Yesterday, Netflix debuted the trailer of the Zoya Akhtar venture ‘The Archies’ which is adapted from the popular comic series Archie, with Shah Rukh Khan’s daughter Suhana Khan, Khushi Kapoor and Agastya Nanda making their debut.
You’ve seen them in comics, in books, and in Riverdale — but this time around, you’ll see them in India!
Set in the 60's, The Archies builds a world that’s both familiar and new. Here's your first look #TUDUM! pic.twitter.com/KKmGrhTkYN
Although the trailer has already received praise from King Khan, who gushed about seeing his daughter’s debut on screen, not a lot of fans agree with him.
The internet is divided with some slamming Zoya Akhtar for white washing Indian history and choosing to make a film with actors who have nepotism connections, and others actually looking forward to Zoya’s take on the beloved comic.
Some users were criticising the film, comparing Zoya Akhtar to Karan Johar for picking people with no talent instead of actors who were struggling to find roles in the industry today.
Karan Johar gets so much flak for launching one star kid after another, Zoya Akhtar said hold my Nepo Milkshake aur aik hi dafa pura batch launch kardiya Archies mein. Khud hi subkay maa baap promote kartay rahaingay muft mein
Others had to draw out how unrealistic the portrayal of the 60s was in the film, pointing out that India in this era had a completely different style and aesthetic than what the film was portraying.
In 60’s India faced 1962 war , 1965 war and another limited war in 1967-68 . Indians had to eat Red wheat given as aid . PM Shastri ji called upon adults to forgo food one day of week . Famine, starvation deaths were common . Where did this Utopia exist ? https://t.co/ZpXXNkI96l
Some slammed the film for being completely white washed and not being adapted as an Indian interpretation.
Not impressed at all bollywood always show indians will see rich society in movie and start with elite class doesn't look Indian this is the case when you don't explore more about culture and environment outside south bombay https://t.co/lO54QdTPzt
A few fans were enthusiastic for another film by Zoya Akhtar, and said they were set to watch the film
I am highly intrigued by this. The way they have recreated that era is truly remarkable. I am eagerly anticipating the opportunity to watch this film. #TheArchieshttps://t.co/CptYHhgjU3
Social media can be a blessing because of how it is able to bring people together regardless of their background. It provides people with an opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals. But we have to admit that the downside of social media -particularly in regard to how women on the internet are openly criticised and trolled- is something that cannot be overlooked. Mahira Khan was attacked online for not wearing a dupatta, and now Naimal Khawar is getting trolled after people assumed the actress had gotten a nose job.
Pakistani women exist in an invisible cage that follows them to their graves. They are a vessel of opinions other people have about them, and have no say in how they choose to live their own lives. Men tend to perceive Pakistani women as their personal nannies, therapists and full time mothers. In the particular case of Naimal Khawar, its amazing how entitled babus on the internet have so much to say about a woman who is financially independent and has a caring and attentive husband and family.
What had led to such a vicious response? The actress had merely posted pictures of herself next to some flowers, which led to some trolls making heinous comments about how her alleged nose job made her face look different.
Like seriously, the comments section really proves how as Pakistanis, misery is the flag we love to wave. We cannot remain happy, therefore we cannot see other people happy.
I’m sorry but did Naimal Khawar personally reach out to you for money even if she had gotten a surgery? Why would you feel so entitled to make such negative comments about a woman’s face? Why do Pakistanis feel that making hideous remarks about women’s bodies passes is acceptable? Naimal Khawar has not survived so many years in a competitive industry solely because of her looks, but because she is a talented person. She owes no one an explanation about how she chooses to live.
Trying to justify your body shaming by using the religion card? Didn’t Islam also tell us to keep our opinions to ourself, and to never open our mouth if we have to make a mean comment about someone? In a country like Pakistan where already 75 per cent people suffer from mental illnesses like depression, could we try to understand that, now more than ever, women need to stop pilling on hate on each other, and help by being a little kind and compassionate?
By the end of the day, we simply have to say that take your rules and restrictions away from the bodies of Pakistani women. Naimal Khawar is her own person. She can decide by herself what she wants with her life, whether she chooses to go under the knife or not. It’s all about what makes her feel more secure in her body. For the rest of us, there are more things to worry about while living in Pakistan rather than taking it out on a woman who has nothing to do with it.
