moulajatt

Those who wield the baton, make the laws

2011-06-17T04:47:00.000+05:00

We live in a country where we are confronted with some grave calamitous incident or the other at an alarming frequency; and with each, there is a feeling that the nation has hit rock bottom.

When half a dozen militants breached – nay violated – with disturbing ease the façade of security at one of the more secure locations, the PNS Mehran Base, home to several key, sensitive installations, it was the same feeling that gained currency. The question, or the sentiment, repeated with rhetorical flourish by all who had a voice was can it get any worse?

It can. And it did…with no end in sight.

As the nation was still absorbing the shock of the attack on the base, which resulted in the loss of the precious lives of ‘foot soldiers’ and the destruction of two super expensive surveillance aircrafts, another incident occurred that shocked the populace to the core. Despite being conditioned to violence, rape, murder, humiliation, injustice and all other vices, the inhumane shooting to death of an unarmed teenager – beginning for mercy and life – by a uniformed soldier of the Pakistan Rangers sent a chill down our collectively apathetic spine. It also provoked raw emotions – including hatred and disgust – against the already despised upholders of law.

But is this outpouring of rage merely due to the fact that the grisly episode was caught on tape and flashed across local channels television screens. Or is it because of another incident where the same brutality was on display: when the personnel of the Frontier Constabulary literally emptied all available rounds of bullets on four unarmed foreigners in Kharotabad area of Balochistan.

Chastise the media as much you want for the apparent ‘convenient juxtaposition’ of the annus horribilis of our law enforcers, but when offered together for mass consumption, these two acts has resulted in the horrific realisation that these acts are not mere anomalies. Instead, the narrative that is taking shape is that of the abuse of the overarching powers vested in the paramilitary forces resulting in a ruthless streak where even the lowest cadre can turn trigger happy at the most trivial pretext.

This has added to the increasing sense of insecurity felt by the average urban man. Already living in a society with abnormally high rates of organised and street crime, citizens feel trapped with no avenues to seek justice. The police force is widely perceived to be in cahoots with criminal gangs, while this nexus – according to most city-watchers, is strengthened by political patronage.

Corruption is the accepted reality of this existential farce. Its tentacles spread to all domains of society, with the government and the judicial system extremely susceptible.

The urban man’s fallacious fantasy of escaping to the peace and tranquil of the countryside is an equally preposterous myth. Feudals operate their fiefdoms with impunity; with human enslavement one of the primary features of the rural Pakistan. As is the case in major cities, justice is a handmaiden of the rich and the powerful in villages as well; while tribal customs such as karo-kari, vani and many others continue to repress the downtrodden. The news of the dishonouring of a mother in Hazara, forced to parade naked in her village, will invoke heated debate on talk-shows. But her plight, and that of many others, will be no more than a footnote in the memories of a socialite dilettante.

Ours is a nation that leads on all the wrong indices: of infant mortality, violence against women, target killings, corruption, etc. We can not boast of a single institution that has not been tarnished.

Once, though, there was a holy cow: the Army. Its reputation somehow stayed intact despite the shenanigans and the machinations of its chiefs, and its influence on the democratic trajectory remains a moot point.

But the holier-than-thou narrative has come under intense scrutiny of late. The Army’s adventurism, budgetary allocation, commercial expansionism and the covert and overt collusion with those who are hell bent upon wreaking havoc in Pakistan has greatly fractured the belief and the trust that was once blindly reposed in it. The activities and influence of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) has resulted in it as well as its mother institution being considered pernicious by a disparate network of experts and commentators. While there is no proof, accusations have flown in from all over against the Army, and the ISI in particular, for the cold-blooded murder of journalist Saleem Shehzad.

While that is one popular grievance, there are many others that have been muffled. A vast portion of the population of two provinces, Baluchistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, alng and the tribal agencies are in a state of war against the Army. Kashmir and militancy are the two other fronts where they have been constantly engaged; and there seems to be no end in sight.

And now, their strongest support base, the average Pakitani, is turning against them. At least they are well-equipped to defend themselves.

It is the situation of the average Pakistani that is truly bleak: unarmed, unprepared and mostly defenseless. The story of Sarfaraz, Saleem Shehzad and the foreigners in Kharotabad demonstrate the fate that lies in wait.

Tis the hour of need!

2010-11-27T12:36:00.006+05:00

Flood Relief: Opportunity to standardize CSR practices

Are we sinking?

