What word?

Shandana,

I`ve only recently started reading your articles, but yours is by far my favorite column here. Your originality and your ability to deal with issues (from anglophone vs mullah to breastfeeding to being hassled ) with the lightest of touches is remarkable. You say what needs to be said and you manage to do it just right. For once, I`m happy to just read what someone has written without nitpicking, correcting, or rewriting in my head (I edit for the better part of my workday--it becomes automatic :-S). I often find myself nodding in agreement or grinning while I read and that`s a great place to be. Good, good stuff.

Shandana...dont be naive. There is your record in Lahore bashing to be considered. Everything you said in this article could have been said without the unnecesary mention of Lahore (and look at the blurb chowk gave it....yes yes i know you are not chowk). And look at your tone...``there was a moment of shocked silence as we both considered the enormity of what I had just said``. Kioon ? Aisa kya enormous keh diya tum nay ? People move from one city to another all the time. And I am sorry you only almost fell off your chair.

And ana, honey....how was I to know you are a woman ? Huh ? ``ana`` doesnt tell me anything....for all I know it could be one of those wannabe acronyms for some smart alec thing. Oh, and thats not to say I wouldnt have called you honey or baby if I had known you were a woman. Upstartish political correctness is not really my forte.

Again, you have ``heard`` and ``read on chowk`` vitriol from Lahoris. ``Believe me`` you say...No I dont believe you. Give me examples from the print media. If you want I can give you loads of examples from every Karachi publication....Dawn, Herald, Newsline...you name it....

But you never told me why at all Karachiites constantly try to compare their city with Lahore ?? Why ? Instead of with Sialkot and Faisalabad...I have even read a review of a Karachi restaurant, for karachi readers, in Dawn, that started ``Lahore has always been thought of as the food capital of Pakistan, but no more. Now Karachi has.....etc etc``. LOL.

And in the Sunday Times the other day.... ``ten reasons why Karachi is the....something or the other...`` The last reason was.... ``because Lahore doesnt have a sea ...`` or some such ludicrous thing....

What deep insecurity...i ask...what inferiority complex ? And at the same time they want to mimic Lahore`s basant...Lahore`s theatre festival...Lahore`s music conference.... If they only understood that cities are great because of what they are or have become over hundreds of years....not because they will mimic anything and everything that they wished they had.... If Karachi built on whatever forte(s) it has, it would probably become a city one day....a few hundred years hence...with its own culture.... It should develop its own ``chaal`` instead of being the Kawwa who wants to do a Hans ki Chaal. It has to recognize that despite its desire...its not Hong Kong, or Dubai, or New York or Lahore or Rome or Delhi.... Its just Karachi... and it has to discover what that means rather than brooding about what other cities have.

And what Karachi publication would print a Karachi bashing article especially if written by a Lahori.... while Shandana Minhas`s are happily printed by at least one Lahore publication.

Awww...and I dont get any marks ? Geee whizzzzz.... thats what I was living for...some marks from you.

``Mera dil Lahore main dafan kerna...Mere jism uska jo chaho kero``

One of my favorite lines from the ``Daira`` soundtrack (Mothsmoke - Mohsin Hamid) Nice piece...but i love Lahore sooo wont say much bout the difference in Khi n Lhr.

``Mera dil Lahore main dafan kerna...Mere jism uska jo chaho kero``

One of my favorite lines from the ``Daira`` soundtrack (Mothsmoke - Mohsin Hamid) Nice piece...but i love Lahore sooo wont say much bout the difference in Khi n Lhr.

I am neither from Karachi nor Lahore. I only know that Shandana rocks.

Cheers

Burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp !

dekho bhai, lahore ka ``mazaaq naheen rakha``... ``buss, lahore tak na jana... mujhey gali do, magar lahore ko naheen``

``and realities, and they hung between us and the milkshakes.`` - nice adaptation ana.

Ha Ha Ha ha Shandana, that was funny and there were some neat little puns hidden there.

As for wanting to move to Lahore, I would suggest not. Positively don`t take the train from Wagah to Lahore, in any case.

Thank you all for reading and responding.