If you’re still having a problem in undestanding how to possibly mind your business and manage not to tear down a happy person, then take a note from Mathira, who manages to keep a classy and cool persona by uplifting people when they need it the most.
Was it a charming male lead Choi Chi Yeol (played by Jung Kyung-ho) who falls for a single mom, that drove people to watch ‘Crash Course in Romance’? Or the fact that a show went into minute details about the pressures of high school, the cut-throat competition surrounding college applications and how it damages the mental health of students? Whatever it was, the Korean rom-com ‘Crash Course In Romance’ had aired only two episodes when it lead the polls in the list of dramas that are generating the most buzz.
Aside from this show, and the critically acclaimed thriller ‘The Glory’ that was among the top ten most watched dramas around the world, this is the perfect time to get into Korean dramas, especially if you’re from Pakistan and dying to watch something other than a toxic romance going round and round like a jalebi. From the list of K-dramas set to arrive on Netflix, the shows range from a wholesome office romances to an unlikely encounter between a vampire and a human and a bored housewife taking charge of her fate and deciding to become a doctor.
2023 has only reached its middle and this lineup of dramas has us excited. Check out some amazing options.
1 See you in my 19th life
Time travelling lovers who recognise each other in their next lives? Sign us up immediately. Ban Ji Eum has an extraordinary trait: she can remember everything from her 18 past lives. But when her life is cut short tragically and Ji Eum is reborn in her 19th life, she is determined to reconnect with all the people she lost, and in the process she comes across Mono Seo Ha, a man whom she met in her previous life.
2 My Heart Is Beating
Missing your Vampire Diaries, Twilight era? K-dramas have got you covered. Remember the heartthrob villain Jang Jun-Woo from Vincenzo? The actor who played him, Ok Taec-Yeon, is now the lead in this drama, as a vampire who desperately wants to become a human being, but he misses his chance because of one day out of a 100 years. He starts living in a guest house run by Joo In-Hae (Won Ji-An), a cold-hearted nurse who does several jobs. As the two get closer, both start getting feelings for each other.
3 King The Land
If you missed witty office romances like Ankahi, or quite recently ‘Fairytale’ and need something to fill the hole in your heart left by Farjaad as you wait for Season 2, check out this one. Gu Won is the son of a chaebol family, who is caught in an inheritance war with the rest of his siblings over the control of his company. Although he is successful in his business, his work-a-holic attitude makes him bad at dating, until he meets Cheong Sa-Ra, an employee at his hotel, and immediately falls for her.
4 Doctor Cha
Cha Jeung-Suk graduated medical school with aspirations to become a doctor, but resigns to becoming a housewife to the Chief Surgeon at a university hospital. Twenty years later, Jeong-Suk decides to start her medical career despite resistance from her husband.
Yes, you’ve heard of ‘Tere Bin’. Your momma has too, as has the paros walli aunty. Even bechara Irffan Khan ka beta apnay aap ko iss say bacha nahi saka.
‘Tere Bin’ has us all in a trance, but perhaps we don’t want to remain in it. Yet there we are, every Wednesday and Thursday, hooked to our screens. These two days could be now renamed ‘Tere Bin days’ and we’re honestly thinking this drama should be studied by psychologists because no matter what absurd plot twist is thrown in, the fanbase remains dedicated as ever. Is it because of the appeal of the main leads, Wahaj Ali and Yumna Zaidi? Or is it because as a post-colonial nation, we’re addicted to hate watching? Does any scientist out there care to explain how we’ve gone from this couple fighting to falling back in love to faking a pregnancy to then back to shouting and crying and going all over again back to lovers? We’re 53 episodes in, give us a break!
But we did as a nation get some hilarious plot twists and pearl clutching moments that even got PEMRA looped in. So let’s break down some of the ways Tere Bin decided to throw logic out of the window
1 Starting with the more recent: Meerab’s pregnancy announcement.
Episode 53 opens with a mind blowing twist: that apparently doing it only once in your marriage with your frenemy husband gets you immediately pregnant. Fans first got to watch their favorite couple in torment because they broke their rules and decided to have sex, and then mope around when Meerab decides to run away, and now the cherry on top is her realising that the same husband she ran away from is the one who got her pregnant?
