(One of the many reasons, teachers became my enemies at IVS, was my act of criticizing two film gods.)
When I was at Indus Valley School Of Arts & Architecture for a brief period of five weeks (yes, I left realizing it would be waste of one year learning crap), I noticed that the teachers forced perfection in filmmaking – angles, camera movement, rule of third, 180 degree rule, continuity… The film has to be just perfect. (This is what I learned).
No problem; good thing. I like that too.
But then it should be applied to all. Teachers should be able to criticize legends’ work too and not get offended when a student does so.… READ THE REST...
DECEMBER 23, 2015
Just a couple of days ago, someone asked the same question I have been asked many times before. “Why do you wear tights under a dress?”
This time, I did not want to respond. So I thought, I should write.
Here is why…
I, somehow, do not like Pakistani clothes. (Yeah, you can frown as much you like.) I find them very disturbing. Hence, I am always in dresses or tops. I keep my legs covered 65 percent in order to avoid becoming someone’s bedroom fantasy.
In the West, boys grow up watching their mothers and sisters wearing shorts, dresses, tank tops and bikinis at home and out.… READ THE REST...
NOVEMBER 12, 2015
Karachi is a city where having a car is a crime. You cannot park ANYWHERE. Well you can park in the paid parking but otherwise try parking it at home when you have to go somewhere. No matter where you take your vehicle, someone is offended and felt mugged of space. I am not joking, seriously.
I have recently joined a meditation group, which is located in Defence. It is situated in a house. The house is pretty big and with big boundary wall, one gets a lot of space to have parking outside. All the rest of the houses in the street are immense with vacant space outside their boundary walls.… READ THE REST...
All I hear, when I go out, is ‘you can’t do this; you can’t do that.
What is happening to people? What kind of rules are being made these days? Where is the logic?… READ THE REST...
Every time I complain how bad system is in Pakistan or how bad people behave or how reckless they are on roads, driving, riding, walking, so I have been told ‘it’s lack of education’.
‘Lack of education ? How come?… READ THE REST...
#PAKISTAN #RULES #KARACHI #TRAFFIC
One of the many things I am annoyed by in Pakistan is people’s driving. I am now on the stage that it has become funny to me. I laugh.
People take it too personally on roads here. You can’t be in front of someone (LITERALLY) . Anyone behind you thinks that it is his right to be in front of you. Everybody wants to be ahead of everyone. If you dare to overtake someone, you commit a moral, ethical and spatial crime. (It is his right to be ahead of you). Your overtaking will make you face all sorts of verbal and gestural abuse.… READ THE REST...
June 4, 2015
What’s there to like about Pakistan? I go through hell on daily basis. It wasn’t this bad in this country ten years ago. There was still a system that functioned. There were still few educated people. There was still a bit of satisfactory customer service. Nothing such exists anymore. More the things rising in price, the lower the service is going.
I have been trying to get an appointment with a doctor for weeks. She sits at Agha Khan Hospital and Hilal e Ahmer Hospital in Karachi. The phone line at Hilal e Ahmer goes busy all day long, and if it doesn’t then no one ever picks up.
… READ THE REST... I have come to the point where I laugh at things that made me angry once. For example in Pakistan, people generally made me angry with their stupidity. Now I laugh how stupid most of the people are.
From 1991 till 2004, I sold my work through private shows. People in those days bought art and commissioned it regarding it art worth having. Then I stopped painting and had a dry brush from 2004 till 2012. I resumed in the end of 2012 and though I haven’t placed a show yet but have started selling through my website and network. But then I thought I have been painting for more than two decades, let’s get involved in art circle of Pakistan and see what’s happening.… READ THE REST...
I’m being a real lazy bum these days. Just don’t feel like doing anything. Um… no, I think this not justified. I do like to just read books from my petit library and listen to music and paint. THAT’S IT.
I don’t know if this qualifies me a lazy head or it’s just that I am tired of being a matriarch.
Few months ago I started noticing that whatever I did to occupy myself ended up demotivating me. I taught; I painted; I practiced 3 D animation… zilch excitement. Nothing excited me and I didn’t find myself good enough.
Yesterday morning, EmQue and I were burdening my living room’s coach with our laziness as usual.
… READ THE REST... I have been thinking of defining myself to a number of people who think I am an introvert. Luckily, just now I got it. I am an ‘anti-social extrovert’ .