It is the worst disaster in living memory; resulting in mass migration that even exceeds that which took place during partition. While the loss of human lives has not been colossal, the sheer number of families uprooted, livelihoods lost and crops ruined, and not just houses but the washing away of entire villages has disrupted life in a manner that is yet to sink in completely.

Misery has become as widespread as flood-waters with over 20 million people and around one-fifth of Pakistan affected. The ubiquitous image of large swathes of land submerged in water, with roofs of houses barely visible, has become the staple diet of news channels. Dominating the news in equal measure is criticism of the government’s response in relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction work.

President Asif Zardari says development has been pushed back by a decade. The financial loss from the calamity is estimated to be $43 billion while the finance ministry says that there will be zero growth for the next fiscal year and probably many more to come. Inflation has hit the roof and prices of essential items have nearly quadrupled. For instance, the price of one kg of sugar has now crossed the Rs. 100 mark from the contentious and much debated Rs. 50 just a few months ago.

Add to that the country’s perennially bad economic and developmental indicators and it can be safely said that the situation is a ticking time bomb; and unless remedial measures are taken, the situation would continue to deteriorate.

Clutching onto straws:

The country’s top leadership has once again taken out the proverbial begging bowl, with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani conceding that failure of the international community to help would leave the people from flood affected areas vulnerable to the overtures of extremist elements.

But the response of the international community has been lukewarm. When compared to the international community’s response to this decade’s other major disasters, like the tsunami in South-East Asia, Hurraicane Katrina or even the earthquake in Haiti, the contribution to Pakistan’s flood relief pales in comparison.

According to a BBC report, $6.82 has been pledged as donation per survivor of the flooding in Pakistan. The corresponding figure for the Haitian earthquake earlier this year was a whooping $669.60.

Similarly, ten days after the Kashmir quake in 2005, donors gave or pledged $292 million, according to the aid group Oxfam. The disaster in Haiti led to pledges nearing $1 billion within the first 10 days. For Pakistan, the international community gave or pledged $150 million after the flooding began in earnest in late July, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA.

Why the Private Sector needs to step forward:

This clearly illustrates that there is a void in terms of relief efforts – which is there for all to see. A visit to any of the numerous relief camps whether on the extremities of Karachi or in small cities across the country will show the pathetic conditions in which flood affectees are currently living.

Lack of expertise in disaster management and the non-existence of planning in relief work have exacerbated the problem. The development sector – mainly NGOs – and individuals have done a commendable job but the sporadic nature of their efforts and a lack of management expertise has diluted the impact of relief work while the limited supply of funds means only a small proportion of the affectees from over 72 districts have received any kind of substantial aid.

The private sector, on the other hand, has the requisite management expertise to ensure that any relief effort is executed in a seamless manner with minimum wastage. But the corporate sector cannot be expected to send their employees to work at reliefs camps at the expense of their usually profitable ventures.

However, companies can partner with NGOs and transfer their expertise to development sector workers through focused and targeted training sessions. Their emphasis on systems, standard operating procedures and efficacious use of resources to ensure profitability can serve as a guiding light for the development sector workers, who often tend to overlook these core values driven as they are by the desire to bring positive change to society.

This problem in the development sector is illustrated by the lack of co-ordination between NGOs working on a similar mandate. Replication and duplication of effort is the most widespread problem in this sector with NGOs often wasting essential resources as they try to outdo the other.

In the current scenario, such ‘reinvention of the wheel’ would be an anomaly. A centralized entity that co-ordinates flood relief activities could eliminate this problem. However, there is no unified platform of NGOs where such decisions could be taken.

It is in areas like these that the private sector can show the way; as there are bodies that represent the interest of multi-nationals and even serve as a lobby group in government policy making.

Embedding CSR – Where do we stand?

Most important of all, the private sector – particularly corporations – have the budgets and resources that could make a phenomenal impact on developmental activities in general and flood relief in particular.

Most organizations have budgets allocated for developmental activities, particularly Multi-nationals as it is usually embedded in the mandate of the parent company due to regulatory requirements. Globally, companies are required to invest a part of their profits back into society to tackle the economic, social, environmental and cultural aspects that are affected by their activities.

For instance, upstream oil companies’ CSR activities focus on areas where the drilling and exploration take place; the marine environment if its off-shore drilling; and the environment in general because of the degradation caused. Similarly, pharmaceutical companies can with focus on the health sector.

CSR activities are not necessarily limited to related fields but can be all encompassing and serve as a company’s contribution to society; often focussing on education and health sectors.

However, companies are yet to internally integrate CSR as one of the core business values in Pakistan, as its beginning point is organizational stakeholders, like shareholders, employees, internal environment, and only then can investments be made in society.

