“Iss umar mein yeh sab (doing this at this age)?“ asked one troll, while others weighed in on how the unborn baby deserved “younger, more energetic” parents while some prophesied that Khan wouldn’t live long enough to see her baby have babies.

Media coverage has been equally atrocious, with one channel featuring “medical specialists” who referred to Khan as an “old woman”. 

We don’t judge older dads

Of course, such a sexist, ageist response is not a uniquely Pakistani phenomenon. Anne Hathaway was picked apart online after announcing she was pregnant at 43. Kourtney Kardashian, pregnant at 44, and Naomi Campbell, who became a mother at 50 through surrogacy, were also criticised heavily online.

I personally am a fan of how Sienna Miller handled criticism around her pregnancy announcement at 43. When people called her “irresponsible,” she hit back saying: “There’s a whole load of noise and people have a lot to say, and it’s incredibly gendered and unbelievably misogynistic and anti-feminist. If your body is capable of it, have the baby”. She went on to say, “We don’t judge men who are having kids in their 80s. Why on earth is there any sort of narrative?”

Miller was, of course, referring to a host of celebrity dads such as Al Pacino, who became a father at 83, and Robert De Niro, who welcomed a child at 79. The public’s response to these literal senior citizens joining the new dad club was mostly eye rolling and jokes about their virility with some commending them for still having “it”.

There was certainly no online mob with pitchforks accusing these men of behaving irresponsibly by bringing into the world a child they probably won’t see graduate college.

You don’t have to be a celebrity to have your age become the central part of your pregnancy journey. The women I spoke to for this story have been on the receiving end of stigmatising comments as a result of getting pregnant in their forties. 

For instance, Shehnaz — a 40-something-year-old acquaintance whose name has been changed to protect her anonymity — told me, “Instead of congratulating me, people around me asked: ‘What are you thinking? Have you gone crazy?’” Yet, for Shehnaz and every other woman I spoke to, becoming a mother — irrespective of their age — was the best thing to happen to them, and they would do it all over again. 

“It’s good that women are having kids at whatever age they want. Who are we to say when the cut off should be to have a baby? You do worry who will take care of them when you get older but life is unpredictable. My baby was Allah’s gift. She was meant to come to this world,” said Shehnaz.

Ironically, the fulfilment and excitement that all these mothers described to me is something I first heard from Mahira Khan herself.

Seven years ago, I interviewed Khan while she was promoting Superstar in Houston, Texas. I was in my first trimester with my first child. Noticing that my energy was flagging as we all stood around waiting for the event to begin, Khan asked if I was doing okay. When I told her I was fine, just fatigued because I was early in my pregnancy, she hugged me, then hugged me again. Then, holding me close, she told me, “This is the best thing… there is nothing better in the world than being a mother”. 

That day — in the throes of first trimester exhaustion — I couldn’t match her enthusiasm because I didn’t know what was coming for me. But today, six years and two kids later, I couldn’t agree more.

“Geriatric” moms

Webster’s Dictionary defines geriatric as “of or relating to the process of growing old and the medical care of old people”. Naturally, what then comes to mind is a withered, sickly person hobbling into a clinic with a cane. Yet, geriatric is the term the medical establishment deployed for a long, long time when talking about pregnant women over 35. 

According to Texas-based OB-GYN, Dr Sidra Yunus, doctors have recently begun moving toward the slightly more palatable term “advanced maternal age”.

“Geriatric pregnancy is an outdated and unnecessarily stigmatising term,” says Dr Yunus. “While it still appears in older medical literature, it is not the language I use with patients.” 

While the age of 35 as the cut-off for when a woman becomes “old” might feel arbitrary given how different every woman and their aging process is, apparently, the age was set as the threshold due to evidence indicating declining fertility and rising genetic abnormalities after that age. More on that later but, for now, the point being that labels — even when used in a neutral, medical context — matter. 

Take the case of a friend, who, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told me she would cringe every time her doctor referred to her as geriatric.

“I remember being sort of stunned the first time [the doctor] casually referred to me as one of his ‘geriatric’ patients,” she said. “I was only 35 and, in my mind, I did not feel or even look old. But every time I heard it, the implication felt like ‘I’m too old to be carrying this baby, I’m too old to care for this baby.’”

Biology 101

Labels and trolls aside, one thing is clearer now than ever: there is no perfect age to become a mother. Today more than at any point in history, motherhood in one’s forties is becoming closer to the norm than the exception. According to the CDC, the number of babies born to American women 40 and older jumped a whopping 193 per cent from 1990 to 2023. This means that in 2023, for the first time ever, more American babies were born to women 40 and older than to teenagers.

“Forty is the new 30,” Dr Joanne Stone, director of Maternal Fetal Medicine at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, recently joked to CBS News. “Everybody’s older. If you have somebody that’s 28, it’s like a teen pregnancy.”

Of course, women are still beholden to biology. And pregnancy later in life comes with its share of risks.

“With advanced maternal age patients, the first [concern] is the ability to become pregnant and have a live birth. With a woman’s own eggs, fertility declines considerably in the mid-40s because both the number and chromosomal quality of the remaining eggs decline. The risks of miscarriage and chromosomal abnormalities therefore increase. Also, with the increasing age I tend to see more medical comorbidities: obesity, diabetes, autoimmune conditions, hypertension,” says Dr Yunus.

Unlike men, who are able to produce sperm throughout most of their lifespan, women are born with all the eggs we will ever have. At birth, a woman has about one to two million. By puberty, that number drops to between 300,000 and 500,000. And, by 37, it has dramatically fallen to around 25,000, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). 

The decrease in the number of eggs is not the only obstacle to getting pregnant. Egg quality declines too. For instance, having 100 eggs doesn’t mean all 100 will be viable. This is why the odds of getting pregnant without fertility treatment after the age of 40 drops sharply, according to the ACOG. Still, spontaneous and unplanned pregnancy after 40 is possible.

What are you waiting for?

Globally, women have more choice today than our mothers and, certainly, our grandmothers did. That choice has resulted in a cultural and lifestyle shift. We are choosing to stay in school longer. We are then spending years after that building our careers. And because we are focused on school and work in our 20s and 30s, we might be marrying later.

I can only use myself as an example. Despite subconsciously being aware of a ticking biological clock, no part of me wanted a child in my 20s. Even after I got married, there were things I wanted to do for myself, including travelling and grad school. After graduating from law school, I worked in Big Law, where 60-hour workweeks were the expectation. I remember walking into the bathroom at work once and finding a more senior attorney crying. She’d just learned she was pregnant and knew that it meant she’d be knocked back at least a year on the seven-year partnership track. And that was exactly what happened — after returning from maternity leave, she was passed over for promotion while her male counterpart made partner.

Another factor contributing to the rise in maternal age is the accessibility of birth control and fertility treatments like IVF, donor eggs and the practice of freezing one’s eggs, which all have collectively made pregnancy in one’s 40s possible for many more women.

As but one anecdotal example, my husband, who is an anesthesiologist, recently did an epidural for a 63-year-old who was using a donor egg to have a second child after her first son passed away. 

One friend who chose to freeze her eggs in her early 30s put the practice best: “I could either let desperation take over and marry the wrong person in my 20s just so I could have kids. Or, I could freeze my eggs, hope the right guy would come along, and then bring a baby into the world on my own terms,” she said. “I am 45 now and my body definitely aches after a day of chasing down a preschooler. But what I might lack in energy, I make up for in patience and emotional stability.”

According to Dr Sadia Durrani, a Texas-based OB-GYN, there is a stigma around being pregnant at 40+, but it is less pronounced than it used to be.

“Some women may feel self-conscious about being an ‘older mom’, particularly because of comments from family, friends, or even strangers,” says Dr Durrani. “There can be assumptions that the pregnancy was unexpected, that because the woman is ‘too old’ she will be significantly more tired or less able to keep up. I also think there is an emotional side that sometimes gets overlooked: a woman can be medically healthy and still feel that society is telling her that she is ‘too old’ to be starting or expanding her family. That stigma can be more significant than the medical issue itself.”

So why the backlash?

I’m 38 and still attending friends’ baby showers. This year alone, I’ve been invited to three for women over 40. Not once did I worry about the mom-to-be’s age or whether she’d live long enough to see her grandchildren, which is why I am still struggling to understand why — despite talking to several physicians and older moms for this story — there is this inevitable backlash when a woman over 40 (celebrity or otherwise) announces she’s pregnant.

If the data is telling us that pregnancy after 40 is the new normal, then why is our reaction to an older mom still so hostile? Why does the age of a 40-something pregnant woman become the headline? And why, in Pakistan and the Pakistani diaspora, does that hostility feel even louder?

Part of the answer, I think, is simple math. In Pakistan, women are still marrying and having children young. Unlike Western mothers, the average age of a first-time mother in Pakistan is 22. That means a lot of Pakistani women in their 40s aren’t planning their baby showers. They’re planning their daughter or son’s wedding and, by 45, they might even be nanis or dadis. 

So, for 41-year-old Mahira Khan with a teenage son to announce a pregnancy means she is going against a script that is internalised by Pakistani women since girlhood. Indeed, Khan, who had her first child at 25, followed that script at one point.

And because age is something Pakistani women are taught to lie about or conceal and because divorce and remarrying still carry a lot of stigma amongst Pakistanis, Khan announcing she’s pregnant with her second husband triggers a lot of our collective mental cultural baggage. Simply put: people feel threatened by a woman who refuses to lie about her age, has spoken candidly about being a single parent, and is now living proof that a person can and should have a second chance at both love and parenthood — no matter their age.

There’s also the fact that in Pakistani culture, a woman’s body — even her life — is never really her own. A pregnant woman in her 40s makes us uncomfortable because she it’s proof she is not celibate. And that’s apparently intolerable and unfathomable in a culture where a woman past a certain age is expected to drop joy from her life and instead spend her time arranging marriages instead of having a romantic life of her own. 

All this means that, for Pakistani women, the window in which to produce a child is predetermined not just by our biology but by our society. 

Get married at 24 and within the first year of marriage, you can expect to be asked the inevitable, “Khush khabri kab suna rahi ho (when will you give us good news)?” By year two, you can expect to be asked if everything is ‘normal’ followed by the suggestion that maybe you should see a doctor. Having one child means you’ll very quickly be told: “Ek bachay ko akela mat chorro” i.e. give them a sibling. But, should a child turn up in your 40s? Well then, the commentary sounds like Mahira Khan’s comment section: “iss umar mein (at this age)?” 

Meanwhile, male counterparts — no matter how geriatric they may be — get to keep finding new sources of joy in  the shape of a second, younger wife who brings forth children no matter the uncle’s age. 

Bollywood movie Badhaai Ho addresses this cultural stigma. In the movie, when a middle-aged woman (Neena Gupta) with grown sons gets pregnant, her sons are mortified while her relatives, friends, and neighbors collectively lose their mind gossiping and mocking the situation. 

So while in the West the “geriatric” label lives mostly in the doctors’ office, in Pakistan it permeates society. 

Seven years ago, Mahira Khan hugged a very tired, pregnant me and said there was nothing better in the world than being a mother. She didn’t add “if you’re the right age”. Now, she is about to find out all over again, at 41, whether she was right. I’m betting she was.

And to the people in her comments asking “iss umar mein?” I’d offer a simpler answer: yes, at this age. At any age her body and her life allow. The only thing that feels truly old here is the question.

During an appearance on Samaa TV’s talk show Gup Shab on Tuesday, the actor complained about how women these days ‘quickly’ recover and heal from the process of divorce. In her opinion, this destigmatisation of divorce is leading to societal ‘ruin’.

Those who are aware of Faisal’s commentary on marriage know all too well how she enjoys making outdated (bordering on insidious) statements on marriage and women’s role in society. In fact, it’s become her brand.

Just months after advocating for more unchecked power for mothers-in-law, the actor sparked controversy in April by advising wives to remain ‘calm’ if their husbands are unfaithful.

Marriage, therefore, inevitably came up on Gup Shab as host Vasay Chaudhry pulled up a quote from Faisal’s vast portfolio of problematic views on the topic. The gist of that statement is that Faisal believes divorce rates are higher these days because “women compete with their husbands”.

Instead of taking this as an opportunity to reflect on the inanity of her words, Faisal chose to double down.

“Look, my mother, our elders used to say such things and I am a big supporter of this. And if today’s girls and today’s people don’t understand this, then it’s their perception. It’s not mine. This is mine,” she said, justifying her toxic narrative.

With a slight raise of her brows, Faisal went on to reiterate that a woman can’t compete with a man, cheekily adding this comment would go viral again.

As the audience clapped (yes, unfortunately this exchange appeared to be met with jovial approval), Chaudhry highlighted how divorce rates seem to be increasing by the year in Pakistan. This shifted the conversation towards how people view divorce differently now.

While there’s still a lot more progress to be made when it comes to the acceptance of divorced women in our society, they aren’t subjected to as much ostracisation as they used to be. For everyone reading: that’s a good thing.

Faisal, however, doesn’t view this as something good. In fact, she seems to want people to be miserable.

“Earlier, people would mourn for two to three months as a result of a divorce in the family. People would say in distress, ‘What has happened to our family? This shouldn’t have happened.’ The father couldn’t raise his head. The daughter, I mean, it was difficult [for her],” she said.

As if this wasn’t ridiculous enough, Faisal spoke of how some women even go for vacations after a divorce — as if wanting to heal from a tumultuous experience is a crime.

Perhaps what Faisal doesn’t realise is that as someone who’s made a name for herself as an enforcer of the most patriarchal and archaic views of marriage, she is not a likely candidate for anyone to go discuss their marital woes, or announce their divorce to. She thinks people aren’t sad after a divorce anymore, but maybe no one is going and weeping in her living room because they know exactly what kind of nonsense she’ll be spouting. That she believes she knows exactly what people who’ve been divorced are feeling or not is evidence of this.

When a marriage ends, people are inevitably sad. However, people also realise that ending a marriage is better than living a life of misery.

It goes without saying that Faisal’s views on women and marriage are harmful, especially in Pakistani society where divorce is still heavily stigmatised. That stigma, of course, disproportionately falls on the shoulders of women.

For many women, leaving a marriage means more than the end of a relationship. In a society where divorced women, to this day, are treated differently and, to a large extent, blamed for failing to fulfil societal expectations, divorce is not an easy choice to make.

Ostracisation from people who think just like Faisal isn’t something limited to media commentary — it’s very much a reality for divorced women.

Therefore, when people like Faisal imply that Pakistani women are cavalier about making the choice to end a marriage, they’re not making a comment rooted in facts — they’re just perpetrating pernicious stereotypes.

The fact that women no longer have to contend with as much moral policing after going through divorce should be considered progress.

Isn’t it a good thing that the fathers (or the family, in general) of divorced daughters no longer have to feel ashamed?

Why is Faisal offended by something that is positive and kind?

Granted, in the past divorce rates were lower but that was mainly due to heavy social stigma, women’s financial dependence, and it not being as easy to navigate the legal system. Many women faced abuse — physical, emotional and even financial — but not everyone had the means or support to seek a divorce because, much like Faisal, many people actually believed that women weren’t equal to men and that these issues could be overlooked. Just because a woman is trapped in a marriage does not mean it’s a happy one.

Bringing back these views, or blasting them from a position of privilege that Faisal possesses, is extremely harmful, especially amid an active femicide in Pakistan. Just last month, 45-year-old Hina Javed was found dead in the bathroom of her apartment in Rawalpindi. Her husband, Faisal Asghar, and an accomplice have been arrested in connection with her murder.

Considering how obsessed Pakistan is with marriage as a nation, it’s not unusual to come across controversial views. However, there is a line between being opinionated and spewing vitriol. Faisal, as her record suggests, always goes for vitriol. She couches her damaging views on marriage and women as education that was passed down to her by her elders, but that excuse no longer works — not when a woman with her resources, money and privilege has access to both exposure and information.

Faisal’s assertion that women’s independence is the reason behind societal ruin is almost criminal, especially in a country where a wife can be murdered for not “serving a hot meal”.

For anyone reading this who hasn’t yet had the displeasure of witnessing Tamasha Ghar deteriorate into Pakistan’s archetypal Pidarshahana Ghar or Patriarchal House, let me walk you through the rage that birthed this article.

It all started in the late hours of August 29, when a fight broke out between two contestants — Hamza Joher and Dr Sikandar Zaman Khan (popularly known as Dr Zee Khan).

Fights are common in — and even part and parcel of — reality television competitions like Tamasha and Bigg Boss which operate under the Big Brother format, so that was not the concerning part. What stood out was Joher’s apparent hatred for women.

Hatred is a strong word, and I do not use it lightly. In fact, I feel upset using it to describe the politics of a man who had so far appeared progressive, often talking about how much he misses his wife while living in the Tamasha Ghar. Misogyny is all around us, but when it comes from (supposedly) Nice Men™, it pierces more sharply.

The fight started when Joher heard from another contestant that Dr Zee accused him of making inappropriate comments about women. Joher instantly rushed to the wardrobe area where Dr Zee was, getting in his face and demanding to know what he was being accused of saying. What followed was a repetitive, circular exchange, with Joher demanding clarification on his alleged remarks and Dr Zee insisting that Joher recall what he had said in Pashto while they were in the bathroom.

The confrontation quickly intensified with Joher threatening Dr Zee with physical violence over what he perceived was character assassination. At that point, two other contestants intervened, resulting in the altercation shifting to the central lounge area where it pulled more people into its fold. A few minutes later, Dr Zee finally revealed the misogynistic comments Joher had made about the clothing choices and bodies of Tamasha’s women.

Dr Zee’s repetition of those comments was muted in the episode broadcast, presumably because they were too problematic to air on national television, so we don’t know exactly what he said. However, viewers have since analysed what might have been said based on his lip movements and the context shared in the uncensored parts, and the online consensus is that Joher criticised the “revealing dressing” of women on the show, along with making crude, derogatory remarks about the size of someone’s hips.

Somewhere in between, the same Joher who had so far aggressively been asserting that he was being defamed by Dr Zee ended up blurting out, “What’s wrong with what I said?”

Him slut-shaming women was thus reduced to only half the problem; that he did not see anything wrong with it became the other half.

Throughout all of this, he glared at Dr Zee with a rage that felt frightening to many of us watching from the other side of the screen. That rage persisted, despite him being the one in the wrong, which made it all the scarier, and also eerily familiar owing to its hyper-masculine undertones similar to what we see a lot of men in our society exhibiting.

That rage was ignored by the Badshah Salamat (King of the House), Adnan Siddiqui. Instead, he chose to reprimand Dr Zee. His crime? Informing the women around him of what was going on. Or, in the words of the Badshah Salamat himself, breaking the “bro code”.

The day after this confrontation happened, Siddiqui visited the house like he does every day to personally interact with (read: lecture) the contestants. He appeared to be on a mission to publicly humiliate Dr Zee, as he started off by employing a disciplinary tactic seen in schools, forcing Dr Zee to repeatedly stand up and then sit down in front of his assembled housemates.

Then segueing into a discussion on the fight, Siddiqui remarked, “Let me ask you a question, man to man. We tend to say a lot of things like these to each other, right? Do we discuss that [in front of women]… if they are inappropriate? Man to man? There is something known as the ‘bro code’.”

Okay, Adnan, way to publicly confess your covert misogyny. In what came to me as a pleasant surprise, Dr Zee attempted to politely disrupt Siddiqui’s patriarchal line of questioning by declaring that it was Joher who broke the bro code, not him. By so doing, Khan prioritised an ethical reframing of the traditionally misogynistic bro code as something that should push men to become better versions of themselves. That reframed version would obviously not include them engaging in locker-room talk.

Siddiqui, however, didn’t seem to be interested in reframing a problematic social phenomena. His concern was with establishing secrecy around any such conversations that may take place in the future, instead of fostering a culture where there is no room left for these comments to begin with, and he made this quite clear in his subsequent cross-questioning.

He also expressed disapproval over some women not swallowing the blatant disrespect silently. “I am surprised about the way some women became part of the conversation,” he said in reference to the only two women — film star Laila and Rabia Javaid Sheikh — who called out Joher the previous day. He followed it up by saying, “Unko mauqa mil gaya (they got an opportunity).”

The suggestion that the women gained “an opportunity” by being spoken about in that vulgar way reeks of deeply-ingrained misogyny, as if this was some sinister ploy to further their supposedly malicious gameplay, and not a very human and natural reaction to finding out that they were being objectified and demeaned by someone they had no choice but to continuously share physical space with.

Perhaps anticipating public backlash over this, he concluded the tribunal with an acknowledgement of Joher’s fault in passing such comments and advising him to leave these matters to the production management moving forward.

The brief nature of this criticism, coupled with how diluted it was in comparison to what the others received relegated it to being nothing more than a token. And while Tamasha can now claim that they did indeed condemn Joher’s wrongdoing, the fact that this surface-level condemnation was wrapped up in a load of retrogressive, male chauvinist rhetoric by an industry veteran makes me wonder: when will the tamasha of Pakistani men invoking patriarchal concepts like the ‘bro code’ come to an end?

Pakistani dramas have frequently explored narcissistic pathology. We call them ‘villains’ without recognising that they are psycho-education disguised as entertainment. Narcissism exists on a spectrum, and can perhaps be divided into two broad categories. Each destroys differently. Each requires a different survival strategy.

