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Category: Lifestyle

  • Pakistani love: The Pleasure Quartet and Black Ships

    Pakistani love: The Pleasure Quartet and Black Ships

    There are only four things in life worth chasing:

    Serotonin, Dopamine, Endorphins and Oxytocin.

    Belonging. Reward. Achievement. Trust. Release. Butterflies in the stomach. Warm blankets. Enveloping hugs.

    Every feeling worth having is borne upon the backs of those little molecules of the Pleasure Quartet.

    We’re all addicts, because to be otherwise would be to be inhuman, or no kind of human worth being.

    Read more – Pakistani Love: They wanted to dream

    We throw ourselves off cliffs with oversized rubber bands attached to our waists, we bankrupt ourselves in games of chance and dice hoping for that jackpot cascade, we consume drugs of every size, shape and nature, hoping for the magical brain-fairies to work their happy wonders. (Or so I hear).

    Of these intoxicants, the most widespread, arguably most dangerous, certainly most sung-about (followed closely by heroin) is love.

    And like all intoxicants, it comes in a great many shapes and forms and ingenious varieties.

    That special burst of laughter that signals the moment you become inseparable friends. The nearly imperceptible but utterly unmissable flush on a cheek before a kiss. The soft shrinking of the world to a warm room with the sounds of rain outside. The sudden relief in the eyes of someone who’s been waiting to see you – a partner, a parent, a pet.

    Most of us try to fill our lives with people that pour us some combination of the Pleasure Quartet, whether we know it or not.

    And if you stumble into someone who inspires all four? It hits your brain like a cocktail stirred by lightning.

    There are a great many experiences that can be called “love”, just as there are a great many experiences that can be called, say, “sadness”.

    But there are times where you feel something with such an outsize intensity that it can hardly be called the same emotion. A Black Swan that, by its appearance, upends your idea of the world because heretofore you had never believed such a thing possible.

    Read more – Pakistani Love: The Story of Survivors

    For me, love was a pleasant, powerful but ultimately controllable phenomenon. I cherished it in all its forms, and it was worth chasing and worth mourning, but never more.

    My wife’s appearance in my life and impact on my idea of love was not just a Black Swan, it was a Black Ship like those that had steamed up to the bay of Edo in Japan, changing in an instant – and forever – how they saw the world.

    She would laugh and the sun would rise in her eyes and the world would lose its weight.  

    She dared me to chase her, with a look and a raised eyebrow, as she drove off into a night full of stars.

    She dismantled a wayward motorcyclist with linguistic savagery that would have made Shelly proud and sailors blush. Not coincidentally, that was the day I decided to marry her.

    None of this, most likely, means anything to you. It’s not supposed to.

    The Pleasure Quartet is True with a capital T whereas love, like art, is subjective. No two people experience it quite the same way.

    For some people, that intensity of feeling, that lightning cocktail, comes packaged within one person.

    For others, it comes from success, children, friends, meditating in the mountains – whatever. I promise you, where the Four Ingredients come from isn’t nearly as important as finding them. 

    Life is short. Don’t spend it agonizing over what SHOULD make you feel a certain way, find out what DOES.

    And if you find all the passions of your life to be pleasant, powerful yet ultimately controllable, pray for a Black Ship.

  • Saudi Arabia observes first legal Valentine’s Day

    After decades of marking the practice as forbidden, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is observing its first legal Valentine’s Day by selling and buying gifts, flowers and chocolates, which was not thought possible until a few years ago due to the strict laws deeming the same un-Islamic.

    According to Middle East Monitor, the once-feared religious police used to ensure that the laws forbidding the celebration were strongly enforced, but that was before they were disbanded and their powers of arrest were stripped from them. Store owners were previously obligated to hide red roses and chocolates on the day, and restaurant owners were pressured to ban birthday and anniversary celebrations on February 14.

    The main turning point in the kingdom’s decision came in 2018, when the former president of Makkah’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV) Sheikh Ahmed Qasim Al-Ghamdi declared that the celebration of Valentine’s Day did not actually contradict Islamic teachings. According to him, the celebration of love was a universal phenomenon and not limited to the non-Muslim world.