This is because I am neither a kind of person who enjoys meeting people regularly (but I don’t mind once a month perhaps) nor I like staying at home everyday. Strangely, I love to be around strangers and hate the deserted lonely places. Then what do you call this condition?
When people called me anti-social and thought I didn’t like going out, I was very upset because it does not justify my status que.
… READ THE REST...
Life to me is an hourglass. An hourglass that has a job; a labourless job of leaking sand non stop. A specialized hour glass with top part jet black to conceal the mystery of its quantity.
It’s a giant tyrant placed right behind me by the power of universe. I see the sand filling its bottom every day and day after. I look at it sometimes in terror and other times in excitement.
I run and run in pursuit of my dreams and I turn my head and it’s there, leaking sand grains over grains, mocking me, scaring me, watching me.
… READ THE REST... (Before you read this post and many others dating before 2015, you will have to bear the paragraphs joined together. These posts are imported from blogger and no matter what I do, they just don’t do paragraphing. Sorry.)
I met someone new yesterday-a yoga instructor in Karachi. She must be probably in her mid forties. What she asked me was not something new though. Many people ask me the same, and I believe those are the people who cannot stand the fact that I could be successful without any qualification in this field.
… READ THE REST... Since a lot of you ask me about my name, I decided to tell you my view behind it. Apart from the fact that I hated my name all my childhood due to its religious significance conflicting with my secular beliefs. I hated it more when I grew up. (Many reasons for this. Let’s not mention those.)
I am against having a name given to a person. I believe everyone should choose his or her name when he/she grows up. Name should be the description of personality. It should be creative. I am also not in favour of the idea of last name which is always a man’s name (why not a woman’s name?).… READ THE REST...
I remember when I was a child I played with figures and toys as if they were real characters with souls. I am not talking about when I was only three or five; I did that until I was 15 or older. I always had this world in my head giving them voices and life; a world where people moved and spoke as I desired. Unfortunately, I was always targeted by people for being abnormal. Many suggested having me checked. (I still hear things talking to me. I am an animist.)This did not only happen to me.
… READ THE REST... 
As I am growing older and more mature, it is getting increasingly difficult to compromise with the nonsense of Pakistan. When people say that Pakistan will improve one day, I only raise my eyebrows because if I go against this statement they try to fight me in a useless argument. I don’t’ have time to waste on something that doesn’t give me any benefit of knowledge. But for the first time in life I met someone who was not a waste of time.Last night at InterNations event, I liked the idea given by a member Jabbar Madni.
… READ THE REST... Sometimes I think that what would it have felt like if we did not die but evaporated. It’s the most annoying thought for me to die one day not knowing which day. What if I die today? I should do this and that just in case. Every day I think what if today is the last day. And then I rush in thinking what should I have done or what should I do for my daughter who is still just sixteen. If I die today, then what will happen to her future?
… READ THE REST... When I sometimes tell my daughter how life was when I was growing up, she calls it suffocating. I always laugh and tell her it’s the difference of perspective. Kids these days are born into technology. They cannot think of living a minute without internet or mobile phone. I was born in 1970 and I don’t remember a day when I said that I was bored. We had enough time to do enough of everything. I still remember how school was still fun and after school we had a great social life.
… READ THE REST... It’s true that the civilization I have admired most is American. I am a great fan of Americans. Yeah, I know they say that average American is dumb. I don’t understand why people here are so happy about hearing it? In Arab and Muslim countries, all men and women are intellectually challenged. Living with that, aren’t we?
I like Americans because they are free spirited people. They are highly industrious. It’s their hard work and manipulative skills in dealing with smart people around the world for their benefit that has made them the biggest, strongest and super power.
… READ THE REST... I hear that life is too fast now. I hear it all the time. Everyone says that the day is short. A day is still of 24 hours and a year is still of 365 days.
I don’t think life is fast. Life is still the same as it was in 1960’s perhaps. It’s just that we have made ourselves too busy in the run and greed of making more money. Also, people are not good at time management any more. They sleep late, go to work late, think late, perform late, finish late, come home late.
… READ THE REST... I keep hearing arguments among men and women about being superior or equal and I keep wondering if the system was the other way round, would they still have these spats?
I am sure they would still be scuffling.
Although I am a woman and I DO vote for equality but I also DO insist on equality on moral grounds of genders rather than physical and emotional comparison.