Overt narcissism: The shouters

Easy to spot, they are loud, entitled and unapologetic. They demand attention and special treatment and believe rules do not apply to them. And when challenged, they rage.

1. Mubashira Jaffer (Ayeza Khan) in Main — The textbook grandiose narcissist

Mubashira does not just want power. She claims it as a birthright. Her arrogance is her core identity, not a mask. She manipulates, schemes and destroys whoever threatens her position because she genuinely cannot conceive of a world in which she is not the main character.

Narcissism is more than vanity or selfishness. From domineering personalities to subtle manipulators, Pakistani dramas offer striking examples of how narcissistic behaviour unfolds

The clinical markers are unmistakable. She exhibits a sense of self-importance, exaggerates achievements, expects automatic compliance and displays a complete lack of empathy. When her plans fail, she doesn’t reflect — she retaliates. This is narcissistic rage — the violent response to any threat against the fragile ‘god self’ beneath the grandiosity.

Protecting yourself: Bou­n­daries must be impenetrable, stated clearly and enforced. They will test every limit, gaslight, guilt-trip and escalate. Do not negotiate or explain. They thrive on reaction. Calmness is your armour.

2. Farasat Ali (Naumaan Ijaz) in Sharpasand — The malignant manipulator

A darker sub-type, he doesn’t just lack empathy — he enjoys destruction. He destroys the character of women in his neighbourhood who do not submit to him — Shazmeen (Hira Mani), Hafsa (Zuni Sheikh) and Sanam (Hareem Farooq). His cruelty is calculated, not impulsive. He identifies vulnerability and exploits it with maliciousness.

This is narcissism with sadistic features. The pleasure is not just in winning. It is in watching you lose. Farasat seeks submission rather than admiration. He wants to see spirits break. This is the narcissist who will destroy reputations, relationships and people’s sanity — and then claim he was “just being honest.”

Protecting yourself: No contact is the only safe option as there is no reasoning with someone who derives pleasure from pain. Do not engage or confront. Document everything, protect your support system and exit. This is not a person who can be won over. This is a person who must be escaped.

Covert narcissism: The whisperers

Harder to spot, these narcissists play the victim, appear humble, sensitive and even self-deprecating. But beneath the vulnerability lies the same grandiosity — a deep belief that they are special, misunderstood and entitled to endless care. They drain you not with demands, but with need.

1. Nabeel (Mirza Gohar Rasheed) in Goonj — The covert harasser

He does not shout or threaten. He makes covert comments, withholds approval and isolates his target Zarnab (Komal Meer). When she explodes, there is no evidence. He has engineered the perfect crime: abuse that leaves no fingerprints.

In slow-motion gaslighting, the victim begins to doubt her own perceptions. Nabeel’s narcissism is not loud entitlement — it is quiet control. He does not need to dominate openly. He needs to make sure you know, in every interaction, that you are less than him.

Protecting yourself: Tr­u­st your gut. If you feel small, confused, or constantly apologising around someone, pay attention. They thrive on your self-doubt. Keep a journal of interactions. Share with a trusted person. Remember, you are being psychologically conditioned.

2. Raza Haseeb (Usman Mukhtar) in Pamaal — The love-bomber who crushes

Raza is perhaps the most insidious sub-type: the narcissist who loves you into submission. He begins with overwhelming attention, gifts, declarations of devotion. His wife Malika (Saba Qamar), a writer, believes she has found her soulmate. Then slowly, the mask slips.

He critiques her writing, isolates her from her friends, portrays her creativity as a threat to their marriage. He does not yell, he acts disappointed. He sighs when she succeeds. He withholds affection when she asserts herself. He is not a monster — he is a slow poison. His wife does not leave because he is cruel. She stays because he was once so kind — and she keeps hoping that man will return. He never does. That man was the bait. The trap was her hope.

Protecting yourself: Recognise the pattern. Love-bombing is seduction as strategy. Healthy love grows slowly. It does not demand self-abandonment. If someone asks you to shrink so they can feel big, leave… because they are incapable of seeing your worth.

Regardless of their type, narcissists share core features: a fragile self-esteem masked by grandiosity, a profound inability to empathise and a relentless need for a narcissistic supply of attention, admiration or submission.

But here is what they take: reality testing — you stop trusting your own perceptions and self-worth, you believe you are the problem — and hope. You exhaust yourself trying to be good enough.

Is change possible?

Research says yes, but it is rare and difficult. Unlike the dramatic redemption arcs we see on screen, real change requires years of committed therapy. This is the hardest step because narcissism is built on denial.

Therapeutic approaches work by helping the narcissist develop the capacity to understand their own mind and the minds of others — something stunted in childhood. With treatment, reductions in pathological narcissism are possible, but here’s the catch: change only happens when the narcissist wants to change, not because someone demanded it, but because the pain of staying the same has become unbearable. Most never reach that point. And those who do? It takes years, not episodes.

For everyone else, the only healing is the one you do for yourself.

Healing the partner

If you have encountered a narcissist, you know: the damage is not just what they did but what you stopped being. Recovery is not about “getting over it.” It is about rebuilding the self.

1. Identify: This is not about labelling someone but about validating your experience — the confusion, exhaustion and persistent feeling of being either ‘too much’ or ‘never enough.’

2. Grieve: You will grieve the person you thought they were, the relationship you believed you had, the years you lost. Let yourself feel the anger, sadness and relief as valid.

3. Rebuild: Narcissists dismantle your sense of self. Reconnect with your own needs, voice, desires. What do you want, feel and need today? The answers will feel foreign at first. Keep asking.

4. Set boundaries that stick: This means walking away when they are violated. Choose yourself over the fantasy of their change. They will test every boundary. Your job is not to convince them to respect it. But to respect it yourself.

Pakistani dramas have shown us narcissism in all its forms. We fume watching these characters. But the real work begins when we recognise them in our own lives. The question is not “who is the villain?” but “who in your life is making you smaller?”

You do not have to stay small or earn love by disappearing. Narcissists may or may not change. But you can. And that is the only freedom that matters.

Originally published in Dawn, ICON, August 2nd, 2026

“Inspired by the timeless philosophy of Allama Muhammad Iqbal, this song carries the message of Khudi and the spirit of the Shaheen. Iqbal taught us that true strength lies within. A nation rises when its youth discover confidence, character, knowledge and an unshakable belief in their own potential,” the minister wrote in his tweet.

The song, based on a poem by Allama Iqbal, has been released by the Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives and URAAN Pakistan, the ministry’s initiative to spotlight and advance projects and reforms as part of the 5Es National Economic Transformation Plan.

Rather ironically, he wrote that the poet’s Shaheen “never accepts mediocrity and always aims for greater heights”. But what’s more mediocre than a government department using AI to create a song and music video instead of hiring actual Pakistani artists and filming it in our beautiful country?

In 2022, the government released a re-recorded version of the national anthem to make it more inclusive. It featured musicians from all over the country with diverse regional, cultural and ethnic backgrounds and was gender-balanced and inclusive of national musical talent. That’s the kind of content we want to see from our government, not this.

“Today, Pakistan needs a generation of Shaheens — young men and women who choose hope over despair, innovation over stagnation, and hard work over excuses. Under the vision of URAAN Pakistan, we are building a future driven by knowledge, technology, entrepreneurship and opportunity. That future belongs to you,” the minister wrote in his tweet.

It’s unfortunate that a minister, while calling for the youth to “work hard”, is promoting AI slop of this kind. Pakistan is full of talented artists, any of whom could have written, composed and sung this song. We’re not even going to go into the impact AI has on the environment, even as data centres are inaugurated in Pakistan, a country that already faces water scarcity.

AI slop is already taking over the internet. One of the most well-known attempts at replacing actual humans with AI is an inane attempt by Elon Musk, the AI pushing owner of X and Tesla, to recreate The Odyssey using AI because he didn’t like Christopher Nolan’s version, ostensibly for being too ‘woke’, read: not featuring only white people. Three weekends in, Nolan’s The Odyssey has generated a whopping $911 million at theatres around the world and Musk’s plans are still just that — plans shared in a tweet.

Artists around the world are condemning the use of AI, both in writing and in music. Seth Rogen, the American actor and director, recently said that if your first instinct is to use AI to write, you shouldn’t be a writer. Nolan called it a Trojan Horse, just one that’s not stealthy. In 2024, over 13,000 artists, including some of your faves like Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, ABBA’s Bjorn Ulvaeus and actor Julianne Moore, signed an online statement warning about the unlicensed use of artificial intelligence.

Pakistani artists are also fighting this battle. Recently, Hira Tareen cautioned fellow actors to read their contracts properly because a production house tried to get her to sign away her digital likeness. “First, they use AI just to make your posters. Pretty innocent. Then they use your voice for dubbing. Then they call you in for 10 scenes instead of 20, because now the model is training on your existing likeness and footage that they already have. And then, one day, the model is ready and they don’t need to call you in at all,” she said.

There are also arguments against the use of AI to generate music and how it threatens to relegate actual human-made music to mere disposable background noise rather than a meaningful cultural artefact.

This Independence Day, we hope our government will honour actual Pakistani artists — not machines.

His next victim appears to be The Odyssey — the ancient Greek text — which he has pledged to adapt in a way that is “historically accurate” by year’s end using his AI agent Grok.

Now, one would assume the richest man in the world might do this to bring a literary classic to a new generation or maybe to push the boundaries of filmmaking — in some weird, non-human way. But no, dear reader, he is doing it because he’s mad at Christopher Nolan for doing both of those things.

Nolan’s box office hit, which released on Friday, has taken the 3,000-year-old work and adapted it into a story that resonates with a modern audience. It has a diverse cast, a complex protagonist and focuses more on the guilt of war than its glory. Naturally, Musk does not approve.

Instead, the former trillionaire said he would give Mel Gibson $100 million to make the movie with “historically accurate” ships, armour and casting.

We wonder if several centuries from now, someone will try to remake Harry Potter and some obscenely rich person would object, saying the wands need to be made from a long-extinct species of tree endemic to Scotland.

Put the ethical and environmental implications of AI use for a moment and remember that Musk’s support of a cause usually signals that it is not the side to be on.

Really, Musk’s probably just mad that his prediction about the film flopping because it was “woke” didn’t pan out. Instead, The Odyssey had a massive $246 million opening weekend, with people around the world struggling to get last-minute seats at sold out theatres.

It’s also been received an outpouring of critical acclaim for its storytelling, characters and emphasis on practical effects. We can’t imagine anything AI generated could even come close.

As for Nolan, he’s previously dismissed criticism over his casting choices and Americanised dialogue.

“These conversations that happen before people see the film — they’re always irrelevant, because no one having them knows what the film actually is yet,” he told The Telegraph.

It is ironic though, a rich crybaby is feeding one of humanity’s greatest literary works to a computer and presenting its twisted mechanical output as art.

We wonder if Musk has actually read The Odyssey and how he feels about its lessons on hubris.

People keep asking, ’“Is it available online, or will it come to Netflix?” It’s a reassuring question, because it tells you the film has travelled through word of mouth, through conversations, through people. But it also reveals something important. In today’s world, discovery begins with access. Before audiences engage with a film, they need to know where to find it.

They are asking where it exists. And increasingly, that “where” leads to one place — Netflix.

Federal Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal’s recent statement is encouraging because it recognises that the issue is not the quality of Pakistani content, but the route through which it reaches global platforms. Our industry has already produced films that meet international creative and technical standards.

India, meanwhile, continues to put out all kinds of content globally, while projects like the upcoming Operation Safed Sagar also present its own side of the region’s history. Streaming is, therefore, not only about entertainment; it also decides which stories the world gets to see and remember.

Now that this conversation has started at the right level, I hope it leads to real and direct access for Pakistani content on global platforms.

Why Netflix matters, especially in Pakistan

In Pakistan, we are not yet a fully subscription-driven market. Local OTT platforms exist, and some are doing serious work. Yet, the average viewer still hesitates to subscribe to multiple services.

But Netflix is different. Netflix has become a habit. A reference point. There is a certain psychology attached to it, a quiet fear of missing out. Viewers who might hesitate to pay for other platforms often make an exception for Netflix, which is why presence on Netflix today is not simply about distribution. It’s about belonging to the global conversation. And absence from it is equally telling. 

The question we are not asking loudly enough is if Pakistani actors enjoy loyal audiences beyond Pakistan, if our music travels effortlessly, if we share the same meme culture, then why are our films not finding consistent space on Netflix for global audiences?

This is not a question of talent, it’s not even a question of audience. It is a question of access.

South Asia, as a streaming region, is largely managed through India. That means content from Pakistan often enters a system shaped by India’s market priorities, their regulatory environment and India’s political sensitivities.

The situation was not always this way. After Modi’s government came into office, cultural exchange between the two countries became almost impossible. And in recent months, particularly following heightened tensions between the two countries, that shift has become even more visible, reflected not only in policy decisions, but also in symbolic moments, whether in the absence of collaboration, cancelled engagements, or even gestures as simple as players choosing not to shake hands.

This does not always translate into direct rejection. It works in subtler ways. Projects get delayed. Decisions remain pending. Risk outweighs opportunity. And gradually, absence becomes normalised.

At the same time, India being the dominant market continues to supply a steady stream of content to global platforms. And not all of that content is exceptional. There are many examples of films that secured immediate global placement despite modest reception, titles such as Ginny Weds Sunny, The Girl on the Train, Jaadugar, Jewel Thief, Maa Behen, Tu Yaa Main, Do Deewane Seher Mein, Happy Patel: Khatarnak Jasoos and Toaster, among others.

That difference in visibility is where the imbalance becomes visible.

Why is access to platforms not direct? 

One of the realities filmmakers face is that access to platforms such as Netflix is rarely direct.

You cannot simply submit a film and expect it to be evaluated. Access typically happens through distributors, aggregators and regional decision-makers, in this case India.

While filmmakers can approach distributors and aggregators, the distribution pathway for Pakistani content is frequently routed through regional decision-making structures based in India. Individually, it is extremely difficult to navigate this system, which is why this is no longer just an industry challenge — it’s a structural one.

Pakistani cinema today is not short on high calibre stories.

Films like Nayab, Kamli, The Legend of Maula Jatt, Luv Guru and the recent Aag Lagay Basti Mein reflect the breadth of storytelling emerging from the country, grounded, character-driven narratives, alongside films that have demonstrated strong audience appeal and numbers. This is an industry that understands both storytelling and spectatorship. This is not an industry lacking range. This is an industry lacking reach.

A large number of Pakistani viewers have watched films such as Dhurandhar, Article 370, Raazi, and Fighter, films that engage directly with themes of nationalism, security, and regional conflict.

Whether one agrees with the narrative or not, these films succeeded in placing their perspective in front of global audiences. That is the real achievement, because once a story reaches viewers, the conversation begins. And once the conversation begins, the narrative takes shape, making all other debates secondary.

Visibility matters. And visibility does not happen by accident. It happens through planning, coordination, and access.

When global audiences repeatedly see narratives about Pakistan but rarely see narratives from Pakistan, a certain image begins to form. Over time, that image becomes reality for those who have never experienced the country themselves. This is not about competing with another industry, it’s about ensuring that our voice exists alongside others.

Here our producers operate in a challenging ecosystem, with limited financing, unpredictable distribution, and a narrow theatrical window. Provincial and federal governments have supported filmmakers through grants and incentives, and those efforts deserve recognition.

But grants alone cannot build a sustainable industry. What we need is a self-sustaining ecosystem. In many countries, films generate revenue even before reaching cinemas through pre-sale agreements with streaming platforms and broadcasters. These deals provide financial stability, reduce risk, and allow filmmakers to invest in stronger production values.

Streaming platforms are not just distribution channels. They are economic engines. They bring revenue. They extend audience reach. They strengthen the industry. And they allow stories to travel.

This challenge cannot be addressed through individual effort alone. A formal engagement between the Pakistani government and global streaming platforms is necessary.

This is not about lobbying. It is about representation. Pakistan must present itself as a content market, not merely a content consumer. Rather than informal outreach, a structured Pakistan content showcase should be organised, which should include curated film screenings, meetings with filmmakers and producers, presentation of audience data and ready-to-license content.

The goal is clear: to create direct visibility and build relationships beyond regional filters.

A mid-level Pakistani film can often be produced at a budget of around $250,000, delivering quality that meets international technical standards. At this level, Pakistan has a competitive advantage  producing strong content at a fraction of the cost seen in many larger markets.

With the right support, this cost efficiency can become a strategic strength.

A national strategy should focus on structured engagement with platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, distribution partnerships and international marketing.

These steps are not theoretical — they are practical and they are achievable.

India recently held a national-level AI summit that brought together global companies, policymakers, investors, and industry leaders to build direct partnerships and signal national intent.

Pakistan’s content industry needs a similar national-level conference on distribution, one that brings key platform decision-makers directly to Pakistan, reduces dependence on regional gatekeepers, and allows us to engage global partners strategically across multiple fronts.

Because the reality is simple: efforts are already being made on many fronts. But without coordinated, diplomatic engagement at the national level, those efforts remain fragmented.

Such engagement should not be reactive. It should be strategic, it should be diplomatic and it should be consistent.

Cinema has a quiet but enduring power. It carries the texture of a people, the rhythm of a city, the dreams of a generation. When films travel, they do not just entertain, they represent.

The latest in this horrifying but unsurprising cycle of news is a man who threw acid on a female doctor, Dr Mahnoor Nasir, for saying no to him. Balochistan Health Minister Bakht Muhammad Kakar spoke to the media and shared that the man had been harassing Dr Nasir for months. He also expressed surprise that she had not reported the matter to hospital authorities nor her family.

But as women, we know it’s not surprising at all.

What makes women stay silent? Why don’t women always tell their families or the authorities when men harass, abuse, or blackmail them?

The answer is simple. It’s because both men in the family and men outside of the family exist within the same social structure that was founded on intentional or unintentional collusion between these men. It’s also because, more often than not, the men who commit violence against women are men within their families. So how do we understand family both as a perpetrator and protector in violence against women?

When a man blackmails a woman, a common threat is that he will report the details of her life to her family. This usually includes sending messages, photos and videos as evidence of a woman’s failure to abide by familial, social or patriarchal rules. And often, women do get blackmailed and continue getting blackmailed until they reach a breaking point or until the man loses interest.

What gives a man the confidence that a woman’s family will inflict similar violence — or worse — upon her than he would? What drives a woman to fear that confiding in her loved ones will bring harsher consequences than enduring violation at the hands of another man?

Men within the family and men outside of the family often work towards a similar patriarchal goal of maintaining control over a woman. This shared goal remains implicit, and men fail to see how they collude and cooperate with those who target their daughters and sisters. When women feel like they can’t confide in their families, it is in part due to this implicit collusion.

Women choose not to tell their families when they experience violence because they do a cost-benefit analysis. Often, the decision to tell their families has complex and high costs for women’s lives. Since women’s bodies and what other men do to women’s bodies are often tied to family reputation and stability, telling one’s family about harassment or abuse can lead to increased control over the woman herself, rather than meaningful protection from the man who threatens her.

It leads to more confinement, rather than protection. This shows up in things like: You can’t leave the house anymore because what if it happens again or what if he does something? Don’t go to college or university because everything is lost if honour is lost. Stop going to work because safety comes before money. You can’t be on social media because that’s inviting attention. It’s time to get you married to ward off the violence. We trust you but we don’t trust men or the world.

The perpetrator aims to violate a woman’s autonomy, and the families might end up stripping away whatever remains of it. Telling their families results in more restrictions on women’s access to education, their long-term prospects of financial autonomy, and their access to public spaces. Putting up with seemingly short-term violence for long-term gain appears more reasonable than telling the family and risking their future.

Unintentionally, the family ends up facilitating the perpetrator by controlling their own daughter. Women’s strategic silence then becomes a rational attempt to preserve freedom, opportunity, dignity, and financial autonomy.

Have you ever read the comments under posts that report violence? You might have read comments like, “why didn’t she leave the job if she was being harassed?” “iss ki bhi koi ghalti hogi hi (she must be at fault here too),” “kuch tau aisa hua hoga k mard aisa kernay per majboor hua (something must have happened to compel the man to do this),” “koi aisay hi tau nahi uth k kisi ko maar deta, (no one just gets up and kills someone) one-sided story,” “this is not justifiable lekin aurton ko bhi khayal kerna chahye (but women must be mindful too),” “aisay kapray pehnay gi tau aisa tau hoga (if she wears clothes like this, stuff like this will happen),” “mardon se relation banao gi tau aisa tau hoga (if you have relationships with men, this will happen).”

These comments redirect attention to women, to the victim, instead of holding the aggressor accountable. Often, these comments are made by men where they assure other men that it’s not their fault, that they only react to something that happens to them. This victim-blaming — scrutinising what a woman might have done, said, worn, or failed to do instead of focusing on what a man actually did — also discourages women from confiding in their families.

This focus on hypothetical mistakes by the victim rather than the perpetrator’s real actions creates a sense of anticipatory shame.

It also leads to anticipated skepticism, which includes having to face questions like why didn’t you tell us before, why didn’t you tell us right away or why did you talk to him at all. The family ends up surveilling a woman’s life and scrutinising her behaviour rather than the perpetrator’s. Women might intellectually understand that they’re not at fault but still feel embarrassed, uncertain, and afraid. This increased scrutiny and surveillance, even if it is to protect women, contributes to their decision to tell or not tell their families.

