Arts & Culture – The LUMS Post

Digestible Womanhood Only Exists Digitally

7Oct

By adminNo Comments

Arts & Culture, Op-ed

Digestible Womanhood Only Exists Digitally

By: Ayatain Ali Identity presentation for women is a paradox, a liberating prison. It is my sisters being puppeteered, unaware of it because the confines of the box are vast and ever-expanding. Who pulls the threads when reality exists in various spaces? Perhaps more pressing is the question of whether awareness is even necessary when the illusion of choice provides enough bliss. As digital spaces have evolved, a widespread yet individualized need to market yourself as an aesthetic class to prove your worth has emerged. "Aesthetic" has changed from an academic term and a tool used by auteurs and artists to a defining characteristic of our identities. It can refer to both individual taste and a nonspecific proxy for beauty. This shift has brought about the development, co-optin...

Searching for the Global: Globalization and K-pop

7Mar

By adminNo Comments

Arts & Culture, Uncategorized

Searching for the Global: Globalization and K-pop

By:Saleha Sultan In 2023, “Gangam Style” by PSY hit 5 billion views on Youtube. 11 years ago the song was going viral, becoming the first youtube music video to hit 1 billion. While it charted on Billboard and held an impressive record on iTunes,testament to its popularity, few people at that time associated it with the global cultural phenomena that K-pop has become today. K-pop, starting off as only a sub-culture in South Korea, is distinguished by its catchy beats, almost perfectly synchronised choreographies, and more often than not lyrics that effortlessly transition blend Korean and English line to line. K-pop artists, called “idols”, have even gone on to put out songs in English alone in recent years, like the ‘viral hit’ “Cupid” by FIFTYFIFTY, an acknowledgment of their ...

Autopsying Ridley Scott’s Toothless Epic

18Feb

By adminNo Comments

Arts & Culture, Uncategorized

Autopsying Ridley Scott’s Toothless Epic

(Image Credit: Alamy) By: Muhammad Jalal Yousaf Tarar “I’m the first to admit when I make a mistake. I just never do,” says Napoleon (played by Joaquin Phoenix) when Arthur Wellesley informs him that the Congress of Vienna had decided to exile him to the island of St. Helena. These words were also probably spoken by Director Ridley Scott when asked about the film’s historical accuracy. Of course, films can never be history. In all fairness, ‘Napoleon’ had never claimed to substitute for history. Still, suggesting historians don’t know what they’re talking about because they weren’t there is not only strange comment for a director who specializes in historical films to make but also slightly snobbish. Not to mention, it’s an awful take on Baudrillian historiography...

21Dec

By Iman AttiqueNo Comments

Arts & Culture

Evolution of Fashion in LUMS

By: Iman Ahmad Picture this: You’re in high school, or even middle school – and you’ve just learned how to put on eyeliner, or maybe you’ve dyed your hair a different color, or you finally got that new jacket you’ve been eyeing online, and you go to school excited to showcase your fashion choices, but instead you’re stopped at the gate with a disapproving glance because: “This is a school, not a fashion show.” I know we have all been there because trying to express oneself within the bounds of “education” has not necessarily been appreciated. However, if we have learned anything from Elle Woods in the iconic film Legally Blonde - fashion and intelligence toward studies do not have to be mutually exclusive. LUMS serves as the epitome of this argument, as it is hard to observe ev...

“Well, what else are you going to do?”: Dr. Mohammad Moiz on Drag, Activism, and Spirituality in Pakistan.

26Nov

By Zoha Fareed ChistiNo Comments

Arts & Culture, Features, Profiles, Top Story

“Well, what else are you going to do?”: Dr. Mohammad Moiz on Drag, Activism, and Spirituality in Pakistan.

By Zoha Fareed Chishti '23 The GPS tells me I have arrived at the destination-- a house, in a closed-off street in Gulberg, where Dr. Mohammad Moiz (aka Unrellently Yours, Phuddina Chutney, and Shumaila Bhatti) was getting ready for their drag-comedy show happening later that evening. I call Moiz to confirm whether I am at the right destination. “Brown gate, colorful tyres on the wall?” they ask me. It is the right house. I, along with a friend, am escorted into the house, and up the stairs, to a room. Moiz, already in a bright orange lehenga-choli, is getting their make-up done as we enter the room. They apologise for the state they are greeting us in: the room is scattered with makeup products, and there is a certain sense of hustle all around. Even wit...

