We have grown up from the age of innocence. We no longer believe in tooth fairies, fairy godmothers, princesses who cut their fingers on spindles and sleep for a hundred years. Some have given up the hope of the handsome prince charming coming to rescue them from the evil witch riding a stallion while others, well, might have just compromised to say the least! Our dream houses are no more the shimmering pink castles and we certainly do not hide under the sheets in awe of the wicked witch who is en route on her crooked broom to curse us. We are more worried about our jobs; many are striving to remain stagnant considering the blessings of recession pouring down like monsoon rain. We indulge ourselves into reading the works of serious authors, bestsellers, biographies and autobiographies. We devour what the Nobel laureates and those cool and smart people with Pulitzers serve us with.

I see you nod. You will agree with me even more if you think we are stepping towards the mature (read dull and boring-- and forgive me) rungs of our life. We do not eat candy anymore instead preferring Splenda. We do not read fairy tales and sleep in Barbie pink/Superman blue pajamas anymore. But there is one thing that connects us with those old days.

They say you are what you read. It is an undeniable truth and a universally acknowledged fact that every literate family in the world gets hold of the same fairy tales for their tiny budding readers. I do not blame them. I mean that is what children are meant to read, because they have read them since centuries and predicting from what is seen in the status quo will read till the ever after. Those fairy tales are an essential bedtime custom in many households. They have been translated into almost every language and minor cultural modifications.

As children our minds are void of opinions and whatever is fed into them fixates. The connection that I was talking about earlier establishes here when I declare that the characters and the stories of fairy tales marked fixed ideas in our minds when we read them as children. The minds of children are dilettante and they are vulnerable; their opinions embryonic. They pick a lot from what they read and hence idealise. How the wicked witch is bad. The good fairy is nice. Evil is a bad bad word. Those who are evil lose in the end. Those who are good and honest always win. This is how children establish common ideas and opinions and hence establish clichés. Knowingly or unknowingly they carry these along all their lives. Sometimes I imagine that maybe like the magical fairy tales these ideas are also spellbound.

To the general reader all these notions and ideas seem perfect to fill up the young mind. I beg to differ here. With all the general realities these fairy tales bring with them age old stereotypes. Let's take the legendary story of Cinderella for example. Life was bliss for Cinderella till her parents were alive but then the evil stepmother took over along with the evil stepsisters. They made her life miserable. Here a mindset is established: the stepmother and stepsisters are evil, selfish, mean creatures which try their utmost to make your life a living hell. To encapsulate; we are oblivious when such mindsets form -- yet they stay with us for a lifetime.

I can prove this by a personal example. When it dawned on my friend that she is going to have a stepmother, her initial reaction was influenced by the tale of Cinderella. Even though she was a teenager at that time it still moved her in the "Cinderella" retrospect. She had to battle with herself to let go off the stereotypical image of the stepmother which she had read in her favourite fairytale. Lucky for her, she managed to accomplish that successfully and today has an exemplary relationship with her stepmother. She gets along with her amiably. Her epic relationship with her stepmother is marked by the fact that she expunged the memoirs of fairy tales that were embedded in her mind as a child. I am sure there are many others like her who had to battle with themselves to let go off this fixation.

Chronicling through literature for children I came across quite a few interesting pieces. One of which was Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by James Finn Garner. Here story of Rapunzel has a completely different ending. It features the twist of the prince having connections in the music record industry; having heard her sing, he wants to make her a star -- and profit heavily from merchandising both her voice and her appearance. He soon convinces the witch that she should agree to the deal, and stay on as her manager. However, Rapunzel, disgusted by the idea of her voice being exploited for capitalist gain, climbs out of the tower and runs off to become a folk musician who performs for free in coffee houses and art galleries (she also cuts off her famously lengthy hair for a charity auction). J.K. Rowling's Tales of Beddle the Bard is an interesting tale which illustrates a world of fiction where the young mind can stimulate, live and grow with the characters. The three little bears is also an interesting story.