In this crisis of femicide, men often cite examples like those of Abdul Razzaq Khilji, who helped Dr Nasir. While his actions are undoubtedly commendable and deserving of recognition, the frequent emphasis on such examples can reinforce a “male saviour” narrative, where men are portrayed as rescuing women from dangers largely created by other men. While we can appreciate these exceptions, it is critical to address the underlying social conditions that make such interventions necessary. The discussion should shift from individual heroism to the need for systemic change and accountability.

We, as women, are often socialised into a relational understanding of our identity. In other words, we grow up learning about ourselves only as daughters, sisters, and future wives — not as girls and women. Our girlhood or womanhood exists only as we perform various roles. This means we think about ourselves in relation with others more than we think about ourselves. Men, however, are socialised into thinking of their roles as boys and men in the family and society.

This relational sense of identity compels women to think not “how will this affect me” but rather “how would this affect my family or those connected to me?” Women might choose to risk their own safety for the family’s stability and normalcy. We can think of this as socialised coercion, since women sure make these decisions, but often do so within the learned boundaries of their obligations to others.

Women face so much violence in so many forms every day, violence that often leaves no visible trace — trying to please everyone in our roles as sisters, daughters, mothers, wives, constantly looking over our shoulders in the workplace or in public, carefully curating our wardrobes and appearances so as not to invite too much attention or scrutiny, calculating our words in the workplace and in public so as not to say something that a man might misinterpret, shrinking in public under the male gaze, wondering if or when a man will decide to do something more than stare, and if a man does decide to do something more having to decide whether to report it or not, whether to tell our families or not, because kahan tak suno gay, kahan tak sunaaon, (how much can you listen to, how much can I tell you).

Where these mini-dress clad people — presumably women, though he didn’t specify — are roaming is a mystery to us, as it probably is to most of you. It would be educational for us all if he would enlighten us all about where exactly in Punjab women are roaming around in public in short dresses.

“As a father of two daughter I humbly request to madam CM Maryam Nawaz please make a law against those who wear short dresses in public places — bazaars and streets — otherwise we will all be destroyed culturally,” he wrote in his story.

Naturally, people — read: we — are confused. Who is he talking about? What bazaars and streets does he frequent in Punjab where people roam around in short dresses? What do his daughters have to do with his request? And why does he think CM Maryam should be policing what people are wearing?

The reaction online to his request is, of course, mixed. Some are most pleased at this strange statement, happy that our ‘culture’ will be protected from these faceless short dress-wearing people. Others argue that he never mentioned women, and therefore cannot be called misogynistic. Some believed he was talking about men in shorts — also, a much-debated topic in Pakistan. A fourth more sensible group is as confused as us, wondering what prompted this sudden outpouring of concern.

If anyone figures out what he’s talking about, please let us know.

The actor cut off her long locks and is now rocking a pixie — just in time for the summer — and everyone has lost their minds. From shock to horror, there are a lot of reactions online, especially on X where sane opinions go to die, so we thought we’d address some of them.

Sajal posted a picture of her new haircut on her stories on Tuesday night. Many speculated that it might be a filter.

She then posted a video of her hair to her account, and her sister, Saboor Aly, commented, which many took as confirmation that this was no filter or wig.

The internet then lost their collective minds. We’ve picked some of the tame reactions to include in this article.

There were some sane voices that pointed out that Sajal was not in fact the first Pakistani woman to get a pixie cut and that they actually used to be pretty common.

There were also others who understood that this was not normal behaviour.

We understand that many people appear to have a parasocial relationship with Sajal’s hair — if you take ‘understand’ to mean begrudgingly accept with great contempt — but the line really must be drawn somewhere.

If you don’t like a pixie cut, don’t get one, but Sajal has a right to get whatever haircut she wants. Sure, no one can stop you from having an opinion on her hair, though we don’t understand why it would be a point of conversation you feel deeply enough to post rants on social media about, but at some point, you’ve got to let it go and touch grass.

The girl got a haircut and everyone is acting like she’s committed a crime against humanity. It’s her hair and if she wanted to shave it all off, that would be her choice too.

And for all those in the ‘we have a right to our opinion’ camp, yes, you certainly do, but that doesn’t mean it’s valid.

We’d also like to remind everyone, this is Sajal Aly we’re talking about. She looks good in anything and everything.

TLDR: Let Sajal Aly get whatever haircut she wants because she looks good in everything.

While one can occasionally need social and material support from those around them, the gendered aspect of this equation is rather unsavoury, especially when the one being served is a man, and the women are the obligatory givers. Women chronically break their backs to provide for the men around them and Kafeel takes us through the tipping point of this cultural crisis.

Typically, women work overtime caring for the home, the kids and the elderly. Add a man to this mix of caregiving and homes topple. The premise of this drama is the call-out that any marriage will break apart when a man doesn’t provide financially, emotionally and psychologically.

The reason this drama is fresh is that the falling apart is not depicted as the woman’s fault, in fact, what makes Kafeel rare is that it does not even entertain the notion of whether it might be. A blameless woman is refreshingly close to the human condition and reminds me of the Haseena Moin and Noorul Huda Shah era of Pakistani dramas. It reminds me of the point Hum Gunahgar Aurtain was making when Kishwar Naheed wrote the poem about almost everything being a woman’s fault.

It takes two to bhangra

Perhaps some feminists would call this a very archaic take on gender roles — the assumption that a man brings home the nihari and the woman provides homely dhobi services — but the point I’d like to make is that men have so much privilege in society, the least they can do is the job that gains them all that privilege in the first place.

You must have heard the trite bicycle-wheel analogy — that a marriage can only work if both wheels are working. Sadly, in Pakistani contexts, this lame analogy is only used if a woman doesn’t perform her role well, hardly ever is a man held accountable for a lifetime of freeloading off women’s invisible labour.

The other injustice rests in the fact that we do need these gender norms to prevail in earnest because the economy is so archaic. Especially during child-rearing years, men need to bring in the food because women, though capable, are stretched thin. Pakistan, for all practical purposes, is stuck in a pre-industrial time — agrarian for the most part — where only 23 per cent of women enter the workforce, mainly in menial or care jobs. Only a negligible portion of women have more than a $1,000 in their bank accounts. So, there is no way that traditional gender roles don’t rule this world.

After Rafia Zakaria’s takedowns of white feminism, it becomes imperative to understand that being more modern does not necessitate being more liberated for women in this non-white context. I believe that working women in Pakistan got the short end of the stick because they entered the workforce and ended up doing three jobs for low pay. They do these three jobs — home, work and caregiving — while their spouses sometimes have merely one job, or in the case of Kafeel, no job at all.

Earning money does not always earn women dignity. In fact, they may even be looked down upon, resulting in lower status.

The value of a woman’s work

The rupee must be valued, because any disposable income a woman has in this society is going to be spent on her family. Yet, the economics of empowerment dictate that you are only as powerful as your disposable income. So, working women are no more and no less than indentured servants, blocked within the framework of the traditional wife and daughter-in-law, with only a paycheque to show for their aspirational freedom.

But aspirational freedom is not real freedom.

A paycheque earned by a middle-class woman goes mostly toward paying for the rising cost of diapers, milk, salt, school fees, bus fees and bitter gourds. There is nothing left for her own protection.

This is the world Sanam Saeed’s character Zeba inhabits as she runs on the hamster wheel of providing for her four children. And this is precisely what Kafeel understands that almost no Pakistani drama before it has bothered to — that the system failing Zeba is not abstract. It has a face. It is her husband, Jami’s face.

The drama does not examine the economy nor the patriarchy — it locates the rot in one man’s refusal to be accountable, and it does not flinch from that.

Until Kafeel came along, no one tackled the anthropological disaster that is the modern Pakistani working woman stuck with a man who loves glory more than his children. No one depicted, with all its ugliness, how gross it is to see a mother burn the candle at both ends. No one had chronicled how unsavoury it is when a perfectly intelligent woman abandons herself for the sake of societal acceptance.

A believable drama with extraordinary performances

Saeed has been a spectacular show of force in her performance especially for the believability with which she dramatises the mayhem of walking the world of marriage alone, with only responsibility as her life force. Her performance has been on point.

No one says she should not be Sisyphus, pushing a boulder uphill with her mere nail. We women have been doing the boulder-pushing for eons, proving that if only we gave a few more drops of blood to domesticity, the bicycle would be a bicycle. But sometimes a spanner is just a spanner. Relationships are saved by more than one person.

You strip a woman of all power, yet when it comes to saving the home, she is paradoxically held as the most powerful. Women stay in such situations predominantly due to a poverty of time — time to think, plan and strategise an exit.

When a woman is exhausted, no one is surprised. It is the most normal thing for a star-crossed woman to chaotically run from one end to another, doing something lifesaving.

But seeing a woman in control, poised, with enough money to throw at several problems until she has no problem left, is a sight no one has seen. I am willing to bet our mothers’ generation has never been caught enjoying their lives, merely chilling out. Yet what is it that we see men doing? Their life is a proverbial golf course, a proverbial charpoy, a proverbial pulpit, a proverbial couch or keyboard.

The contrast is so stark between Zeba, and Jami, that you want to reach out across the screen and shake him out of his moronic life goals — which include eating chicken patties, cribbing and complaining, and insisting that Zeba has raised the kids ‘wrong’.

The fact that he is painfully good looking is not helpful at all. But then again, most narcissists are. If they aren’t, they have so much charm that they make up for it. Highly toxic and severely emotionally challenged, Jami’s character is loathsome without being melodramatic. An evil character portrayed especially well. 

Come back in a coffin and other wedding gifts

Zeba and Jami are a household phenomenon.

The girl is wed, she is told to never return to her family home except in a coffin. Soon after, tiny pieces of her are shipped back to what was once her home in tinier coffins. In return, she receives handouts from her family, because the man she married refused to get a job, insisting that he came from privilege and maintaining a false sense of aristocracy.

Typically, what happens in a Zeba-Jami mess is that society looks the other way forever. Jami would refuse to be held accountable, and get more set in his ways. Zeba would decide to redouble her efforts, assuming she needed to prove herself. Typically, it is always a win-win for Jami.

Instead, Kafeel refuses to be a ‘typical’ drama. It does not deal in the usual Pakistani drama bargain where the woman’s suffering is redeemed by her patience. It demands that the man answer for himself. In Pakistani television, that is close to revolutionary.

Kafeel is a spiritual drama. It insists that there is more to marriage than a transfer of power. It insists, in the form of Zeba’s wizened father, that a marriage is a contract. One party not pulling their weight in life will cause a fissure, then a gaping hole, and eventually there will be a legal breach of contract. No matter how much one acts like Zeba.

I know no elder who has been that wise.

Elders become wise like this after the woman leaves, not before she leaves and certainly not during. Elders these days are all about the convenience of optics — how it looks to everyone. Elders are — and almost always have been — addicted to a woman who is muzzled or silenced at all costs and makes very little fuss.

Elders insist that once a mistake has been made and a match is not a good fit, that the mistake must be converted into a life sentence. Some call it sabar-shukar. Kafeel calls it peace at the cost of justice.

Zeba’s father is the real hero

In the drama, there is such immense clarity from Zeba’s father when he says that the role of the man is to instil peace with justice. It may be a role for a woman too, but first, a man must be a protector. With the GDP per capita ratio being what it is in Pakistan, it is important that that provision means money.

Zeba’s father does not shy away from talking money.

Often, when the broader relative cabal wants the woman to not make a peep, they usually do so because they are uncomfortable about speaking about the role money has in the breakdown of a marriage. But money is ubiquitous. Money is everything. It is hair on a good hair day, it is a breeze after a 10k hike, it is a shawl at the beginning of winter, and it certainly pays those relative’s food bills.

Yet, there is so much aversion to honest money-talk. There is so much distaste for talking about this one thing that fuels your life.

Jami can’t work, won’t work

Jami is a sick man. My thesis is that men who are kept, and then willingly stay within the confines of false status are removed from the blessings of good old fashioned hard work. They find hustle beneath their glory and would rather the women slog at work just like they do at home.

The truth of the economy evades them and the truth of the household economy definitely evades them. They have no clue what proportion and measure go into running a household — the cost of the UPS, plumbing repairs and the rising price of LNG and gasoline, or even the mounting health costs of a dysfunctional household.

Pakistan makes no sense sometimes, making weddings a million-dollar industry but making marriages a woman-only problem. Zeba is a special breed because she thinks: no, thank you.

There is always a point in a woman’s life where something gives way. For Zeba, it was getting shoved against the wall and having her mouth twisted. She spoke up with that same mouth when she asked for her right to a safe environment.

Every time a woman snaps in two, an angel somewhere sings.

The Jamis of the world are just people, not deities we are made to worship and bow down to thanks to male privilege. Male privilege in moderate quantities is a slow poison for women, but in excess, it snaps a woman in two.

Kafeel beautifully portrays how this poison can become an impetus through which a woman can rise from the ashes. But first, she has to use her feet.

Actors and models tasked their good friend Chat GPT to get them ready for the biggest night in global fashion and the results were… something.

Azfar Rehman — The one who followed the dress code

Let’s start with one of the better ones. Azfar Rehman’s “Met Gala look” was a suit and cape inspired by Barcelona’s iconic La Pedrera — a heritage building from the early 20th-century designed by Antoni Gaudi. It was perhaps the only look that kept to the Gala’s theme of ‘Fashion is Art’.

On the flip side, Mehwish Hayat called the outfit “very holesome” and we’re kinda mad we didn’t come up with that one.

Tooba Siddiqui — Mad Max: GT Road

Tooba Siddiqui kept things desi and likely used “goth truck art” — three words that have probably never been uttered together before –– in the prompt she used for her dress.

What came out can only be described as “truck art if the truck driver was also a pirate”. There’s very little colour, there are skulls, everything is black. It looks like something a toxic ex would wear to your wedding.

Srha Asgr — Fashion is the art gallery

In a leap of logic only AI is capable of, Srha Asgr’s look said, “Fashion is art, art is found in galleries, therefore fashion is the gallery.”

Her gown was covered from neck to toe in — empty — picture frames, making us wonder whether she was sending a message about the new-age obsession with everything picture-perfect, or if she just called it a day after a couple of messages with her chatbot.

Hina Altaf — Dressed for the wrong year

Hina Altaf had her look generated for a Met Gala, just not the one in 2026. Her look, a form-fitting tunic with a mandarin collar and gold embroidery would have worked for past events which focused on history — maybe 1979, when the theme was the Hapsburg-era fashion.

Still, if she’d get something similar made by real people and wear it to a real event, we think it could work.

Ahmed Ali Butt — Solar Superman

Okay, Ahmed Ali Butt’s creation was definitely unfit for this year’s Met Gala. He knows it, we know it, everyone knows it.

Still, the actor did send a message about renewable energy with the wings embedded with solar panels and a gas cylinder with “no gas” printed on it. We’re not sure we get the Jordans though.

Jokes aside, it’s odd to see so many artists resort to AI for costume inspiration at a time when Pakistani fashion can be said to be experiencing a golden age both at home and abroad.

Pakistan’s art scene would perhaps be better served if these celebrities worked with their friends and colleagues in the fashion industry to host an actual themed gala to benefit our own museums.

When the world is turning to Pakistani brands like Warp and Rastah for fashion, why are our own celebrities going to half-baked robots to dress them up anyway?

The movie starts off with Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), who is finally the investigative journalist she dreamed of becoming. She’s about to accept a journalism award when she, along with her entire team, gets fired. Andy proceeds to deliver a speech about the importance of journalism and how the story matters more than the money.

Her speech is a testament to the current state of the media. It’s no longer the over-beautified and glorified early 2000s. Rom-coms from that era sold us a false dream of girlhood and making it as a successful writer. It was simply a tried-and-tested trope that worked at the time.

With the new movie, it’s clear that the trope looks quite different now. The Devil Wears Prada 2 was, on a whole, good. It was fun, nostalgic and exciting to revisit characters and spaces we cherished years ago. Meryl Streep stuns, as always, as Miranda Priestly, although I do think her character was much softer in this film and that she initially seemed to accept her fate in the downfall of Runway.

Stanley Tucci as Nigel is as witty and classy as ever. The movie touched upon the fashion, the conglomerates and the chaos of the industry but still somehow fell short because a sequel is never as good as the original. The plot looks different now and I think the best thing the movie did was comment on the dying media landscape. It hit all the right notes with the fashion, the art, the office space and the cameos, although the score could have been better.

Storytellers versus systems

Whether it was Runway, Poise Magazine (13 Going on 30), Composure (How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days) or Scarlet (The Bold Type), the early 2000s emerged as the girl boss, glossy magazine era. Today, the media industry (even in rom-coms) looks different.

The Devil Wears Prada built a brand that relied on the expression of bold fashion and luxury, as well as the rise of print media. But now, with part two, there are some realities fiction cannot hide from. Print media has died, leaving editors to create reels and polls, and writers to rely on clicks for their voices to mean something.

In the film, Runway has been digitised and the people behind the magazine are scrambling to hold it together. Finance bros like BJ Novak are now making big decisions for things they don’t know anything about. As Miranda asked in one of my favourite scenes from the movie, what about artistry?

The value society places on storytelling and good journalism has been dying for a while, but beyond that, the movie shows how power has shifted. Even Miranda, someone who has been in the field for years, has a lingering fear of being let go. And that is a clear reflection of the industry today. The stakeholders are different now and the power no longer lies with cultural producers — it lies with corporations.

As Kriti Gupta writes for Refinery29, “The ‘devil’ isn’t Miranda Priestly. It’s the room she’s standing in.”

We ask ourselves now, 20 years after the release of The Devil Wears Prada, how does the world look different? In an age of AI, clickbait journalism, doomscrolling and bed-rotting, people are not reading enough. Listicles rake in the numbers and long-form pieces are left in the dust.

When Andy publishes her first piece as features editor of Runway, she gets some solid feedback from others but Miranda asks a pressing question: “But did people read it?” And that was, in fact, what mattered to her. Even a journalist like Andy, who initially wanted to chase the great American story, began spending her time analysing metrics.

The collapse of feminist media spaces

So many women-run media companies have shut down over the past three years — Gal-dem, Bitch Media, Self Magazine. Refinery29 has been downsizing. Teen Vogue no longer exists. There’s a clear pattern here — feminist publications have been shutting down and shrinking and I don’t think it’s because people don’t read them.

In the age of AI and the finance bro, there seems to be a lack of value people place on publications like these, leading to a loss of independent female voices. I worked at an all-women-run digital media company for years and we housed voices from across the globe, told stories that mattered, but we shut down too. It isn’t that the media industry is dying — it’s that there has been a global shift from community-run spaces to corporate control.

An entire ecosystem is burning to the ground, and we can’t do anything about it because of ‘evolution’ and the patriarchy and the loss of individualism in this age.

The advertising economy

Magazines used to be filled with pages of luxury ads. Advertisers relied heavily on these publications to get word of their products out there. Brands now no longer need to rely on a “middleman” — they run their own ads on social media. Now, we rely on algorithms and there is no longer someone filtering the content we receive. The audience, the readers, never went anywhere, but the power has definitely shifted.

Journalist Harry Cheadle writes, “Digital media companies were attracting their audiences in large part through social media apps and search engines — that audience wasn’t ‘ours’ in any meaningful sense. These platforms gradually realised they wanted to keep people on Instagram or Facebook or the Google results page rather than sending the traffic to publishers.”

In the age of Substack, where Cheadle wrote his essay on the death of the digital media, writers are seeking out spaces to actively put their work out there. Some of that work may have initially existed within publications that have now shut down.

People are still searching for that community that was once created through this fantasy of magazines. But community looks different now. And while the end of The Devil Wears Prada 2 gave us hope, with Miranda still helming Runway, the message about the transformation of the media industry is clear.

The movie isn’t a serious retelling of the industry nor is it supposed to be. It’s just a reminder that we are now living in a solo creator economy. Every industry is shaped by the new generation and maybe it’s time to let go of the fantasy and ground ourselves in reality.

The media industry isn’t really dying, it’s just restructuring.

This underage casting trend recalibrates how Pakistani audiences view girlhood and its possibilities. Girls are being written into marriages and emotionally difficult relationships in unequal dynamics. Many TV series depict young girls playing adult roles; instead of casting them as adolescents navigating education, identity, or friendships, these series show girls as marriageable adults, romantic interests, wives, and emotional anchors. They compress, accelerate, and ultimately erase girlhood, both narratively and socially.

At first glance, this trend is just an extension of long-standing tropes and casting trends. It’s no surprise that young women have always been sexualised, commodified, and cast opposite much older men. Audiences have been conditioned to like young female actors. Pakistani TV has also historically relied on narratives of young, naïve, pliable girls paired with older, ‘more mature’ men.

These dramas frequently position the teenage heroine as both childlike and romantically desirable, or childlike hence desirable. However, what makes this recent trend more problematic is not simply the age gap — it’s the narrative insistence that these girls are ready for adulthood, that they can and should seamlessly transition into marriage and motherhood. This girl, this heroine is simultaneously someone to be dismissed, guided, disciplined, and ultimately possessed.

This trend is particularly concerning in a country where public discourse around women’s right to education, work, access to public spaces, and choosing a life partner is already very contentious.