I believe that men are superior to women physically. They are stronger and there is no doubt about it. Women were born weak. Men did not make women subordinates intentionally in the beginning of the human race but they saw that in those harsh days of survival when your existence depended on your strength and severity to environment, women could not perform well for protection.
… READ THE REST...
And here our technology moves a step upward and delivers us Google Glass. There is nothing wrong with advancement in captivating technological race as long as it supplies us the benefits without harm. When technology becomes the cause of social tribulation, measures should be taken to avoid it becoming cancer of communal environment.
Social networking sites have already generated tumultuous digital war originating from the omnipresence of smart phones. Privacy of every common and elite has been breached making them vulnerable in the hands of antagonists of this Shakespeare’s stage.Recent advent of Google Glass is being optimistically promoted in pre-launch campaigns to enslave minds into entering the dungeon of relentless chaos.
… READ THE REST... 
Theories are made in all eras of history for the betterment of humankind and world. Theories bring us forward. A simple theory of intellectual and intelligent man can teaches us a whole level of diploma education. They have power. They dominate.
But are all theories worth? Should we step forward holding them?
I admire Socrates, Plato and Aristotle for what they gave us. They gave us the foundation of today’s modern world. They gave us science, psychology, philosophy, medicine. They endowed us intelligence which led to creativity. I admire Newton and Einstein.
… READ THE REST... by xandria noir
Do you think there is future tomorrow?
You fret about it every minute dissolving the joy of present into stress and discontentment. You are running after it trying to catch as if it is a butterfly with mesmerizing colours and patterns of enchanting installations. And when in the end of the day, this furtively mystifying little fantasy doesn’t become captive of your net of pursuit; you fall under burden of crippling pain.
I did the same few years ago. I divested the present from my mental existence. But now I have many new beliefs, and one of them is the surety of absence of future and past.
- Make NEW friends but cherish the OLD ones too.
- Don’t carry a GRUDGE.
- Compliment three people every day.
- Watch a sunrise at least ONCE a year.
- Over tip waiters and waitresses for good service.
- Have a firm handshake.
- Look people in the eye.
- Say ‘thank you’ a lot.
- Say ‘please’ a lot.
- Own a great stereo/music system.
- Be the first to say ‘Hello’.
- Live beneath your means.
- Drive inexpensive cars, but own the best house you can afford.
- Buy great books even if you don’t read them.
- Be forgiving of yourself and others.
It is very common for you to complain about tension, stress, depression and boredom on daily basis. You take stress of work, tension of unwanted events, depression of deprivation, boredom due to lack of time for entertainment. I was once like this. Not anymore.
You already know that brain controls your body. You move, you eat, you blink, you talk, and you sleep. Every function of your body is slave to your brain. Brain on the other hand is slave to your mind. But then who controls the mind? Who is behind all this system?There are only two ways to dwell – hate and be hated or love and be loved.
You think life is long? Think carefully. Life is just four days long. Four heavenly days. One heavenly day equals to 20 years.
You spend first day in your early education, second day tying nuptial knots and making family, third day enjoying established career and forgetting family, and fourth day smoldering in remorse and being lonely waiting for the departure of soul.
Life is that short.
It is a flash of thirty seconds before your eyes when your body is in transition from life-d to lifeless.
… READ THE REST... Punishment is the last and the least effective instrument in the hands for the prevention of crime.
–John Ruskin
–John Ruskin
Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment. –Mahatma Gandhi
Parents of young and adult children now are those who were children themselves just fifty years ago. Fifty years ago parents were influenced by the stark parenting skills which were deprived of knowledge of behavioral psychology. Parents in those days were unaware of repercussions of their actions and decisions implemented on their children in order to discipline them.
… READ THE REST... Earth is full of plants. For millions of years plants are consumed to satiate hunger. They are full of nutrients essential for a healthy well being. Animals though were consumed in primitive ages as the humans were not evolved to the extent of being equipped with knowledge and skills of culinary. This defines why animals hunt animals for food in animal kingdom. Food chain doesn’t entail human, though many consider human the top predator of food chain. Although humans are also taken into account of being ‘animals’ by some, it should not be deemed this way. Humans are main elements of society.
