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Austin South Asian | January 2019
Giving Credit To Sabeen Mahmud For My Shirt
By Sumaiya Malik
If anyone thought that Sabeen Mahmud would stop affecting lives in Pakistan after she died in 2015 in Karachi, they were so wrong.
a space in her store. Somehow I felt a common bond with the store through Sabeen.
No amount of convincing would change the mind of the management, said the cashier.
The designer shop also had a big sign on the wall behind the cash
He pointed to the sign on the wall reminding me that no exchange
Sabeen is still changing the attitude of people and shaping decisions even if they are different from norm, not just in big ways but also smaller more endearing ways that actually affect the common man directly. On a recent trip to Karachi something happened that showed me just that. I was exchanging a brand new shirt at a store for something else in this trip to Karachi when I saw a poster of Sabeen Mahmud behind the check out register, which said, “Unsilence Pakistan.” Sabeen’s side pose stamped in black and white caught my eye. I, a fan of her work at T2F, spent a few seconds thinking about Sabeen’s life and felt respect for the shop owner for giving Sabeen Mahmud
The tag was still on so I decided to take it back to the store of purchase for an exchange and possibly to buy more things since I was visiting from the US. This was not just any shop. The designer was well known. Block prints and mostly ethnic attire, the store oozed with culture and selfexpression… Sabeen’s poster being a perfect fit in the expressive surroundings.
register, “No refund and no exchanges.” But I still wanted to exchange the brand new shirt I had received as a gift, for something I liked.
was the established norm. I was not planning to give up. Especially because the shirt I wanted to exchange was of the latest line also hanging in the store.
Shalwars Go Through A Metamorphosis In Pakistani Fashion By Sumaiya Malik
are loose and short.
On a recent trip to Karachi, Pakistan, I saw a big change in women’s traditional shalwars, a garment similar to pants and worn with a Kameez (somewhat longer shirt that varies in length but falls above or below the knees).
The shirts are cut almost like a square.
It is the shirt that usually goes through fashion changes varying in length and width, but this December it is the shalwars that are the highlight of the silhouette.
The silhouette looks carefree and almost liberated.
The big hit is the less skinny shalwar with a fitted paencha (the area where the shalwar narrows into an opening to allow for the foot). One would wonder how the foot is passing through the tight paencha (opening), but there is a hidden zip behind each opening which the ladies are unzipping to easily wear and change the shalwars. With this kind of shalwar, the shirts
The blue and white tie-dyed shirt with red mirror work on its neckline was quite something I had loved when my sister-in-law gifted it to me a day earlier, but when I tried it on, it did not fit me right.
The shirts are short almost six inches above the knee.
Designers like Sonia Batla and Farah Talib Aziz are going for the loose and flowy outfits, but they all come together with the zip-wali Shalwar.
“Consider Sabeen Mahmud,” I blurted out, “And all her work towards unsilencing Pakistan,” I pointed to the poster while trying to convince the employee of the store to bend the rules to allow me to exchange my shirt. The cashier looked up. I quickly went on, “By not allowing me to exchange my shirt, you are actually silencing Pakistan and going against what you are stating through the poster… I am a big fan of Sabeen Mahmud.” There was silence at the other end, but I could see two employees now exchange looks. Was this actually working? I had been a fan of Sabeen Mahmud from the time she set up T2F (then called The Second Floor), a café cum open mike space affordable to all classes of people and especially a space of expression for new and struggling artists, a space where they could perform without going through extensive auditions and obstacles. To sum it up, the space allowed expression in a country where dictatorship and martial law had affected two generations of people (one of them being mine). When Sabeen was killed by assailants in 2015 as she drove home from T2F, the world sat up. “What a blow,” I had thought reading
about it in Austin, TX. Would this be the end of easy expression in Pakistan? Fortunately, T2F was set up like a non-profit, so the board took charge and to this day the café and space are a stage for expression. There was quite a lot of discussion about Sabeen Mahmud in the Pakistani community too at the time of her death in Karachi. And when a documentary about Sabeen’s work called “The Streets are Ours: Two Lives Cross Each Other” directed by Pakistani American director Fawz Mirza was shown in Austin, at the Indie Meme Film Festival in 2018, the house was full. I didn’t realize my thoughts had wandered so far away from where I stood. The cashier was still looking at me. Perhaps he could read my thoughts… I put the bag with the shirt down by the register saying I would be looking around and went about my browsing. When I came back, two smiling employees told me that I could go ahead and exchange my shirt! I was ecstatic! My immediate reaction? Thank you, Sabeen, for my shirt! But I actually need to thank Sabeen for more. She just taught me that I can express myself in Pakistan too under a system not used to expression… she taught me how rules can be challenged in a calm and friendly way. Maybe just maybe, someone will see sense in what you say and connect with you on some common thread and find a solution even if it not the norm. I stepped out of the store with my exchanged shirt, another one for my daughter, and a feeling of hope and renewed love for a country I had grown up in.