    The legalisation of the public celebration of Valentine’s Day – rooted in the Roman pagan festival celebrating and honouring fertility – comes amid the recent liberalisation of traditional social conventions within the kingdom and the reforms being carried out by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in order to “modernise” the country.

    While bin Salman has made headlines across the world after promising the kingdom will return to a “moderate” form of Islam, he also guarantees a brighter future for his people as he promotes modernisation plans to wean the country off oil, attract foreign investment and diversify the economy.

    2017’s royal decree allowing women to drive was an equally eye-catching element of bin Salman’s national makeover. It certainly makes sense economically, as it boosts female participation in the workforce, and women can now also go to sports stadiums.

  • ‘Three Pakistanis diagnosed with coronavirus have been cured’

    ‘Three Pakistanis diagnosed with coronavirus have been cured’

    Three Pakistani students diagnosed with coronavirus in China have been cured, the Chinese embassy in Pakistan has said.

    “We are pleased to learn that three Pakistani citizens affected by coronavirus in China have been cured and discharged from hospitals in Guangzhou and Shenzhen of Guangdong province,” the Chinese mission in Pakistan tweeted Wednesday.

    “All the best to them! Thank you, medical team in China,” it added, tagging Pakistan’s Ambassador to China, Naghmana Hashmi, and Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (PM) on Health, Dr Zafar Mirza.

    No further details of the students, however, were shared by the mission.

    According to The News, Dr Mirza had in January announced that four Pakistani students in China were tested positive for the coronavirus at a press conference in Islamabad. At that time too, the SAPM had refused to share the names of the affected students with the media.

    “The government will take good care of the students who have contracted the virus,” he had said at the presser.

    The death toll from China’s coronavirus epidemic climbed past 1,100 on Wednesday but the number of new cases fell for a second straight day, raising hope the outbreak could peak later this month.

    As Beijing scrambles to contain the outbreak, the number of people infected on a cruise ship off Japan’s coast rose to 174 — the biggest cluster outside the Chinese mainland.

    Another 97 people died in China, raising the national toll to 1,113, while more than 44,600 people have now been infected by newly named COVID-19 virus.

  • Pakistani scientist is working on the world’s first eco-friendly aircraft engine

    Pakistani scientist is working on the world’s first eco-friendly aircraft engine

    A female aerospace engineer from Pakistan is developing a pollution-free engine for airplanes that will reduce global warming and induce artificial rain during flight. It is expected to be ready between mid-to-late 2020.

    The technological marvel’s inventor Dr. Sarah Qureshi has been working on the task since 2018 to eradicate the negative impact of commercial air carriers on the stratosphere (second major layer of Earth’s atmosphere) that adds to global warming.

    In an interview with an international news outlet, the Pakistani scientist explained the contrail phenomenon.

    “You see,” she said, “When an airplane flies; cloud-like contrails are formed. These clouds are water vapors frozen around small particles (aerosols) that exist in aircraft exhaust. These clouds blanket the atmosphere with emissions from planes, contributing to global warming.”

    The engine will have a unique pressure-based condensation system, which will cool the water vapors in the aircraft exhaust. This water will remain on the airplane and can be released as rain as required.

    An environmentalist at heart, Qureshi turned her academic research at Cranfield University, UK, into a save-the-planet attempt and boarded on a mission to build the world’s first pollution-free jet engine.

  • Dating in Saudi Arabia

    Dating in Saudi Arabia

    In Saudi Arabia’s rigid past, religious police once swooped down on rose sellers and anyone peddling red paraphernalia around Valentine’s Day, but now a more open – albeit risky – dating culture is taking root.

    Pursuing relationships outside of marriage in the conservative Islamic kingdom once amounted to a death wish, and would-be Romeos resorted to pressing phone numbers up against their car window in hope of making contact with women.

    Now a sweeping liberalisation drive – which has rendered the religious police toothless and allowed gender mixing like never before – has made it easier for young couples to meet in cafes and restaurants. Well-heeled millennials also hunt for romantic liaisons via Twitter and Snapchat, and apps such as Swarm – designed to log places the user visits but often repurposed to look for dates.