Amid the ongoing debates over gender-based rights and responsibilities in Pakistan, this trend both normalises the adultification of girls, ie the premature attribution of adult roles and responsibilities to young girls, and also conditions the audience to accept it.

This adultification operates alongside implicit sexualisation of girls. Girls are not only expected to behave like grown women but are also consistently framed as desirable and thereby marriageable within adult romantic economies. It is critical to remember that violence against women in Pakistan often occurs because men believe that women should be available to them romantically, or because men insist that women should be available for marriage, or because men expect that women should unconditionally perform their gendered responsibilities as assigned to them by the patriarchy.

What happens when men watch the romanticised reassurances of the same beliefs and expectations on their TV screens? What happens when young girls watch romanticised versions of these patriarchal beliefs and fantasies portrayed as girls’ success on their TVs?

Meem Se Mohabbat, P Se Problem

Let’s look at Meem Se Mohabbat, starring Dananeer Mobeen and Ahad Raza Mir. Roshi is introduced as a chulbuli, clumsy girl who, in the first episode, fails her Bachelors of Engineering admission test. Based on this, she is presumably 17 to 19 years old. Yet, by the last episode, the same teenager is married to her boss, who is a successful businessman and a divorced father of a five to six-year-old son with a speaking disability. During her journey from an intern to boss’s wife, the story problematises this age gap.

At one point, the boss’s girlfriend accuses Roshi and says, “Tum apni kam-umri ka faida utha ker Talha Ahmed ko hasil kernay ko koshish ker rahi ho (you are trying to use your youth to get Talha Ahmed).” The boss, Talha, describes her as a “gher zimadar, immature, aur kam-umer larki (irresponsible, immature and underage girl).” On the surface, this attention to their age gap highlights that the relationship is inappropriate.

However, the narrative also uses it to infantilise Roshi, to show that she needs a caretaker. The drama ultimately resolves this tension of their age gap — not by challenging or undoing the romantic relationship — but by romanticising it.

Not only does the series romanticise and neutralise their age gap, but it also declares Roshi responsible for this romantic resolution. In the last episode, she incredulously says to the boss, “aap ne mujhse kahan shadi kerni thi (since when did you want to marry me)?” and he responds “tumahri zidd aur mohabbat jeet gai (your stubbornness and love won).”

The series shows that the boss married the intern only because of her persistence, ignoring that he makes Roshi’s fiancé disappear on their wedding day to ‘save’ her and marries her himself. Young Roshi’s zidd or stubbornness is framed as triumphant, while the man’s hesitation due to the age gap is recast as his moral conscientiousness.

Focus on her triumphant zidd creates the illusion of Roshi’s agency, and it absolves the boss of any wrongdoing. The drama rewards the young intern by endowing both wifehood and motherhood on her. This pairing of a young girl with an older man reinforces a model of heterosexual desire, one that privileges male authority and female youth. The drama becomes a reassurance of this male desire because it first problematises, then normalises, and eventually romanticises this desire for the audience.

Meem Se Mohabbat also maternalises the young girl. It links her desirability to her capacity for care, her potential for motherhood. Many of the romantic moments between the couple occur when Roshi interacts with her boss’s son. Instead of showing her as an adult with the child, due to Roshi’s childlikeness and her age, they appear to be children of different ages. And somehow, many of these scenes are followed by the boss romantically gazing at her.

The boss also goes on to threaten Roshi that if something were to happen to his son, he would hold her responsible. Mind you, the girl couldn’t even take care of herself at the start of the series. He himself appears to be failing at taking care of his child. But he shifts his own failure as a father onto the girl before they are even married.

Kafeel’s entirely too quiet feminism

Let’s also look at Kafeel, starring Sanam Saeed and Emmad Irfani, which is a women’s rights-oriented drama. Zeba’s parents suspect she is having an affair, so they quickly marry her off to the first available man, Jami. She is not allowed to even complete her education. After she’s married, she learns that her husband is unemployed, irresponsible, and disloyal to her.

Her father encourages her to get a divorce, but other women, including her mother and grandmother, push against it. Zeba becomes the sole bread earner in her household and raises her three daughters and a son without any financial or emotional support from her husband.

But Zeba, seemingly, does not learn much from her own experience as a woman in a financially and emotionally abusive marriage. Instead of teaching her daughters the importance of financial autonomy, she hopes that they will marry up. The sole aspiration she shares for her eldest daughter is a good husband, big kitchen, and a big house after marriage.

Zeba’s sister is a successful architect and lives in a palatial house that she designed with her husband. But instead of actively modelling her to highlight the possibility of financial autonomy along with a successful marriage, the drama reduces her to a minor character.

Many episodes focus on the eldest daughter Javeria’s marriage and use it as a tool to highlight the problems they face due to their father. Zeba’s daughters’ friend, Daneen’s whole character is based on her desire to marry Zeba’s son, Subuk. Daneen is a school-going girl and is shown wearing a school (or perhaps a college) uniform in the drama. Even inside the school, the topic of conversation is her marriage with Subuk. We never learn much about these girls beyond their own or their mothers’ desires about their marriages.

We never learn what any of these girls study, what their interests are, or what their career aspirations are. Though both their mother and aunt are working women, instead of learning about the importance of financial autonomy, the daughters are shown to hope for a more responsible husband for their chances at a life better than their mother’s. It reduces young girls to dependents awaiting marriage, without ever assigning them complete personhood.

Within the plot, there is an internal contradiction: the series that aims to highlight women’s rights ends up centring teenage girls in marriage plots, making its own message ambiguous. It feeds into the widely-believed idea of daughter as a liability, a responsibility, a burden. The series gestures toward themes of women’s empowerment — showing, for instance, a mother who gains independence through employment and secures a khula. Yet this lesson is not extended to the daughters.

This reflects a broader pattern of feminist façade in television, where dramas flippantly acknowledge feminist ideas but rarely integrate them into their storylines. They create the appearance of feminist engagement without a substantive shift in narrative priorities.

By framing early marriage as romantic or inevitable, these dramas also make limited access to education, economic dependency, gender-based violence, and legal vulnerabilities seem inescapable. By collapsing adolescence into adulthood, these TV series actively reshape the boundaries of girlhood.

Many of these female actors presumably come from the upper-middle class, and are academically and professionally ambitious, as any young girls should be. But, ironically, their work provides the Pakistani public reassurances of regressive patriarchal beliefs. At a time when feminists are challenging early marriages, advocating for women’s education, and demanding greater autonomy for women in Pakistan, the persistent portrayal of teenage girls as wives and mothers strengthens the barriers keeping women down.

This trend suggests that, despite the changing discourse, the fundamental expectations placed on girls remain the same.

These series also shape the aesthetic orientations of the audience as they get used to seeing girls in adult roles, and thereby age out senior female actors. Female actors have always faced this gendered ageism and often share how their professional prospects dwindle or become limited while their male counterparts continue to play heroes.

Comments on female actors’ social media posts are often ageist. Recently, in an interview, Firdous Jamal defined a heroine as a “15 to 16-year-old, or at maximum 18 to 20-year-old girl” who is “chulbuli”, “chanchal”, “innocent” and “excites the audience”.

Unsurprisingly, the actor playing the eldest daughter in Kafeel, Nooray Zeeshan, is 16 years old. She shared that she was offered multiple roles because she looks ‘innocent’. This casting practice eliminates or limits the possibility of work for female actors after a certain age. Patriarchies have always prized women’s innocence and naiveté and underage casting exacerbates this. Teenagers are the desired target of both patriarchy and capitalism: young enough to be moulded, old enough to be sexualised and commodified.

In centring teenage girls in adult roles on screen, these dramas offer both a reassurance and a continued fantasy to their male audience, of a world where young girls remain available to older men, where girls remain financially and emotionally dependent, hence exploitable.

For the female audience, these dramas romanticise the misconception that their value lies in their youth, their innocence, and their marriageability. But this reassurance and romanticisation comes at a cost that girls and women continue to pay for everyone’s entertainment.

I say this because even the great Indian film legend, Dilip Kumar, once remarked that ‘Moin Akhtar’s great artistry is worth copying.’

But Moin Akhtar was a lot more than just a comic. Beginning his long career as an impersonator, he went on to become a much appreciated stand-up comedian, TV, film and stage actor, talk-show host and then ultimately, going back to doing impersonations.

Surprisingly, not much is available on the man’s life in terms of a biography or a detailed study of this prolific artiste, even though he remained to be the country’s leading comic talent ever since the 1970s.

But Moin Akhtar’s gradual ascend towards stardom and legendary status was also wrought with some devastating failures that took a toll on the man’s health.

He arrived onto the scene at a time when Pakistan, like the rest of the world, too was about to enter a period in the 1960s when urban youth had begun to question the materialism and conservative politics of their parents and were demanding more breathing space to practice their new artistic and political ideas.

Moin Akhtar’s rise was not rapid. His fame grew through word-of-mouth, especially on his home turf in Karachi.

He had been impersonating his teachers and famous Pakistani film actors in school when all of a sudden he was called up by the organisers of a Pakistan Day event at a club in Karachi in 1966. He was just 16 years old.

When his turn came to perform on stage, he did what he was already doing in school. But this time, he added a new act to his impersonation repertoire — that of the famous Pakistani film actor, Mohammad Ali.

Ali had been popular for his loud emotional scenes and a booming voice, and when Moin Akhtar impersonated and mimicked all this to perfection (also adding his own twists and bits), the crowd at the event is said to have erupted in laughter. They had never seen or heard anything like this.

Word about Moin Akhtar’s antics spread and he soon became a popular draw at ‘variety shows’ at universities, colleges and parties.

It is also interesting to note that even though Pakistan’s campuses in the late 1960s had begun to vibrate with fiery uprisings against the Ayub Khan dictatorship, Moin Akhtar mostly kept his act apolitical, concentrating on mimicking and revolving his skits around famous film personalities.

Although he managed to make a modest living doing such shows, his first big break came when in 1970, a 20-year-old Moin Akhtar was invited to perform at the time’s most popular primetime stage show on Pakistan Television (PTV).

Called the Zia Mohyeddin Show and hosted by the now famous intellectual Zia Mohyeddin, Moin Akhtar left the audience in stitches when he mimicked the voices of those who had presented PTV’s special transmission during the country’s first democratic elections in 1970.

This was also one of the first few occasions he had come face-to-face with Anwar Maqsood.

Anwar Maqsood had been working as a scriptwriter for the show, but would go on to became a famous satirist and struck a celebrated abiding partnership with the comic genius.

But all this would shape up a decade later. After his successful stint on the Zia Mohyeddin Show, Moin Akhtar became a permanent fixture on PTV, even going on to host his own show called Monday Kay Monday.

Surprisingly, not many acting offers came his way from either TV or film. He continued working as a mimic and impersonator but got a career boost when in 1973, he pulled off a hugely successful show at Karachi’s famous Beach Luxury Hotel where apart from exhibiting his highly improvised impersonation of the time’s famous film stars, he also began impersonating the cultural idiosyncrasies of the many different ethnicities that resided in Pakistan.

It is said that he was one of the first Pakistani comics to do so, an act that would successfully be carried forward by the likes of famous PTV comics, Majid Jehangir, Ismail Tara, Umar Sharif and Liaquat Soldier.

As Moin Akhtar maintained his presence in the public eye as a young comic through various shows on PTV, his main income came from doing private shows for multinationals and colleges.

However, though still ignored by PTV for his acting potential, in 1975 Moin Akhtar finally got an offer to work in a film.

By the mid-1970s the Pakistan film industry had begun to hit a peak, producing an average of 200 films a year (mostly in Urdu, but also in Punjabi, Gujrati, Sindhi and Pashtu).

The film that Moin Akhtar appeared in was called Tajdar, and his role of a typical Lollywood maskhara (jester), could not save the film from being a flop. But the failure didn’t stop Moin Akhtar’s ascendancy to stardom.

During the lack of acting offers from TV and film, Moin Akhtar continued to brush up and fatten his mimicry and hosting skills, and he continued to be a popular draw at private events and club shows, also doing his bit on various PTV shows.

He had also been working in commercial theatre. This form of theatre, over which men like Umar Sharif would rule, was still in its infancy.

Luck seemed to have bypassed him again when in 1978 young director Shoaib Mansoor (who would go on to become a prominent TV and film director), began casting actors for a comedy skit show on PTV.

Moin Akhtar should have been an automatic choice, but Mansoor and the show’s scriptwriter, Anwar Maqsood, instead went for relatively unknown stage actors from Karachi, such as Majid Jehangir, Ismail Tara and Zeba Shahnaz. Some like Sakhi Kamal were studying at the University of Karachi and were also politically active there.

Nevertheless, the show, Fifty-Fifty was an instant hit. Inspired by the more sophisticated satire show, Shoaib Hashmi’s Such Gup (1973-76) – that had been banned by the new military dictatorship in 1977 – Fifty-Fifty mixed sophisticated wit with populist humour, parodying the bureaucracy, ethnic idiosyncrasies, the declining standards of  the film industry and PTV itself. It ran from 1978 until 1984.

It succeeded in swimming through even the most repressive censorship laws imposed by the Zia dictatorship.

Moin Akhtar’s destiny could have turned out to be quite different had Anwar Maqsood not quit the Fifty-Fifty team after experiencing a fall-out with its director and actors in 1981.

As Ismail Tara and Majid Jehangir took over the writing duties of Fifty-Fifty, Anwar Maqsood went on to script and appeared on a series of his own shows (also on PTV) such as Show Time, Shoshah, Silver Jubilee, etc.

For these he chose two central comedians, Moin Akhtar and Bushra Ansari. It was during these shows that Moin Akhtar really blossomed into a diversified comic.

The duo played a number of fictitious characters, mouthing witty scripts jotted down by Anwar Maqsood, who too became famous for successfully dodging the censors with tongue-in-cheek remarks that were actually taunts aimed at the Zia regime and its overbearing moralities.

This was also the first time Moin Akhtar saw himself doing socio-political scripts. Slowly but surely, he was finally emerging from his status as a cult favorite and onto the mainstream as a versatile comic.

The 1980s had been rather fruitful. Moin Akhtar had risen from being a cult star and master mimic to becoming a regular skit actor on various successful Anwar Maqsood projects.

And even though he still did not manage to get regular work as an actor, he had begun to venture into the lucrative comedy theatre scene that had begun to grow in Karachi and Lahore.

Nevertheless, after the demise of the Ziaul Haq dictatorship and the return of democracy in Pakistan in 1988, three performances by Moin Akhtar (between 1988 and 1993) finally handed him the stardom his talents had always promised and deserved.

First, it was his role in a wonderfully done comedy play on PTV called, Eid Train. Aired on the night of the first day of Eid in 1989, it captured Moin Akhtar playing his now trademark character of a loudmouthed, straight-talking (but skinny) Karachiite. The play was a huge hit.

Then there was his laudable performance as an aged writer in a long-play (for PTV), penned by Anwar Maqsood called Half-Plate, in which Moin Akhtar plays an old writer who is suffering from a financial crises but refuses to take up his ancestral profession of a kabaabchi (cook).

Starring alongside Moin Akhtar in the play was the great actress, late Khalida Riyasat and the fidgety late Jamshed Ansari. Incidentally, the fourth main actor of the play, the versatile Latif Kapadia, too is no more in this world.

But perhaps the most well-known acting performance from Moin Akhtar was a 1993 play on PTV called Rozy.

Moin Akhtar was now dishing out a series of great acting performances, as if making up for the all those times his acting skills were ignored. His performance in Rozy in this respect saw him hit a peak.

Written by playwright and journalist Imran Aslam, Rozy was an ambitious adaptation of Dustin Hoffman’s famous Hollywood hit, Tootsie.

Tootsie shows a struggling actor dressing up as a woman to get a part in a soap opera.

Aslam took the plot of Tootsie and wittily turned it into a statement against the kind of harassment women face in the workplace.

Moin Akhtar intensely played the role of the struggling angry-young-actor who dons make-up and women’s attire to land a part in a TV serial.

Moin Akthar had finally mushroomed into a star performer. The only other Pakistani comic that dared to be compared to his caliber was Umar Sharif, who too had broken out from his cult status and gained mainstream popularity, mainly through commercial theatre.

But Umar’s comedy was more populist, rapidly using Karachi’s street lingo and imagery, whereas Moin Akhtar still kept a middle-class sensibility about his acts.

Nevertheless, when Umar directed, scripted and acted in his own film in the early 1990s, Moin Akhtar followed suit.

Umar’s film became a box-office hit, and Moin Akhtar, fresh from his successful acting exploits on TV, invested heavily in his own film called Mr.K2.

Unfortunately the film turned out to be a financial and critical disaster. Friends suggest that this colossal failure took a heavy toll on the comic genius who was also a heavy-smoker and loved to stay up nights with friends and colleagues.

A reckless and unhealthy lifestyle coupled by his workaholic nature and the failure of his film venture led him to suffer a heart attack. He got a by-pass done in 1997 but returned to regain what he had lost.

He began hosting celebrity shows, but it was Anwar Maqsood’s satirical talk-show, Loose Talk, that brought him back into the limelight.

A parody of BBC’s Hard Talk, Anwar Maqsood would play Pakistan’s version of Tim Sebastian week after week, talking to all sorts of fictional characters, from politicians and maulvis, to heroin addicts and businessmen – all of them played with ingenious insight and hilarity by Moin Akhtar.

It is said Moin Akhtar had played more than 200 different characters on the hit show!

Alas, this mind-boggling exhibition of versatility was to be this comic genius’ last great hurrah before his death from a heart-attack at the age of 60.

This article was originally published on April 23, 2011

Jake Sully — a paraplegic marine, broken and discarded by his own civilisation — arrives on the planet Pandora as a spy. Within the film’s runtime, he tames the supreme aerial predator leonopteryx, becomes Toruk Makto (rider of the great leonopteryx) and leads the indigenous Na’vi against the very military he came with.

The indigenous people of Pandora do not merely accept him. They anoint him. The land, the creature, the prophecy — all of it folds around the outsider and declares him chosen.

This is not a coincidence of plot. It is a structure. And it is ancient.

Fantasy returns obsessively to the same architecture: an outsider enters a world not his own, encounters a people whose customs are foreign to him and, through exceptional ability and romantic initiation, fulfils a prophecy the indigenous people had kept for themselves.

Paul Atreides in Dune becomes Muad’Dib, rides the sandworm and leads the Fremen against the empire strip-mining their world — before building a larger empire of his own. In Game of Thrones, Daenerys Targaryen arrives among the Dothraki as a transaction, a girl traded for an army. She takes the heart of the khal [warlord], learns the language, walks into fire and emerges khaleesi [queen].

The trope is not the result of a personality flaw in individual storytellers. It is a narrative technique. And from Robinson Crusoe to Dune’s Paul Atreides and Avatar’s Jake Sully, it has been doing the same work…

The pattern is not the prophecy. The pattern is the transfer. The pattern holds across genre, medium and decade.

Structure as ideology

The Martinican philosopher Édouard Glissant called this vulnerability by its right name. His concept — the right to opacity — holds that indigenous and marginalised peoples are entitled to keep their cultural practices, their prophecies and their interior life inaccessible to outsiders.

Glissant understood that, to become readable to the nation, to the empire, to the state, is to become conquerable. Interpretation precedes extraction. The anthropologist arrives before the soldier, but the soldier follows. What can be translated can be taken.

Fantasy, in this sense, is the literature of violated opacity. The outsider hero does not merely observe the indigenous world. He masters it. He learns the language faster than the natives expect, bonds with the sacred creature no one else could tame and earns the intimate trust of the people’s most powerful woman.

This last element is not decorative. It is what scholars have called the Pocahontas theology. It holds that, if the incoming outsider takes the heart of the indigenous woman, he acquires — through the covenant of romantic and eventually marital union — legitimate access to her body, her people, her land and the intimate knowledge of her culture.

The Catholic Church formalised this logic through marriage doctrine. Colonial law extended it. Fantasy renders it cinematic.

This is why love and prophecy travel together in these narratives. The prophecy legitimises the claim in the eyes of the people. The marriage transfers the property. Together, they produce a hero who is both spiritually endorsed and legally entitled. He has not conquered. He has been chosen.

The novel as a weapon

Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said argued — and this is not metaphor — in Culture and Imperialism that the novel itself was among the primary narrative instruments of colonisation. This is not metaphor. Robinson Crusoe — most commonly cited as the origin of the English novel — features a shipwrecked Englishman who encounters strange peoples, subdues a native he names Friday and builds a functioning colonial outpost on the island he treats as unowned.

What is adventure, Said asks, but an act of enterprise? Moby Dick is the obsession of a white captain with a white whale. Heart of Darkness is a journey into the African hinterland that is really a journey into the European self. The fantasy novel extends this tradition — Crusoe with magic systems, Captain Ahab with his white whale obsession, Heart of Darkness’ Kurtz with a prophecy already written in his name.

But the story did not stay in the library. It was put into the classroom.

In 1835, Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote his infamous Minute on Education, proposing the creation of “a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, opinions, morals and intellect.” The curriculum was the mechanism.

Colonised children across Asia and Africa were made to read the very texts that cast their own peoples as silent, waiting and illegible. They memorised Robinson Crusoe. They studied Rudyard Kipling. They were examined on their comprehension of The White Man’s Burden — a poem whose burden, notably, the white man had appointed himself.

