Huma Yusuf

This article first appeared in The Herald, May 2005.

It is no accident that Pope John Paul II was incessantly referred to as “charismatic”. For once, the word was being used correctly, indicating that the man was extraordinary and inspiring. Indeed, the pope’s brief visit to Karachi on February 16, 1981, en route to the Philippines, proves the power of his charisma. Some 24 years after his 90-minite appearance in Karachi’s National Stadium, Pakistan’s Christian Community still remember the pope’s every move.

“The pope’s National Stadium mass was an ecstatic experience. He was such a charismatic person with a natural, winning smile and athletic build that people took to him straight away,” remembers Father Archie DeSouza, the parish priest of Our Lady of Fatima Church. Similarly, Father Matthew of the St. John’s Church of Shahra-e-Faisal, who was in his early teens during the pope’s visit, says: “I’ll never forget his charismatic appeal, he was such an imposing figure. We all just wanted to see him, if nothing else.”

Pope John Paul II

This article first appeared in The Herald, February 2006.

Luckily, Kaleem’s prolificacy does not foster mediocrity or, worse, repetition – this despite the fact that The Star only offered “three battered typewriters, two of which were broken”. “I write about everything, except Pakistani movies. I like incongruous things and it’s sad that the days of stylistically colorful journalism have ended.” Of course, nothing could be more “stylistically colorful” than Kaleem’s infamous review of an early Naheed Siddiqui performance: he penned the entire appraisal in verse. Colleagues and friends later teased him about the poem, referring to it as “The Love song of J. Kaleem Omar”. What is more endearing than Kaleem’s penchant for poetry, though, is the fact that he had acquaintances who got a kick out of making allusions to T.S. Eliot.

 Tales of a Troubadour

This article first appeared in The Herald, January 2006.

At the age of 26, when Bapsi began writing The Bride, she had become accustomed to the fact that her literary inclinations would not be celebrated. With a husband and two children in tow,she crafter herself a modern-day Jane Austen and began to write in secret. “Most of our friends hailed from the business community and they would have thought I was being pretentious if I told them that I was writing,” she explains. “I now recognize that it is better to write quietly because talking about a project causes its energy to dissipate.”

 The Novelist

This article first appeared in The Herald, January 2006.

Habib Fida Ali makes architecture seem like the most glamorous profession. In conversation, he drops the names of international design masters such as Geoffrey Bawa, Tadao Ando, Le Corbusier and Luis Barragan as if they were old friends. And in some cases, they were. For instance, Habib befriended the trailblazing Sri Lankan architect Bawa as they were both alumni of the same design institute. “When I was staying with Bawa in Colombo,” recalls Habib, “all the Sri Lankans I met treated me as if I were staying with royalty.”

 The Architect

This article first appeared in The Herald, January 2006.

Zuhra Karim is a living anachronism. With her neatly pleated saris, tightly wound bun, boarding school inflection and unwavering work ethic, she seems out of time in the present. Of course, in the late 1950s, when she returned to Pakistan hell-bent on starting a career after graduating from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), she must have seemed even more incongruous in her surroundings. But being a temporal misfit does not bother the editor who articulated a voice for women in the Pakistani media by founding She, an English-language monthly, over 40 years ago.

 The Editor

This article first appeared in The Herald, January 2006.

Sultana Siddiqui clearly enjoys scoring firsts. She is the first woman in Pakistan to head a television channel. Her channel Hum TV was the first to operate without the logistical benefits and advertising revenue that come with cross-media ownership – she is not propped up by the might of a newspaper, radio station or advertising agency. And, not surprisingly, Hum TV was the first private channel to become a public limited company.

One can attribute these firsts to the fact that Sultana is, in a manner of speaking, a wok in progress. She has evolved with the media industry, leaving the nurturing studios of Pakistan Television (PTV) to found her own production company and later big for a television license. As a senior producer during the halcyon days on PTY, Sultana earned a reputation for churning out popular music shows, including “Dhanak” and “Tarang”. She was awarded the PTV Silver Jubilee Award for pioneering children’s programming through the show “Rang Barang” and collected accolades for the drama serials “Marvi” and “Aik Thee Mehro”. Along the way, she has also bagged a Nigar Award.