Why can't we switch to other better alternatives when it comes to literature for young children? We have to come out of this pigeonhole of concepts and notions and provide a more flexible approach to children. As the era of hand written letters has come closer to the end with an efficient, time and cost worthy alternative (email) how about ending the era of age old stereotypical folk tales and switching to more thought provoking, interesting and funny story books where the tortured damsel is not locked up in a turret waiting for the prince charming to come and rescue her but she lets herself out and with her skill, talent and hard work conquers the world. How about a new "Once upon a time"? It is the 21st century, after all. If Tennyson were to read this today, I am sure he would have said, "Tis not too late to seek a newer world".

A curated show is like a traffic jam. One finds cars of every make and people of all types in their seats. There is no unifying link between vehicles or human beings except that they are all stuck at a specific site. After some time; though, one starts locating similarities and connection within that jumble of cars gathered randomly or accidentally.

One gets a similar feeling as one sees works by different artists exhibited in a gallery. Curated, or just collected, several of these shows are designed to bring out a variety of art practices by various artists within a gallery space. They are thematically linked by either a strong connection or a subtle concept or in some cases a forced idea in order to showcase multiple works in one show. An intelligent curator solves the problem -- of how to 're-present' art pieces that have already been produced for separate reasons in a new context in a creative manner. So, in a well-curated show, works from the past are arranged in such a scheme that these pieces reveal new meaning.

In that respect, "Strange Days: The Uncanny in Contemporary Pakistani Art" curated by Dr. Atteqa Ali raises a number of concerns regarding the curatorial practice and contemporary art. The exhibition (Jan 21, 2010, to Feb 15, 2010) at The Drawing Room Art Gallery, Lahore, includes paintings, miniatures, sculptures, prints and a video installation by seven artists.

However, the show hardly justifies the presumptive title or the pompous statement, as mentioned in the catalogue, about contemporary art in Pakistan. It seems the curator, on the basis of her imaginative eye and professional training, has collected a number of works of almost all genres to make it a fully representative and comprehensive show. This is like other efforts of composing all-inclusive narratives and structures, in which every group and section of society is given equal or fair representation.

For example, Sana Mehmood's miniatures, despite their non-figurative imagery, hardly qualify to be part of The Uncanny in Contemporary Pakistani Art. Similar is the case with many other participants such as Atif Khan and Farheen Haq. Khan has displayed constructions of composite acrylic sheets, with recurring motif of flies, biscuits and other sweet stuff. Despite the interesting juxtaposition of insects and edible items, Khan's surfaces appear more like variations of identical ingredients. Likewise, Haq's video about the ritual of ablution, with a voiceover describing the stages of ceremonial washing, appears to be a stereotypical solution for a displaced person, who deals with her/his cultural and religious identity.

The truth is that the exhibition is a mixed bag of levels, concerns and strategies. It would have been better to split the show into three groups: Predictable, presentable and perfect. The works of Mehmood, Haq and Khan would fall in the first category. Exploring their imagery in different directions, Rehana Mangi and Ayesha Sultana would fall in the second category. Sultana, a Bangladeshi national, has painted an interior that looks like a real subject, yet indicates oddity in its setting and perspective. Mangi in her minimalist manner has made geometric shapes with human hair.

In the third category, which for convenience sake one may call perfect, are works by Masooma Syed and Saba Khan. Syed has been employing unconventional substance for her tiny constructions, works which negotiate between reality of art and art of reality. She uses human hair, nail clippings and organic materials to create either parts of body or other forms. In the present exhibition too, human feet are formulated with layers of hair. This, the hollow form of feet, illustrates how the artist uses a simple matter and subject matter and transforms it into an extraordinary visual experience.

Similarly, the small paintings by Saba Khan affirm the ease, honesty and unpretentiousness of a painter who approaches her subject as if she's seeing it for the first time and is capable of capturing and communicating that feeling through her art. Her acrylics on canvases portray ordinary characters and situations, but her way of rendering these infuses a sense of sublime in them. For example, a boy and a woman carrying cats in their arms or a man selling balloons are everyday visuals, but the painter's ability to blend her imagery, material and technique (and concept) in a seamless scheme turns these canvases into highly intriguing surfaces. The work may appear simplistic, but careful choice of pictorial elements (like balloons of astronauts hanging on the shoulders of a street vendor in Lahore) suggests other ideas as well, for instance the impact of internationalism in our surroundings.