The colonised did not merely encounter the outsider-hero narrative. They were made to reproduce it, to praise it, to aspire toward it. The most intimate conquest is not of territory, it is of imagination.

The consequences persisted long after formal empire ended. Several generations of postcolonial intellectuals have described the condition of seeing themselves through the coloniser’s eyes — of internalising their own opacity as backwardness, their own customs as primitive, their own prophecies as superstition.

The curriculum taught them to identify with Crusoe rather than Friday, with the arriving hero rather than the people he arrives among. It made the coloniser’s ascension feel not merely plausible but natural, even desirable. That is a more durable conquest than any garrison.

The manufactured messiah

The most uncomfortable version of the fantasy trope remains Dune. Frank Herbert wrote it as a critique. Paul Atreides is explicitly a messianic figure whose rise the author distrusted. But the novel contains a detail more damning than the ascension itself.

The Fremen prophecy that names Paul as their messiah was not ancient. It was planted. The Bene Gesserit — a secretive sisterhood that manipulates bloodlines and governments across the empire — had seeded messianic myths across dozens of cultures generations earlier through a programme called the Missionaria Protectiva. The purpose was explicit: manufacture a prophecy in advance so that a Bene Gesserit operative could later arrive and fulfil it.

Herbert was not merely warning against charismatic leaders. He was showing that the prophecy itself was a colonial instrument, engineered by outsiders for future exploitation. The Fremen did not dream their messiah. Someone else dreamed him for them and then sent him.

Readers still turned it into a power fantasy. That is what four centuries of conditioning produces — an audience trained to experience the coloniser’s welcome as a happy ending, even when the author is explaining the mechanism to their face.

Another ending is possible

Glissant’s opacity is not absence. It is resistance. When a people’s prophecies remain untranslated, the outsider cannot fulfil them. He cannot arrive and find that the ancient texts describe him. He cannot tame the sacred animal because he does not know it exists. Opacity is the condition under which a people’s future remains their own.

Fantasy keeps writing the same story because empire keeps needing it told. And the story has a name by now. The white saviour complex is not a personality flaw in individual filmmakers. It is a narrative technology — one that recasts colonial entry as selfless sacrifice and indigenous acceptance as the highest honour.

Jake Sully does not go home richer. He stays and leads. That is the refinement. The old empire took the land and left. The white saviour stays, loves, suffers and redeems — and in doing so, makes the taking feel like a gift.

What is telling is what other traditions did not produce. The great messianic figures of non-Western imagination are always of the people, never apart from them. The Mahdi in Islamic eschatology rises from within the community of believers. The Hindu avatar descends into the world in forms native to it — Rama among men, Krishna among cowherds. The Jewish messiah is awaited by the covenant people, not delivered to them by an outsider who happened to wander in and prove himself.

No Fremen prophecy, honestly told, would have named a Harkonnen. No Dothraki legend, left intact, would have awaited a Valyrian princess. These are not gaps in other cultures’ mythologies. They are evidence of a different relationship between a people and their own future — one in which the future was not expected to arrive on someone else’s ship.

The prophecy was never native. It was always the outsider’s because someone wrote it that way, long before the ship arrived. And the ultimate victory of the empire was ensuring that the children of the colonised learned to believe it too.

Originally published in Dawn, EOS, April 12th, 2026

Yet, despite our nation’s capital hosting its most important diplomatic event in recent history, some Pakistanis, true to their old habits, were more concerned about what female journalists reporting on the event were wearing.

In a sickening, regressive display of just how low people can go when it comes to subjugating women to their ideas of “appropriate dressing”, journalist Gharidah Farooqi came under fire from men — and even women — on social media for what she wore to go cover the event.

We will not dignify their vile commentary by talking about what Farooqi wore, except to say that it was not inappropriate. The real problem here is how women, no matter what they do, no matter what they wear, no matter where they are, will always be criticised by a society that believes it has the divine right to police them.

She was there, she was doing her job, neither the organisers nor the other attendees had any problem with her conduct and yet someone who was probably lying in bed enjoying their lazy weekend believed their thoughts on the journalist’s outfit were important enough to air to the world.

We wish we could tell you this was an isolated incident, that this was just an anomaly, but it’s a common experience for women across the country and something Farooqi has faced before.

Former prime minister Imran Khan once said she was asking to be harassed by reporting from male-dominated spaces, which is emblematic of the problem. We just hate it when women go out into the world and do things.

From assuming all women are bad drivers, to making unfounded claims against women in the entertainment industry to keeping the nation’s daughters away from an education and a career in the most extreme cases, nothing a woman does can ever be right.

Which brings us to the second problem — a few of the comments began to compare what Farooqi wore to journalists who were reporting for the Iranian press.

The government in Iran is conservative to the point that there are laws on what women can and cannot wear. Iran’s own women, or at least substantial segments of them, are not happy with this and have taken that anger to the streets in past.

The third and most pressing issue is one of privacy, consent and straight-up AI-enabled digital harassment. As Farooqi pointed out in a post on X, much of the conversation seems to be revolving around a picture of the journalist taken from behind without her consent.

Now, that’s bad enough to warrant its own outrage, but then people, blessed with the power of generative AI, created inappropriate clips from the picture in what her fellow journalist Asad Ali Toor rightly described as “disgusting”.

This too is neither uncommon nor surprising — superimposed images, deepfakes and now AI just casually undressing women on the internet based on their pictures. Material used to harass women online has not only gotten more realistic, it’s also become easier to produce.

Something has got to give, because these archaic ideals of meek women confined to their homes, living their lives at the whims of men, are relics of a time long gone.

Men, especially the ones discussing the “decency” of women’s clothes on the internet, need to learn a thing or two about basic human decency.

Authorities need to step up protection for women facing harassment, online and offline, because nobody is safe until everybody is safe.

As for Farooqi, she said this wasn’t the first time she’s been harassed online and while we’re sorry she — or anyone — has to go through that, we have a message for her: go and show them who’s boss.

Cover via Gharidah Farooqi/X

No mehndi celebration in the 90s felt complete without ‘Zara Dholki Baja Goriyo’. No child drifted off to sleep without ‘Chanda Mama Door Ke’. No birthday could be celebrated without ‘Tum Jiyo Hazaron Saal’. No lovers’ quarrel truly ended without ‘Acha Ji Main Haari Chalo’. No journey ever began without ‘Hawa Ke Saath, Ghata Ke Sang Sang’. No moment of romance was whole without ‘Tumse Milke Aisa Laga’ and admit it, no shower felt complete without ‘Thande Thande Pani Se’.

Bhosle was part of the lives of many, like me, yet her journey was never a bed of roses. Born in 1933 into a family already defined by the towering legacy of Lata Mangeshkar, she faced the immense challenge of stepping out of her sister’s shadow and establishing her own identity in music. She never had the luxury of choosing songs like Lata did and sang whatever came her way. While her younger sister Usha Mangeshkar did not achieve the same level of prominence, Bhosle eventually found her path through perseverance, talent, and the opportunities that came her way.

The collaborators she worked with — be it OP Nayyar, SD Burman, RD Burman, or AR Rahman — reflected how perfectly her timing aligned with changing musical eras, allowing her talent to flourish across generations.

When Nayyar decided not to work with Lata, he relied on Bhosle and they produced songs like ‘Maang Ke Saath Tumhara’ and ‘Urain Jab jab Zulfain Teri’ (Naya Daur, 1957), ‘Aye Meherbaan’ (Howrah Bridge, 1958), ‘Bahut Shukriya’ and ‘Aap Yunhi Agar’ (Ek Musafir Ek Haseena, 1962), ‘Deewana Hua Baadal’ and ‘Ishaaro Ishaaro’ (Kashmir ki Kali, 1964), ‘Jaiye Aap Kahan Jayenge’ and ‘Yeh Hai Reshmi Zulfo’ (Mere Sanam, 1965) and ‘Ao Huzoor Tumko’ and ‘Kajra Muhabbat Wala’ (Keemat, 1968).

A tussle between music director SD Burman and Lata created a rift between the two that lasted from 1958 to 1962, and Bhosle benefited from it. ‘Chor Do Aanchal’, ‘Haal Kaisa Hai Janab Ka’, ‘Acha Ji Main Haari’, ‘Ab Ke Baras Bhej Bhaiya Ko Babul’, ‘Tujhe Mili Roshni Mujhko Andhera’, ‘Koi Aya Dhadkan Kahti Hai’, ‘Dhalki Jaye Chunariya Hamari Ho Ram’ and ‘Raat Akeli Hai’ from Jewel Thief were simply outstanding.

Later, the 70s and 80s defined the Asha-RD era, a musician six years younger than her and the son of her guru. Though RD Burman and Bhosle married in 1980, the list of hit songs they produced from 1966 to 1993 is tremendous. Be it Teesri Manzil’s peppy ‘Aaja Aaja Main Hoon Pyar Tera’, the hippy ‘Dum Maro Dum’, the jazzy ‘Jaane Jaan Dhoondta Phir Raha’, or the cabaret classic ‘Piya Tu Ab To Aaja’, the sultry ‘Chura Liya Hai Tumne Jo’, the playful ‘Chori Chori Solah Singar’, the melodious ‘Do Lafzon Ki Hai’, or the deeply reflective ‘Mera Kuch Saamaan’ — each song showcased a different shade of her brilliance. Even the songs in Rangeela, Taal or Lagaan by the techy AR Rehman were a piece of cake for Bhosle, who had no qualms in changing gears.

She also had a brief contact with Pakistan, though she never actually crossed the border. At the time, Pakistan had a very similarly-named actor, Asha Posley, the heroine of the very first movie produced in Pakistan, Teri Yaad. The movie starred Posley alongside Nasir Khan, Dilip Kumar’s brother. At the time, Bhosle was in Bombay and was still known as Asha Mangeshkar.

Posley was born Sabira Begum and was rechristened by the legendary music director Ghulam Haider, who also played a key role in shaping the careers of Lata Mangeshkar. Posley was the daughter of music director Inayat Ali Nath and came from a musically gifted family — her sister, Kausar Parveen, was also a well-known singer in the 1950s. Although senior to both Lata and Bhosle, Posley had already made her debut as a supporting actor in the Punjabi film Gawandi (1942) long before any of the Mangeshkars entered the picture.

When Asha Mangeshkar eventually married Ganpatrao Bhosle she became Asha Bhosle, a name strikingly similar to Asha Posley, which led to occasional bouts of confusion and brief controversy.

Collaboration with Pakistanis

By the 1990s, only a handful of songs by Bollywood singers were recorded in Pakistan — often as personal favours (like Hemant Kumar for Muslehuddin in Humsafar, 1959) or through last-minute arrangements (such as Talat Mehmood for Fazl Karim Fazli for Chiragh Jalta Raha 1962).

Bhosle became the first major female voice to record multiple songs for a Pakistani film, lending her voice to Adnan Sami Khan’s Sargam 1995. Tracks like ‘Pyar Bina Jeena Nahin Jeena’, ‘Barse Baadal Dil Mein Hulchul’, ‘Pyar Hai Yehi To Pyar Hai’, and the evergreen ‘Zara Dholki Bajao Goriyo’ went on to become anthems for the generation born in the 1990s.

The leading lady of Sargam, Zeba Bakhtiar — who knew Bhosle personally from her Bollywood days and had travelled with her to India for several shows — played a key role in bringing her on board. Speaking to Images, she recalled Bhosle as “lovely, affectionate, and extremely kind”. However, she also expressed regret that Bhosle’s songs in Sargam were later dubbed by Hadiqa Kiani due to censorship concerns, as India–Pakistan relations in the 1990s were not particularly cordial.

Adnan Sami Khan — the music director and leading man of Sargam who was once married to Bakhtiar — shared close ties with the Burman family. He later collaborated with Bhosle again for Badaltey Mausam.

The album received a warm response upon its release in Pakistan in 1997, but when it was released in India, it became a massive hit. The song ‘Kabhi Tu Nazar Milao’ turned into a chartbuster and eventually paved the way for Adnan’s move to India, with significant support from Bhosle.

After Sargam, Bhosle collaborated once again with another Pakistani legend, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan who was composing for Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya 1997. The introductory song for Miss World 1994 Aishwarya Rai, ‘Thoda Sa Pagla Thoda Deewana’, carried an energy that only Bhosle could bring. The duet with Udit Narayan, ‘Jaagi Hui Fizayein Hain’, was equally impressive.

Bhosle was also part of the soundtrack of Javed Fazil’s Mein Ek Din Laut Kay Aaoon Ga, where she sang a duet with Jawad Ahmad, also the music director of the film. Ahmad recalled to Images recording the song with her. “I had the privilege of working with her in 2007 on the film Mein Ek Din Laut Kay Aaoon Ga, where I recorded a song titled ‘Dil Ke Taar Baje’ with her in India at Jagjit Singh’s studio. She was not only an extraordinary singer but also a gracious, humble, and encouraging personality. Despite her legendary status, she treated everyone with kindness and respect, and even engaged deeply with the creative process, refining her performance with great artistry,” he said.

“I still remember how she once sang a line differently to add her signature style, then graciously adjusted it after discussion, reflecting her openness and professionalism. Working with her was an unforgettable experience. She belongs among the greatest voices of South Asian music, alongside legends like Lata Mangeshkar and Noor Jehan. Her voice and legacy will continue to inspire generations, and she will always be remembered with love, admiration, and prayers across the world.”

In 2005, Bhosle released an album as a tribute to legendary ghazal maestros Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali and Farida Khanum. The album featured eight of her favourite ghazals, reinterpreting timeless classics with her own expressive style. It included renditions such as ‘Aaj Jaane Ki Zid Na Karo’, Ghulam Ali’s ‘Chupke Chupke’, ‘Aawargi’ and ‘Dil Mein Ek Lahar’, along with Mehdi Hassan’s ‘Ranjish Hi Sahi’, ‘Rafta Rafta’, and ‘Mujhe Tum Nazar Se’.

She also appeared as a guest on Sur Kshetra, a collaborative musical talent show between India and Pakistan. Aired in 2012, it was a musical battle between teams of two neighbouring countries that brought together a truly iconic judging panel featuring three legendary voices of South Asia: Bhosle, Runa Laila, and Abida Parveen.

Their presence transformed the competition into a celebration of music beyond borders, where classical depth, playback brilliance, and Sufi spirituality met on one stage. Together, they represented the golden era and timeless diversity of South Asian music, making the show not just a contest, but a historic meeting of legends.

Ironically, Bhosle made her debut when India and Pakistan were one, and one of her last famous songs was ‘Prem Me Tore’ for Begum Jaan in 2017, which depicted Partition.

Bhosle was far more than a legendary playback singer — she was a living bridge across eras, borders, and musical traditions. From the golden age of Indian cinema to cross-border collaborations in Pakistan, her voice evolved with time while never losing its emotional depth, versatility, or freshness. Whether in classic duets, playful cabaret numbers, romantic melodies, or modern experimental tracks, she continuously reinvented herself and expanded the possibilities of what South Asian music could be.

Riz Ahmed’s new Amazon Prime show Bait released last week to critical acclaim. It tells the story of a young, struggling Pakistani-British actor, Shahjehan Latif, whose name literally translates to ‘king of the world’. Despite the regality of his title, he is always ironically one step behind in his goal to play the famous James Bond 007.

His desire to play the glamorous character traditionally essayed by white British actors reflects the longing to assimilate in Hollywood. He is often humorously mistaken for another actor of South Asian descent, Dev Patel.

His pursuit of the role is driven by the trauma of being an immigrant; he carries both psychological and physical wounds by virtue of being in the West. Consequently, his desire alienates him, hinting at the price one has to pay for assimilation in a predominantly white culture. It is only after fixing his relationship with his family and coming to terms with his traumatic past that he gets the role.

However, his eventual win comes with a twist; the hero disavows the archetypal James Bond representation. Bait resists assimilation by inventing a new character and chiseling an alternative text for the traditionally marginalised South Asian diaspora.

Despite having a name that is an unusual mix of a Mughal emperor and a Sufi poet, Shah Latif (often known simply as Shah) is a nobody. He is not white enough to be called British and does not speak good enough Urdu to act with Mahira Khan, as his father, played by Sajid Hasan, takes a jibe at him for.

Once a recipient of the Rising Star Award, Shah is now in debt and feels compelled to sell his award watch. There’s a peculiar method to the madness that is his acting process — he converses with a pig’s head. The severed head is thrown into his house by racist trolls, and Shah carries it around in a bag like a secret badge of honour.

Overall, like the perfect protagonist of spy thriller, he is a flawed, traumatised, morally ambiguous, transgressive yet deeply humane character with a purpose.

When it comes to Hollywood and mainstream British cinema, South Asian representation has been reduced to either romantic or monstrous figures. So far, only two South Asians have bagged small supporting roles in Bond films. British-Indian actor Zaheera played a brief role of an Indian girl in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), and Lahore-born Indian actor Kabir Bedi played the silent servant of the villain in Octopussy (1983). Shah wants to make a difference by playing the usually white British MI6 agent.

As a British South Asian, the opportunity will allow him to make a statement: this is also what being British looks like. At the same time, it will catapult him into the world of overnight stardom, status, and much-needed financial success. His vision is directed towards encouraging people to look at his community with respect and dignity instead of calling them “Paki”, a common slur hurled at South Asians in the United Kingdom.

Alienation ensues as he seeks to assimilate into white culture. He is dismissed by his family for being much shorter than other actors who have played Bond. His ex-girlfriend mocks him for using a white filter on his IMDb profile picture. He is essentially stranded on an island while he dreams of building bridges between cultures.

Spatially, he exists in liminal spaces of dressing rooms, streets, nightclubs, airports, and garages. At times, he has a ghostly yet comical presence like the mimic men of Naipaul’s London. Other times, he is chased by his stoic James Bond alter ego in the style of a satirical espionage thriller.

As the show progresses, he gets more desperate about his goal, and his estrangement becomes more pronounced. During one episode about Eid, Shah experiences physical and emotional distance from his family. Everyone is busy with the usual celebrations while he searches for an empty room to make an apology video for a fan whose arm he fractured by mistake.

In the fifth episode, after wandering aimlessly all night and failing to reconnect with his ex-girlfriend, he enters his parents’ house and does not find anyone. He concocts a plot about local terrorists kidnapping his family, only to later find them at the hospital.

Following a series of absurd events and eventually overcoming his alienation, Shah aces the audition. He is no longer threatened by his alter ego, as he mends his relationship with his family and comes to terms with his childhood trauma.

In the last scene, he disregards the trademark line: “The name is Bond… James Bond.” He looks at the audience in the final shot, pauses for a moment, and says, “The name is…. Shahjehan.” This gaze, as African American feminist scholar bell hooks would say, is not merely a look of resistance or reaction but a creation of an alternative text in the form of Shahjehan, a desi James Bond.

This offers new possibilities and creates a new avenue of representation and belonging for Shah’s community.

For the South Asian community, this invention is a call to create and celebrate characters and visuals that are not imitations of colonial masters. Imitations demand assimilating and ironing out the wrinkled parts of the self. For instance, ever since Partition, Pakistani cinema has felt the need to catch up with the technical superiority of Hollywood and later the artistic mastery of Iranian cinema. Instead, it should be working on representations that are free of other imitations and focus on its own peculiar realities.

By creating Bait, Ahmed joins a distinctive group of contemporary filmmakers such as Jean Pierre Bekolo (Aristotle’s Plot), Jordan Peele (Get Out and Nope), Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You), and Cord Jefferson (American Fiction) who engage with the politics of racial representation. These creators empower people of colour by providing new ways of being on screen, resisting assimilation, and defying colonial desires.

During the fifth Ramazan transmission of his game show on ARY Digital on Monday, Mustafa made an incredibly distasteful comment to fellow actor Humayun Saeed about Odho in response to her advice to Mustafa to act alongside female costars his own age. His disrespectful public comment alarmed many, including actor Urwa Hocane.

The stream of events started on Sunday, when Odho appeared on Tabish Hashmi’s show Hasna Mana Hai aired on Geo TV. During a segment called Mashwara Baraye Farokht (advice for sale), Odho had to give one piece of advice to the celebrity flashed on the screen. When Mustafa’s face appeared on screen, Odho advised, “I think ab woh waqt agaya hai apni umar ki larkiyon ke saath kaam karna shuru kardein [the time has come for you to start acting opposite girls your age].”

In response, Hashmi said that Mustafa was still young. Odho responded, “Yes, yes. He is also quite handsome, but I think like Humayun, Fahad is now starting to cross a certain age category.”

Clearly offended by the comment, Mustafa chose to make fun of her publicly with Saeed during his gameshow.

“What is the problem with Atiqa Apa?” he asked Saeed.

“Matlab Atiqa apa ke saath ya toh aap aur main unke saath hi hero aayen toh hi wo khush hongi. Matlab kya karain? Ye toh hadh ki baat hogayi (That means Atiqa Apa will only be happy if you [Saeed] and I feature as heroes alongside her. Like, what should we do? This is too much),” the host said.

