Aziz 1 hour ago Fully agree and endorse the editorial completely.

' Ceaser's wife must be above "all" suspicion.' Reply +1

Sultan Khan 2 hours ago Very balanced and unbiased observations. The truth must come out. No one is above law and a sacred cow. No doubt Iftikhar may not be the beneficiary but its amazing that despite having come to know about the alleged corruption of his son he looked the other way and only came to action when the bubble exploded. Moreover, the Constitution of Pakistan gives the right of free speech to its every citizen then why the corrupt Mr.Riaz has been gagged? No further truths required? Reply +1

Pervez 4 hours ago Government must be very happy that the media keeps getting hooked on to various " ---gates " ,rather than highlighting it's total lack of governance , and poor people suffering from lack of electricity , v.high food prices , corruption, lack of security,and putting up with VVIP culture for the ruling crooks. Reply 0

Spi-der-man 2 hours ago Pro-Judiciary and pro-media campaigners are eager to divert attention of nation by creating a conspiracy-theory that this entire saga is hatched by the Government. Instead they should be asking questions to Dr.Arsalan about his conduct and proofs presented by Mr.Malik against him and his father, to me it seems even the Lawyer movement was partially financed by Mr.Malik and CJ knew all about it.

One-liner: CJ has already lost its creditability and impartiality, therefore he should resign immediately - although its a proven fact that he just want to stick with his post as CJ. Reply 0

Aftab S. Alam 3 hours ago "The credibility of the SC is on the line" ------ right! However, judging from the public discourse, it seems least important. What is made most important is some personalities and not the princples. Sadly, the perception being created and opinions manufactured about importance of some individuals as if without them neither we'd have a judiciary and not even perhaps the country.

The struggle of life in new Indias lower-middle-classes allows the fragile to collapse Rupa Bajwas second novel came quite a few years after her first, The Sari Shop. Eight years later and her second story begins with Rani, a young and single beautician in Amritsar, from a family constantly struggling to better their lives, though disillusioned and tired of the daily grind. Tell Me a Story might remind us about Indias burgeoning socio-economic inequality through the eyes of one family but it is also about love lost and the emotional wreckage caused when dreams collapse in the process of fighting deprivation. This novel is not about hope or even change or progress, personal or otherwise, but focuses on the course of events during one year in which lives change. It is not about a globally successful India that its lesser developed South-Asian neighbours might envy, because that progress is altogether absent in the lives of Rani and her family. We learn right at the beginning that Ranis father, Dheeraj, used to work as an accountant in a store until a new supermarket on the same premises made him redundant although he spent 32 years there, carefully going over figures with a ledger and fountain pen; her brother Maheshs dreams of studying as an electrician ended when Dheeraj lost his job and Mahesh slaved as a daily wager at a local cloth mill, with his discontent wife Neelam balancing the household budget: Mahesh shared his bitter disappointment only

with Satish [his childhood friend] they had grown up playing together Both had looked forward to working together But it had remained Satish Electrical Works and Mahesh had plodded on his bicycle past it to the old, dingy factory everyday, his heart heavy with unfulfilled wire-and-motor-dreams. Bajwa has a way with language. She writes with ease and impeccable fluency, her character descriptions flawless as she eases the reader into the lives of various protagonists for the first hundred pages or so. But thats where she stops. She draws a perfect picture of never-ending poverty, of never having enough money for small luxuries but not giving up, of the life of a young woman who even enjoys her work at a local beauty salon, occasionally dreaming about Indian movie stars while reading old editions of Filmfare on her days off. There is sadness and pathos that Bajwa portrays expertly. You just might want to read about Ranis daily schedule at the beauty salon, with careful details inserted, as if Bajwa observed her for hours, watching her boss Ashas moods, placating angry clients whose arched eyebrows dont match or whose hair isnt styled perfectly; but this narrative structure doesnt prepare the reader for the actual twist in the plot (so far there isnt much of a plot unless its about the family fighting about money shortages; about Dheeraj loosing his savings to a conman and then dying broken-hearted). Ranis earnings dont amount to much for the household but she cares for Dheeraj when her family castigates him and pushes him away, encouraging him to live life without regrets. There is strength in Ranis character which overrules the others but its the women in the novel that survive despite their inner struggles. Then a sudden shift in the storyline quickly takes the reader on a train ride to Delhi, brings in a host of new, often clichd characters into the novel Sadhna, an uninspired novelist, Vina, her domestic servant, and other contemporary urban characters. This happens when Rani finally succumbs to her sister-in-law Neelams taunting behavior, leaving her home and her job for the life of a domestic servant in a palatial house rented by a struggling writer who has broken her leg. Here Bajwas sardonic tone could easily shock these classier, privileged characters. Drawing a scathing picture of Delhis upper middle class through Ranis witty observations, it evident that she resents them for what she believes is their hypocritical stance at Indias economic conditions (in an interview she said she doesnt hang around in Indias contemporary literary circle). Rani, at first bewildered not only by her life in a city away from the familiarity of her home town, is driven to anger when she learns about how socialites spend their money on luxurious parties with tiny, expensive horderves and excessive alcohol so that they

might mingle for the short duration of a few hours. Sadhnas friend Sasha organises a party at her house to network with the literary lot and invites the whos who from the Indian media (Nina Chowdhary, a print journalist comes in wearing raccoon-like eyeliner, dressed in a Fabindia kurta, a white churidaar and a dozen thin silver bangles and for a split second between serving snacks to the guests Rani thought of all the women she had ever helped get dressed and made up and had to admit that these people were somewhat unusual) Could Bajwa have made Rani a bit more savvy perhaps about her situation and more able to contend with realities? Or is she so protected that she is unaware of the obvious class disparities she experiences in Delhi? Rani feels disgust at all the guests who had drifted in casually, relaxed, chatted and left, with no inkling of the dark rooms that souls could get lost in, for as trivial reasons as a bill of Rs 18,500. This is a reference to Ranis past troubles in Amritsar: Rs 18,500 was the exact, the precise amount that had been spent when their home had been flooded. Had Papaji had the amount, he would have escaped untold suffering she felt an intense hatred surge in her heart, a heart which had hardly known hatred before. Ranis inner trauma is recognised by Sadhna, who learns that the young woman has the ability to tell a good story and so she inspires her own writing. It is here where Bajwa might have ended her story with hope even for those who havent experienced Indias new consumerist voice shouting out progress but she seems impervious to Ranis sadness and inflicts more pain, which is something that makes this novels epilogue strangely incomplete.