Globally, though, companies are coming up with socially responsible products, such as Toyota’s hybrid cars, General Motor’s hugely profitable Ecomagination initiative or IBM’s Big Green intiative.

In Pakistan, SECP’s recent ‘Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility) General Order, 2009’ sought descriptive and monetary disclosures from companies for their CSR activities. There is no regulatory requirement for private companies to allocate a certain proportion of their revenue or profit for CSR activities.

Need for more comprehensive regulations:

This means that the role of corporations remain sporadic and inconsistent, with companies often taking the easy way out by donating a certified amount (made mandatory due to regulation in the parent company’s country) to an international aid organization or a local NGO – which also tends to dilute the impact of relief work.

This is the practice that is being witnessed in flood-related relief work. Unilever’s (Global) donation of Rs. 138 million (€1 million+) was distributed among World Food Programme, Oxfam International, Save the Children & Population Services International.

Such international entities have a high percentage of administrative cost; which substantially reduces the aid amount that reaches the final recipient.

For instances, if Rs.100 is donated to the United Nations; then Rs. 52 will be used for administrative costs while Rs. 48 will go to relief efforts. On the other hand, a Rs. 100 donation to Edhi Foundation would mean Rs. 20 for administrative costs and Rs. 80 for the deserving.

While not all organizations tend to take the easy route, it remains a prevalent practice; and not just in times of such disasters but otherwise as well.

Mobilink is one stand-out example in this bleak scenario. It did a commendable job for the relief & rehabilitation of the affectees of the Kashmir Earthquake. The company invested $1 million in the setting up and running of a relief camp that was completely administered by their own team. And now, the company has donated Rs. 236 million, easily one of the largest donations by a private sector company in Pakistan, which is being used for emergency relief distribution, hygiene kits, shelter, portable health units and dispensaries, and other relief and rehabilitation activities.

Most importantly, the company has confirmed that no cheques were handed over. They are doing everything through their own employees and local NGOs that are involved on the ground and do not have exorbitant administrative costs.

Volunteering personal time is the best donation I can think of. Moreover, the company is using the expertise of relevant teams to drive efficiencies. A corporate procurement executive is far well versed in negotiating with vendors trying to make a quick buck from the crisis and a local contact is of course better suited to identify exact needs on ground.

Such activities appear to be more effective and exhibit genuine concern rather than the Rs. 100 million contribution of Pakistan Petroleum Limited that has gone to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund.

It also seems that private sector companies are cognizant of this fact; and hence, there has been minimal disclosure in terms of exact contributions made for flood relief. The information that has been made available clubs together the total contributions made and the names of contributing companies. For instance, members of the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce & Industry (OICCI) have provided information that requires decryption, such as:

“..Companies like Unilever Pakistan, Mobilink, Aventis Pakistan, Johnson & Johnson, Nestle Pakistan, Coke and Pepsi contributed cash, besides donating their products for the affected families. Donations comprising food items were around Rs141 billion, while Rs202 million worth of products were also sent by some companies...”

Any queries concerning the exact details and nature of contribution results in the tepid response that the concerned company does not want to gain marketing mileage from their relief efforts. With the exception of Mobilink, the websites of most of these companies do not carry much detail of their donations either.

Time to change tracks!

Considering the overall economic and development scenario of Pakistan, all stakeholders need to come together and synergize their efforts to arrest our nation’s decline and ensure that we do not end up as a failed state.

Amongst all, the corporate sector remains the best-equipped to provide some sort of long-term solution through sustainable projects that can make a significant contribution towards the development of certain spheres of society – geographically, socially, economically, environmentally and also culturally.

No one expects a single organization to shoulder the burden for societal improvement. Rather, a comprehensive plan ought to be put together that not only demarcates spheres but also creates partnerships with reputable NGOs as well as entities from the development and public sector.

Furthermore, the government needs to step forward and formulate regulations that makes CSR a mandatory part of business practice. In case the government fails to take such steps, then the corporate & private sector should exhibit its professional nature and evolved state by forming a self-regulatory body to ensure CSR practices are put into place.

But before the private sector begins the reformation of society or the rehabilitation of flood affectees, it has to make sure that CSR practices are embedded internally and incorporated in their organizational culture.

Because, like charity, CSR also begins at home!

Review: American History X

2010-06-29T15:27:00.003+05:00

"Blacks are inferior to Europeans but superior to apes," said Voltaire, the French philosopher who is universally acknowledged as the beacon of democracy and advocate of tolerance and reason. While Enlightenment took humanity forward, it also had a dark side; nurtured and manifested for centuries by an ethos on which Western civilizations have supposedly flourished: racial superiority.

