to house the postcards.

Jamil admits to being a voyeur. “I’m watching people going around their daily routine. It is very fast paced. I just go around catching anything that fascinates me,” she said. “There is a certain beauty and charm about it. In my other project which I started three months ago, ‘Humans of Karachi’ I have to go up to people explain the project and take photos.”

Humans of Karachi, is a project Jamil is working on with the Citizens Archive of Pakistan. It puts forward a positive image of the city. It is based on Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York project.

Mission statement

Karachi, dekho magar pyaar se

- To show off all that is Karachi – one area at a time

- Sets consist of five 4”x6” postcards each

- All sets are final

- No custom orders or mixing it up

- To place an order, the client has to get in touch through Facebook, place an order and pay via PayPal (Rs1,000 per set of 5 and includes shipping, prices to be revised)

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Benazir Bhutto came back in October 2008. The correction has been made.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 3^rd, 2012.

KARACHI: For 17-year-old Waqar Ali, this summer was all about going to the beach and chilling out at his friend’s house playing video games. He sat his last O’ Level exam in June and had not thought about the results till August 6.

“I was having iftar with my family when my older sister had to ruin it by reminding me that the result would be out in a couple of days,” he said. “I texted my friends, who had spoken to teachers at their schools, and they confirmed my worst fear. They said the result should be out on Monday, August 13.” After biting his nails for a good four hours, Waqar says he sat down with his parents and discussed the POA (plan of action) on where to apply for his A’ Levels. His father came up with a simple solution – 10 As or more and Waqar would apply to Karachi Grammar School, 9As and below and he would apply to The Lyceum School or Nixor College. As a backup, Waqar also kept his options open for Southshore School for A’ Level Studies, Foundation Public School and if all else failed, he is also prepared to sit his A’ Levels privately.

In Gulistan-e-Jauhar, Rumana’s mother has been praying her daughter did well this year. “I am more anxious about my daughter’s result this time around than last year, as her final O’ Level grades will determine which A’ Level school she will go to,” said Nafisa Mehdi. “This, in turn, will play a pivotal role in her further academic and professional life.”

According to Rumana, when you step out of the examination hall, you feel that everything went well. “However, at this stage [right before the results], all you can remember is the mistakes you probably made in the exams.”

While talking to The Express Tribune, the principal of AES School for Girls said that their job was to prepare their students for their examinations. “The rest depends on their hard work and God,” said Mohammad Amin Ahmedani. “I wish all of my students, and others awaiting their O’ Levels results, the very best.”

A’ Level schools, including The Lyceum School, KGS and Nixor College, start their admissions process before the O’ Level exams start. They call in students for interviews and sometimes tests. Many students wait till the results are out and then start the admissions procedure.

A’ Levels or Inter?

For some students and their parents, it becomes quite difficult to decide what to do after the O’ Levels – should they automatically move on to the A’ Levels (grades 12 and 13) or switch to the local education board or Intermediate. The intermediate stream definitely works for students who want to later take up medicine or engineering at public-sector universities such as NED or Dow because they will not have to convert their marks sheets. A’ Level students have to undergo a conversion and it is argued that they lose points in the process. “In general, students who do their intermediate score higher and secure a spot at the public universities,” said Dr Iftikhar Kazim, whose daughter Areeba had to switch to the intermediate after sitting her O’ Levels at The City School.

But Muniza Waseem, who has been associated with The City School for the last 16 years and is the headmistress of the Gulshan-e-Iqbal junior campus, did not agree with this approach. “This trend started to gain momentum a few years ago,” she said. “But parents realised that it was better to continue with the Cambridge International Examination instead.”

At the Happy Home School, more than half of the students continue with the CIE into the A’ Levels, said Farah Imam, the head of the O’ Level campus. But as the school allows them to take a maximum of six subjects, many have to make up for one more by sitting it privately if the A’ Level school of the choice requires a minimum of seven subjects such as KGS. “Here most of the students prefer to apply to KGS but for that they have to sit a few exams as a private candidate,” explained Imam.