Taking a gross jab at Odho and her appearance, Mustafa continued, “Atiqa Apa, ab aap hi reh gayi hai hamari heroine bus. Ab Inshallah aap hi ke saath ayenge. Aap zara dou chaar aur achi surgeriyan karayen hum ayenge (Atiqa only you’re left as our heroine now. God willing, we’ll act alongside you now. You get two or four more surgeries and we’ll feature alongside you).” His implication was quite clear.

First of all, kudos to Mustafa for choosing a Ramazan game show to shamelessly vilify a veteran actor and a slow cap for Saeed, who couldn’t stop laughing at Mustafa’s comment.

Let’s jog their memory a little. Odho’s comments didn’t come out of thin air.

In Mustafa’s latest hit drama, Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum, he starred opposite 27-year-old Hania Aamir, while he — a 40-year-old father of two — played a man in his 20s. He did a great job but there’s no denying that there was a very large age gap there.

That might have been one of Mustafa’s only large age-gap pairings, but Saeed is a habitual offender.

This is the same Saeed who was romantically paired opposite Sajal Aly — 31 at the time — in a highly-criticised teacher-student love story in Main Manto Nahi Hoon. In Mere Paas Tum Ho, Saeed, then 48, played husband to Ayeza Khan, who was 28 when the drama aired.

There was also Dil Lagi, where he starred opposite Mehwish Hayat, also 28 at the time, while Saeed was 45 — a 17-year age gap.

The list goes on. Conversations around Saeed repeatedly being paired with much younger heroines are hardly new, yet the actor appears far more comfortable laughing at a colleague only four years older than him than acknowledging the industry’s double standards.

The fact is, men in this industry are often paired with much younger actors.

Urwa Hocane stands up for Odho

Hocane, who starred in 2017’s Punjab Nahi Jaungi with Saeed, took to social media to criticise Mustafa’s comments.

“Also calling someone 10 years older than you ‘Aapa’ in a sarcastic tone to age shame them was too low! If you are saying that then might as well mean it and give respect!” she wrote. She also mentioned that Odho used to star in lead roles opposite Saeed, and said Saeed “got dragged into this because of the arrogant behaviour of the host!”

Hocane called on Mustafa to apologise, saying she was saddened to see him disrespect Odho in this manner.

Actor Zhalay Sarhadi also waded in to the conversation by commenting on a social media post that shared Mustafa’s initial statement, asking whether people actually thought he handled it well.

Odho reacts

Soon after the incident blew up on social media, Odho commented on a social media post, calling it a pity that he insulted her in response to her statement, which also included her talking about him being hard working and good looking.

A few hours later, Odho posted a statement on social media where she requested people to let the issue blow over.

“He’s reacted out of emotion and I truly feel sad that we as public figures can’t say anything lightheartedly without being attacked,” she wrote in her caption.

She said her comment might have hurt Mustafa, apologising to the game show host and “anyone else,” and requested to move on and “pray for better times”.

“Friends, let’s not blow this issue up anymore. Fahad is a talented and hard working professional. He’s reacted out of emotion and I truly feel sad that we as public figures can’t say anything light heartedly without being attacked. Forgive and forget.”

Mustafa ‘apologises’

On his Tuesday show, Mustafa issued an apology to Odho, but it left a lot to be desired.

“Wo rishta hi kya jismain ana hi rahay, khoobsurti jo tab hai jab ajaye maafi Atiqa apa aap hamari bari hain, hum apsay bohat pyaar karte hain aur aap Pakistan ki sabse haseen aurat hai ismain koi shaq nahi hai, aapke saamne hum paani hi bharte hain, Allah aapko khush rakhay. I love you, God bless you and I apologise, apna khayal rakhiye ga. (What is a relationship if it has ego in it? It is beautiful when apology comes in. Atiqa apa, you are our elder, we love you a lot and you are Pakistan’s most beautiful woman, there is no doubt in that. May God keep you happy, I love you, God bless you and I apologise, take care of yourself).”

His ‘apology’ which mentioned nothing of what he said and took no accountability for the crass nature of his comments about her appearance, doesn’t do much to solve the problem of why he said what he said.

Why this is a problem

Neither man has much of a leg to stand on when the argument of pairing them with much younger women comes around, so why did they get so offended? Odho never said she wanted to act alongside them — she merely said Mustafa should act with women their age and it’s difficult to understand what’s so offensive about that.

What’s wrong with saying male actors should be acting with female costars who are the same age as them? Mustafa is starring alongside Mahira Khan — who is much closer to his age than Hania Aamir — in his upcoming film, so he could have easily laughed off the comment and said he was acting with costars of his own generation.

Even if we put the age issue aside, we wonder if there was really a need for such a crass response, that too on a platform as large as Jeeto Pakistan, something Hocane also mentioned. Do our TV hosts share no responsibility for being mindful of what they say on so-called “family shows”? Or is this family entertainment — dragging a woman’s looks into the conversation if you don’t like what she said?

His apology then also spoke about her looks, as if that was the problem. Not that he demeaned a fellow actor, not that he resorted to cheap commentary, not that he made it seem as if she was desperate for his attention.

From younger to older generations, a significant portion of Pakistan is hooked to their screens right after iftar. And that is perhaps an equal part of the problem here. This wasn’t a late-night roast, a private industry joke, or even a candid backstage moment. This was prime-time Ramazan television, a month where respect, restraint and responsibility are supposed to matter the most.

Instead, viewers were served casual ageism, appearance-shaming and a room full of laughter at the expense of a senior actor.

Maybe the bigger question isn’t what Odho said in passing on another show, but why a harmless piece of advice bruised egos enough to turn a Ramazan transmission into a public takedown.

Because if this is what passes for entertainment every year, then perhaps the joke isn’t on Odho at all — it’s on the audience expected to clap along.

There are rules. They are unwritten. They are sacred. And if you break them, aunties and uncles will remember. Possibly forever.

Here’s your survival guide.

Arrive exactly seven minutes before iftar

Not 30 minutes early. Not “I was in the area, so I thought I’d drop by” early. Seven. Minutes.

Here’s why: iftar is never actually ready on time. The samosas are still being fried, someone has forgotten to plate the dates, and the Rooh Afza jug is sweating in existential crisis on the counter. The host is in full panic mode, whisper-yelling instructions across the house.

Arrive too early and you become a logistical burden. Arrive too late and you miss the collective experience of the azaan countdown.

Also, what exactly will you talk about before iftar? Everyone is hungry. The only available conversation topic is “I am so thirsty”. Leave the meaningful chats for post-samosa clarity.

Compliment the fruit chaat or don’t eat it at all

We get it. Your nani makes it better. Yours has less chaat masala. Yours has more chaat masala. Yours doesn’t have bananas because “they get weird”.

Fruit chaat is a deeply personal art form. Some households go syrupy-sweet. Others treat it like a spice challenge. Some add cream. Some add vibes.

If you cannot find it in your heart to say, “This is so good, Mashallah,” then simply… do not take a bowl. Smile respectfully and move on to the pakoras. No one needs your TED Talk on optimal fruit ratios.

ALWAYS bring something to add to the table

Empty-handed guests are remembered.

Bring dessert. Bring drinks. Bring dates. Bring literally anything that signals you understand the cost of living.

But never — and we repeat, never — bring pakoras.

The host has already fried enough pakoras to feed a small constituency. By bringing outside pakoras, you are essentially saying, “I did not trust your besan-to-pyaz ratio.” And that is an accusation no one recovers from.

If you’re not fasting, do not start eating before the azaan

Yes, you’re hungry. We’re all hungry. But if you reach for that samosa 14 seconds early, the entire table will notice.

There will be a pause. A collective intake of breath. Someone’s phuppa will look at you like he personally invented patience.

Hold the line. Show restraint. Spiritual points are on the line.

Pace yourself — this is a marathon, not a race

The first 10 minutes after iftar are deceptive. You think you can conquer the entire table. You cannot.

There is still dinner. There is always dinner.

If you go too hard on the chaat, pakoras, dahi baray and spring rolls, you will enter the dinner phase weak, bloated and questioning your life choices. Respect the long game.

Compliment the host’s ‘simple spread’

Every iftar host will insist they’ve just prepared “something small”.

It is never small. It is a catered-level production featuring 14 items and a signature drink that required emotional labour.

Your job is to say, “You didn’t have to do all this!” even though they absolutely did. This ritual must be performed.

Don’t audit the menu

“This is a lot of fried food.”

“No healthy options?”

“Are these store-bought?”

Please.

Ramazan is not the time to become a nutrition influencer. The oil has already been heated. Let people live.

Help clear up — but don’t overdo it

Offer to help. Mean it. Carry plates. Refill water.

But do not start reorganising the kitchen. No one wants you opening cabinets, asking, “Where do you keep your serving trays?” Stay in your lane.

Leave at a respectable time

Iftar dawats have an emotional arc. There is the hunger phase, the chaotic eating phase, and the post-dinner tea-and-gossip phase.

Know when the vibe has peaked. When the host starts stacking plates with slightly less enthusiasm, that’s your cue.

Ramazan is generous. Don’t stretch it.

Message the next day

A simple “Had such a lovely time, everything was delicious” goes a long way.

Because at the heart of all these unspoken rules is one very spoken truth: someone fasted all day and still stood in a hot kitchen so you could break bread together.

The least you can do is show up on time, leave on time, and appreciate the effort they put in.

Instead, what if it was entirely generated by artificial intelligence (AI)? Would it make a difference? Would it change how you feel about the song? Would you feel betrayed? Or would you simply shrug and keep listening?

With so much AI-generated music making its way into the world, the chances are you’re already bopping your head to tunes that were created partially — or even entirely — by algorithms. Powerful generative music platforms such as Suno and Udio have rapidly democratised music creation, dramatically lowering the barriers that once defined who could and couldn’t make music.

Knowledge of music theory, access to expensive studios, or years of technical training are no longer prerequisites. Thanks to AI, anyone with a phone, a prompt and a little spare time can create polished tracks and share them with the world.

This raises an uncomfortable but unavoidable question: if music sounds good, does it really matter who makes it — or how it is made? Personally, I think the answer depends entirely on who you’re asking.

Composing, performing, recording

Broadly speaking, music creation has three major components: composing, performing and recording. Let’s start with the last one — the recording process. The truth is, 99 per cent of casual listeners don’t care how music is recorded. I’ll prove it to you. When was the last time you listened to a song and wondered whether it was recorded on analogue or digital hardware, or whether the reverberation was captured naturally or added during post-production? Exactly. Almost nobody does. These details matter to audiophiles, producers and engineers but, to the average listener, they’re irrelevant.

The same applies to performances. Most listeners don’t care whether instruments were recorded live or synthesised, whether parts were played by human hands or sequenced on a grid, or whether vocals were tuned, looped or layered. In fact, a significant portion of modern music already relies heavily on samples, MIDI instruments, and digital manipulation. Because of technological leaps over the last few decades, performance authenticity has quietly stopped being a deal-breaker. For most people, if it sounds real enough, it’s good enough.

Now, let’s talk about the composing process — and this is where things start to matter. Composition isn’t just the starting point of music; it’s also the most human part of the entire process. It’s where lived experience, emotion, culture and intention are transformed into melody and rhythm. This is the part listeners feel most deeply, even if they can’t always articulate why. And it’s also the part where AI poses the greatest philosophical and cultural challenge.

The meaning of music

As we’ve already established, people rarely care if music is produced artificially. But they do care about who produced it and why. Music has always been a form of human expression — a way to communicate stories, emotions, and ideas that words alone often fail to capture. Through rhythm, harmony and melody, individuals and entire cultures express joy, grief, rebellion, hope, identity and shared experiences.

Legendary producer Rick Rubin put it best when he said, “What I find interesting about art is the point of view of the person making it — and I don’t know if AI has a point of view of its own.”

And that’s the crux of the issue. The greatest music ever made didn’t just sound good — it meant something. It emerged from specific people, living in specific moments, responding to the world around them. AI, by definition, has no lived experience. It doesn’t suffer, celebrate, struggle or dream. It can only analyse patterns and reproduce them convincingly.

That’s why AI-generated music, no matter how impressive, ultimately feels superficial. There are no stories behind its creations. No personal histories. No emotional stakes. No human context. At its very best, AI music is just a highly sophisticated imitation of what real artists have already done — but it can never be more than that.

This leads directly to the question of originality. Sure, AI can cleverly blend styles, genres and sonic textures to produce something that sounds ‘new’. But novelty is not the same as originality.

True originality isn’t about technical perfection or clever recombination — it’s about disruption. Originality is rejecting the polished mainstream and inventing an entire counter-culture like punk rock. Originality is transforming street culture, sampling and spoken word into hip-hop. Originality is killing glam rock excess and channelling the raw disillusionment of a generation into grunge. These movements didn’t come from optimisation or pattern recognition; they came from people responding emotionally, socially and politically to their environments.

AI can imitate our favourite artists, but it can never reshape culture the way they did. It can never preach like Bob Dylan, transcend like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, or hypnotise like Jimi Hendrix. More importantly, because AI models are designed to optimise what already works, much of AI-generated music will eventually begin to sound the same — over-polished, structurally familiar and emotionally safe. What you won’t hear are the rule-breakers, the trend-killers and the uncomfortable voices that push music forward the way it should be.

So does all of this mean AI music is inherently bad? Once again, it depends on who you ask.

Tool versus artistry

For many artists, the rise of AI-generated music is deeply concerning. Flooding the industry with fast, cheap and emotionless content risks devaluing years of craft, experimentation and lived experiences. As algorithms remix existing styles at scale, original voices can get buried under sheer volume.

There are also serious questions around ownership, consent and identity — especially when AI models are trained on the work of real musicians without clear permission or compensation. In that future, music risks becoming disposable background noise rather than a meaningful cultural artefact.

At the same time, it would be dishonest to ignore the positive potential. AI can be an extraordinary tool for creation and democratisation. It lowers barriers for people who lack formal training, financial resources or access to traditional music infrastructure. It allows experimentation without fear, invites play, and enables self-expression in ways that were previously impossible.

For many, AI won’t replace artistry — it will spark it. Used responsibly, it can become an instrument rather than a replacement, a collaborator rather than a competitor.

AI is not the death of music — but it is a mirror. It forces us to ask what we truly value in art. Is it technical perfection, convenience and endless output? Or is it perspective, vulnerability and human truth?

Music has always been more than sound. It is memory. It is a protest. It is a confession. It is a connection. AI can help us make music faster, cheaper and more efficiently — but it can never give music a soul. That responsibility still belongs to us.

The challenge ahead isn’t to reject AI outright, nor to embrace it blindly. It’s to use it thoughtfully — without losing sight of why music mattered long before algorithms learned how to make it. As long as humans continue to create from lived experiences, emotions and intentions, music will remain what it has always been: a deeply human act, played in many keys — but never without a heart.

Originally published in Dawn, ICON, February 8th, 2026

While Postman did not live long enough to witness the birth of Instagram and TikTok, his ideas most certainly did. And in the muddied lake of the new age, the Social Media Age, I believe, lies at least part of the answer to a question I’ve been wrestling with: “why does it feel impossible to engage in meaningful social discourse?”

A deep dive into it, however, is an exercise in futility without first revisiting the transition from the Typographic Age to the Television Age. In the Typographic Age, the primary medium of public discourse was the printed word. Its form — sequential, detached from a speaker’s physical presence — necessitated a rational, contextual, and sustained cognitive mode, where authority was derived from the logical architecture of an idea rather than the charisma of its deliverer.

This is not to say the Typographic Age was a utopia of truth; it yielded everything from extreme propaganda to yellow journalism. Yet, due to the medium’s very nature, even the most ignoble arguments required a line of thought for the reader to follow, inhabiting a space of logic and continuity. The Television Age, contrarily, dictated by rigid 30-minute and one-hour slots, prioritised immediate impact, one-liners, and emotional gratification. With ad breaks integrated into its very form, tremendous financial incentive existed in keeping us glued to the tube.

Entertainment, therefore, trumped rationality and depth across our entire cultural landscape from politics and news to religion and education.

The medium also normalised discontinuity. One minute, you’d be horrified by the grim details of a double homicide; the next, you’d be watching a woman passionately exclaim: “Yeh bik gayi hai gormint.”

TV classified our world as a series of disjointed, entertaining episodes. Now think of the Social Media Age as the TV age but on steroids, ie, a hundredfold worse.

Allow me to assert that meaningful discourse requires time, attention, and a willingness to acknowledge complex ideas and positions that do not necessarily conform to our own. But what if I told you that our attention span, according to Dr Gloria Mark’s two-decade-long study on digital distraction, has plummeted from 150 seconds in 2004 to a mere 47 seconds in recent years?

On any given day, you’re likely spending at least two and a half hours on social media. And why shouldn’t you? It has everything: news, politics, edutainment, memes, conspiracies, cat videos, all curated to your specific tastes by the Zuckerbergs and Musks of the world.

Who has time for books? Dante’s The Divine Comedy has been gathering dust on my bookshelf since November. Why? It’s 800 pages! Why’d I buy it? Let’s move on.

Who even has time for films? Sure, we’ll all spare a few hours for the Barbies, Oppenheimers, and The Legend of Maula Jatts, but a regular film? No, thank you. Every time I’m recommended a film, my reflex is to Google its runtime. Ninety minutes? Awesome. Two hours? Only if the rating is top-notch. Anything above that? Not unless it’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

Honestly, regardless of the runtime, I will almost certainly be pausing every 15 minutes for a five-minute scroll.

Perhaps I’m cooked. Perhaps I’m not the only one. Last week, I saw Terry Gilliam’s retro-futuristic, 1984-inspired film Brazil. Although I thoroughly enjoyed its over-the-top, nightmarish, satirical tone, I believe our world today is closer to Aldous Huxley’s vision of the future in Brave New World.

“Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance,” wrote Postman. With well over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data — photos, videos, pins, tweets, snaps — being created and consumed every single day, we are inundated with short-form, discontinuous, fragmented, and decontextualised information: novel, fascinating, immediately gratifying, yet largely irrelevant, explaining our ever-shrinking attention spans.

Ask any social media creator and they’ll echo the sentiment the shorter, the better. “Ten to 30 seconds is the sweet spot,” I’ve repeatedly heard. Why? Millions of creators are fighting for our attention.

Without the storytelling prowess of Irfan Junejo, there’s no point exceeding the 30-second mark. If you’re slow, goodbye. If you’re dense, goodbye. An infinite scroll of boundless possibilities awaits.

Much like the Mind Flayer’s vines enveloping the Upside Down, today’s dominant medium has every pillar of our culture in a chokehold.

“Me waking up every day and changing my political stance based on the political leader edit my feed shows me,” was a comment liked by over 4,000 people under a 12-second video where Xi Jinping ‘mogs’ Donald Trump.

Politicians, of course, have realised this, which explains why they’re pumping millions into their online presence, prioritising aesthetics and ‘gotcha’ moments over substance. They know that understanding a manifesto is long, laborious work we no longer care for.

Surprisingly, religion, too, has been repackaged. Once, it required sustained focus for the parsing of dense, centuries-old scriptures and the slow, often painful work of spiritual struggle. Today, it is an aesthetic, optimised with cinematic colour grades and uplifting scores to solve popular spiritual crises in 30-second reels. It is no longer about the Divine; it is about us, and the ‘relatable’ snippet that makes us feel righteous for a heartbeat before the next scroll.

In schools, teachers are fighting a losing battle with the For You page. Without killer copywriting, trending music, and high-end production value, do they even stand a chance? Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of the greatest films of all time, with its sprawling, meditative, and largely wordless sequences, would be labelled ‘unwatchable’ in a world that requires a hook within the first three seconds. Our obsession with short and sweet has created a world that no longer has time for the much-needed long-form.

On platforms designed for instant gratification, people want exactly that: heavy-handed, bite-sized emotional payoffs. And if the entire population demands candy, why wouldn’t the manufacturers produce more?

But you know what can’t be shrink-wrapped into easily consumable, colourful candy? The oligarchy’s unchecked, politically-backed exploitation of our country; the institutional failures behind the tragedy at Gul Plaza; the ongoing genocide in Palestine by US-backed Israel, and the 27th Constitutional Amendment. If you gave the smartest, most eloquent person on Earth just 45 seconds to paint a comprehensive picture of any one of these issues, they would fail. Our world is painfully complex and if our dominant medium refuses to permit the discussion of that complexity, how are we supposed to recognise our own chains, let alone unionise against them?

Time for a breathing break.

Before we continue, let’s indulge in the sweet, mindless delight of a Skibidi Toilet video. Make sure it’s a split-screen with Subway Surfers on the bottom — just to keep the dopamine levels up.

All too often, in the openly bigoted comment sections of posts, especially those attempting to talk about anything remotely important, I see the same refrains: “Sybau,” “It’s not that deep,” or “Just put the fries in the bag”. Comfortable in the warmth of our curated echo chambers, we are physically repulsed by viewpoints that contradict our own. Dismantling a belief system is a Herculean task because beliefs, like puzzle pieces, are highly interconnected — remove one, and the entire structure of the self feels like it’s falling apart. It is risky, effortful work, but ultimately an essential step in becoming what Paulo Freire, in his seminal Pedagogy of the Oppressed, calls “more fully human”.

Our new, dopamine-hungry, algorithmically-rewired brains now expect to be similarly stimulated in our living rooms and baithaks. We strive to provide one another with the same bite-sized emotional highs we’re accustomed to receiving online: cool one-liners, hot takes, and tea. We no longer talk; we entertain. Within this performance, we often find ‘loud Kirks’ confidently purveying snippets of pseudo-intellectualism mined from a 30-second reel as if they are profound truths.

