In today’s episode of the Tribune Take we look at T-Magazine’s cover story, “The Bite Club”, which talks about a thriving subculture of people who think they are real-life vampires.

Zarrar Khuhro, Editor T-Magazine, takes us through the story of several different groups of people who think they are vampires.

Khuhro says with the recent explosion of vampire movies and television shows, it all has added to the appeal across a new generation fascinated by this blood sucking concept.

Read Zarrar Khuhro’s articles here.

The Tribune Take daily news web show will appear on the tribune.com.pk home page.

The Take will feature in-depth interviews and analysis with editors and reporters who are covering the major stories, exploring front page events and major ledes. The news analysis covers the way The Express Tribune examines a story, how we cover it and why.

In today’s episode of the Tribune Take we look at the ongoing craze for the thin cotton fabric, lawn.

Hani Taha, reporter for The Express Tribune’s Life & Style pages, discusses the 108 new brands of lawn flooding the local market in Pakistan.

Taha says, the concept of ‘designer lawn’ gained prominence only last year. It quickly became a way for fashion designers to get their brand name recognition and connect with the mass market as well.

Taha says this trend of lawn exhibitions is here to stay, and many designers have already started showcasing their collections while the country is still battling the cold.

Read Hani Taha’s articles here.

Follow Hani Taha on Twitter.

The Tribune Take daily news web show will appear on the tribune.com.pk home page.

The Take will feature in-depth interviews and analysis with editors and reporters who are covering the major stories, exploring front page events and major ledes. The news analysis covers the way The Express Tribune examines a story, how we cover it and why.

In today’s episode of the Tribune Take we look at the latest from Washington DC on Pakistan-US relations. 

Huma Imtiaz, The Express Tribune‘s correspondent based in Washington DC discusses United States military’s Central Command (Centcom) General James N Mattis’ scheduled trip to Pakistan, where he is expected to meet Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. She says the most significant sign of changing relations is that this time the Americans are choosing to send a military officer rather than employing the regular diplomatic channels.

Imtiaz says the perception in DC is that NATO supply routes cannot be blocked forever, they are expecting a monetary agreement of heavier taxes levied on the trucks to be the solution for now.

Read Huma Imtiaz’s articles here.

Follow Huma Imtiaz on Twitter.

The Tribune Take daily news web show will appear on the tribune.com.pk home page.

The Take will feature in-depth interviews and analysis with editors and reporters who are covering the major stories, exploring front page events and major ledes. The news analysis covers the way The Express Tribune examines a story, how we cover it and why.

In today’s episode of the Tribune Take we look at the Supreme Court suspension of 28 parliamentarians who were elected to their seats in the National Assembly and Senate through by-polls held after the 18^th amendment.

Irfan Ghauri, Senior Reporter The Express Tribune Islamabad, says this is a temporary suspension and these parliamentarians should be back to work as soon as the 20th amendment is passed.

He says that the supreme court objected to these elections because at the time of the polls, the Election Commission wasn’t fully formed and was just operating under the commissioner, instead of the four members who are supposed to share power.

Ghauri says the national assembly is currently in session to vote on the 20th amendment and so is the Senate. Once passed the President is likely to sign it, making it into law.

Read Irfan Ghauri’s articles here.

The Tribune Take daily news web show will appear on the tribune.com.pk home page. 

The Take will feature in-depth interviews and analysis with editors and reporters who are covering the major stories, exploring front page events and major ledes. The news analysis covers the way The Express Tribune examines a story, how we cover it and why.

In the midnight hour, when the city of lights sleeps fitfully under a shroud of darkness, a car full of young men and women trolls the streets of Defence, their eyes peeled for their latest target.

The car slows down and two people get out, one holding the tools of his trade in his hands as the others scans the road. Assured that the coast is clear, they get to work. A few minutes later, their job is complete, and they get back in the car and disappear into the night.

On the plain white wall they were parked next to is now what appears to be the figure of a woman with her skirt flaring up, as in the iconic Marilyn Monroe shot. Look closer and you’ll see that it’s not a skirt at all, but a burqa.

Twenty-one-year-old Sajid* and his friends are not, as you may have guessed, mobile snatchers or target killers. They are instead part of a small but growing breed of street artists who have turned the walls of Karachi into their canvases.

“The sexuality of Marilyn Monroe will go down through the ages, and I think I was trying to merge that image with the idea that there is a person behind the burqa, that just because you’re in a burqa, whether you choose to be or are compelled to be in one, doesn’t mean you are not a person, and a sexual person at that,” says Sajid*, who has been painting these ‘burqilyns’ for the last three years. “It was a way to get people to notice something or even get a little bit offended. I just wanted to create a thought process in a person that, whether or not they make the Marilyn connection, they will understand what the image means. And even if people are completely outraged, I just want to bring about an emotional response in people who see it.”

Artists the world over have been using the streets as their canvas for ages and street art, or graffiti in particular, has many political undertones. Though often considered a form of vandalism, protest art in the form of graffiti is a global concept which, some claim, has been around since the time of ancient Greece and the Roman Empire.