2 Abba saying shaba khair
There is a hilarious trope in Pakistani dramas that every time a daughter decides to rebel by divorcing the man she’s been forced to marry, the dad immediately becomes an obstacle in her path by dying from a heart attack. Ye abba je ko convenient waqt nahi milta apni manmani karwanay kay liye? And why play up the daughter’s guilt when she is escaping an unhappy marriage? We saw this with ‘Mujhay Pyaar Hua Tha’, that the father immediately passes away, guilt shaming Maheer further for not wanting to remain married to her cousin, Saad.
In episode 50, after finding out that his daughter Meerab has run away from her home and left her belongings behind, her father searches for her and then passes away outside her friend’s house.
3 Haya dancing at Murtasim’s wedding
If a villain goes down in history for messing with the nation’s mind so much that even the actress performing this role was sent hate mail, it would be Haya, palyed by Sabeen Farooq. We have to give credit to Farooq’s brilliant acting that makes Haya such a hateful character, and yet someone whom the audience can’t turn away from despite how cringey she looks trying to trap Murtasim. Perhaps the most Haya she has ever been was in episode 8, when she dances in a seductive manner at Meerab and Murtasim’s mehendi, something we’d not even do even if a gun was put to our head.
4 Malik Zubair aka Anas
Sirf Meerab, Murtasim aur Haya kaafi nahi thay, that even Mariam bechari had to be dragged into such a messed up love affair with the man who attempted to harm her brother? We discover in episode 40, that Anas is actually Malik Zubair, Murtasim’s biggest enemy. The episode also drew a lot of backlash from audiences for portraying the female characters of the show as helpless and clueless about the person whom Murtasim repeatedly refers to throughout the show as his biggest enemy.
5 The pregnancy confusion
‘Tere Bin’ did everything in its power to win the ‘most brainless show’ competition and they led the polls with episode 24. Murtasim promising his wife that he doesn’t think of Haya as anything but a sister, and then deciding to go to the village with her? Maa Begum becoming gynecologist and deciding Meerab is pregnant, without our headstrong lead even bothering to correct this assumption? Allah madad kar.
TikToker Sundal Khattak was arrested on Tuesday by the Federal Investigation Authority (FIA) in a case pertaining to the Hareem Shah nudes leak scandal. An Islamabad court has also rejected her bail. Express Tribune reported that the court also rejected Khattak’s request to arrest Shah for defamation.
Khattak has rejected claims that she leaked Shah’s videos, accusing the TikTok star of defamation on social media because of which she was receiving death threats from her followers. She was directed by the court to file an application with the local police station on the complaints.
Hareem Shah’s nudes were leaked on the internet in March. She released a statement on social media saying that it was her close friends who had made these videos and were responsible for the leak, and she was going to take strict action against them. Shah named her close friends, Khattak and Ayesha Naz, as the ones responsible for this leak, as they would spend a lot of time with the TikTok star.
Shah went on to reveal that she had filed a complaint with the FIA against Naz, but the organisation did not take any action against her, despite her doubts. “Ayesha had also informed my other friends that she will leak my videos,” added Shah. “But I don’t really care about these videos.”
Speaking to Geo, her husband Bilal said he will not leave his wife in her hour of need, and revealed that he was furious at the actions of Khattak and Naz, as they had been allowed in their home and even shared their rooms
Bilal said he was horrified that the women would do such a thing to their close friend. He said they had violated and smeared the character of a woman despite being women themselves.
“In my eyes, they have done a very ungraceful thing,” the husband spoke: “After we land in Pakistan, we will take every legal action which can be taken.”
Yehi tou lagta hai Steve Hanke babu ko, who took to Twitter to share a video of smoke rising from a building, claiming that it was a nuclear power plant in Karachi, and then proceeded to blame authorities for not taking the matter seriously.
We would also like to point out that Steve Hank is a professor of Economics at the very prestigious John Hopkins. A professor of his stature is expected to share only the truth.
Except, its not true. The video, from 12th June, is not of a nuclear power plant blast but its from a fire at a grid station in DHA, which left residents without light for hours.
But if Pakistanis are good at anything, it is making memes to roast others. And we got some hilarious responses.
