The Artsaypunk

You know, just when I was starting to think that I was getting a handle on this teaching thing… just when I thought that maybe, just maybe, these apathetic adolescents were starting to listen… just when I started to hope that maybe I was getting through to them……. Last night, I was marking some homework, [...]

A few months back, soon after shifting into my latest domicile, I installed a window A/C in the wall opposite my bed. Which, I suppose, makes it less a window A/C than it is a wall A/C, but for the sake of clarity, my intention was to indicate that it is the type of air-conditioner [...]

Yesterday, I was doing the rickshaw walk home from school. By this, I mean that it isn’t that far, but it was 12:30 and stinkin’ hot, and thus, my forward momentum was hampered by my constant, backward neck-craning any time I heard the rattling, staccato snarl of a motor-rickshaw. Now, this is slightly dangerous, in [...]

A recent conversation en route to what eventually became a night of drunken dumb charades: Journey: Hey you know those massage guys with the oil that stand on the side of the road? Me: Yeah Journey: I just found out recently that they’ll do anything… anything… if you ask them. Me: I just took that [...]

Know what I love about kids? They’re so funny. You just never know what outrageous statement is coming next. Kind of like Fox News, except, you know, truthful. At school the other day, I was asked to stand in for a teacher who was absent. It was a Grade 5 Urdu class, so I knew [...]

A while back, someone asked me what I do in Karachi, which as you all know, is always a difficult question. So, I began to spell out the teaching, and the NGO, and the television work, but when I got to “Stand-Up comedy,” he stopped me and said, “Hey, yeah! You look like a stand-up [...]

Almost from the time I first planted my dusty, Canadian boots on the still dustier soil of the subcontinent, I have been confronted by the cultural phenomenon that is “George.” A tall (the guy has got to be 6’5″ if he’s an inch… which he is) sandy-haired, Briton he definitely wins all awards for standing [...]

Last week, the gardener came upstairs and woke me from a nap. First of all, yes, I have a gardener, and secondly, no, he doesn’t usually wake me from my naps (unless I’m snoring, in which case he nudges me gently to roll over). I came groggily to the door, and he said, “Oh! Sahib [...]

Yes, that’s right. Dave is on TV. The boob is on the tube. The first episode of my show aired last week on national television. Now, I have to admit that before I left, when people asked me what the hell I was planning to do in Pakistan, I certainly did not foresee acting in [...]

Well, sadly, and surprisingly, there was no white Christmas in Karachi for me this year. I waited up until midnight, gazing wistfully from the balcony, hoping for that light dusting of snow that makes Christmas so much sweeter. But alas, it was not to be. Of course, the fact that I was wearing a T-shirt [...]