… READ THE REST... by xandria noir
Mind is a labyrinth for smartness. Smartness pops out from different openings in the labyrinth of every individual. I believe that every human is born with some exception. Everyone is smart to a certain extent. It is on adults at homes and schools to find it in children and make it a big deal. Unfortunately, most parents fail to do so and so does all schools.
Many children do not perform well when it comes to put answers on paper, and then they are marked according to their apparent performance, which does not reflect their true potential on practical grounds.
… READ THE REST...
I have a problem – a problem of writing with words.
I use words that I have read and are wandering in my head finding a place to be practiced and be told. Certainly, I find no harm for them to tag along my writing. Isn’t it the purpose of words – be said?
I am a neologist. I invent words as well. My daughter’s name is an example of my first neologism. The words that I make with existing words are usually with hyphen as I intend people to know that they do not exist in dictionary or Google search.
… READ THE REST...
I have reached a pivotal point of my life. Now I think densely if existence of people I can accommodate myself with is chanced.
People with stable minds
People with interpretational skills
People with cackle-less sense of humour
People with sense of relevance
People ethically knowledge-d
People with intelligible disposition
People I can relate to.
People I can talk to.
I need a break. Mean-fully horrifying pouring of personae non gratae has drenched me with suffocation leading to introversion. And yet everyone complains about my self-inflicted home stays. Library is the only place where I can sit peacefully for hours because the good rule is silence and books are compatible.
… READ THE REST...
We talk about what is most precious of all; we talk about what we lose and can never retrieve. We talk about it all the time and everyone has different ideology. I think parents are the most precious gift of God. Once they are gone, they are gone. There is no replacement. There is no love that can alter their unconditional affection. There is no one who can supply the same length of protection as they did. There is just no one like them.
I remember growing up fighting with my parents all the time.
… READ THE REST... A writer’s or a presenter’s first job –besides writing or presenting – should be to structure what they are telling us into a logical and readily graspable format. Unfortunately, when they fail to do so, our interpretive devices – our minds – try to structure the sequence from the given informational chaos, which causes chaotic conclusions.
It is very important to be precise in communication to project a clear point of view. This is the rule not only for writers but also the business executives. To persuade others to your point of view, you should deploy three elements: logos, ethos, and pathos in constructing and presenting a script or an argument.
… READ THE REST...
I am generally a quiet person. I only like talking when it is a business discussion or when I am given a chance to share my knowledge with others. Otherwise, talking is just not my thing anymore.
I like listening.
I benefit from listening to other people’s experiences and thoughts. I have an aptitude to sit with a person for an hour, with my ears open, attention focused, passage to brain available and just listen. Unlike a therapist. But I could be one excellent therapist. I would not have cared for money because the quality of listening builds my soul, and trading soul for money only brings catastrophic implications.… READ THE REST...
There were times, when my senses of decency and discipline were injured every day when I mounted my car on the roads of commotion. I suffered, suffered and suffered, and one day I got up to embrace the fact that the world of perfection, where I live in, only exist in my brain. Here people have contradiction with me. They say that’s not the real world, this is the real world. With me the scenario is, of course, vice versa.
I live in Karachi, which has become a dodging car ring; the difference is that the cars don’t intentionally bump.
… READ THE REST...
Experience is an involuntary muscle. It happens whether you want it, like it or not. It’s on us to make it best or worst.Almost all the people I come across whine about their experiences of failures in life. I don’t. Instead, I ornament myself with them. It’s not only that only my experiences I adore; it’s of the people around me as well, which I book mark.
In 2008, I experienced something, which if I tell here, SOMEONE in Lahore might come in trouble. On the happening of such, Wiqi, my best friend, lover, boy friend who happens to be my life partner too, called it the worst till yet, but I don’t agree.
… READ THE REST... The time of flight of all those colours,
is the time that makes my sensations fuller.
Than that of what kept the colours away
And made me wander in search for ray;
Are no more in life to keep me bewildered
Gladly time has brought despair, swindled.
For he who transmuted life to gloom
Shall be resentful in life of fume;
As he was the harbinger of distrust,
Encased in nothing but obscenity of lust.
But in whose arms now repeatedly I sleep,
Is PURE at heart, bears no deceit.
Added up to life’s meaningful purrs,
Is the flight of all his true colours !… READ THE REST...
Heart follows
and it follows desires.
Desires seldom retire
to the heart that swallows
the pain it destined;
to the heart that obstructs peaceful mind.
And never unwind
the sorrows.