“There’s Chicken in my Daal!”: The Struggle of Being Vegetarian and Pescatarian On-Campus

19Sep

By adminNo Comments

Arts & Culture

“There’s Chicken in my Daal!”: The Struggle of Being Vegetarian and Pescatarian On-Campus

By Mahrukh Murad Dev Kumar ‘23, a rising junior at SDSB and a practicing Hindu, is a lacto-vegetarian* with a knack for staying cautiously optimistic. He shares, “When I moved to LUMS, I realised the cons of being vegetarian in Pakistan.” He quickly experienced his usual variety of vegetarian food options abundantly available in his hometown, Karachi, being swapped for daal and sabzi at PDC.According to Dev, “My main ethos of being a vegetarian is to be non-violent towards nature and mother earth. [In my religion] there is a concept of not fighting anyone for your own sake. Interestingly, the first misconception that I heard from my friends [about being vegetarian] is that 'it's in your religion' and 'you are bound to eat vegetarian food'. However, this is a myth. There is no restriction o...

Forming Community, In Conversation with Anime and Manga at LUMS

4May

By Aiza Nadeem12 Comments

Arts & Culture

Forming Community, In Conversation with Anime and Manga at LUMS

By Aiza NadeemA viral tweet recently referenced, “you are faced with more peer pressure to watch anime than to do drugs,” and the popularity of anime today is a testament to that. The formation of an Anime and Manga society at LUMS seemed inevitable, yet it is the labor of a group of individuals devoted to the arts. The Executive Council (EC) members of the Anime and Manga at LUMS (AML) who met with The Post described how the advent of the society was based purely on a shared love of anime. “Everyone watches anime, whether they want to admit it or not,” says Shahir Shamim ‘22, Treasurer AML. They did not imagine that what they would initially dismiss as a joke would blossom into the society it has today. At the society, they wish to create a space where both anime-enthusiasts and first-tim...

Creativity in Times of Adversity: Social Media Eateries and the Women That Run Them

25Jan

By adminNo Comments

Arts & Culture

Creativity in Times of Adversity: Social Media Eateries and the Women That Run Them

By: Rida ArifFrom budding freshmen to alumni, many female entrepreneurs have decided to make use of the pandemic to take the plunge into food-related start-ups. This seems to be an anomaly considering the industry of both home-businesses and commercial restaurants are dominated by men; in 2018, Food & Wine magazine reported that only 6 percent of women owned restaurants or ran kitchens. Similarly, a 2015 report by the Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland showed that the majority of home-based business owners are male (66 percent). These gendered statistics show that the following women are defying the norm to establish their eateries and are using social media and even the lockdown to their advantage. Aleeha Shah ‘24, started her baking venture, Aleeha’s Pantry, during quarantin...

10Dec

By adminNo Comments

Arts & Culture

Writer’s Block

By Maryam Narejo To paint a picture, it’s a pleasant Sunday morning and you have an assignment due in a couple of days. You sit down on your desk, open your laptop to write your essay, and before you know it an hour goes by while your fingers hover over the keyboard. You are contemplating what to write while self-doubt slowly creeps into your thoughts. As terrifying as this scenario sounds for a creative writer, it has become all too familiar in an online semester. Writer’s blocks occur when a writer feels truly stuck and cannot continue their work. They have several causes such as stress, pressure, anxiety, burn out etc.One reason a blank page can often seem intimidating is exhaustion. When the mind is tired due to overwork, one can get caught up in the details and end up procrastinating ...

Play, Plague, and Public Hate: On Fawad Khan’s “Light’s Out”

4Oct

By adminNo Comments

Arts & Culture

Play, Plague, and Public Hate: On Fawad Khan’s “Light’s Out”

By: Muhammad Hammad Bilal‘Lights Out’ is a lyric piece written by Manjula Padmanabhan, and directed by Fawad Khan into a comic-ironic exposition of the clash between absurdity and reality. In the play, a married couple tries to physically stage the misgivings, isolation, fetishes, and criminal thoughts lurking in the perceived normalcy of the middle class. It is jolting in its familiarity. ‘Lights Out’ revolves around a couple which, while entertaining guests in their apartment, is witness to a crime taking place outside their household. Wife Laila (played by Kiran Siddiqui), and husband Rahat (played by Ghazi) go berserk as the virtuous and obedient wife screams at her husband to call the authorities to deal with the scenes of brutality playing off-stage. Rahat and Laila’s frenzied exchan...