Dubai Works

By Aisha Yaqub Not everyone is born with a silver spoon in their mouth. Not everyone is blessed to be part of a family in the middle-class or high-class society. There are many of us who have to struggle in life, to get somewhere; many who have to put in the effort to reach somewhere knocking at their door, in order to move up in life. The film Don’t Stop Believing: Everyman’s Journey is one such movie, which gives out a strong message to the audience. The message is very simple. Hard work and persistence is the key to succeed and make a name for ourselves, many who are waiting for opportunities to come knocking. The film, Don’t Stop Believing: Everyman’s Journey, chronicles an interesting story about a lowly man from Manila, Philippines and his passion of singing; especially singing the band Journey’s songs. Also, the film is about how the band Journey actually found Arnel Pineda and Arnel’s Journey from just singing the covers of Journey’s songs in Manila clubs – as part of...

Well, first of all I would like to say, I hate academic writing. Why I hate academic writing? The style is old and going in to extinction. Whoops? My first paragraph of this article is only one line and it doesn’t even have the ‘thesis statement’ at the end. Yeah. It doesn’t. That is because, this way of starting an essay/article is becoming increasingly rare. You will only find it being used by academic institutions etc. Everyone else has adopted new ways of writing and writing itself, is a very evolved process. It keeps evolving and changing. The way we write and communicate, isn’t a stagnant fixed process. It keeps changing. When you are in school or when you are in University, you are told that an essay has a particular format. It has an introduction, a body and a conclusion. The introduction has the thesis statement at the end and it can’t be more than 4-5 lines. The body should be maximum three paragraphs and we are supposed to restrict our thoughts to just three ‘big’ parag...

One thing that caught the eye at the Gulf Bike Week 2012 Expo was, the dirty odd looking bike being showcased at The Chapter Dubai’s stall. Upon inquiry, the story behind the dirty bike was told, by the owner himself. The bike belongs to Wissam-al-Jayyousi, the founder of ‘Goodwill Journeys’, a charity organization whose target is raising awareness about the suffering and hardships that Palestinians endure daily. As a Palestinian himself, this cause is very dear to his heart. Wissam was present at Gulf Bike Week Expo to promote awareness about ‘Goodwill Journeys’ and his recent trip the ‘Silk Road Journey’ that he undertook using the bike, in order to raise awareness and funds for the PCRF and carry the message of Palestine. He travelled from Dubai to Singapore, passing through countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan, in a specially equipped Harley Davidson. The touring model of Harley Davidson which Wissam used to undertake the journey is fully equipped for life on the road. Electr...

On 13 th October 2012, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy and Daniel Jung’s Oscar winning documentary ‘Saving Face’ had its Middle Eastern premiere, as part of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival. The documentary film chronicles the work of Dr. Jawad, a plastic surgeon of Pakistani origin from the UK, who travels to Islamabad, Pakistan to help acid attack victims. He helps and performs reconstructive surgeries on many of the disfigured victims, but only two such victims were highlighted in detail in the film. Saving Face is dedicated to Rukhsana and Zakia, two women from the Saraiki belt of Punjab, Pakistan.   The film is a roller coaster ride of emotions. It starts off with Zakia a 39 year old woman, who states that she cannot bear to look at her face any more. Her face haunts her and that’s why she has stopped looking in to a mirror. She shows the audience her past photos and how she used to be, before she got disfigured by acid. She tells the audience that she used to love taking photographs o...

The recent state of affairs has caused uproar in the local and the international community. The shooting of a 14 year old girl in the neck and head by the Taliban has caused online activists to post 'tweets' and comments about the incident on social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter. People from Pakistan are the ones who mainly comprise of the online activist community, voicing themselves against this heinous act by the Taliban against Malala Yousafzai. However, what has the actual community of Pakistan done for Malala? It is mostly always the case that when an incident happens, people protest on social networking platforms, instead of in real. But, what good does online protesting do? Will it stop the Taliban? According to the Taliban, they are ready to attack the girl again if she survives the attack. This is a statement given by Pakistan Taliban spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan: "If she survives, we will attack her again to kill her." There have...

Good way to take out frustration, no? This is regarding his horrendous commentary during the Pakistan vs. India match, in the T20 World Cup 2012, Super Eights stage. Dear Ramiz, We lost. We get it. We are gutted that we lost. We all know that Pakistan team succumbed to psychological pressure against India and did not perform well at all out there in the field today. We know that the team players had a mind block and were feeling pressured. We kind of also knew that Pakistan would lose this match. We were prepared for that from the beginning, but one can have hope right? One can pray for a slight chance of victory against India right? But what is your problem? Your comments against your country’s players were very harsh and at times, uncalled for. You were consistently badmouthing the players of the Pakistan T20 cricket squad. You were commenting and making it seem like if it was a player’s fault, when in reality it wasn’t really, at times too. We all know that commentato...

We have always heard of how people say that, your actions shape up your life. Well actions do shape up our lives, but so does reactions. It is always what we do and how we deal with something, that shapes us; not only the ‘what we do’ part. A person has a certain amount of control over the actions part and this is why god has given us a brain to use, but the things we react to? We have absolutely no control over that. We don’t know when something will happen, we don’t know why that something will happen and we don’t know how we will react to that something that happens. The main point is that, something does always happen and puts us in a test. It is a test to see how we will react. That reaction and its outcome is what shapes us. It is the same when you are driving and out on the roads. Part of driving and the part that you can control is, to drive safely. What that means is, you drive within the speed limits, you adhere to the rules etc. The part of driving and bei...