American History X is a movie about the culture of hatred that has origins in notions of racial superiority. It is about people who hate. It also attempts to explore the reasons behind the hatred, but most importantly, it is about the damage the hatred does to the world around them.

The protagonist, Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton), is a bald-shaved, swastika-tattooed avowed neo-Nazi, and the leader of a group of white supremacists in sub-urban Los Angeles. Called the skinheads, the group gets in constant turf wars with black gangs, along with terrorizing helpless minorities at will.

A former literature student, the charismatic and articulate Derek falls under the influence of a local neo-Nazi guru, after the murder of his fireman father by a black-man. The extent of his rage results in the shooting and killing of two black thieves - including the legendary curb stomp scene – earning him a three year prison sentence.

Narrated in two time frames, the movie begins right after Derek's release from prison, with liberal doses of flashback to various stages in Derek's earlier life to provide insights about his current situation. It also attempts to give the viewer an idea why the now-reformed Derek is trying to stop his younger brother Danny from following in his footsteps.

On the same day, Danny's book-report extolling Mein Kampf earns him censure from the Messiah-like school principal, who also taught Derek and frequently visited him in prison. He creates a personalized course for Danny, called American History X, and the first assignment is an essay examining his brother's hate crime.

As Danny writes his paper, the story of Derek's ascent to the leadership of the Klu Klux Klan inspired skinheads unfolds. The director, Tim Kaye, employs the cinematic technique of using black and white scenes to signify past events to put the protagonist's evolutionary tangent in context.

As the director attempts to tackle a subject as vast and insidious as racism, the movie suffers in character development barring that of Derek. American History X falls short of providing a comprehensive overview of racism, hatred, or inner city violence. Instead, it examines ways these elements tear at the fabric of family.

Scant attention is paid to Derek's conversion to right-wing fanaticism and notions of Aryan superiority, other than a dinner table conversion in which Derek's father uses the word 'nigger' while he riles immigrants and the Civil Rights Movement. Derek's association with the local neo-Nazi guru is also glossed over. But Edward Norton's dominating performance and eloquence reinforces the idea that Derek's character was single handedly responsible for the recruitment and conversion of frustrated youth to the pernicious ideology.

The lack of depth in the support characters means that Edward Norton has to carry the film on his shoulders. The young Danny, despite his intelligence and bellicose outlook, is a blank kid who will do whatever Derek does. The rest of the characters appear to be weak stereotypes with point-of-views that level out Derek's extreme outlook.

The mother is a meek character who is both afraid of and for her sons. The academia inclined sister is a liberal who engages in argument with her brother to moderate his point of view. The mother's Jewish boyfriend also echoes the liberal sympathies echoed by the sister, while Derek provides the negation of these ideas using fascist quotes and skewed statistics on illegal immigration and African American crime rates. The static identities are best portrayed in a dinner table scene – wherein the crisp exchange of ideological barb takes a grotesque turn with Derek shoving food in his sister's face and launching a fascist tirade against the Jewish boyfriend.

Danny is impressive in his role, but his overwhelming desire to ape his elder brother turns him into a non character. Derek's rabid girl friend also fades in and out of the movie as she willingly parrots his ideology. Another one of the subversive iconoclast is an overweight exterminator, who finds empowerment with his affiliation with Derek's group.

The script, laced with sociological undertones, fails to add any punch to the movie and tends to become sermon-like as Derek's change of heart takes place.

While serving his sentences, Derek becomes a minority in the black-dominated prison. He joins hands with a white-group, but his notions of supremacy are crushed when he is sodomized by the gang-leader.

Disillusioned by the betrayal and vulnerable, he befriends a black inmate (Guy Torry), who plays a pivotal role in his transformation. The volte-face of the protagonist is not sufficiently explored, it is redeemed by the intelligent interplay of close-up shots with slowed down scenes in monochrome creates the aura of the macabre.

Once out on parole, Derek's transformation is complete, and he is ready to put his intolerant ways behind him. However, he soon realizes that finding such reprieve is much more difficult that first thought. The skinheads had organized similar groups along the West Coast, and expect Derek to lead them onto greater glory. On the other hand, the peers of the black youths that Derek executed three years prior were waiting to exact revenge.

But it is his younger brother Daniel, who is the greatest cause of concern. Seduced by the inflammatory rhetoric of the same neo-Nazi guru and Derek's former peers, he had made staunch enemies of a gang of black youths in his school.

