Feryal gauhar shah biography definition
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The partition of British India was ruthless, it divided villages, towns and families but gave birth to a new country – the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Since its formation, relations between India and Pakistan have been rough, mainly over the claim to Kashmir. In Pakistan, during a recent visit–my first–everyone had a one-sentence introduction for me: Yeh ‘maqbooza Kashmir’ se aaye hain (He has come from ‘occupied Kashmir’).
My entry into Pakistan was via the Wagah border, where, on seeing that I was from Kashmir, two men questioned me for over an hour. They asked me about the recent civilian uprising in Kashmir, how uprisings affected development, how foreign tourists in India didn’t highlight the good things, how Pakistanis crossed Wagah. They also wanted to know who I knew in Pakistan.
After two cups of tea and a glass of water, I was told to go to the immigration counter, where three men, including the immigration officer, questioned me once again. At the actual gate of the
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‘Ways of Being’: Pakistani women writers explore selfhood, politics without giving into stereotypes
“Who is a Pakistani writer?”, asks Sabyn Javeri, academic, essayist, novelist, and editor of Ways of Being: Creative Non-Fiction by Pakistani Women, an anthology of 15 essays that explore a diverse range of issues, ranging from selfhood, personal and political history, to motherhood and grief, being and belonging, control and resistance, all while steering klar of any essentialist paradigms. Referring to herself as a “serial migrant” in an age of mass displacement, where “home” has already turned from the tangible into an ineffable idea, Javeri answers the question with more nyans than fryst vatten usual in most explorations of national and ethnic identity: “who you are is längre a question of ‘where you are from’; rather, who you are fryst vatten more accurately represented bygd ‘what you stand for’. A Pakistani writer, therefore, (…) fryst vatten one who feels a connection to the nation either bygd origin or by s
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Conversations with novelist, filmmaker, feline aficionado, and femme fatale, Feryal Ali Gauhar, as she prepares to launch her second novel
Who doesn’t know Feryal Ali Gauhar? A novel at the top of The New York Times international bestseller list, years of television appearances and a highly publicised marriage to Jamal Shah that became fodder for countless gab sessions, have caricatured and made famous her persona. Had I not known her personally, I too may have fallen for the half-imagined tales littering the drawing rooms of socialites in this land of the pure. But I have had the pleasure of Feryal’s acquaintance for years, and not a moment of our friendship has resembled the images painted by petty gossip and lazy misinformation.
Feryal is a celebrated actor, filmmaker, journalist, activist, development worker and above all, a renowned novelist. Our recent meeting in her Zaman Park, Lahore residence took place after a long interlude. That afternoon, with the wint