Lawns of another kind

It seems just like yesterday, but it was actually many moons ago, that I first met my friend Ziad Bashir on a flight from Mumbai to Karachi. We were in the first row, appalled by the decrepit insides of the PIA aircraft. That was our cue to connect. He introduced himself as the Gul Ahmed man, at which time I was oblivious to Pakistan’s flourishing lawn fabric business.

Back home, an assortment of friends had pestered me to bring back lawn sets for them from Pakistan. That’s when I began getting a sense of the magic that Ziad’s family had been creating for decades. Intrigued by this fabric boom, I embarked on ‘lawn shopping’ for friends, only to learn that these are, in essence, unstitched suits in packets, adorned by pictures of stunning Pakistani models and  Bollywood stars, who were paid vast amounts of money for the endorsements. During my stay in Pakistan, shopkeepers enthusiastically unpacked the sets to let me have a dekko. And at them, I was floored by the designs, colours and quality of the fabric. The hype was in order and justified. I was spoilt for choice with more than 10 lawn brands offering such an endless variety. I took home five sets after my first trip to Pakistan. I progressed to carrying a spare suitcase on subsequent trips since I had more than thrice the number to carry home now. It’s a matter of time before the Pakistani suit gets worn as much as its Indian counterpart. Pakistani lawn brands should evaluate a serious entry into the Indian market. It’s a gold mine waiting to explode. Hopefully our saffron torchbearers won’t throw a hissy fit.

Sixer of a selfie

There are scores of pictures of Pakistan’s cricket legends, Wasim Akram and Imran Khan together, but in their halcyon days. So last week, when Wasim tweeted a heart-warming selfie with his old mate, now the chairman of the PTI, along with their young second-time spouses, Shaniera and Reham, fans smiled at the rekindling of nostalgia. It was a prized snap that lifestyle magazines would have killed to place on their covers. The ‘Skip’ and his ‘ace bowler’, now with age-lines, playing the second-innings of their lives, caught up for dinner and presumably reminisced about the good, old and wild days. Or maybe not, as their begums were around. It’s lovely to see bonds survive the onslaught of time — 23 years, in this case.

Love actually

Jemima Khan moved on from Russell Brand, opting to look for a potential future husband on Tinder: great PR for Tinder, as it currently enjoys the perception of a platform which facilitates hook-ups. These days we shop, bank and study online. So there’s nothing wrong about romancing online, except that you’d think that with Jemima’s upscale status, finding an appropriate suitor would be the least of her worries. The heiress joked to Sean Rad, founder of the app, that she had been matched on Tinder with “loads of Pakistanis and lots of people with beards”. I guess it’s hard to escape the errors of the past.

Trouble in cinema paradise

Now what’s this I hear? A Pakistani actress, who was shooting in Mumbai for a high-profile project, gave the technicians a severe case of the heebie-jeebies. The talk from the set was that the dialogue delivery of the actress was so undecipherable that the sound technicians had no choice but to ask for countless retakes. Also the cameraman was pulling his hair apart because she couldn’t follow the instructions on where and when to face the lights to her advantage. Just hoping the lady gets her act right… and fast.

And just before I sign off, from across the border, Ramazan Mubarak! 

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18^th,  2015.

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