Caught between white supremacists who want to glorify him, black gang members who want to vilify him, his family, and a brother who is blindly following in the same tragic footsteps, Derek finds his predicament precarious at best.

The film emphasizes that actions have consequences, and that attaining redemption isn't as easy as saying "I'm sorry." The price for a change of heart can be, and often is, brutal. The final sequence in the film is shocking not because it's unexpected, but because it illustrates this truth.

Tales of torturous times

2009-06-30T18:05:00.001+06:00

The Partition of the subcontinent in 1947, which resulted in the creation of Pakistan and India, forced millions to leave their homes and head towards an unknown destination. It is the largest mass migration recorded in history with billions crossing the line that divided the two states, while more than half a million lost their lives in the aftermath of hostilities. Tales of Two Cities is a reflection on those torturous times. Two leading journalists, Kuldip Nayar from India and Asif Noorani from Pakistan, attempt to give a personal perspective on the tragedy.

Both men and their families were uprooted from their homes in the events that followed Partition. Kuldip Nayar, who was 24 at the time, was forced to flee his native Sialkot suddenly "leaving the food on the table untouched." Being politically conscious, Nayar's recollections present a detailed picture of not only the leaders and politics of the day but also personal vignettes that elucidate the fear felt by an entire people.

Asif Noorani, on the other hand, was only eight when Partition affected his family. His family moved from Mumbai (Bombay then), three years after Partition, and was shielded from the communal carnage that broke out during those times. He retains his sense of humour throughout the narrative and manages to find a tune from Bollywood – his true vocation being a film and music journalist – to add to his unique description of events.

Nayar, a verteran journalist, was separated from his family while fleeing to the Indian Punjab and vividly describes the pangs of uncertainty separation and felt by him, as if "crushing beneath one's shoes the embers of memory." He experienced the cold brutality of the times first-hand as trains turned into abattoirs and a "story of brutal murder or gang rape did not move me any more."

Noorani had a comparatively safe passage aboard a steamer that docked off Bombay, while he looked forward to the new land with a child's excitement. His essay dwells more on his revisits to India after Partition; the problems faced by Pakistanis traveling to India and vice versa and the reception that he received.

An interesting snippet from one of his visits was during the 1965 war, when the young Bollywood aficionado enjoys the cinema in Bombay while his family back home fears that he might be a prisoner of war. During the visit, he befriends an Indian intelligence officer, Takle (roughly translated into Baldie), and the episode establishes further the latent goodwill that still exists between the two people.

The writers also talk about the metamorphosis of their adopted cities. Both Delhi and Karachi have turned into megacities – a far cry from half a century ago when they were small cities with limited opportunities; however, as both writers point out, the cities were clean back then and did not face so many environmental problems.

The Delhi that Nayar migrated to was inundated by Punjabis, and saw a pre-dominance of the "crudeness and indiscipline" of Punjabi culture over the "dainty, decent culture of Delhi". With population growth, Delhi has experienced infrastructural problems as it grows without any planning; the malls and skyscrapers, in Nayar's words, are destroying the soul of Delhi.

Noorani also fondly remembers the Karachi of yore and its people, especially the rousing reception given to Indian Premier Jawaharlal Nehru when he visited the then capital to sign the Indus Water Treaty.

He celebrates Karachi's cosmopolitanism and pays tributes to the various people and organisations working for its betterment. He acknowledges Karachi's multi-faceted problems, but makes a frank confession through Milton's quote, "With all they faults, I love thee still", a sentiment shared by many other Karachiites.

The two writers – both life-long campaigners for better relations between the two countries and its people – also point out the problems faced by Pakistanis and Indians alike to travel to the other country and make suggestions for the same. Nayar could only visit Sialkot after being elected to the Indian Parliament.

Also included in the book is Nayar's revealing interview with Sir Cyril Radcliffe, the man in-charge of drawing the boundary between the two countries. The resources at Radcliffe's disposal and the time-frame in which he delivered are a telling indictment of Britain's attitude in deciding the fate of the subcontinent.

In most Indo-Pak collaborations, one comes across divergent views. While this book also highlights different points of views, the authors are joined together by similar concerns. Both lament with equal measure the state of Urdu. Nayar contends that Urdu lost its case with Partition, and has been its biggest victim.

He bemoans the fact that chaste Urdu is no longer heard in Delhi. Noorani's concern has more to do with the new breed that tries to flaunt its English at the expense of Urdu.