    “Selling red roses was like selling drugs,” one young Saudi filmmaker told AFP, sitting in a music-filled Riyadh cafe with his girlfriend while a courting couple gazed into each other’s eyes on the next table.

    “Even this was once unthinkable – a woman sitting next to an unrelated man,” said the girlfriend, a media professional. “Now women are asking men out.”

    Pre-marital relationships remain a cultural minefield though in a country steeped in Islamic tradition and where matchmaking is typically overseen by family elders, forcing couples to keep unsanctioned romance under wraps.

    Secrets and lies

    Samirah, a 27-year-old finance executive in the Saudi capital, felt a flutter of nerves when her boyfriend’s mother stumbled upon a handwritten birthday card and gift she gave him – and that risked her own family finding out.

    In a society where family honour is often tied to female chastity, the revelation would have provoked fury from her family and jeopardised their months-long courtship that began through common friends.

    Her boyfriend managed to deflect his mother, but the scare prompted the young couple yearning for more freedom to plan a forbidden rendezvous – a long weekend in Dubai disguised as a business trip.

    “Saudi society is more open, but everyone lies about relationships because people are judgemental,” said Samirah, who like other interviewees requested that her real name be withheld.

    Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the millennial heir to the Saudi throne, has loosened social norms in a seismic cultural shift away from hardline Islam, allowing cinemas and parties while reining in clerics opposed to events like Valentine’s Day.

    In scenes unimaginable until just two years ago, women have been seen swaying on the shoulders of men at music concerts as the kingdom tears down the walls of sex segregation.

    But while the religious police have stepped back, the internal policing within Saudi families and society at large has not stopped, highlighting the limits of a Western-style liberalisation drive in a deeply conservative country.

    Saudi women also bridle at pervasive sexism in a society that — despite undergoing change particularly in urban areas — some say reduces them to their future role as wives and mothers.

    Sex outside of marriage remains a criminal offence in most of the Arab world, and the restrictions also fuel the risk of blackmail.

    “It is a big concern if you break up on bad terms,” said Samirah. “Women live in terror: What if he recorded photos and videos of me? What if he tells my father? What if he lands up at home?”

    Modern romance is also perilous for men — getting a hotel room can cause huge anxiety as couples are often expected to prove they are married at check-in.

    Nasser, a 25-year-old advertising professional, said last year one of his friends was caught kissing his girlfriend inside a private booth in a Riyadh restaurant.

    The restaurant manager threw open the screens and started filming them while shouting: “This is haram!” or un-Islamic.

    “Sometimes the only safe place to date is in your car,” Nasser lamented. “Dating is full of risks.”

  • Major win for Shehzad Roy as court bans corporal punishment for kids

    Major win for Shehzad Roy as court bans corporal punishment for kids

    The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday suspended Section 89 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and banned the practice of corporal (physical) punishment by parents, guardians and teachers on children.

    The decision was announced after singer-activist Shehzad Roy filed a petition in court to ban the use of violence to discipline children. A division bench of the IHC presided by Chief Justice Athar Minallah, suspended the PPC section until further notice.

    Section 89 of the Pakistan Penal Code 1860 (No XLV) allows parents, teachers and other guardians to use moderate and reasonable corporal punishment as a means to correct the behaviour of children below 12 years of age.

    In his petition, Roy claimed that Section 89 is contradictory to the Constitution as it violates basic human rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

    “Punishing children is being considered as essential for improving learning. News of torture and punishment of children have been reported every day in the media” read the petition.

    Justice Minallah, during the hearing, remarked that the country’s parliament had adopted a bill barring corporal punishment for children in 2013. The bill was not passed into law due to a technicality.

    Roy’s lawyer maintained that his client wanted the High Court to prevent violence against children until relevant legislation is passed.

    “Corporal punishment affects a child’s mental and physical health,” he asserted.

    After hearing the arguments, Justice Minallah directed the interior ministry to take immediate steps to protect the rights of children and asked for a reply from the federal government on the matter by March 5.