⚠️ LATEST UPDATE This explosion is now beyond control. The authorities have officially given up after Dr. Shahid Masood and Commander Safeguard weren't able to help either. The local population has started evacuating towards safer locations using these single-passenger planes. https://t.co/fcRY2FY6q8pic.twitter.com/rndHDi5kec
As expected, local authorities in Pakistan have been slow to report on a Godzilla sighting that is the main cause of storm in the Arabian sea near Karachi. WATCH: https://t.co/cnBdJrxnWnpic.twitter.com/iCcFuEm0Iv
When Shah Rukh Khan announces another session of #AskSRK on Twitter, more often than not goes on to become a leading trend on Twitter, with fans coming up with all sorts of hilarious questions for the Badshah of Bollywood.
Whether it is about his secret to not aging (we’re stalking him until he answers that), on-set memories, hilarious quips to fans and love confessions, here is a round up of all that went down in the recent #AskSRK session.
The reason why he is King Khan
Mere paas DDLJ hai….KKHH hai, Devdas hai Swades hai Chak se India hai…Pathan hai…Om Shanti Om hai….ohh need to stop showing off!! Ha ha https://t.co/FE7JRfjHJB
So sorry to hear that. Don’t worry try again next year…maybe in my birthday this time?? All the best jokes apart u will be back don’t worry. https://t.co/9vgtDbOfdD
An advertisement titled ‘Reunion’ made by Google India in 2013 has resurfaced on Twitter. The ad was about two long lost friends from India and Pakistan who are reunited with the help of their grandchildren.
The advertisement revolves around two grandchildren who listen to their grandfathers recall being friends and living in Lahore, until partition took place, driving them apart. The grand daughter from India then tries hard to connect with the friend from Pakistan, and books tickets to get the two to unite.
A twitter thread by an Indian twitter user asked followers about the best advertisements they had ever seen. In reply, a user shared the ad, moving Twitter to tears.
The partition between India and Pakistan is still like an open wound. It is nice to remember that despite political tensions between the two countries, people remain united by love.
The world’s axis shifted and Mother Nature began healing when news publications announced that superstar Taylor Swift had dumped the controversial Matty Healy, with fans around the world rejoicing
But because it can never be a dull day in showbusiness l, some media platforms are trying to link her with Indian singer Diljit Dosanjh. Never did we think this would happen, not even in our wildest dreams (wink)
Dosanjh himself fanned the flames by hilariously trolling the news site that spread the rumor with a cheeky comment which he later deleted:
“Yaar privacy naam di v koi cheez hundi aa”
Which soon led to a storm on social media with fans trying to re-imagine what would ‘Anti-hero’ singer and Doshanjh dating be like. The results were hilarious.
The series finale for ‘Never Have I Ever’ aired yesterday, bringing fans to a conclusion that divided opinions. Devi finally graduated high school, resolving the mystery about who is the man she will end up with.
The series revolved around a messy kid Devi, who navigates love, peer pressure from belonging to an Indian family, and deals with the death of her father.
From Season 1, there were two men in Devi’s life, Paxton Hall-Yoshida and Ben Gross. We were led through a four season long will-they-won’t-they as Devi made her way through misunderstandings, hurried confessions and miscommunication to now finally watching a grown and less-chaotic Devi who finally chooses…
Ben!
How did we get to this conclusion? Devi and Ben got intimate in the last season after which, the two remain awkward, drifting off, but eventually ending back together as friends. Devi ends up getting in to the college of her dreams: Princeton, with Ben’s help.
While packing for college, Devi misses Ben, who is in New York for a law internship. However, during her friend Nirmala’s wedding, Ben shows up at the last minute, with both deciding to give their relationship a shot.
Needless to say, this outcome did not sit well with a lot of fans, who criticised creator Mindy Kailing for hyping mediocre looking white men, and routinely depicting brown women who indulge in self-critical commentary and consistently put down their own culture and heritage in the shows.
Many pointed out that Devi’s conclusion with Ben was another domino in the long line of Kailing’s female leads hyping bare-minimum men, and putting down south asian men for the sake of appealing to a white audience.
wait just realized that all of devi's love interest aren't white except for ben, and he's the one she ended up with, mindy kaling is a sick woman #neverhaveieverhttps://t.co/bq0futpvUX
But other users felt that the conclusion was satisfying and were happy that Ben and Devi went from being enemies to close friends and finally falling in love with each other.