Both the essays, part of a single book edited by David Page, is the fourth in a series that attempts to establish cross-border dialogue. Other titles include Diplomatic Divide, Divided by Democracy and Fault Lines of Nationhood.

The two stories, which unravel in essay form, flow like gentle tales narrated by two wise old men; and serve as an apt reminder of the pain and agony suffered by our forefathers for the deliverance of the Promised Land.

Book : Tales of Two Cities

Author : Kuldip Nayar & Asif Noorani

Karachi Diary -- Meri ball do!

2009-05-16T17:36:00.005+06:00

Violence has been an existential reality for our city. The waves of violence are etched in most memories, whether it be the ethnic clashes of the 80s and 90s, the sectarian clashes of mid and late 90s, or the spill over from the ‘War against terror’ of the last decade.

However, back in the 90s, when I was a zealous teenager, cricket was a religious ritual that commenced at 4.30pm each day – during mild winters and excruciating summers – regardless of the city’s law and order situation.

Playing cricket on the streets and dreams of emulating the Imran Khan’s cornered tigers (of 1992 World Cup fame) was a dream everyone nurtured irrespective of skill and ability. The greatest threat, then, was an irate uncle or aunty who would try to clear us off in order to enjoy the siesta; or those rare loathsome grouches who would refuse to return the tennis ball if it landed in their house or apartment. But they were a minority, and our cricket teams often had local patrons who would finance our equipment; a few lucky teams even had their portable set of stumps with bails.

It was unheard of back then to think twice before stepping out of the house and walking unconcerned towards the de facto cricket pitch that was usually in one of the lanes, with at least one boundary stretching upto the main road.

Maybe it was because there were no cellular phones back then, and we only had enough money to get us a drink or the tape for the ball.

Nowadays, stepping out requires certain considerations. Duration and mode of travel, kind of location (whether main road or lane) and the time at which he step out are variables that have to be considered to ensure that no untoward incident takes place. Paranoia also features as those who have had been held-up often believe that they are being followed.

The fear of the unknown has crept into our collective psyche; we are forever wary of the ‘other’.

Even playing cricket with the same people on the same streets is no longer the same. Back then, the setting of the sun would end our cricket, but the teams would usually cool off at the local general store and discuss matches against teams from other areas.

Now, wrapping up begins just before sunset as everyone prefers to be off the streets even before darkness begins its descent.

In the 90s, the threat of ethnic and sectarian violence was much closer. Every couple of months, there would be a funeral in the area in which the person had either been a victim of target killing for his beliefs, or ‘collateral damage’ during an upsurge in violence.
Such developments, however, would not disrupt our routine for more than a day. In present times, the violence is often far-off; and pitched battles are fought in the peripheral localities of the city. But fear has gripped everyone.

While cricket continues to thrive on the streets, especially on holidays, there has been a change in approach: one has to be on the look-out at all times.

The worst reaction has been of the elders. Their solution for all problems is to stay at home. Those residing in the vicinity, too, have turned against street cricketers; and the most common point of conflict comes when a ball now lands inside someone else’s residence. Invariably, the response is ‘go away’; whether this is due to the fear that those asking for the ball could be ‘someone else’ or it is part of a new philosophy of ‘minimum interaction’ remain moot points, but one thing is clearly established: the balls would not be returned no more.

Karachi Diary - I

2009-05-12T17:39:00.006+06:00

Surveillance begins at home

The culture of bribery has sometimes been justified – by those brazenly demanding it – as a consequence of the poor pay-scales prevalent in the police force. However, former Inspector General (IG) Sindh Police Niaz Ahmed Siddiqui unequivocally stated that the incidentals of serving in the police force – which includes residence, utilities, education and health care for the entire household – make up more than enough for the pitiful salaries, especially of the lower cadres.

Despite that, it has been confirmed through multiple sources that no effort is spared by the police, including maltreatment, intimidation and even torture, to coerce complainants into making illegitimate payments for even registering a First Information Report (FIR).

For the majority of citizens, the police apparatus is a hostile body and suggest that one should only venture into a police station if one enjoys any political influence or has the right connections. Only then is one treated in an appropriate manner. Seeking assistance from the police is often written off as hopeless but being the upholders of law, one is left with no choice but to approach them; which raises the question whether there is any solution that can remedy the behavior and performance of the forces.

And there is a solution: Surveillance. It implies installation of security cameras at various vantage points inside the police station to monitor the behavior of the officers and the events taking place inside. Considering the current state of the force, many think it is only through vigilance can the reformation of these vigilantes brought about.