It may be a little unfair to compare art works in a gallery to a traffic jam; yet within the jumbles of motor cars, if one sees a beautiful face, the rest is forgotten. In an art show too, one work may obliterate the rest. In the current show, a small work by Saba Khan, which shows a porcelain plate and fried egg on the top, is of special significance. Plate is painted in smooth colours with dabs of colours in the background; but it is the method of putting egg white and egg yoke in single layer of thick impasto that elevates the small painting into an extraordinary art work. In an effortless manner Khan has overlapped the boundaries between reality and replica, because the painted imagery of fried egg resembles the actual object.

This transmigration from truth (nature) to lie (art) -- taking place perpetually in both directions -- distinguishes this work from the collection of the uncanny in contemporary Pakistani art!

A kind of hierarchy of sorts which prevails in literary forms is also based on the medium -- a poet is respected but a playwright is not placed on the same pedestal. Amanat Lakhnavi has never been placed on the same level as Ghalib and Anis, though all three were almost contemporaries.

Without going into the reasons for this discrimination, the same line of argument was carried when talkies came into being. Somehow it was thought beneath a poet or a writer to write screenplay or compose lyrics for the films and those who did were considered second grade compared to those who kept away from it. In the beginning, with the talkies, the trend of songs was to present mostly geets and other compositions which were traditional or popular with slight alterations, either done by the composers themselves or at best lesser known lyricists familiar with the idiom of the geet. It was rare that a poet was requested or engaged to rearrange the lyrics according to the situation or the popular requirements of the times.

Established poets actually avoided writings for films and if they were forced to or lured into, like Josh Malihabadi or Arzoo Lakhnavi, their effort was subject to much criticism by the followers of serious poetry. Another person who had attained legendry status as a lyrist of the films was Madhok. He was the leading song writer in the first two decades of the talkies and it is said that he also knew music very well. It is also said that many of the compositions attributed to the composer were actually given finishing touches by Madhok. So powerful were his aesthetics that could bring together the word and the note into an artistic union.

It was actually Tanveer Naqvi who raised the level of film lyrics. He did not remain a part-timer poached from the world of literature but got involved fully to be recognised as a lyricist who could maintain a certain standard while keeping the musical requirements of the melody in mind. In India, especially during the 1950s, some of the front rank poets started to write for films. Their logic that film being a mass medium had tremendous outreach and the message through the medium of film could be communicated to sections of population and regions where it was not possible for the poet to reach. The top ranking poets like Sahir Ludhianvi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Shakeel Badayuni, Kaifi Azmi, and Jan Nisar Akhter contributed freely to the ever-growing industry.

Some of the reluctance can be evinced in the film/theatre world in the autobiography "Ghungaroo Toot Gai" of Qateel Shifai. Himself a major poet for films in Pakistan, he was also much sought after by film makers in India.

Qateel Shifai was born in Haripur in a family that was totally not into the arts but he discovered a poet within himself. He was introduced to films by Mehboob Akhter and Aman ullah Khan Niazi who had planned to make a film in Bombay under the banner of Khayalistan Productions with Dilip Kumar and Nargis in the lead when he met them in a mushaira in Gordon College Rawalpindi in 1946. But, soon around partition, Bombay was caught in communal rioting and the film was shifted to Lahore where the office was situated in Moti Mansion on Mcleod Road. The music director of this film "Adhure Khawab" was Shyam Sunder, and the singer was Durrani.

At about the same time Qateel Shifai was invited to a radio mushaira on the recommendation of Hafeez Hoshiarpuri. It so happened that curfew was imposed in Lahore due to rioting and Shifai got a compulsive audience as everybody was confined to their homes and glued to the radio. Since he used to recite his poems, he proved to be an instant hit and it established his credentials as a poet.