Given the number of students across Karachi who wish to do their A’ Levels there is a shortage of schools. In fact, this year, The City School has launched three more A’ Level campuses – DHA, North Nazimabad and PECHS, according to the school’s regional director Nudrat Sajid Khan.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 8^th, 2012.

On February 5, Father McCulloch received a phone call from Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ebad, informing him that he was being awarded the Sitara-e-Quaid-e-Azam for services to the country’s health and education sectors. “I sat back in my chair and pinched myself. I’ve spent more than half my life here. At that moment I truly felt as if this was my home,” he says.

“I volunteered to come to Pakistan,” he told The Express Tribune. “I could have had an academic career but the religious group [Columban Brothers] I worked with was invited for a visit.”

That trip was in 1978, but the priest ended up spending more than half of his life in the country, making his way from Lahore’s Old City to impoverished villages in Sindh.

He says Pakistan was less complicated, but at the age of 32, the priest was witness to one of the most tumultuous times in its history.

“At that time Pakistan was just 30 years old, in the middle of an identity crisis. I remember sitting in Lahore and listening to the BBC about what was supposed to happen,” shared Father McCulloch. “It totally changed the heart of the country. I will always remember with horror how people were being flogged in public.”

Changing attitudes

After Father McCulloch learnt Urdu, he travelled to smaller towns and villages on a motorcycle. “The citywalas really miss out on rural life.”

After a spell in Badin, he started working with the semi-nomadic Hindu tribe of Parkari Kohli in Tharparkar district.  “There were no roads,” he said. “It was just a tiny sleepy village. Working there was physically demanding and time consuming. These people were and still are slaves to the feudal system. We were trying to secure their futures, provide them with medical care and education.”

Father McCulloch said health was one of their main concerns. “The villagers and their babies were dying of measles, tuberculosis and the whooping cough,” he said. The immunisation programme set up by the priest was run with the district authorities, and helped win over people.

He also helped start a school which has grown to a 400-student strong high school.

“People who were shunned from society noticed a change,” he said. “Muslim families opened their homes and this is what shifted cultural attitudes. This was what Mohammad Ali Jinnah had in mind when he wanted a separate country.”

As the priest and nuns gained the villagers’ trust, they also noticed how the better health and education facilities were impacting the youth. Father McCulloch recalled an anecdote: a farmer who was going over accounts with a landlord took his son along to double-check the calculations done by the landlord’s manager.

Save a language, save a culture

Father McCulloch also helped the tribe design a script for their language and called on two linguists for their help. “The villagers opted for the Sindhi script. It was all done with a few minor changes. People gathered proverbs and sayings and we launched the first Parkari Kohli newspaper, Prem Paracha. Helping save a language and culture is one of the things the Catholic Church has contributed to Sindh.”

During the floods, the priest made sure people had drinking water and a roof over their heads. “I saw people from different backgrounds and faith working together, it was beautiful,” he said. “We built 820 homes, provided solar energy and even helped some people find work.”

Since moving to Rome as Procurator-General of the Columban Brothers, Father McCulloch has visited Karachi twice and can’t wait to come back again.

“When my colleagues ask me how I felt about coming back, I said asmaan se nikla, khajoor ke darkhat mein atka, I was dropped out of heaven and now I’m stuck in a date tree.”

Get to know Father McCulloch

Born in Australia in 1946, Father Robert McCulloch was educated by the La Salle Brothers, a religious order that also taught former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani. He wanted to become a priest after reading an article in eighth grade. “I was very mature for my age,” he said. “Even then I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.” His parents encouraged him to follow his heart and after 11 years of training, he was ordained a Catholic priest in 1970 in Melbourne. From 1970 to 1973, he worked in Southern Philippines. The next two years were spent in Rome for higher theological studies. From 1976 to 1978, Father McCulloch was in Washington DC earning a MA in Church History. He came to work in Pakistan in 1978 and stayed here for 34 years. He used to visit Karachi every month and taught Latin and Theology at the Catholic Christ the King Seminary, where priests spent the last four years of their training. He taught there for 27 years and in 2002 became the academic dean.

