I just hope everything turns out good, I can say no more than that!

Thanks for the concern guys. Im right here in karachi, Pakistan and am doing well.

Wedge, Timmer thanks for keeping in touch. Its nt so bad as it shown in the media. As the foucs is very narrow on it.

Im big fan of Christiane Amanpour of CNN and would love to meet here in Islambad where she is stationed thesedays.

Ive been on CNN'S Q &A and asked Dalai Lama how he felt about the two movies being made about him such as SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET and KUNDUN before either of them were released.

He was quite pleased.

Pakistan is a resourceful nation butnot very poor.

In the meian cities there is vast opulance.

But thit is still a Third world country.

Anyway, Im glad to be here and make friends with you guys. Although I befreinded Lukas Kendall of FSM when he first started his small news letter club in early 1990'S

Take care

I'm taking a course right now on "Third-World Cinema." If you'd like to post or e-mail me your thoughts on how you define a third-world nation, along with any observations you have on Pakistani cinema, I'd be thrilled!

No matter what the situation where you are, KEEP SAFE!

Cool! Can I ask a question...

What is REALLY going on in the country. The way the news media here make it, Pakistan has TONS of radicals wanting to kill the enemies of Islam and then there are people saying that Osama and the Taliban brought this on themselves. I hope you know that the great majority of Americans are not evil and care deeply about innocent people (I can at least speak for myself and the majority of my friends and colleagues). I hope you are doing well...

Iam not sure how I can define Third World country but thats the cliched way to describe Pakistan. Actually, I think Pakistan eversince became Nucleur Powered it moved out of the Third World category thanks to our Political nemesis: India.

Pakistan and India are basicaly cut from the same cloth, traditions, culture language have similarities Its as if we are the Vulcans and They the Romulans or vice versa.

Pakistan was created to support the Muslim majority and based on Islamic ideology which I believe hasnt really come to pass.

Both Pakistan and Inida share equal for Cinema. The culture of Sub-continent is basicaly based on romantic storylines, overboard romantic soaps filled with various musical numbers. There arent that many serious films in Pakistan as musch as they are In India. The commerial film has By meets girl cliched story. Its only recently that Indian cinema has gotten over its cornyness and moved into serious film making. India has come of age is advancing in this medium.

And the most popular form music appreciated asFILM MUSIC , but hese contain only songs or musicaln umbers scored exclusively for the film and played by great playback singers.

Indian-Pakistani film music are melodoius at their core and not as sophisticated as that of the west. Dont be given to the cliched Indian sound in Hollywood films. That is art music.

The most invigorationg and origianl composer to emerge from India is composer A.R. Rahman and this guy is the Jerry Goldsmith of India.

His music is close to the western sensibilities and intelligently composed areound specific musical intruments using both classcial and modern sounds.

His score for the Film BOMBAY just blew me away as did most of his other scores.

By the way, Have you guys seen this film called JINNAH. Its about the creation of my country Pakistan. As some of you may know Pakistan was founded after its broke of from India in 1947. We were under the rule of Bristish Empire and both India and Pakistan were fighting for Independence. The muslim
majority became Pakistan and Hindu majority became India. The man who brought us Independence was Mohammaed Ali Jinnah. A barrister who fought for our rights and is the founding father of my country. This subject was focused the backdrop in Richard Attenborough's Oscar winning GANDHI.
But tragiclly, the Subject of Pakistan and Mr. Jinnah was played down unfairly and biased. Jinnah was portaryed as the antagonist in this film. There were so many inaccuracies in this film.

Anyway to correct this A team of highly creative people went to work on the proper film about Pakistan and auteur Syed Akbar Khan and Mr. Dehlvi made this spectacular film about Jinnah. Its more of a biography of the life and times of Mr. Jinnah. It has a great cast Indira Verma-from Kama Sutra fame,James Fox. and get this..........CHRISTOPHER LEE!! as the man Jinnah himself. In a superb bit of casting Lee stars as the man himself. Lee has an incredible resemblence to the founder of our country.

The film is so movingly told without any
biases and its an intelligent script. Not very epic but a very intimate film.unfortunately This film didnt get much exposure as we hoped. It was basically not very well funded and its production had problems. A lot of people had criticised at the casting of Christopher Lee of his "Dracula" image.

But it was all wrong as we could see later on Lee made the performance of his life!

You must check it out and see it. I cannot not reccomend this enough!(check this url: http://www.jinnahthemovie.com/homepage.html

TAYLOR: Thanks for your concern, we are safe here and everything is back to normal.
I'll try to answere your question and avoid trying to make a mess of it

Majority of Pakistanis are NOT religious fundamentalist as they made out of it by the media. The religious groups eminating from the Northern regions near Afgahn and Kasmir border are the ones who making the fuss about it as they are closly related to each other and support the reiligious minorities there.

Most of the populace is poor and and uneducated and come under the leadershipo of the local Clergy or mullahs. Hence they are totally brainwashed motivated into religious groups to fight the oppresed in the name of Islam.

The rest of Pakstani poulation is made up of educated class, business class, the armed forces, landlords, agriculturists etc.

And they are divided into Upper class, Middle class and lower class.

Presently liftestyle in Pakistan is very modertae, you have many modern people living specially in the cities. We have various foriegn food chains, McDonalds,KFC, PIzza Hut, Dunkin Donuts, etc. pakistan moves on as always.

My life is pretty normal except when religious clases take palce their is some sort of mob groups that call up demonstrations and that usuly disrupt the city life specialy for the working class.

Otherwise, things are normal and cool. Its not like Baghdad or Saudi Arabia where woemn are prohibted in public or cant drive...heck we have women pilots and officers in the armed officers and we had Benazier Bhutto as our First Women Prime Minister!

I work for a Foriegn Dutch bank and and it has been opertaing since Pakistan's creation since 1948.

The recent crisis in USA have affected people's opinions and thats all. We dont hate America as per se but its all propaganda. Most of the uneducataed people probably dont even know why they hate America.
I know of one composer from Media Ventures group who was startled to learn my origin during a chat session and that I knew who Bernard Herrmann was and could spell his name correctly!

Take care everbody and thanks again!
Amer Zahid

[Message edited by azahid on 09-29-2001]

quote:

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Originally posted by azahid:
We have various foriegn food chains, McDonalds,KFC, PIzza Hut, Dunkin Donuts, etc.

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Hey, that's more than we have in Austria! At least I've never seen a KFC here.

quote:

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Originally posted by Wedge:
THANKS, Amer! Fascinating stuff. I will most definitely look into JINNAH. (Perhaps I can even persuade my professor to show it in our film class.)

Thanks Again,
John

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The film is aboslutely riveting It isnt biased and even shows Gandhi and Nehru in their true form. The Acting ofMr Lee is awe inspiring. The whole cast has acted superbly. The film will make a great perspective for students studying the subject.

I only wish Zia Mohiyuddin ahd been cast in it. Zia played "Tafas" in Lawrence of Arabia:The beduin guide in the begining of the film!

cheers
Amer