The incumbent Capital City Police Officer for Karachi, Mr Waseem Ahmed, welcomed the suggestion – along with the review board formed of members of civil society – and stated that it would surely enhance the efficacy and performance of police stations provided the government provides the finances to implement such a system.

While former IG Mr Siddiqui agreed that the idea would help improve the performance and efficiency of the police force, he opined that 'surveillance' was a misnomer and 'in-house supervision' was a more appropriate term. He was also opposed to the idea of a separate body serving as a watchdog and suggested that the central or main police station should review the footage. He insisted that the objective of any such exercise should be to help the police and to bridge gaps between the local community and the police force, removing malfunctioning and malpractices rather than to create a body that could in anyway compromise the authority of the police force.

While the top tier of the force has acknowledged the possibility of such a project, a sub-inspector expressed reservations over the possible benefits of such a project. Chaudhry Muhammad Atta, Sub-Inspector posted at the Artillery Maidan police station, contented that the resources could be put to better use for the benefit of the

forces rather than creating an unnecessary supervisory body that would have little impact on performance.

But do we have the resources and wherewithal to implement such a system? Mr Muhammad Faheem Qureshi, whose firm GCS has installed cameras across various routes of the city for the City District Government Karachi, says that such a project could be implemented; he also pointed out that the technology also provides the option of on-site recording or recording at a dedicated central location, which in this instance could be the main police station or any other location as per the modalities of the project.

Ordinary citizens also say that it could drastically alter the treatment meted out at police stations. Qasim, a university student, said he would be willing to champion the idea on his university campus if such a need arises. His fellow students, too, welcomed the idea and said it should be implemented at the earliest. Furqan, a lawyer, opined that it would save a lot of time and trouble for citizens as policemen would be aware that their actions are under scrutiny. Qurut-ul-Ain, a journalist, while calling it a step in the right direction, said that more than surveillance is required to improve service at police stations. Mehreen, a developmental worker, emphasized the need for a transparent supervisory body and said that if the project is effective, it could be replicated at other public sector offices as well.

The private sector has benefited through surveillance in terms of efficiency and also as a superficial archive of employee behavior and performance. Surveillance cameras at police stations, irrespective of locality, can result in a modicum of respectability and hope for aggrieved citizens. While enterprising soldiers would surely find corners to carry out their misdemeanors, complainants will at least know that Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) will serve as a repository of visual evidence against any unnecessary demands made or problems created by the officers on duty.

While it is foolish to expect an overhaul of the system, such an implementation would be testimony of the willingness of those in power that they desire positive change. And it is not necessary to plant cameras in stations across the city. The experiment could be started with a few stations: the best and the worst performing ones. If there is any improvement in performance, then the proposed solution can be implemented further until the entire city's force is under scrutiny.

Obviously, such an undertaking requires a huge budget overlay. But many believe it would be a worthwhile investment and one which could have a possible ripple effect; and eventually result in the transformation and possible reformation of the entire public sector – and cameras under the table.

Karachi Diary -- More

2009-05-12T17:28:00.002+06:00

Hand it all over!

Karachi is justifiably notorious for street crimes. My peers and I have had frequent encounters of hold-ups, while every few days someone at the workplace narrates a harrowing-yet-quick ordeal which left them without a cellular phone or without a car for a night or two after which the car would be found minus the speakers and music system, the CNG kit and other removables.

While I have heard the most outlandish of robbery stories, nothing braced me for what was in store. Recently, a friend had told my group of how a couple sat in his car and made him drive around while they had alcohol. They left off my friend after having made him drive around for three hours and hitting him not so hard once with the pistol’s butt. There were other stories, too, in which invariably the cellular phone was taken away.

Having heard the story, I was being overly cautious while driving, especially in comparatively deserted streets. It was a summer evening, and I was in Defence Phase VI, turning on a street off Khayaban-e-Mujahid, when I was hit from behind by a silver Cultus. I cursed myself for ignoring my driving in trying to be vigilant against robbers. Two seemingly apologetic young-men got off from the car and I was about to get off when they suddenly got in my car and showed me the gun.

I acquiesced. They asked me to hand over the wallet and then drive around. They extracted my two debit cards and directed me towards the closest ATM. I did their bidding. Gently, they relieved me of my limit of Rs.10,000 each from both the cards, took my cellular phone and took possession of my removable music system. Out of generosity, they let me have the Rs200 lying in my wallet.

I was asked to drive back towards a commercial area. As soon as we reached the market in Defence Phase VI, they directed me into various lanes. There were a couple of cars waiting at the turn ahead and they coolly ordered me to follow a blue car driven by a single female. Once we reached a comparatively deserted route, they asked me to bump in the car ahead of me in the same manner as they had bumped into my car.