Father McCulloch went back to Rome in 1998 and was there till 2000 for a Doctorate in Theology. After he returned to Pakistan, he was asked to take over as chairperson of Hyderabad’s St Elizabeth Hospital.

Since November 2011, he has been working with the Vatican as Procurator-General of the Columban Brothers.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 29^th, 2012.

KARACHI: There is more to Shershah than the reported killings, firing and robberies. What most people forget is that it has one of the largest industrial areas of the city that stretches from Mauripur Road all the way to SITE.

Spare parts, tyres, rear view mirrors, coal, life jackets – you name it, they got it.

For Rs70, a truck driver can get his truck and cargo weighed before he hits the highway.

Abdul Rasheed, who has been working with trucks and weighing trucks for over 10 years, said that the truck weighing or kanta system is a computerised process where the truck and the load on it was weighed separately. “It started in 1992 and I think it is quite useful,” he said. “You can see these weighing stations along the highway as well, right after the toll plaza. The highway authorities use them to check a truck’s load and to check if they’re staying within the limits. We weigh about 100 to 150 truck daily.” He added that the businessmen and government introduced the weighing system to decrease smuggling.

While explaining how the trucks were weighed, Rasheed said that he had three employees who worked eight-hour shifts. “They basically sit in a room with the computer and when a truck drives up to the ramp, we make the driver park in a way that it covers four spots,” he explained. “The sensors tell us the weight of the truck and the items on it within minutes.”

Recharge your battery

A bit further down the same road is Khan Baba. He has been in the recycling car battery business for the last nine years. “We don’t do much. I get the labour, they sit in front of the shop to dismantle the batteries and reassemble them,” he said. “I hire five men for a daily wage of Rs150. They work for eight to 10 hours a day with breaks in between.” Khan Baba added that he bought used batteries for Rs180 per four kilogrammes and sold them to battery manufacturers for twice the price.

Turning scraps to business

In one of the many narrow lanes of Shershah is Rashid, also known as Molvi. He goes to the beach every day. Not only does he like the fresh air, but he likes the scraps he can pick up at the ship breaking yard.

“I have been going there for eight years or so,” he said. “It is a wonderland. There are so many things to pick. Life jackets, lanterns, ropes, boots, clocks, chairs and loudspeakers.” He added that he sold life jackets for Rs300 and other items for over Rs450 depending on their condition.

“Most of my customers are men who like to go fishing,” he said with a chuckle. “Sometimes these seth sahib also come here. They buy loudspeakers by the dozen. They claim it helps them keep their employees in check.”

As you drive out of the maze of Shershah’s narrow lanes, you come across a plot with over 40,000 sacks of coal. Two men stand outside night and day to keep an eye out for trespassers as Ali and his brother load their truck to make deliveries for their father. “We get orders from hotels and restaurant owners. They call us three or four days in advance to place an order,” said Shahzaib. “My father and his brother get the coal from rural Sindh, mostly Badin. The rates differ but at the moment we are selling 40 kilogrammes of coal for Rs850.”

Published in The Express Tribune, June 11^th, 2012.

KARACHI: A stone’s throw from Gurumandir is the neighbourhood of Teen Hatti where some things have changed and others remained constant. For example, it was named Teen Hatti because three or teen roads met at the intersection, or hit. Hatti is the Hindi word for hit. Today, there are four roads that intersect here.

What has not changed is the business of the neighbourhood, which is home to the largest wholesale flower market in the country.

Haji Sahib, who has been in the business for over 30 years, said that they bring in flowers from Hyderabad every day. “Some of the flowers are grown on the outskirts of the city,” he said. “But for some we have to go to Hyderabad or Punjab. It all depends.” This business has daily ups and downs. “You never know how much you’re going to make at the end of the day.”