Wasif, what are you tallking about? I nearly fell of my chair laughing when i read your comments, how exactly does this qualify as lahore bashing or any city bashing of any sort? I guess we see what we want to see...

wasif,

so i wasn`t funny, but i wasn`t patronizing either. . as you are by calling me honey and baby. and i`m very well aware of the arrogance that some karachi waale have towards lahoris, and vice-versa. personally i think such `ethnocentrism` (for lack of a better term right now) obviously creates further divisions between pakistanis than ways to find common ground.

and no, believe me your remarks are not the first thing i`ve ever read or heard in terms of ``lahori responses to karachi vitriol``. i`ve read plenty of that right here on chowk. i`ve also read and heard the vitriol that flows out of the mouths of lahoris and punjabis not just regarding karachiites but various groups. if people in the press, and here on chowk are bashing lahore, i`m certainly not going to let it affect me, because i am a part of lahore, and i know what it was once like, and the spirit, and the ``culture`` that still exists there. and because i know that we are no less supercilious than the dwellers in the city by the sea.

and why don`t we focus on this article. where is the vitriol in this article? your only response was to complain about how unkind the print media is towards lahoris. lahoris are hardly victims!!! again, where is the vitriol in THIS article? i don`t see it. and believe me, i know vitriol when i hear it. when i read it.

oh, and let`s talk about your tone while we`re at it, shall we. you certainly don`t get points for addressing a woman you don`t know as honey and baby. i actually admired what you said about cosmopolitanism, but heck, now i`ve got to wonder about your chauvinism. but wait. .isn`t that precisely what you were complaining about in the first place?!

i`d like to get back to the article now. . .with my ice cream!

My Dad is from Karachi and Mom from Lahore..
I think every city is good -- its like beauty is in the eyes of beholder ; its in human
nature that where a indiviual is born he naturally loves that particular place ...
to me Karachi is : a modern city where people are more liberal as compared to other parts of Pakistan its something like Bombay of Pakistan the difference is Karachi is cleaner then Bombay ... ( I know some people who disagree )
while Lahore , is a cultural city of more ` sexier Pakistanis ` :P clean and the transport is very good ( Thanks to Shabaz Sharif )
to me every city of Pakistan is same ; I love Pakistan every city as a Karachite I love Lahoris Heart ( which is quite big ) its like comparing London ( Karachi ) to Birmingham ( Lahore) something like that or close to it where Birmingham is picking up ..

ana honey.... clearly you can only attempt at being funny...havent said a word about the substance of my comment...

overly defensive ? first ever thing you might have read by way of a lahori responding to karachi vitriolic...and it makes lahoris overly defensive ? tch tch...you just prove my point baby... q.e.d

i will never understand what deep insecurity or inferiority complex accounts for lahorites getting all up in arms about what the karachiites say. each city has its own ``shaan`` (perhaps a little too exaggerated for either karachi or lahore these days) and its identity, and its warts and huge gaping sores.

and if overly defensive lahorites haven`t noticed. . .shandana is quite critical of certain things in karachi in this article.

i do like the cosmopolitanism is an attitude though. . so much better than egotistical buggers saying lahore is a provincial backwater.

now chalo chalo. .ice cream pigal jayegi!

I will never understand what deep insecurity or inferiority complex accounts for Karachiites not being able to leave Lahore alone. You will never find any Karachi bashing or an effort to prove how Lahore is superior in any publication from Lahore while I guarantee that every issue of every publication from Karachi will have something negative to say about Lahore. In fact, Lahori publications will gladly print articles bashing Lahore....(Shandhana Minhas in Friday Times a couple of years ago, basically complaining that Lahore wasnt as ``westernised`` as Karachi aspired to be

---

yes it isnt...so ?). It is unthinkable for a Karachi publication to print that sort of nonsense against Karachi. Every time i visit Karachi and people find out I am from Lahore, they have to say something putting down Lahore. I used to just ignore it thinking maybe one day they will learn to deal with it but they havent. They go on and on and its getting on my nerves now. If Karachi must compare itself with any city it should be Faisalabad or Sialkot (industry...money...provincial). It is futile to compete with Lahore in things in which Karachi just cant...music, fashion, literature, food, art...

Get over it Karachiites....dont be provincial...at least ACT cosmopolitan which you constantly claim you are.... Cosmopolitanism is an attitude, not just having a dozen ethnicities in your city.

Oh and yes Karachi is bigger than Lahore.... I am sick of this statement of fact being trumpeted in my ear all the time... So ? Its perhaps even bigger than San Francisco or Rome or London or whatever.... So then ?

Mehnat karo....Hassad na karo.... aur dil barra rakho...shabash. Apnay sheher pay tawwajo karo.... Lahore say na sarra karo.

i think ice-cream and intellectual masturbation (or should i say copulation) go well together, especially when the flavor is chocolate. . .and i mean no disrespect by this remark, really. .because somehow in reading this i thought of various conversations between my best friend and i over a multi-flavored milkshake. . when we didn`t want to deal with our fears and forebodings. . .and realities, and they hung between us and the milkshakes.

and you`re not really moving to lahore are you? :) (asks the former lahorite)

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