COVER STORY: The playwright and the man Reviewed by Mohsin Siddiqui | From InpaperMagzine | 3rd June, 2012 0 THERE isnt actually a huge amount of information about William Shakespeare, and for a man who is widely considered to be the greatest writer in the English language, with an oeuvre of almost 40 plays, and over 150 sonnets, this is to say the least mildly surprising. However, its also probably why Jude Morgan, who has fictionalised the lives of the Bront sisters, is able to fill in the blanks with his latest novel, The Secret Life of William Shakespeare. Using fact as the basis of fiction is not an easy undertaking, but Morgan manages to pull together an entirely compelling person(ality) with nothing more than a few threads. This is really well done, historical accuracy be damned, especially for a subject about whom entire libraries of speculation, academia, conspiracy theories and analysis exist.

So, lets see. He was baptised in the 16th century. Grew up in Stratford. Had a father who was a glove-maker. Married a pregnant older woman while barely an adult himself. Had a daughter and then twins (a boy and a girl). Lost his 11-year-old son to the plague. Moved to London eventually to become an actor and subsequently a writer. Didnt have huge amounts of luck with the former, but the latter made him rich and famous. And thats really about it. There are Pakistani politicians who would wake up in cold sweats in the middle of the night at even the thought of being scrutinised with a fraction of the attention paid to Shakespeare. The Bard of Avon has been and remains the subject of serious strife, with arguments about his life that run a gamut so broad, Atlas shoulders would be hard-pressed to hold it all up. There is quite literally almost nothing about which

Shakespearean scholars have not argued: authorship of his works, his personal life, the objects of his affection, his reasons for moving to London, his relationship with his family, and so on. Morgans willingness to charge with such insouciance into his own particular riff on Shakespeare could be seen as demonstrating either great courage or great foolishness. It does, after all, take a remarkable amount of sangfroid to deal with the thought of a small army of doctoral students who will take up their pitchforks. The initial setting of the novel starts with Shakespeare and his father, a man fallen from societys grace, who cannot understand why his son is unwilling to work in the family business as a glove-maker, and is equally perplexed by the young Williams fascination with unsuitable actors. As Shakespeare senior puts it, in a moment of wonderful bafflement that will resonate with any parent or son who has had a conflict of expectations: You are not a villain or a wastrel, no, but you excel at small disappointments. This is a form of reproach that is the prototype for all jokes about Jewish and Catholic guilt across the last several centuries, and is only compounded by the loss and turmoil that Anne, Williams wife, faces as her husband begins to vanish for long periods of time and rises in fame and fortune. Two elements in particular stand out in Morgans writing: his use of dialogue, which could very easily have been a ham-handed caricature of Victorian and Elizabethan voices, and his use of negative space to flesh out Shakespeare. In the case of the former, language is a tricky

balancing act; even talented writers run the risk of turning their characters conversations into tedious droning (see: Hilary Mantels Wolf Hall). Fortunately, Morgan manages to strike the right balance between modernising delivery without making it feel like a poorly fitted construct. By turns understated and humourous, Morgan weaves Ben
Johnson, Marlowe, Camden and many other luminaries of the time into this story, but does so without turning them into clich. But he also manages to leave something for the modern reader, the gentle nudge in the ribs that engages an audience; for example, when asked if he has ever written a play, Shakespeare casually agrees that he does, sometimes turn [his] hand to it. The negative space that Morgan creates comes out of his focus not on Shakespeares presence, but his absences. Away for long stretches of time, we see how Shakespeare in absentia affects the people in his life, and Morgan brings this awareness to us by spending a large amount of time in Annes shoes. This is a clever trope: in Anne Shakespeare, ne Hathaway, we find someone with whom it is easy to empathise. Living a life that is intensely separate from that of her husband, both geographically and emotionally, Anne gives readers a sense that she is as before her marriage, so after detritus in someone elses life. Her sadness manifests itself in her worries and interactions with other members of Shakespeares family: their children, Susanna, Judith and Hamnet; her brother Bartholomew, Shakespeares immediately family, and their social circle in Stratford. This is almost ancillary however, to the suspicions she has of being betrayed by Will, who she is convinced is having an affair with someone in London (the affair, such as it were, turns out to be close friendships with an actor, Jack Tonne, and the mentorship of a handsome young man, Matthew Hollingbury). To his credit, rather than choosing to take on the questions of sexuality and fidelity, Morgan remains within the bounds of Annes personality and viewpoints, managing to delicately handle a subject of much debate. One of the reasons that The Secret Life of William Shakespeare works out well is because Morgan wisely puts together a novel that avoids mention of Shakespeare the Playwright and Bard. Rather, the professional Will Shakespeare is subsumed by the individual: the man, not the machine (so to speak). Instead of spending inordinate amounts of time on working in sly asides about Shakespeares canon as literary in jokes, Morgan instead focuses on Shakespeares relationships with his father and with Anne Hathaway. In so doing, he manages to construct a story that the Bard himself might well admire.