    Roy took to Twitter to express his gratitude over the IHC decision.

    Earlier, while speaking to the media outside the Islamabad High Court, Roy had said, “When a child is born, parents hit him, when he goes to school, teachers hit him, when he grows older and goes out in the society, police hits him to make him a better person. Research shows that the use of violence only increases violence.”

    Journalists, actors and members of the civil society lauded Roy for his initiative and hailed the court’s decision.

  • American woman comes to Pakistan to marry a man from Sialkot

    American woman comes to Pakistan to marry a man from Sialkot

    After becoming friends on Facebook four years ago, Zohaib Butt and Marjory have tied the knot and the Virginia citizen recently flew to Sialkot from the States to be with Butt.

    According to the groom, the two started as friends two years ago and decided to get engaged when Marjory visited Pakistan. The American native came back recently and the two tied the knot. Zohaib further revealed that Marjory accepted Islam and changed her name to Fatima.

    Meanwhile, in an interview, the bride said that she flew to Sialkot to marry the “love of her life,” adding that she loved the Pakistani culture as well.

    “I have enjoyed traveling to Pakistan. I’ve been here before and was welcomed by his family. I have enjoyed learning about his traditions, culture, and religion.”

    She continued, “Zohaib and I have talked for a long time over Facebook. This extended to his family where some of the children would take the phone from their parents and ask me for pictures of my dogs and children.”

  • Man threatens to set himself on fire after coronavirus cancels 60th birthday

    Man threatens to set himself on fire after coronavirus cancels 60th birthday

    A man in southwest China doused himself with petrol and tied firecrackers around his waist because authorities cancelled his birthday banquet as a precaution against spreading the coronavirus.

    The Chongqing resident, a 59-year-old surnamed Wang, had planned to hold a banquet with 10 tables late last month, state news agency Xinhua reported Wednesday.

    But with authorities across China restricting public gatherings to contain the outbreak, officials told Wang to cancel the party.

    Hundreds of millions of people across China face restrictions and interruptions to their lives due to efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak, which has now infected more than 44,600 people and killed over 1,100.

    Beijing’s municipal authorities announced last week that parties and group dinners at restaurants would be temporarily forbidden in the Chinese capital to prevent the spread of the virus.

    After his party was cancelled, the Chongqing man showed up at a village committee office armed with firecrackers, which he tied around his waist. He also poured gasoline on his chest and held out a lighter in an attempt to “scare and threaten the village committee into allowing the birthday party”.

    Local procurators later filed charges of disorderly behaviour against Wang on Tuesday.

  • Pakistan Citizen’s Portal enables expat to return after almost three decades

    Pakistan Citizen’s Portal enables expat to return after almost three decades

    The Pakistan Citizen Portal (PCP) established by Prime Minister Imran Khan recently received appreciation once again after it helped a Pakistani expatriate woman visit her homeland after 29 years.

    According to reports, the woman’s brother Shahid Hussain shared that his sister, residing in Germany, was unable to visit her country because of visa issues. He said that despite several previous attempts of sponsoring his sister’s visit, the issue remained unresolved.

    However, the matter was finally resolved after he registered a complaint on the portal. He praised the portal for facilitating him at every step and helping his sister visit her country.

    Hussain praised PM Imran for his efforts to help his countrymen.

    According to statistics issued by the PCP, the federal government resolved over 1.5 million complaints in response to over 1.7 million complaints registered with the Pakistan Citizen Portal during the period from October 2018 to 23 January 2020. The portal resolved 1,557,000 complaints leaving behind a backlog of 156,352 complaints.

    Read more – You can now report corruption, bribery on Pakistan Citizen’s Portal

    Meanwhile, the Prime Minister’s Performance Delivery Unit (PMDU) recently introduced a new category – ‘Corruption and Malpractices’ – to tackle complaints about corruption in government offices. The category has been introduced on the directives of Prime Minister Imran Khan to curb these illegal practises from government departments.