To speak with nuance, to pause, or hold a thought for longer than 60 seconds now feels like a social transgression — for in the logic of the scroll, it is simply ‘weak content’. We have permitted our social lives to become a collection of trivia.Don’t get me wrong, I love trivia, but to quote David Foster Wallace from the film The End of the Tour: “That’s fine, in low doses, but if it’s the basic main staple of your diet, you’re going to die.”

Has it been 47 seconds since our break? I’m running out of steam, so I’ll conclude.

Social discourse is a non-negotiable component of a healthy, well-functioning democracy. Our dominant medium, however, significantly hinders our ability to deeply and meaningfully engage in it. I’m no pessimist. I believe in the wonders of neuroplasticity — the brain’s capacity to rewire itself despite the damage done. It would be unfair not to acknowledge the fruits of our medium: the connectivity, the laughter, and the livelihoods it sustains. I believe, however, that we can no longer afford to use this all-consuming, attention-commodifying medium uncritically.

Our first act of love for humanity can be the simple act of observation. Until your eyes, ears, and hearts verify my words, they, too, will be lost in the endless digital sea. Only then can we perhaps talk in long-form, without being interrupted by the urge to entertain. Only then can we begin the painful journey toward liberation.

Cover video via yousif.aka_313/Instagram

From lawyers roughing up YouTuber Rajab Butt outside a Karachi court to Zohran Mamdani’s impressive mayoral inauguration, here’s everything we debated, raged about, criticised and celebrated online this past week.

The week kicked off (quite literally!) with YouTuber Rajab Butt being assaulted outside a Karachi sessions court. Videos that swiftly went viral showed Butt being dragged, kicked, slapped, and left with torn clothes. His assailants were groups of lawyers. Social media erupted in condemnation, calling out the legal fraternity for abandoning the very code they are meant to uphold. Irony, many said, died a thousand deaths after a mockery of justice was carried out by those who were supposed to safeguard it.

Other news that took over social media was when Hamas confirmed the death of its military wing spokesperson Abu Obeida in an Israeli attack. Tributes and condemnations came pouring in as many hailed Obedia for his years of resistance. The group, for the first time, also revealed the masked individual’s identity, saying his real name was Hudhayfah Samir Abdullah al-Kahlout. Social media also grieved the assassination of al-Kahlout’s entire family, including his three young children.

Moving to the lighter side of things: Stranger Things finally concluded. And boy, what a lukewarm finale it was. Fans called out the makers for a very underwhelming series finale and you know what? I concur. Let’s call it what it really was: two hours of almost nothing.

I’ll be honest, for the first few hours after the world rang in 2026, things were finally looking up. It began with Zohran Mamdani’s much-anticipated New York mayoral inauguration that broke the internet for all the right reasons. Bhangra took over the streets as New York welcomed its first-ever Muslim and immigrant mayor in proper desi fashion, and as X hit gold with all its meme-worthy content. There were many, as one would expect, outstanding moments from the inauguration that made it to social media. However, my favourite has to be the Bernie Sanders Uno reverse meme and Mamdani’s heartfelt appreciation for his wife, Rama.

While we’re on the subject of appreciation, the internet also thanked Hollywood A-lister Angelina Jolie for visiting Egypt’s Rafah border crossing with Gaza. The Maleficent star also visited a local hospital in Arish, where Palestinian patients transferred from Gaza are being treated. People celebrated her for using her stardom for all the right reasons.

What is a social media round-up without someone spilling the beans about a celebrity or two — or in this case: four! Fans were shocked after news of the alleged impending nuptials of superstars Sajal Aly and Hamza Sohail, and Hania Aamir and Asim Azhar made rounds on social media. It all started when Galaxy Lollywood’s Momin Ali Munshi confirmed that the rumoured couples were all set to tie the knot ‘very soon’. As congratulations were exchanged and venues were discussed, the rumour mill was abruptly shut down by Something Haute’s Hassan Choudhry and Aamna Haider Isani, who shared that “sources close to the four celebrities have firmly denied the news”. Since then, fans on social media have called for credible reporting and accountability.

Right around the weekend, however, hope for a peaceful 2026 vanished after the US invaded Venezuela. Under the directions of President Donald Trump, the US ‘captured’ cough, cough, abducted Nicolas Maduro, a sitting president, from his country’s capital. Within a matter of hours, he was on a warship to Guantanamo Bay and later on a plane to New York, where he now awaits trial for several charges. The irony was that when asked his resolution for 2026 was, Trump said, “Peace. Peace on Earth.” Since his statement, Trump has ordered attacks on a sovereign country as well as threatened three others (Cuba, Colombia and Mexico) and netizens can’t help but marvel at how quickly words of diplomacy were translated into airstrikes and ultimatums.

That’s it for this week! I’ll be back next week with more updates!

For the longest time, in entertainment industries around the world, members of the media were looked at to deliver authentic reviews, to authoritatively certify ‘hits’ and ‘misses’, and to applaud excellence and critique mediocrity.

Then the balance of power shifted — or seemed to do so — about a decade ago, with the rise of social media.

The rise of social media

Consequently, journalists’ interviews with celebrities were no longer the only way fans could get to know more about their favourite actors. They could connect with stars directly via their social media accounts.

Thus, stars no longer needed a newspaper or any other form of media to announce their upcoming projects. They could do so themselves via their personal social media pages. Journalists — be they print journalists, bloggers or TV reporters — were no longer essential for the promotion of the stars and their upcoming projects.

Or weren’t they?

Relationships between journalists and celebrities have always been bittersweet, yo-yoing between camaraderie when the reviews are great and animosity when they are bad. There have been times when well-known stars have expressed their mistrust of journalists, and some have also stated they no longer want to provide the mainstream media with content just so they can run their businesses.

Entertainment-based magazines and the YouTube channels of entertainment journalists thrive on celebrity news and interviews. However, many of these also critique celebrities’ work if they do not like it, and the more ‘tabloidy’ ones actively spread gossip and generate negative publicity from time to time.

With social media at their disposal — and certain yes-men and opportunists telling them that their work is wonderful even when it is not — there are stars who have now decided that they no longer want to support those who don’t back them.

A growing antagonism

This antagonism may be directed at journalists overall, but it is particularly focused on the paparazzi, tabloids and gossip mags with unfiltered opinions.

Nearly a month ago, veteran Bollywood actress Jaya Bachchan voiced this prevailing sentiment when she burst out against the paparazzi: “Immense respect for media… my father was a journalist. I have immense respect for such people… magar yeh jo bahar drainpipe-type ganday ganday pant pehen ke… [But these people who go out wearing dirty, dirty, drainpipe-type pants…] they think that just because they have a mobile, they can take your picture and say what they want?… My relationship with the paparazzi is zero. Who are these people?… What is their education?… Are they going to represent us?”

The comments led to an uproar amongst India’s paparazzi, with many leading papers and news outlets deciding to boycott the Bachchan family, including the forthcoming film Ikkis featuring Agastya Nanda — Jaya Bachchan’s grandson.

On a milder note, one recalls actor Ahmed Ali Akbar getting married in early 2025 to digital creator Maham Batool and sharing pictures of his wedding-related events on social media, which were accompanied by the disclaimer that if any other social media user reshared the images, he would take legal action against them.

It was strange that Ahmed was so protective of his wedding pictures, given that he was sharing them publicly on his profile. Perhaps the sentiments stemmed from his mistrust of social media platforms.

For his part, actor Naumaan Ijaz has frequently made caustic observations on skewed ethics in journalism, most recently declaring in an Instagram story: “Social media is from me, I am not from social media.”

The statement implied that his standing as an actor was based on his own talent, not on clout from social media pages, and that, in fact, social media content ran on the strength of actors like him. He didn’t need social media, while social media pages needed him!

Do stars still need the media?

The question is, are the paparazzi — and journalists overall — really that disposable to stars? Even online fluff pieces help create hype for stars and for their forthcoming movies, featuring their pictures on the red carpet and at launch events. Can they be dismissed so easily, just because the stars have millions of followers on their personal Instagram pages?

Director and producer Wajahat Rauf weighs in: “If social media pages, bloggers and journalists were really that useless, then why would a Fawad Khan, who normally isn’t active on Instagram, suddenly begin posting away before the release of his movie Neelofar this year?

“Why would he give interviews to multiple entertainment portals when he is generally reserved? Similarly, across the border, why would a Ranbir Kapoor, who is not on social media or even Shah Rukh Khan, assert the importance of promotional interviews when a movie’s release is near?”

Rauf adds: “Celebrities’ collaborations with social media pages are need-based, planned for when they want to create hype about an upcoming movie or a music album. In the case of TV, the cast and crew of dramas tend to be more relaxed because the content they work on can be viewed by audiences for free. But when celebrities need people to buy tickets for a movie, they need buzz and word-of-mouth that can be generated through social media.”

Director Danish Nawaz, observing how certain stars are very hesitant with the press and reluctant to share news, quips, “We work in the entertainment industry, and the information we have is related to entertainment. It is not like we have national secrets that can’t be revealed to the media. Personally, if I am not breaching a contract by talking openly about a project that I am working on, I have no problem giving interviews.

“Celebrities may have millions of followers on their personal pages, but they need respected journalists and social media platforms to start conversations about their work and achievements,” adds Nawaz. “There is no merit in them complimenting their own work on their own pages!”

A matter of trust

Actor and singer Farhan Saeed points out the importance of knowing who to trust when he wants to give an interview.

“I’m not very fond of reviews on social media because there are times when I have felt that there is favouritism at play,” he says. “A big star will be criticised gently, a newcomer will be bashed relentlessly. And there will be those who will take bribes for reviews. But this is not true of all journalists. If I want to promote my album, I will align with portals I feel will help build awareness and will be honest.”

Similarly, actor Ahsan Khan says that he and many of his peers pick and choose who they can trust with interviews.

“I feel that there is no harm in sitting with a journalist for an interview, talking about your craft,” says Ahsan. “I think that everywhere in the world, there is a general curiosity about stars amongst the public, and they want to know more about their work, personal lives, and thought processes. This is understandable, and I am just mindful that whoever I am meeting for an interview wants to ask sensible questions rather than just dig for gossip.”

He continues: “Different celebrities have different perspectives about interviews. Some select where and when they will be comfortable talking about themselves. Some actors enjoy the attention and will go for interviews everywhere, while others will not.

“Then, you’ll see artists who are doing less work giving more interviews. Some are not affected by negative publicity and will give interviews to portals that are likely to dabble with controversy. Social media is like a bazaar. You see 200 different brands, of different qualities, and you pick and choose the people that you want to interact with.”

The need for promotion

Even the most reticent of stars have been known to change their minds when a project of theirs needs to be promoted, and it is undeniable that stars and journalists can be mutually beneficial.

Lately, though, a faction of celebrities is irked by the fact that journalists end up earning substantially from their interactions with stars. Journalists, on the strength of their star-studded networking, may be able to build their clout on Instagram, prompting brands to pay them for collaborations. Celebrity interviews may generate revenue for them on YouTube.

Most stars who make appearances on TV talk shows get paid handsomely. It makes them reluctant to meet journalists and give them time, for free, for an article, an Instagram post or a YouTube interview.

Voicing these sentiments, actress and scriptwriter Javeria Saud announced in late 2024 that she would not participate in free interviews or podcasts. “I prefer to spend that [free] time enjoying myself with my family or writing scripts rather than giving interviews for free,” she wrote in an Instagram post.

“As creators monetise their content, I’ll be focusing on paid opportunities that align with my values. I talk to my fans on my YouTube channel and answer their questions there,” she added.

One wonders, though, whether Saud would be similarly disinclined to give interviews should she have a movie coming up that she wants people to know about and convince to buy tickets? Would she simply utilise her own YouTube channel to engage her fans, or would she go against her word and align with authentic, popular voices on social media?

Actor, host and podcaster Ahmad Ali Butt observes, “Journalists are absolutely essential for generating hype about a celebrity or a project. If a celebrity’s own clout was enough to ensure a project’s success, Jannat Mirza, with her massive social media following, would have ensured that her movie was a hit.”

He adds: “Even TV dramas need that push, though the audience is more inclined to see them because they can do so for free. Still, with so many channels competing with each other, reviews from popular online portals definitely help draw audiences to a drama.

“And mark my words, the actors who say that they don’t need to collaborate with journalists will change their stance the day they need people to line up to buy tickets for their movie.”

Beyond public relations

In a fiercely competitive world rife with egos and personal vendettas, there are celebrities too caught up in their fame to realise the need to be reviewed and interviewed by an unbiased platform.

Sure, some journalists break the code of ethics and indulge in favouritism and bribery in order to assert their power and earn a quick buck. But then there are also the few good men — and women — committed to their craft and willing to celebrate it along with those who understand and appreciate it.

Beyond the simple promotion of projects, old-school journalists also have their issues with the new trend among celebrities to carefully curate their public personas, in particular a growing fashion to determine what a journalist may or may not ask of them.

“It is understandable if a celebrity does not wish to talk about something that is completely in the realm of their private life,” says one journalist who has covered the entertainment industry for decades. “But trying to shut down or censor questions about topics that are already viral on the media or in the public domain and which people want to know about, or awkward questions about your work that may not present everything with rose-tinted glasses, that goes beyond what is acceptable. That is the whole point of credible journalism.

“If a journalist steered away from asking a politician or bureaucrat difficult questions and only helped him or her to promote their point of view, nobody would take that as good journalism,” he adds. “Journalists and the media should of course always be fair, but that does not mean they should only be doing fluff pieces. Their own long-term credibility is at stake.”

In the end, discernment from both celebrities and journalists is necessary — about who is credible and fair and who is simply trying to curate a public image — for the dynamic to work.

A lesson from Bollywood

In famous film lore, Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan was boycotted by several print publications back in the late ’70s because it was believed he had played a role in the Indian government’s censorship of the media.

His name wouldn’t be mentioned when listing the stars in a movie, and his picture would get cropped out from coverage of film-related events. In retaliation, he also decided to ban the press, refusing to give interviews during his heyday as an actor.

The rift was finally sorted when he suffered a near-fatal accident in 1982, during the filming of the movie Coolie. He later remembered the time of his media ban as “disheartening”. Later, he declared the media to be a force “one can never win from” and social media to be a “new power.”

Stars may be colossally successful, but they can’t go about blowing their own trumpet. They need someone to clap for them, cheer for them — and to tell them when they are at fault. That’s where unbiased, constructive journalism comes in.

The chasm between celebrities and the journalist fraternity may have become more pronounced but, even if stars deny it, whether they like it or not, the power of the press remains. And people eventually cotton on to credibility as well.

Originally published in Dawn, ICON, January 4th, 2026.

From stories covering health and food to commentary on mental health or society’s toxic way of processing tragedies, our offerings in 2025 were quite diverse.

18 strong women in Pakistani dramas and the lessons they teach us

By Fizza Abbas | Published March 8

We‘re starting off strong with a list of 18 strong women in Pakistani dramas that we published on International Women’s Day, women who stood their ground, fought against societal pressures, and inspired us with their strength.

Where are the feminists now?

By Dhuha Alvi | Published March 10

A blistering answer to one of the most irritating questions online — wHeRe aRe aLl ThE fEmInIsTs nOw? — this article explores selective outrage, the evolution of the feminist movements and the oft-repeated criticism that surfaces every time an act of violence occurs and people want someone to blame who isn’t an authority figure in a position of power. You know how it goes.

Danish Taimoor, filhaal and the curse of a fragile male ego

By Images Staff | Published March 19

One of our favourite pieces this year was on Danish Taimoor and filhaal — the word that started a firestorm in the country. This piece explored his unfortunate choice of words and the idea of a man threatened by the success of his wife who felt the need to put her down on national TV.

Meet the 7 women shaping the future of Pakistani music

By Asfa Sultan | Published March 22

In March we did a story on seven women shaping the future of Pakistan‘s music industry and spoke to them about mansplaining and the challenges they face in an industry where there aren’t as many women as there should be.

Funny girls — four women changing Pakistan’s male-dominated comedy scene

By Mashael Shah | Published March 28

March was our month of celebrating women so we also did a profile of some of the funniest Pakistani women out there and spoke to them about the comedy scene, the way audiences perceive female comedians and the challenges they face.

The weaponisation of feminism in Operation Sindoor

By Iqra Shagufta Cheema | Published May 14

This one was on our most-read list this year, but we‘re still including it here because it’s important. The weaponisation of feminism in Operation Sindoor was something we discussed a lot this year because we saw how feminist causes — mainly representation — were being coopted by people who couldn’t care less about how many women are in the military or about including women in decision-making processes. As part of India’s Operation Sindoor, two women were made the face of the military aspect of the operation, while the image of a young woman sitting stoically by the body of her husband who was killed in the Pahalgam attack became the symbol of the attack. The operation tried to create an affiliation, one based on emotion, between Hindu women’s lives and the Indian military’s operation, capitalising on women’s emotional attachments and familial investments to use them to promote war, which, as history shows us, hurts both women’s emotional well-being and family stability.

Sanam Marvi’s ‘Sindhu Wahando Rahando’ has become an anthem for Sindhis protesting against the canal project

By Kamran Khamiso Khowaja | Published May 15

In this piece we explored how a song by celebrated artiste Sanam Marvi became an anthem for people protesting against the controversial canal project. Her song, ‘Jug Jug Jeando Rahano, Sindhu Wahando Rahando’ (The Indus River shall survive forever, it shall flow forever), stemmed from a poem of the same name by renowned poet Dr Ishaq Samejo. Its creators might have hoped for its popularity, but its overwhelming reach far exceeded their expectations.

For a sexist society, no victim can ever be perfect

By Rida Hosain | Published May 29

A very important story we did this year was on the verdict in the Noor Mukadam case and how even rare victories for women are tempered by the dark cloud of sexism. This article examines remarks made during the course of the proceedings about “live-in relationships”, the ‘perfect victim’, and the duty members of the judiciary have to be gender sensitive in their comments.

Sana Yousaf’s death isn’t a cautionary tale of social media. It’s another case of a man not taking no for an answer

By Siham Basir | Published June 4

One of the most heartbreaking stories we covered in 2025 was the murder of a 17-year-old girl named Sana Yousaf. The young girl was killed for refusing the advances of a man and her murder was met with cheers by some people — mainly men — who believed she deserved what happened to her because she posted videos on TikTok.

Colourful vapes in fun flavours might be a bigger problem in Pakistan than you think

By Yumna Khan | Published June 16

Another very important story we did in 2025 was on vapes — something we like to call adult pacifiers — and just how bad they are for you and all the young kids that smoke them like they‘re candy. All those fun, fruity flavours are a pretty big problem.

‘Dear ChatGPT, I’m falling apart’: Many South Asians are turning to AI for their therapy needs

By Bazigah Murad | Published June 19

With the rising use of AI tools comes another challenge — people using AI chatbots in place of therapists or friends. This piece explored the rising phenomenon of people turning to AI to unload their problems, sometimes to their own detriment.

The way we’re talking about Humaira Asghar Ali’s death says a lot about us

By Images Staff | Published July 10

Another tragedy to emerge in 2025 was the death of actor and model Humaira Asghar Ali. Her body was discovered in her apartment months after she died and no one sounded the alarm or appeared to have checked up on her. What followed was a wave of public grief, intense speculation, and disturbing opportunism, all tied up with a distinct lack of sensitivity or care.

Pakistani dramas want you to believe mental illness is a punishment for bad behaviour — it’s not

By Sameen Shahab | Published July 11

Mental illness as a punishment for bad behaviour is a tired trope in Pakistani dramas that needs to have been retired already. The narrative choice points to drama writers either having no understanding of mental illness or dangerously conflating it with morality — both of which are a problem. In this piece, we explored the narrative and the many ways it has been portrayed on Pakistani television.

No news is good news, and excessive news is a recipe for desensitised teenagers

By Zunaira Badar Jalali | Published July 26

In a world buzzing with information and graphic visuals, teenagers are getting the short end of the stick — chronically online and dealing with an information overload they can barely handle. In many cases, that has resulted in a fatigue that is desensitising these teens to the world around them and the information they’re consuming.

What you need to know about Pakistan’s first-ever HPV vaccination drive for girls aged 9 to 14

By Yumna Khan | Published September 1

Also very important was a story on the HPV vaccination drive and how the vaccine protects young girls against cervical cancer. In a country where trust in vaccinations is low and, to be honest, government efforts to provide quality healthcare aren’t always what they should be, the campaign was a great initiative.

The spotlight is finally on Gaza, but is renewed celebrity concern coming too late?

By Asfa Sultan | Published October 7

2025 was a year of many celebrities finally awakening to the genocide in Gaza and talking about it — albeit in some of the tamest ways. This piece, published on October 7, explored celebrity response to the war on Gaza and whether it was too late for the stars to finally pull their heads out of the sand.

It’s time to decolonise your palate and start eating like your dadi did

By Abeer Mahar | Published October 16

2025 was also the year we published on a story on going back to our roots and eating the way our ancestors did, long before our colonial overlords convinced us white bread was the only carb worth having. This piece explored the many alternatives to wheat rotis and how going back to our culinary roots is actually good for us.