The market is open from 10am to 1pm every day.

While pointing at the fresh roses behind him, Haji Sahib said that a bunch could cost anything from Rs20 to Rs35, depending on the quality. “These hotels and flower shop owners buy from us in bulk and then sell them for four times the cost,” he said. “For example, they sell 12 tuberoses for Rs300 in Gizri, here we sell them for Rs75 or Rs100.”

Arshad, who runs his father’s flower shop, said that the good quality flowers were gone within minutes. “People usually inform us about what they want the night before,” he said. “The flowers, the quantity and other things are sorted before we leave work so when we place an order, it gets in on time. It is wonderful to smell the roses in the morning. It is one of my favourite things about this business. There is so much pollution and dread in the atmosphere of this city, a dozen roses in your house can help you get through the day.”

Besides the sweet-smelling flower market, Teen Hatti also has its very own Kaffan wala, not to be mistaken for a coffin wala. Abdul Qadir’s son, who has been running the shop for six years, claimed that his father has been in the business for over 50 years. “He opened this shop soon after Partition,” he said. “For 80 rupees we give people everything they need to bury the dead. From cotton, cloth, salt, sandal, soap and a chattai, we pack it all and also deliver it when needed.” The shop has no fixed timings and even receives calls at 3am.

“People don’t have a specific time to die,” he said, while brushing his daughter’s hair. His children have been working with him at the shop since they could walk. “This is the family business and it is good for them to learn these things now, rather than later.” While talking about how much he made in a day, he said it varied. “Sometimes the target killings go through the roof,” he said. “If the victim is from the neighbourhood then it becomes my responsibility, otherwise people rely on rescue services.”

For spiritual guidance, many residents flock to the Syed Noor Ali Shaheed Mazaar just five minutes away from the flower market. The saint, who the mazaar was built for, came to Karachi with Muhammad Bin Qasim. The man who manages shoes at the mazaar said that the saint was a shaheed and drew believers from Oman and Africa. “The urs is usually held in Muharram,” said the Gaddi Nasheen. “We don’t have much security, just ask the police station down the street to help out.” A qawwali is held at the mazaar every Thursday.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 28^th, 2012.

KARACHI: If you’re getting married in a month and shopping on a budget, there is only one place in Karachi which will solve all your problems. Liaquatabad Market, which your grandmother will know as Lalu Khet.

Mohammad Nasir, who runs a bridal couture shop in Noor Shopping Mall, told The Express Tribune that shopping in Lalu Khet was more than just an experience. “These used to be fields, you know, never-ending green fields,” he said, “But look at how commercial it has become.” His father used to joke that the area was owned by a man named Lalu and as fields are called khet in Urdu, the neighbourhood became Lalu Khet.

People come here from all over the city to shop because, as Karachi has expanded it has become central than Saddar. “For women and young girls who live in New Karachi, Gulshan, Sohrab Goth or North Nazimabad, we are better than Zamzama or Tariq Road,” Nasir added. His shop sells some of the more expensive clothes as the cheapest wedding outfit has a price tag of Rs10,000 and the most expensive one Rs25,000.

Salim, who sells lemonade outside Nasir’s shop, said that he started working a couple of years ago by marketing a chilled glass of tangy lemonade for Rs10. He is friends with Aleem, who sells Mehndi or henna, uptan or homemade masks, oil and decorative thalis for dholaks and other pre-wedding events. “I do not go to buy these things, my seth does, usually in bulk from shops in Saddar,” he said. “We sell khuli mehndi or loose henna powder for Rs100 and the packaged ones for Rs250. The same goes for the uptan.” According to him, the women prefer to buy the packaged ones because they are better quality.” They make thalis on request for Rs1,200 at most.

Baba sahib, who has been in the bridal couture business for more than 50 years, said that these days business was bad but they earned the most in August. “The weather is pleasant and everyone wants to get married in that month,” he said. “December isn’t a bad month for business either but you know people are careful that none of the events fall in the holy month of Muharram.”

