As sad as it might sound, the artsyHANDS team itself did not have any post ready for Independence Day. But lo and behold! Farrukh Zafar of FarrukhUNPLUGGED.com came up to save the day!

(photo source: Ilyas Ansari)

Crescent Nation’s Adversity Times

With the timers on the bomb, we’ll synchronize our watches,
Till every terrorist’s drooling plan, in our fist scotches

Five ants are seen stuck under, the famous American dime,
Pakhtun, Punjabi, Sindhi, Gilgiti, Balochi – each ant a paradigm

If all five united, we can turn the dime with time,
Till instead of blasts we get to hear the nation’s blissful chime.

- Farrukh Zafar (@fariZafar)

The message is simple. The more we feel increasing loads on our backs, the stronger as a consequence, our backs become. Embrace the pain and live up to the ask, Pakistanis. There’s a good time coming, InshaAllah.

NOTE: Please spread the love by sharing this post on Facebook/Twitter! Happy Independence!

Short films… well, tend to be short. But they make up for their shortness by being more what one might call: punchy. Featured below is a short film by Saad Altaf and Usman Ahmed (concept by Saad Altaf) which presents, to the viewer, the effect of telecommunication advances in the country. Sure, what you’re about to watch in the film isn’t something you get to see daily, but the premise here is metaphorical. And quite moving!

‘Missed Call’ – a must watch!

If you liked it, it would be awesome if you could leave a comment and share the post! Thanks!

Apple just announced the latest iteration of their smartphone: the iPhone 4. And it is, as expected, much superior to the iPhone 3G and 3GS. Steve Jobs is on stage talking about it as this is being typed. Now of course, he has already announced the all-new design, the microSIM only format (not available in Pakistan), the new so-called “retina display”, a faster processor, a better battery, a gyroscope for better motion-sensing, a much better camera, inclusion of the iBook Store and iAd advertisement system and blah blah blippity blah blah that you can read about here or here or here.

It’s going to cost well over 900$ in Pakistan. So what is there to rejoice about?

You’ll have to read on ahead for that!

Doesn’t Cut It

In this man’s humble opinion: the iPhone is one of the best smartphones in the market BUT for your average upper-middle-class Pakistani, it just doesn’t cut it for a very simple reason: It is super expensive. Last time I checked, the iPhone 3GS retailed at one of the local mobile stores for 80,000Rs. That’s a whopping 930$. Afforable? Nay.

And in that lies the main problem with the iPhone. It’s a very VERY nice phone, but for 930$ even with such an advanced OS and hundred thousand apps, it’s just not worth it. The more basic features of the iPhone: WiFi for browsing, music and video playback, camera, GPS etc can be easily be gotten on a 450$ Nokia E72. You won’t be getting the epic touchscreen or the mazaydaar iPhone OS 4, but do you really need it? No you don’t. The iPhone is more of a status symbol here in Pakland than anything else.

I could write a book on this topic, but I won’t. Cause you already get it. Moving on.

Good News

For those who are on a comparatively tight budget and still want an iPhone, there is good news to be heard. Apple, in lieu of the iPhone 4 announcement, has discontinued the iPhone 3G.

Now that ain’t such a bad thing. Because what this will do is: the instant iPhone 4 reaches Pakistani markets, the iPhone 3G will go down in price harder than ever. Expect it to cost less than 300$ (equivalent to 25,000Rs.). What that means is that people like yours truly can realistically think of saving up money to get their hands on an iPhone.

That’s that.

iPhone 4 Announced!

As mentioned earlier in the post, iPhone 4 has the following new features:

• New design
• Vastly superior Retina Display (highest resolution on a smartphone),
• Faster processor
• Better battery
• Inclusion of a gyroscope for better motion-sensing
• A much better camera (with LED Flash, back-lit sensor and 5 megapixels)
• Inclusion of the iBook Store for reading books on your iPod Touch or iPhone
• iAd advertisement system (this is interesting for developers only)

If you want more details, check out Apple’s official iPhone 4 website. And if you’re in for some humor, you have to see this!