Who gets to represent Pakistan?

By Images Editorial | Published November 21

When Roma Riaz took to the Miss Universe stage in Thailand to represent Pakistan, people had a lot to say. They commented on her weight and her skin colour, claiming she didn‘t ’represent‘ Pakistan well enough. That spiralled into discourse on just who gets to represent Pakistan and who gets to decide who is ‘Pakistani enough’.

Talha Anjum, the Indian flag and the problem with performative patriotism

By Moiz Majeed Magsi | Published November 25

The year ended with Talha Anjum’s patriotism being questioned for raising an Indian flag handed to him by a fan at a concert in Nepal. Much of the criticism featured patriotism à la India — the kind that comes in roars and shouts, especially from certain TV show hosts. This piece explored the aggressive reaction from some quarters and why Anjum’s act was, ultimately, an invitation: to think, to reflect, and to choose empathy over hostility.

Why are we acting like the world isn’t falling apart?

By Sabrina Haider | Published December 6

The final article on this list is one about hypernormalisation — when we pretend everything’s okay even though the world is on fire. This piece explored the concept of hypernormalisation and how it impacts the way we act, specifically whether we have become inable to imagine a different kind of world.

Happy reading!

This year, India was one of the most talked about topics in Pakistan — from their lack of understanding of Pakistani geography to their destruction of their own bakeries just because they have ‘Karachi’ in their name, an Indian film that ‘explored’ Lyari’s underbelly and even their cricket team trouncing ours. We had memes, celebrities calling out celebrities across the border, everyone calling out bad fashion and moments of self-reflection.

Before you come for us, remember this list is based on how much you read these stories.

1. Dhurandhar becomes highest-grossing Hindi film in India — giving Akshaye Khanna a Shah Rukh-sized record

Published on December 29

Honestly, we‘re shocked by this one too. Dhurandhar, the Ranveer Singh and Akshaye Khanna propaganda film that ‘exposes’ Lyari’s underbelly, complete with women wearing mini dresses and multiple out of place adaabs, has taken the top spot on our most-read list this year. In just 24 days, the spy thriller raced to INR 6.9 billion at the Indian box office, becoming the highest-grossing Hindi film domestically. Not only does the film have Singh crying while eating beef at a langar (who serves beef at a langar?!) it also features Khanna playing the infamous Rehman Dakait and Sanjay Dutt as the late cop Chaudhry Aslam.

You can read the full story here.

2. From pookie to aura: What the internet is saying about Air Vice Marshal Aurangzeb Ahmed

Published May 12

Never in a million years did we think we would ever be doing a story like this. When tensions rose in the country, the youth apparently turned on their televisions and latched on to Air Vice Marshal Aurangzeb Ahmed. While the military spokespersons were busy holding press conferences, people were fawning over AVM Ahmed’s charm. Gen Z lost their collective minds — in their own vocabulary, of course. That led to many from the older generation being introduced to some new and rather confusing words, such as ‘pookie’. Naturally, we had to give them a crash-course in stan lingo.

You can read the story here.

3. Pakistanis unleash memes as it turns out the only thing ‘under attack’ is Indian media’s credibility

Published on May 9

Colour us surprised — but not really — that one of our top stories of the year is on memes about the tensions with India. Things were tense, people were initially shaken, but when India attacked the ‘Lahore port’ all gloves were off and Pakistanis unleashed a series of memes so potent that everyone kind of forgot about the impending war and decided to start roasting Indians online instead. The memes were hilarious and even had some Indians chuckling.

You can read the story here.

4. Actor and model Humaira Asghar Ali found dead in Karachi’s DHA

Published on July 8

A story that shook the country was that of the tragic death of actor and model Humaira Asghar Ali in July. Her body was found in her Karachi apartment months after she had passed away, prompting shock and horror, particularly amongst members of the entertainment fraternity who took it upon themselves to offer shoulders of support to anyone in their circles who had no one else to speak to. Ali’s story also started an important conversation about community, support and loneliness, even in a generally close-knit society such as ours.

You can read the story here.

5. After India’s Karachi Bakery vandalised, Pakistanis are showing love for Hyderabad’s Bombay Bakery

Published on May 14

A tale of two bakeries — Indians vandalised Karachi Bakery in Hyderabad as tensions from the Pahalgam attack and subsequent clash with Pakistan rose. In return, Pakistanis celebrated their love for Bombay Bakery, a longtime favourite of those with a sweet tooth. Many shared their fond memories of the very famous Bombay Bakery Coffee Cake and said that a name is, after all, just a name.

You can read the story here.

6. ‘Emotional damage’ — Pakistanis devastated after cricket team crushed by India

Published on February 23

Pakistan‘s Champion’s Trophy loss to India is not something we want to relive, but here we are with it in our most-read stories list. There was momentary hope that inevitably turned into rage as fans of the Pakistani cricket team watched the game slip through our fingers. Hearts were broken and vows were made to never watch cricket again — but you know how that promise always goes.

You can read the story here.

7. The weaponisation of feminism in Operation Sindoor

Published on May 14

One very important story this year was on the weaponisation of feminism and women in India‘s ‘Operation Sindoor’. From its name and the imagery of two women leading the charge, to the image that went viral of a young woman sitting stoically by the body of her husband who was killed in the Pahalgam attack, India positioned its offensive against Pakistan as a triumph for its women. But when the young woman, Himanshi Narwal, made an appeal for peace, she faced slut-shaming, hatred and rape threats. The operation and its name drew an equivalence between the honour of the nation-state and its women nationals, assigning a woman’s marriage a higher value than a woman’s full life. It conflated a gendered religious marker with militaristic aspirations and in doing so, it attempted to expand the meaning of what the sindoor means in Indian imagination.

You can read the story here.

8. Pakistani celebrities slam Bollywood’s callous celebration of civilian casualties

Published on May 8

A wave of fury spread across Pakistan after India attacked six sites in the country during May’s tensions. According to the ISPR, the unprovoked attack claimed 31 lives and left 57 injured, including women and children. What shocked people — though should it really have? — was that Bollywood stars celebrated the attacks, praising their armed forces for “fighting terrorism”. Pakistan’s stars couldn‘t take this lying down and called them out for their callous disregard of human life. From Hasan Raheem to Talha Anjum, the stars took issue with India’s celebration of the loss of human life, especially so soon after many Pakistanis expressed their horror at the loss of life in Pahalgam.

You can read the story here.

9. Met Gala 2025: The good, the bad, and the should’ve stayed home

Published on May 6

This was a surprising addition to the list but we guess people cared about the Met Gala this year. The theme was “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” but many stars seemed to have missed the memo, deciding to dress as boring as they could or in blazers — we’re looking at you Hailey Bieber. One of the strangest moments of the nights was BLACKPINK’s Lisa with Rosa Parks’ face on her underwear. Talk about a faux pas.

You can read it here.

10. ‘Pakistan Zindabad, always’: Celebrities condemn ‘cowardly’ India after attack on Pakistan

Published on May 7

Pakistani celebrities rallied together to condemn India‘s strikes on six locations in the country back in May. The stars called out India’s “cowardly” attacks in the middle of the night. “My Pakistan, I love you. May we do the right thing. May we never stoop to that level even after this heinous provocation. May peace prevail,” wrote Mahira Khan, echoing the words of many of her colleagues who called for restraint and peace.

You can read the story here.

If you want to know more about what people read on our website, you can also check out what our most read stories were in 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021.

In that spirit, we went around the office and asked everyone what they learnt this year, so here’s what 2025 taught team Dawn.com

Rida Lodhi — Social Media Editor

What I learnt this year was how to report news credibly and how to stay away from misinformation and disinformation. How to not be first to break the news but be the ones with credible sources and the ones who have done their homework before breaking anything. Another thing I learnt was that I suck at budgets…

Siham Basir — Images Editor

This year, I learnt that overconsumption is killing us. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I learned more about overconsumption and its impact on both the planet and our homes. From buying food to clothes or anything else, we’re killing the planet with our desire to purchase everything new. I also learnt that despite my usual shopaholic tendencies, I am fully capable of being mindful in my consumption, so hopefully that will be carried forward into the new year.

Sarah B. Haider — News Editor

At the end of last year, I lost hearing in one ear due to a condition known as sudden sensorineural hearing loss. The first couple of months were difficult and disheartening, but over time, I learnt how to adapt to my partial disability.

The experience also reshaped the way I view my body and my health. Now, I am more aware of how easily we take a functioning body for granted. I no longer see my condition as something tragic, but as a new challenge that I have learnt to live with.

Zain Siddiqui — Editor, Dawn.com

Life’s hard. It usually doesn’t go the way you want it to, which is why it’s important to be passionate about something you do and go all-in. If you don’t have a passion, find one. It’s important to have something that keeps you tethered while life rages around you.

Mariam Javid — Interactive Producer

Life is not a race. The right opportunity will come at the right time. Everyone has their own unique timeline.

Syed Talal Ahsan — Senior Sub-editor

The value of clear and decisive leadership.

Mikail Ahmed Sheikh — Senior Sub-editor

If I had to pick something that I learnt this past year, it’s the importance of having self-confidence. Just having that tiny little bit of faith in yourself and your abilities not only makes you better at what you’re doing but also shows you how capable you can truly be.

I had several instances where I had low confidence in myself, especially during the war. We were making up our own rules, but having that tiny little bit of faith just showed me that, yeah, I can do it and I can help us make our coverage amazing.

Asfa Sultan — Senior Sub-editor

2025 was a year full of lessons.

1. Don’t go to a Coldplay concert and get caught on the kiss cam if you’re cheating on your spouse. Actually — let’s simplify — don’t cheat on your spouse. Ever. Not even for ‘Fix You’.
2. Don’t try to save face by suddenly discovering your moral compass after months of silence, especially when it comes to a genocide that’s been unfolding in real time. Condemn violence from the start, not when it becomes convenient or trendy.

Growth is real, embarrassment is forever.

Yumna Khan — KAS Fellow

I learnt a bit too much about the Constitution in 2025.

Zil E Huma — KAS Fellow

I learnt that celebrities actually wear wigs to red carpets.

Fatima Sheikh — Sub-editor

A major lesson I learnt this year is that I can’t control what others think, say, or do — and I shouldn’t try to. The urge to control others leads to stress, overthinking, and disappointment. The only person I can truly control is myself — and accepting this simple truth relieves me of up to 90 per cent of the stress I carry daily.

Ali Akber — Sub-editor

The year 2025 has been a year of some very powerful reality checks with regards to journalism. What it looks like from the outside is very different to how complex it is on the inside. It is not just writing, but crafting, and it’s not just reporting, but mastering. You can be an idealist like me, but journalism calls for something more functional, real and sound.

Shifa — Sub-editor

My biggest takeaway from this year was realising that I don’t need to have everything figured out. There is always going to be a modicum of uncertainty in life and I’d like to make my peace with that.

Nazish Talati — Sub-editor

I think the thing I learnt this year that I’m going to use the most is that I got over my fear of the blank page. I learnt to just start writing instead of agonising over a blank document for ages, and I think that’s going to help me a lot in and out of the newsroom, in pretty much everything I do.

Hamza Azeem — Sub-editor

This year I learnt that you miss every shot you don’t take. In life, I’ve always feared, “What if something doesn’t go my way?” I’m going to do a little less of that next year.

The victim’s mother arrived in tears and went straight to a body, shrieking, “He is my ‘laal’”. Everyone was shocked, even the journalists present, because the body wasn’t identifiable at all. Except for the mother who had given birth to the boy, no other family members recognised him.

Over the decades, much like those bodies, Quetta has become unidentifiable. Violence has massacred the city’s once secular face; it was once a peaceful multicultural city made up of different ethnic groups and religions.

Like the mother of the boy killed in the bomb blast, Ali Baba Taj still saw the unblemished face of Quetta. The Hazara poet and professor, who died on November 9 in a hospital in Karachi, never stopped striving for a Quetta that belonged to all.

This was especially poignant given that he was from the Shia Hazara community, one that has long been on the receiving end of unabashed violence. Since the 1990s, hundreds of Shia Hazaras have lost their lives in sectarian violence in Quetta.

Born in Quetta in 1977, Taj was a Hazara poet known for his poetry in both Urdu and Persian. In 2007, he wrote a book of Urdu poems titled Muthi Mein Kuch Saansain. He completed his Master’s in Persian language and literature from the University of Balochistan in 2003 and chose to enter the world of teaching. A few weeks before his death, he became a full-fledged professor of Persian at the Musa Degree College in Marriabad.

Taj was known in the literary circles of Quetta, having spent his entire life contributing to the worlds of poetry and academia. He also visited India’s Kolkata in 2008 to represent Pakistan at the World Poetry Festival, when relations between the two countries still allowed for people from both sides to take part in literary exchanges.

It is interesting to note that though he was born during the dictatorship of General Ziaul Haq, he had been a progressive since his days as a student, after moving to Lahore, where one of his revolutionary comrades was Muhammad Aamir Rana, a columnist for Dawn. Rana and fellow journalist Shahzada Zulfiqar introduced me to Taj seven years ago — before that we had only known each other by name.

Taj grew up in a literary environment in Quetta, where Baloch, Pashtun, Hazara, Punjabi, and Sindhi literary figures sat together to write and discuss local literature. In the early 2000s, Taj and his friends were close to teachers Saba Dashtiari, Behram Ghouri, and Sharafat Abbas of the University of Balochistan, where he studied.

Ghouri, who taught at the journalism department of the University of Balochistan, once told me, “At the time, a Baloch would write in Balochi, a Pashtun in Pashto, Hazara in Hazaragi, and others in Brahui, Persian, Punjabi, and Sindhi while sitting together in one group. This is what defined Quetta’s literary community. However, with the deteriorating security situation, all that is gone.”

Hazaras are among many groups targeted, bombed and killed in Pakistan. Their imambargahs and markets have come under attack by banned sectarian outfit Lashar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). The community has been ghettoised into two neighbourhoods — Marriababad and Hazara town, situated on the eastern and western ends of Quetta. They are often targeted if they leave their communities.

Despite all these challenges and threats, Taj often visited his friends from the literary community in Sunni-dominated areas, much to the surprise of those friends. He eventually stopped his visits at the behest of his very worried friends who urged him to be cautious.

I once asked him how he stepped out of Marriabad when sectarian violence was at its peak. “I used to wear masks and a muffler over my face to cover my Hazara facial features, and a helmet,” he told me. “I wore the helmet not to protect my head while riding the bike, but to hide my facial features!”

Ever since I joined this newspaper, I have written about Hazara killings, and Hazara lives lost far too soon, much like Mohammed Hanif’s Baloch friends who die too young. Sometimes, I would complain to Taj that there wasn’t a single Hazara I had written about — including obituaries, who had died a natural death. Many of them are buried in the Bahist-e-Zainab cemetery in Marriabad and were killed in acts of sectarian violence.

I told him of my wish that someday, I’d be able to write about a Hazara who died a natural death, not by bullet, bomb, nor road accident. I said I was done writing over and over about deaths due to violence.

Sometimes, it felt as if he and I were only friends in the shaam (evening). We had never taken each other seriously, because most of our conversations were during the shaam time. I remember vividly when I told him this, he smiled. When he smiled wide, and later dissolved into laughter, his eyes closed in mirth.

I would realise much later that I would indeed be writing about a Hazara who died a natural death, that too a good friend, after paying my last respects at his grave.

As I sat down to write Taj’s obituary, his vivid smiling face did not appear. That is gone, like his soul, forever.

To his surprise, the Urdu script arrived within minutes. Curious, he asked how it was done so quickly, only to learn that the actor playing Baldev Singh Chaudhary also needed his dialogue in Urdu because he couldn’t read Hindi.

That actor was none other than Dharamendra — the legendary He-Man of Bollywood, producer of the film, and, much like Sheikh, completely at ease with the Urdu language.

Dharamendra would have turned 90 today (December 8). The legendary actor-producer passed away on November 24 and, despite the ban on showing Indian content on TV, remained in the headlines for hours. Generations who grew up in the 70s and 80s admired and connected with him through his work.

Born 12 years before Partition, Dharamendra spent his childhood in a village in Punjab in undivided India, where he formed close friendships with many Muslims, cherishing the easy coexistence between Hindus and Muslims. In an interview many, many years ago, he recalled that when the atmosphere began to change in 1947, he even begged his favourite teacher, Master Ruknuddin, not to leave India — clinging to his knees in desperation. But the inevitable happened, and the world around him changed forever.

Dharam Singh Deol came to Mumbai in the late 50s, after winning a talent contest, and soon the doors for acting opened for him. He became “Dharamendra” at a time when Indian films were banned in Pakistan and, with very few knowing his charisma on the other side, Pakistani filmmakers never attempted his brand of action.

By the mid-70s, however, Bollywood films had found their way into the drawing rooms of the elite, and Dharamendra became a household name. The same happened in India, where Punjabi and Urdu films from Pakistan were watched, studied and often adapted.

Film producer Rashid Khawaja shared a hilarious incident from the family screening of the Bobby Deol–Aishwarya Rai starrer Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya (1997). Khawaja had spent most of the 1980s in the US and wasn’t very familiar with local cinema trends, but the moment Dharamendra learned he was from Pakistan, the veteran star grew animated. He excitedly began reciting dialogues he had memorised from old Pakistani films.

“I was there as a friend of the producer, and Dharamji was there because it was Bobby’s second film. That’s when I learned that the entire Deol clan were huge fans of films of Munawwar Zarif. They even remade one of his classics — Naukar Wohti Da (1974) — as Naukar Biwi Ka (1983). He used to get teary-eyed at the mention of Pakistan and always remained a well-wisher,” Khawaja told me.

The producer, who later played a key role in introducing Lollywood films to the 1990s generation through NTM and SPTV, recalled the moment as both funny and unexpectedly heartfelt. His son, actor Faizan Khawaja, happened to be a classfellow of Ahana Deol — Dharamendra and Hema Malini’s youngest daughter — at Whistling Woods International in Mumbai. Faizan was even invited to Ahana’s wedding and went to pay his regards.

Another Punjabi film adapted on Dharamji’s insistence was Maula Jatt (1979). It was remade as Jeenay Nahi Doonga (1984), with Dharamendra taking on Sultan Rahi’s role, Shatrughan Sinha becoming Mustafa Qureshi’s Noori Natt, and Raj Babbar playing Mooda, originally portrayed by Kaifi.

When he met Qureshi in London, Dharamendra told him he had actually wanted to play Noori Natt. “I got a call from Dharamendra when I was in London, and he came to pick me up after taking my address. He took me to his place and, after praising our films, showed me his library of Punjabi films. He said he loved watching them. He told me he had picked the role of Noori Natt for himself but the director wanted him to enact Sultan Rahi’s character.”

Syed Noor — a man who has been writing films for nearly 50 years — once planned a project that would bring actor Nadeem and Dharamendra together on screen. He had crafted a story in the 2010s about two friends reuniting for the first time after Partition. He revealed to me that Dharamji agreed to the film with great enthusiasm, but soon after, his health began to decline.

A major back surgery eventually put the dream project on hold, though Noor still cherishes every meeting they shared.

“When we first met,” Noor recalled, “I teasingly said, meri film copy kar li (you copied my film).” He was referring to Sangdil (1982), written by Noor and directed by Hasan Tariq, which was later adapted in India as Jhoota Sach (1984). Dharamendra played the role originally performed by Nadeem. But instead of being defensive, Dharamji simply smiled and said, “Yaar, Nadeem ko mera pyar dena. Bohat acha kaam kiya tha uss ne (Give Nadeem my love. He did a great job).”

That was the man he was — disarming, warm and full of grace. He often said, “If India is my mother, then Pakistan is my mausi,” the loving aunt. A simple line, yet it captured the generosity of his heart more than any film ever could.

Noor’s other film, Bobby (1984), was also adapted in India as Dadagiri (1987), with Dharamendra playing the role originally done by Muhammad Ali. The film featured Sabeeta and Javed Sheikh, both of whom shared a close bond with the actor.

Sheikh told me that Dharamendra always had a very soft corner for Pakistan. “I was involved in the shooting of Apne and travelled to Bangkok, Canada and Delhi, along with Mumbai [for it]. He was very loving, and whenever artistes came over from Pakistan, he received them with affection.”

In the end, Dharamendra represented something far bigger than stardom. Despite being the father of Sunny Deol — often portrayed as the on-screen face of hyper-patriotism — Dharamendra’s heart beat to a softer, more human rhythm. Whenever Pakistani artists crossed his path, whether it was Shamim Ara’s team abroad, Babra Sharif, Reema Khan or Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, he welcomed them with warmth, respect and an affection that felt almost familial.

Dharamendra also had a collection of Kamal Ahmed Rizvi’s Alif Noon and was always amused by Nanha’s acting. It was reported in Shama magazine that upon learning of Nanha’s death, he became anxious and cancelled his shoot. Dharamji was reportedly visibly upset, as if someone very close to him had passed away.

For many of us, he wasn’t just an actor we admired; he was a reminder of a shared past that still flickers beneath the noise of politics. Watching him grow old, and now watching him leave, feels like losing the last bridge that quietly connected our countries.

Dharamendra was the final, comforting ray of hope — the kind that made us believe, even for a moment, that India and Pakistan could one day find their way back to each other.