  • Pakistani Love: The Story of Survivors

    Pakistani Love: The Story of Survivors

    “But he’s never been married,” was something I heard often when I told people about Moayyed. It was blurted out, said pointedly, sometimes unintentional and sometimes very intentional.

    I had become immune to it because being with him meant that it didn’t matter.

    Remember your far-fetched wishes?

    Yaar, bus Pakistan saare matches jeet jaye, India saare matches har jaye tou hum jeet jayein gay, Please Allah, all planets align with the north star on February 31st, Usman Buzdar grows a tongue and Aamir Liaqat loses his…

    Imagine all this and you’d still have very little idea of what needed to happen for Moayyed Jafri and Amnah Shah to get hitched.

    There is no greater love, nothing at all, than the love for your children. I should know. I have three of them.

    One girl and two boys.

    14, 13, 10.

    My heart beats three times, my day complete, after I see three smiles and as I slip into tired slumber, I give thanks three times.

    Four times now, because I had three children before I met Moayyed.

    “Baba, how come people in natural disaster movies dodge every deadly accident while everyone around them is dying, ” I remember asking my father as a child.

    “Stories are biographies of survivors. All of nature’s forces combined with relentless will, create survivors and that’s what a miracle actually is”, he used to say.

     Moayyed hit pause. He stepped back and took leave from his own life’s desires to help his family after his father passed away. I didn’t have to take leave from my life like he did but I did give mine up for my children. I never, ever regretted it. No mother ever can. I didn’t wish or want for anything except for my three and life didn’t pass me by. But when I met him, life hit pause, as if allowing him a moment to hit play and catch up with me.

    “I love life,” I would claim, hopefully optimistic in what people assumed was a difficult life.

    “It’s alright,” would be his somewhat cynically said response.

    We were ying and yang, opposites, in every way. Ours was a love of heart and mind, a fusion of the cultures of the edgy northern mountains and the grounded central plains. We came together like gratefulness does. A loss leading into happiness.

    But reaching that level of certainty, that there was no running away from this, was only half the battle. We were well aware that although it is the year 2020, we live in Pakistan and come from relatively conservative families.

    It took two years for him to tell his family after which I broke the news to mine.

    The hardest part of finding love elsewhere is telling your children that someone else is about to be just as important as them.

    You know the song you listen to when you’re in love? My children have always been that song for me. On repeat, they have lifted me up, cradled me, comforted me. My children are my strength, not just partners in my dreams, but advocates for my right at a shot at happiness.

    I was so scared to tell them.

    There is nothing bigger in life than acceptance. Being accepted for who you are and what you want. Surviving life’s big tests and being apprehensive to start new ones. There is nothing bigger than knowing no matter what you choose, the people that love you will stand by you – as long as you are happy.

    My young, small children approved. Overwhelmed and teary-eyed I hugged them. It  wasn’t just their approval, it was something bigger. It was all doubts shattered by that moment, all uncertainties that typical societal mouthpieces had thrown at me.

    Akeli Maa aur teen bache, is shehr mai kaise reh sakte hai?

    Shattered.

    It was a feeling which words fall pathetically short of expression to describe. 

     Surviving what life throws at you is nothing short of a miracle. When Moayyed and I first met, it wasn’t love at first sight. We were both too good at surviving for it to be so simple. It was intrigue, a simple mysterious desire to know each other. It was quiet at first, as we looked, talked, smiled, letting each other in, layer by layer, like to love.

    We were survivors, ready for a miracle.

    Marrying Moayyed is probably one of the easiest things I have done in my life. Not because it’s love, but because we are easy. We were transparent in what we wanted, truthful and pragmatic. Our marriage is a triumph, not only of love but of hope over dejection. A defiance of stereotypes and a challenge to the toxic standards of normalcy.

    Hai dekho, teen bachey hain aur kunware larke se shaadi.

    Is larke kay parents kaise maan gaye?

    Apne bachon ka nahi socha?

    Society is ruthless but we don’t need to be. These words bounce off from us – my children, myself and Moayyed. People can say what they like and they will. But having the courage to ignore them and do what you know is right – surviving – that is the real miracle.