When it was formally announced that Lahore would become part of Pakistan, many who were in areas of India came to Lahore. Among them were Sahir Ludhianvi, Ibrahim Jalees and Ibne Insha. Sahir had moved to Bombay and took part in the trade union activity as member of the Communist Party. When the riots broke out, Sahir came back to Ludhiana, concerned about the safety of his mother and grandmother who lived in their ancestral house in Ludhiana. When he reached Ludhiana he found out that they had been shifted to a refugee camp to be taken to Pakistan. Sahir took charge and came to Lahore with them and moved into the room on the top floor of the Communist Party office with them. He stayed in Lahore for about two years looking for better opportunities, worked for Sawera. Meanwhile, a house was also allotted to him on Mcleod Road but he was hard pressed for money and decided to move back to Bombay.

Sahir's name was Abdul Haye and it is said that his father, a big landlord, was fond of marrying and then abandoning his wives. He was in the process of abandoning his wife when a son was born to her. The father's political opponent Abdul Haye, whom he hated, was a minister in the Unionist Government. To expend his hatred he named his son Abdul Haye. There was no love lost between the father and son and Abdul Haye became the famous Sahir Ludhianvi in the years to come.

In Pakistan, the leading poets in the films were Tanveer Naqvi and Saifuddin Saif and Shifai wanted to emulate them. The year 1956 proved to be very good and decisive for Qateel Shifai. Saifuddin Saif had written for "Gumnaam" the famous song payal main geet hain cham cham key and for the film "Qatil" Qateel Shifai wrote ulfat ki nai manzil ko chala and both were composed by Master Inayat Hussain and proved to be superhit numbers. This made him the front rank lyricist of the Pakistan films. Initially this song was rejected by the director Mustafa Kamal Pasha and his father Hakeem Ahmed Shuja from whom he had sought a second opinion. Saifuddin Saif was asked to write the song instead. Saifuddin Saif wrote a song and it was also approved by the director but on second thought Saifuddin Saif assessing Qateel's song as better withdrew his lyrics. This is how the famous number came about.

After some time he wrote another song pareshaan raat saari hai sitaro tum to so jao, the music was composed by Safdar Hussain and it was again sung by Iqbal Bano. This again proved to be very popular and she became a leading singer of films.

The book is full of vignettes and very interesting anecdotes but the underlying tone is of a film lyricist wanting legitimacy as a poet.

Dear All,

I am a recent and rather avid convert to the iPhone. I admit I was always quite condescending about the iPhone before I actually acquired one. Actually, I had never even handled an iPhone before I actually acquired one... But what a discovery has been! The adjective I now use to describe this phone is... "lovely". Yes it sounds ridiculous, I realise, but the truth of the matter is that it is a truly lovely design and visually it is an astonishing gadget -- the screen is sharp and clear with a range of fabulous applications (the so called 'apps' that non-iPhone users find so annoying) that let you do a whole range of things -- from ordering your groceries online to sketching or making notes or planning a budget...

I am a middle-aged person, and I have trouble keeping up with technology. But my friends and colleagues (and my children) are very kind about trying to keep me updated about new facilities and tools. One colleague, after a recent conversation about books and reading, introduced me to books on my iPhone. He waxed eloquent about Project Guttenberg in particular -- a wonderful resource for free online books. Then, after downloading the Stanza app, he put quite a few books of my choice into my phone library. I was initially very cynical (reading books on the screen of a phone -- what a horrid idea!) but then I was soon converted.

Last week I finished reading Dickens' 'Hard Times' on my phone screen and am now about to embark either on Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment' or else on some light hearted, laugh-out-loud P.G. Wodehouse. I actually rather enjoyed this book reading, and part of the reason is that the iPhone book simulates a real book and you actually (sort of) turn the book's pages as you read! How clever is that? Plus you can highlight and copy/paste extracts as you go along...

The iPhone has turned out to be much more of an agreeable companion than I ever anticipated. It carries recipes, stores photos and allows me to email and google anything I need to, whenever I need to. The fact that it now carries my library around for me is still astonishing to me. I now have my book inside my phone, so the term 'phone book' has taken on a whole new (21st century) meaning for me!

I understand you will want to accuse me of being shallow and overly impressed by glitzy technology, but I don't much care -- this little gadget is a work of art. It is lovely -- or to paraphrase the iPhone cynics and critics -- it is iLovely.

Best Wishes,

Umber Khairi