I had a weird dream yesterday. I started in a forest where a fat merchant was having a yard sale. From the clothes, I knew the dream took place in medieval times. As I was looking through the items for sale I came across a small cat cage. In the cage, there was a dirty grey angel with a missing wing. The angel was about my size, but it was stuffed in the cat cage like in cartoons.

For some reason, I needed the one winged angel, so I used the oldest trick in the book. I said to the merchant, “Look over there”. While he was busy looking over there, I picked up the cage, jumped on my horse and rode away.

Read on ahead. It gets weirder!

Weird Dream Gets Weirder

When it was safe, I stopped and asked the caged angel, “If I release you, do you promise not to take bear?” I had meant to ask the angel not to run away. This was my mind’s attempt at recreating old English. My subconscious is no good at making up medieval English. The angel shuffled in his cage a little. I took this to be a yes. I opened the cage and he floated out in front of me.

The first thing I noticed was that the angel was really dirty. Later, I also noticed that the angel was in his pajamas. I needed the angel to assist me in a war against an unnamed enemy. The angel told me it could duplicate any of the enemies units. It could become a tank and place itself strategically on any part of the battlefield. A tank in medieval times would be very useful.

The next thing I knew, I was on facebook. The angel had added all of my friends and was commenting on their profiles. I had the chance to read a few. They were all really stupid. Most of it was complete gibberish. There were comments like, ‘he needs to partake in retard pills’. Even the angel’s display picture was stupid. He still hadn’t taken a bath and was still in his pajamas. Ultimately, the angel ended up embarrassing himself.

I promised myself I would never again eat the food they serve in trains.

I am a student of HSSC-I (Session 2010) and I was one of the many students who gave the rather unbalanced paper of Chemistry on the 30th of April, 2010. Most, if not all, students were strongly against the paper stating how the paper was “totally L” or “totally P” (for male and female gender respectively) due to the following reasons:

• Too many numericals in Section B (which were very time-consuming)
• Too many questions from Chapter 8: Chemical Equilibrium (5 short questions totaling 20 marks in Sec B, 1 long question totaling 13 in Sec C)
• Questions were said to be "dodgy" (which they honestly were!)

Read on ahead.

To make it an interesting post, I asked friends and classmates from around Pakistan to tell artsyHANDS about their thoughts on the Chemistry exam.

Their Opinion

"It was lengthier than expected. Due to a bundle of numericals, a number of students failed to complete the paper in given time. Time management was quite difficult. Federal Board has made us guinea pigs for trying out a new paper-pattern as it wants to transform itself to O/A Levels like conceptual paper pattern (as they did in Class 9 with our Physics paper) – Mamoon Ahmed

It was unbalanced… and hence, not for an average student!" – Khurram Ali Akbar

"As for my take on Chemistry, it’s the same as every other paper. You study well, it goes good. In my opinion Federal Board did not screw us over, their only mistake was taking too much from those chapters that most people left "for choice". Kids did not study and its easier to blame another rather than admit to your own lack of hard work" – Mehwish Zuberi”

"The Chemistry paper was like being sniper shot (no scope) by a noob who’s camping 500m far from you through a window…" – Umer Hamid

(By far, our favorite ^^)

"We can do nothing about the Chemistry paper. It is the choice of the teacher, he may give more questions from a given chapter. If the paper had come out of syllabus, then surely we would’ve protested. But the paper WAS from the book. So just shut up and pray for good marks. OK? – Nabeel Razzaq

“What’s a dis Chemistry?” – Asif Ali Zardari

While I was giving the Chemistry paper, I felt like I was sitting on a chair of nails… drinking lava… with someone hammering my head… I kept hearing the screams of "YOU ARE SCREWED! YOU ARE SCREWED!!!!" – Usman Riaz

"It sure was one of the most off the hook paper i have ever seen. If they expect us to attempt such papers then they probably should think about extending the academic session for 2 years instead of one, so that we may at least have some freakish idea about what’s written in that Godforsaken book" – Fakhir Munir

“Umer Mukhtar lost his virginity on the 30th of April" – Umer Mukhtar

I think that this paper was made for teachers… not for students. It was also rather awesome to see that the whole paper was from Chapter 8. Now the people who set up this paper need to resign because they simply don’t have the ability to provide quality papers. They think that students have the brain of a super-computer instead of having actual human brains. No tension! – Aneel Azam