While talking about the intricate embroidery on the dresses, he said that they got the work done cheap but it was of good quality. “You can find these patterns in Tariq Road and other places too, but they will charge you five times more,” he said as he sat on a floor cushion in his shop. “Unlike everyone else, we have wedding clothes in all colours, patterns, sizes and price ranges.”

And if you get hungry while searching for the perfect outfit, you can stop by Ozair’s for acchar. His father started the business 30 years ago. He boasted that they had all kinds of pickles from the famous Hyderabadi to mango, onion, garlic and lemon. “We sell most of them for about Rs40 per half a kilogramme,” he said. “I am not sure about how many customers we get every day but we have a lot of regulars who just keep coming back.”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 21^st, 2012.

The first time I met Qamar Apa was in 2006, she was almost four feet tall and wearing a pale blue cotton sari. It was at the orientation ceremony and as the school disciplinarian, she was welcoming parents and new students to The Lyceum School.

For the next two years, my friends and I used to make sure we avoided Qamar Apa in case she stopped us on our way to buy Bashir Bhai’s fries and told us off about how short our kameez was or how the sleeves of the kameez should not be rolled up despite the heat.

When the academic director of the school, Scheherazade Ahmed, sent out an email to inform students and parents that Qamar Apa was unwell, everyone was worried. After losing caretaker and seemingly permanent figure Faiz Baba at the school, no one wanted to let her go. She was 94 years old but was always ready to get her hands dirty and do her own work. You could always count on her to teach you a thing or two about discipline and Urdu. Yasin Bizenjo, better known as Yasin Bhai, remembers her fondly. He said that Qamar Apa was an amazing lady who, despite her frail health, always did her own work. It was rumoured that Qamar Apa followed a strict routine. She used to wake up with the sun, get ready for work and hop on to a bus that dropped her right outside school.

Before joining The Lyceum School in 1989 as an O-Level Urdu teacher, she had taught Urdu and Persian at St. Joseph’s Convent School for 11 years and held the post of the principal of PECHS Girls College where she also taught Urdu for six years.

After teaching O-Level Urdu at The Lyceum School for a few years she joined the administration department and later started to teach A-Level Urdu. She retired as a teacher a couple of years ago but was always at the school to help out any way she could.

Ushna Khan told The Express Tribune that she often saw Qamar Apa at school and in class because she had a habit of walking in to see what was being taught or if the students needed any help. “She helped me with the guidelines for my Urdu collage. She gave me good advice,” she said. “This one time I was late for my exam and was really panicked. I didn’t know what to do but Qamar Apa just squeezed my hand and took me to her office. She said it was going to be alright and let me finish my exam in her office.”

“Qamar Apa was immaculately dressed as if from another era,” recalled Amal Sarwar from the class of 2008. “She was timeless and irreplaceable.”

Although Qamar Apa never taught Amra Ghazanfar, she always greeted her every morning at school. “No matter how early I went, she was always there checking to see if we were abiding by the school rules,” she said. “She was an integral part of The Lyceum School and now knowing she has passed away, the school that I went to four years ago seems incomplete.”

Anza Saqib remembers her first year at The Lyceum School when Qamar Apa used to coach her during Readers Theatre recitals. “I often told her that Urdu as a language was basically a conglomerate of Persian and Sanskrit,” she said. “One time I said Qamar Apa, lagta hai ke Urdu se ziyada aala darje ki zubaanein hain to which she said beti, humari saqaft Urdu adb o adaab hum khud banatain hain, hum Urdu se hain aur Urdu humse, agar aap iski qadar nahi kareinge toh aap apni pehchan ki qadar nahi karengi.”

To honour Qamar Apa’s commitment to the school, they introduced the Qamar Bano Hussian award for discipline. Her untiring dedication to education and her steadfast beliefs in integrity, hard work and purpose define her.

Her funeral will be held after Zuhr prayers on Wednesday at Abu Bakr Masjid, Phase II, DHA.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 16^th, 2012.