In 1970s America, graffiti was often associated with the then-grimy subways of New York City. However, in the last few decades graffiti has come into its own, and is recognised as a legitimate form of street art, and a uniquely urban one at that. It is a form of art that is purely for public consumption, and that eschews the limiting canvasses and studios in favour of the expanses of walls and alleys.

The political element is ever-present in street art, and the divisive Berlin wall was memorably covered with colourful graffiti (at least on the Western side) as an expression of protest against the East German regime. In the present day, Israel’s ‘security wall’ is also covered in protest graffiti.

Closer to home, it seems that art, and street art in particular, truly does reflect life. “One can argue that most contemporary Pakistani art is a kind of protest art and is certainly deeply politicised, especially as far as the work of younger artists is concerned,” says Durriya Kazi, chairperson of the department of visual studies at the University of Karachi.

Sajid agrees, saying that he turns to real news events for inspiration for his work. “I was obsessed with the burqa for some reason and I think it may have something to do with the Lal Masjid episode. I was just fascinated by how Mullah Abdul Aziz tried to escape wearing a burqa and got caught,” he says.

It’s not only politics and social commentary that is reflected in Sajid’s street work. The ever-present threat of violence that Karachiites live with is also reflected in his work, as is evident in his spray-painted image of a corpse’s outline.

“As I was growing up, watching the news, watching the state of the country, I had this sense of frustration, of being unable to control what was happening and being unable to change it,” he pauses, as if in reflection. “I think the graffiti thing started basically as my way of trying to voice my opinions,” he says.

He’s not the only one to draw inspiration from chaos and violence, during Karachi’s last spate of target killings, a group of artists painted stencils for peace in the city — displayed on Facebook as ‘Rang de Karachi’.

Graffiti is only the latest addition to a long-standing tradition of artistic protest in Pakistan, protests that have taken the form of poetry and literature as well as art. The long periods of military rule, in particular, were fertile ground for such endeavours, and it is only fitting that Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poetry is the inspiration behind Sajid’s body piece. The outline of the body is formed by words from Faiz’s poem Intisaab, and within this outline is the line “Un dukhi maaon ke naam” (In the name of those sad mothers).

“The first line reads ‘zard patone ka bun jo mera des hai’ (A forest of dying leaves that is my country) which is something I felt like I could relate to so strongly, just because of what the country had become,” says Sajid. “And this was a poem that was written decades ago, but still from then till 2012, nothing has really changed.”

But what’s art to some, is vandalism to others. Much of the artwork he has scrawled on the walls of Zamzama has been whitewashed, and given the often controversial nature of his work, one would imagine the fear of getting caught looms large on his mind. But Sajid claims that really isn’t an issue as he uses the cover of the night to shield his identity, and chooses to remain anonymous as an artist. “Anything in Pakistan can be considered blasphemous,” declares Sajid. “You can misconstrue anything to make it sound or look blasphemous, if you really want to. A lot of the ‘Marilyns’ have been blacked out by people, and many times I have painted something in the night, only to find that someone has covered it with paint or a poster in the morning.”

The short shelf life of his work is something he seems to have learned to live with. “That’s just part of the work,” he says. “You’re creating emotions, some people will love it and some people won’t, but either way it’s at least getting people to start thinking.”

Sajid is certainly not the first Pakistani artist to turn bare walls into his canvas. Sadeqain started this tradition by painting large murals at Jinnah Hospital (now destroyed) and Frere Hall as well. The late Asim Butt is known for his subversive street art work as well. His mural painted across the street from Shah Ghazi’s mazaar in Karachi showcases his exemplary skills as an artist who really understood art made for public consumption.

Similar to Sajid’s work, Butt’s street art was also politically inspired. He launched an art protest movement after military dictator General Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in 2007, providing posters to protesters. His ‘eject’ symbol, spray painted on street walls, quickly became a popular symbol for the pro-democracy movement which led to the eventual ouster of General Musharraf in 2009.

But Professor Durriya Kazi says Butt’s contribution to the art world is far greater than his street work alone. “His murals were not objects for sale,” she says. “It was a generous sharing of his vision with wider and often unknown audiences instead of the controlled audience of the gallery.”

It is this very concept of drawing an audience from beyond the limited circles of gallery goers that has attracted Sajid to street art as well. He says that even though he doesn’t spray paint till dark, a few stragglers do stop and watch what he is doing. He recalls one evening while painting the time bomb piece “this one man came up to me and told me that he thought what I was doing is a great idea, and that we should come do this on the walls of Korangi where he lives, because he thought people in that part of town would really appreciate it.”

Having his work hang on a canvas in a gallery would rob him of such interactions, he says. Since drawing out emotions from his audience is his target, he says seeing such reactions on the street, or reading people blog about his work without knowing who he is, is satisfaction enough.

Meanwhile, as far as street art in Pakistan as a whole is concerned, other artists are bound to step up and add their unique visions to the walls of our towns and cities. Since much of the work is politically inspired, it doesn’t seem as if that particular source of material will dry up anytime soon. “The movement for artists to come out on the streets and join in the growing protests is slow in coming, but seems to be gaining momentum,” says a hopeful Kazi. “It remains to be seen how many can drag themselves away from the seduction or habit of the gallery, which is an important venue for their economic survival.”