“In my personal opinion: nothing was out of course. The questions were just not the way we expected them to be. So giving the paper again is not what I favor. Agar extra marks mil jate hein tau I’d be fine ” – Kumkum*

“The exam should be taken again only if:

1. Questions were out of the course.
2. The paper was leaked out

The Objective was no doubt tough. The paper was lengthy. Questions were tough too, as in: not a single question could be called EASY. Except for the Spontaneous reactions :S” – Paaro* (from Devdas)

"The paper created issues for those who weren’t given the quality of education that the paper demanded. Too lengthy. Chapter 8 say bauhat ziada aaya tha which created time-management hurdles for the students… including yours truly" – Mujtaba Raja

A Teacher’s Opinion

I have only one quote to quote here, and that is of my Chemistry teacher Sir Navaiz:

“Yaar, Paper zara twisted sa tha. Warna asaan tha. Bus uss nay zara jo hai naa woh questions zara different angle say diyay thay. Warna mushkil koi nahee tha!” – Sir Navaiz

My Opinion

Ahhh. So it’s finally time for me to opinionate (i.e. to make an opinion .

Truth be told, I have mixed feelings about the paper. It wasn’t a downright horrible paper. But it had its issues: of balancing mainly. I personally did not have any issues with time. I was done with the paper at 11:30PM (half-an-hour before they take it away).

No matter how twisted the questions might have been, if a student had studied properly, there really wouldn’t have been any issues.

The questions weren’t out-of-syllabus (as Nabeel pointed out) and so we simply cannot ask the Board to retake the paper (tauba! Why would anyone want to open that munhooos book again anyway?).

However, I’m open to grace marks.

*Names changed to protect privacy

If the extended coverage of  ”Shoania” (that’s SHOaib and sANIA) on GEO was any indication, us desi-people love gossip. We here at artsyHANDS – of course – understand and (usually) cater to that…

Of course, it is only today that Shoaib Malik, one of Pakistan’s cricketing greats, married India’s ummm most good-looking tennis player in Hyderabad. Both belong to a Muslim family, hence the muslim marriage ceremony.

Sania doesn’t look too garum here. We like her in her tennis attire. :/ As for how Malik looks, YOU be the judge!

So here they are! Photos from their wedding (via one of our favorite local websites: Pakiology).

You can find more photos here: Pakiology’s Facebook Page.

The Photos!

(click to enlarge)

Congratulations to Shoaib Malik and Sania ‘Bhabhi-e-Millat’ Mirza, Allah aap ki jordhi salaamat rakhay!

[via Pakiology]

Here’s a little ad me and my friends over at LSE made about Urban Sole. You know… those guys that make really nice shoes? Those guys, EXACTLY. Mind the spelling mistake at the end. This video is a funny ad which basically shows how durable an urban sole shoe is.

It’s a project we were given earlier. This video is a funny ad which basically shows how durable an urban sole shoe is. We came up with this idea a day before our presentation but it was real fun how we shot the video and then edited within strict time constraints. This is no Clint Eastwood flick, so take it for what it is and not for what it isn’t.

Waaatch!

The days of censored TV channels (PTV, anyone?) are long gone. Musharraf made an excellent decision by allowing private TV channels to operate in Pakistan. This has net us amazing, eye-opening videos that would have been outright banned had they existed before Musharraf’s era.

We salute you General Sahib!

And today, we won’t be showing you boring videos about the latest Zardari scandal (do they ever end?), because you can watch them on Mr. I-Have-No-Neck‘s talk show every other day anyway…

Instead, below you will find a list of 10 videos related to Pakistani Politics that will leave you laughing and smiling!

Corruption Is Our Right

Dogar’s Pants

Zardari’s Protocol

Imran Khan At His Best

Aunty Jeee, Tussi Great Ho!

Musharraf Sings! (And does a great job at it)

New National Anthem

Mobasher Lucman Pwns Fauzia Wahab

Uhhh… Wasi Zafar Playing His Guitar

Baba Ji Rants (Abusive Language)

Living in Pakistan (an artsyHANDS Production)

All videos are properties of respective channels.