 The Producer

This article first appeared in The Herald, December 2005.As Nadeem describes Aditiya Chopra – the screenwriter of, most recently Veer-Zara – one begins to suspect that he is actually talking about himself. After all, he has been a driving force within Karachi’s cinema industry for the past 25 years, enabling the city’s theatres to survive against all odds. Under the banner of Mandviwala Entertainment, he has been importing and distributing films within Pakistan since 1980. He has flirted with the operatic mess that is desi showbiz by co-producing 1996’s Very Good Duniya, Very Bad Log. In July 2001, after a decade-long struggle, he succeeded in eradicating the 100 per cent entertainment tax imposed on cinema tickets and subsequently raised prices so as to make the business feasible. Currently, he is waging an epic battle against the Rainbow Center pirates, advocating for the legal import of Indian movies and plotting how to single-handedly revive the Punjabi film industry, all in an attempt to give the history of Pakistani cinema a good, old-fashioned, happy ending. As such, he is everywhere.The Bigger Picture

This article first appeared in The Herald, October 2005.Of course, Jehangir’s thematic consistency somehow mitigates his fickle nature. No matter what the medium, the message remains the same: marginality is a state of being for many in India. Indeed, Jehangir’s paintings are saturated with decapitated bodies and disembodied limbs. His forms are rendered only in outline, as if to suggest their lack of identity. Jehangir’s sculptures continue this refrain: “I enjoy working with rusted tin, a material that others would consider to be scrap material. I see beauty in the patterns and warm hues of eroding metal.” Moreover, the nature of sexuality and male desire – subjects that continue to be taboo even in an increasingly liberal Mumbai – are ever-present theme. In many works, overbearing horns symbolize the phallus, evoking both the urgency of homosexual desire as well as the mainstream perception that gay desire is inhuman or animalistic. Interestingly enough, the women in Jehangir’s earlier paintings are always faceless. “While working in a feminist mode, I wanted to show how women are invisible to patriarchy,” he explains. But the paintings also express Jehangir’s own experience of marginality for his reluctant to paint portraits betrays the inhibitions of a Muslim artist.An Artist of the Floating World

This article first appeared in The Herald, August 2005.More disconcerting is the fact that Rabbi speaks softly, peppering his seneces with words such as “perspicacity” and “post-modernism” – and that too before breakfast. Indeed, a conversation with him feels like a crash course in Philosophy 101, which isn’t surprising given that he is best known for making the Sufi anthem “Bulla ki jana” a super hit. What is surprising, on the other hand, is that Rabbi is equally well versed in western thought as he is in eastern philosophies. Allusions to the essays of Karl Marx and Martin Luther King Jr and followed by quotations culled from the work of Guru Nanak and Baba Farid. But this is only one of many incongruities that define the proud Sikh trying to make it as a pop idol. As he speaks, fluent English gives way to lilting Punjabi, poetry dissolves into profanity and spirituality confronts stardom.The Sardar with the Guitar

This article first appeared in The Herald, July 2005.In most social circles, Prahlad’s is the name to be dropped to gain some credibility. And that may be because in many ways, Prahlad personifies Mumbai. The city is frequently referred to by a slew of triple whammy adjectives – larger-than-life, out-of-control, over-the-top – and each of those can be applied to Prahlad without exaggeration. After all, he is an advertising guru who moonlights as a scuba-diving instructor, restaurateur, columnist, hat collector, socialist, winemaker, cigar roller and friend to the stars. Every morning, Prahlad rides the elevator with Aishwariya Ra, who recently moved into his stylish apartment building in Bandra. In the evenings, when he leaves his windows open to enjoy the sea breeze, Prahlad overhears long-time neighbor Sachin Tendulkar joking around with friends and family.Lust for Life