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, February 5^th, 2012.

In today’s episode of the Tribune Take, we look at the inauguration of the first non-stop train between Karachi and Lahore called the Business Express. 

Khurram Baig, Business Editor The Express Tribune, says with a travel time of 18 hours on the train, it is highly unlikely many business travellers will opt for this ride instead of a short plane ride which does not cost much more.

Baig discusses the business plan for this one of a kind public-private partnership venture that has modelled its business hoping for an 88% occupancy, which Baig says is too optimistic. But he further clarifies that this new venture is a step in the right direction for the privatization of the railways.

Baig points out that although this train service is meant for business travellers, it may be very attractive for families on vacation as well.

Read Khurram Baig’s articles here.

Watch a slideshow of pictures of the train here.

The Tribune Take daily news web show will appear on the tribune.com.pk home page.

The Take will feature in-depth interviews and analysis with editors and reporters who are covering the major stories, exploring front page events and major ledes. The news analysis covers the way The Express Tribune examines a story, how we cover it and why.

In today’s episode of the Tribune Take we look at the Pakistan cricket team’s exemplary performance against England, the upcoming third test match, the one-day England series and Mohsin Khan’s appointment as coach. 

Faras Ghani, Sports Editor The Express Tribune, says the Pakistan cricket team is looking for a complete three-zero win over the England side. He says with the series already in the bag it may be time for the team to experiment with the line up, predicting a drop of a fast bowler and taking another batsman instead.

As far as the ODI series is concerned Ghani says there are predictions of all-rounder Shahid Afridi and Shoaib Malik joining the team again.

With such a successful series so far against England, Ghani says the Pakistan Cricket Board is in a tough spot when it comes to hiring a coach. Mohsin Khan has had a string of successes and many think replacing him with foreign coach may be an unnecessary move.

Read Faras Ghani’s articles here.

Follow Faras Ghani on Twitter.

The Tribune Take daily news web show will appear on the tribune.com.pk home page.

The Take will feature in-depth interviews and analysis with editors and reporters who are covering the major stories, exploring front page events and major ledes. The news analysis covers the way The Express Tribune examines a story, how we cover it and why.

In today’s episode of the Tribune Take we look at the latest from the ongoing memogate scandal where the Supreme Court has extended the Memogate commission’s deadline for two more months as Mansoor Ijaz failed to appear before the commission to record his statements.

Kamran Yousaf, Senior Reporter for The Express Tribune in Islamabad, says that this scandal has fizzled out since the military and civilian leadership have struck a deal to rebuild ties.

He says that at this point Mansoor Ijaz’s testimony is highly unlikely, bringing this whole memogate scandal to an end soon.

Given that the court has now removed travel restrictions on former US ambassador Husain Haqqani, Yousaf says the general feeling around Islamabad is that once Haqqani leaves the country he is not likely to return any time soon.

Read Kamran Yousaf’s articles here.

Follow Kamran Yousaf on Twitter.

The Tribune Take daily news web show will appear on the tribune.com.pk home page.

The Take will feature in-depth interviews and analysis with editors and reporters who are covering the major stories, exploring front page events and major ledes. The news analysis covers the way The Express Tribune examines a story, how we cover it and why.

In today’s episode of the Tribune Take we look at T-Magazine’s cover story, “A walk on the wild side”, which talks about Pakistan’s once thriving wildlife that could be compared to present day African Safaris. 

Zarrar Khuhro, editor T-Magazine, takes us through the story of how the once healthy population of Asiatic cheetahs patrolled huge tracts of land from Arabia and Iran to Central Asia and India — and present-day Pakistan was smack in the middle of its territory.

Khuhro says the Asiatic Lion though long extint in our region lives on in our present day logos, such as the logos of Habib Bank Limited, Habib Metropolitan Bank and others.

Read Zarrar Khuhro’s articles here.

The Tribune Take daily news web show will appear on the tribune.com.pk home page.

The Take will feature in-depth interviews and analysis with editors and reporters who are covering the major stories, exploring front page events and major ledes. The news analysis covers the way The Express Tribune examines a story, how we cover it and why.

In today’s episode of the Tribune Take we look at the alleged peace talks being held between Pakistani authorities and the Taliban. 

Earlier today, unidentified attackers in Abbottabad fired rockets at a military academy, damaging its outer wall in a major security breach.

Naveed Hussain, The Express Tribune’s national pages editor, says this attack clearly bears the signature of the Pakistan Taliban group Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Hussain says for there to be peace in Pakistan’s tribal regions and Khyber Pakhtunwa there has to be peace negotiations in Afghanistan.

Without peace across the border the Pakistan Taliban are not likely to cease their attacks any time soon, he says.

Read Naveed Hussain’s articles here.

The Tribune Take daily news web show will appear on the tribune.com.pk home page.

The Take will feature in-depth interviews and analysis with editors and reporters who are covering the major stories, exploring front page events and major ledes. The news analysis covers the way The Express Tribune examines a story, how we cover it and why.