With so much already lost, I was not going to protest for the well-being of my car’s front bumper. I bumped into her car. My two tormentors got off with the same seemingly apologetic smile, as the other driver turned around and I was given an exasperated look.

I noticed her expression change to that of bewilderment first and then horror as she drove off with my two erstwhile passengers. I shrugged and drove off to my initial destination.

Karachi Diary

2009-05-12T17:24:00.002+06:00

The valley of brutes

On a scorching hot afternoon, I was headed towards work after having lunch with a friend who resides in Bath Island. While I was taking a left as I emerged at the ‘Do Talwar’ roundabout, the signal opened for the cars coming from the direction of Schon Circle’s underpass.

A new Honda Civic screeched and raced forward. The sound made me instinctively turn, and what I witnessed in that milli-second defied logic. The car crashed into a lady who had started crossing the road from in-front of me as she came out of Hilal-e-Ahmer hospital and headed towards Chartered Accountants avenue, but the white Civic did not offer her much opportunity and knocked her out before she could even finish crossing the first half of the road.

On impact, the lady flew straight up around 8-10 feet and landed back on the car’s bonnet. A traffic sergeant was at the location and I, from my position that had become static due to the shock, could see him haranguing the car owner.

I was about to get off to go help the lady, who seemed to be in her late forties, when she got up and walked to the pavement that divides the road into two. Simultaneously, the Civic was allowed to go by the traffic sergeant.

What transpired between the sergeant and the Civic driver would remain a mystery, but my eyes keenly followed the wobbly movement of the lady as she shakily sat down on the pavement to regain her wits. I could not understand how she managed to stand up and walk even such a short distance after the battering her legs must have had felt on impact. Plus, she flew up and then landed on the car’s bonnet. While her landing did not appear awkward, it was still a major fall and she must have broken a few ribs.

Kudos to that woman who got her bearings in order, made sure her chador continued to cover her and walk with dignity to the closest place to offer some respite. I drove off thinking the same when I caught up with the same Civic on the Clifton Bridge.

Indignant as I was, I decided to glare at the callous driver who had driven off after possibly paying off the sergeant. Expecting to see an unruly teenager, I was shocked even further to see a woman in her late-20s driving the car – something in her reminded me of the suburban SUV driving football moms that have emerged of late in US popular culture.

However, I was still appalled by her decision to not stay behind and check with the lady if she had any serious injuries. Despite being of the gentler sex, this woman chose to save herself from the hassle of hospitals, police stations, insurance etc., albeit at cost of another person.

I can only assume that there is something alienating in being type-cast as a ‘driver’ on the roads of Karachi that turns the most kind of creatures into complete brutes.

The Protesting Hypocrites

2009-01-27T03:09:00.006+05:00

Over the last few days, the moribund civil society has sprung into action; clamoring support for and expressing solidarity with the people of Palestine. They have taken the admirable step of abandoning cushy arm-chairs and even brought their parakeets onto the streets.

In all likelihood, a befitting culmination to hours of fulmination against Zionist aggression; and the modest turn-out a reflection of the penetration of the electronic medium – the organizers relied on facebook, mass e-mailing and sms-es to gather support.

In a snapshot review of the protest march in the words of the organizer reproduced verbatim: “The streets of downtown Karachi reverberated on Saturday with slogans condemning Israeli brutalities in the Gaza Strip and the international community’s double standards, especially those of the United States, which have already claimed hundreds of innocent Palestinian lives in the besieged territory.

A large number of peace and human rights activists, political party leaders, trade union leaders, lawyers, doctors, journalists, show-business personalities, students and teachers of all genders and age groups, carrying Palestinian flags and banners and placards condemning Israeli brutalities and the US’s alleged abetment in the crime, marched from the Karachi Press Club to Regal Chowk, Empress Market and back to the KPC…”

And so on. Pakistanis have shown a tremendous spirit in recent times for exhibiting a global conscience; and exposing double standards which is the flipside of international diplomacy. However, it is in the side-stepping of their own glaring double-standards that they manifest a hitherto unknown spirit. While a catastrophe of the magnitude as is unfolding in Gaza right now would split asunder the conscience of even the brutally heartless, what belies belief is that the atrocities being perpetuated in the Northern Areas, particularly in Swat, no longer seem to prick the conscience of the concerned gentry.

Collective amnesia has for long been the malady of choice of our thinking citizenry, but Swat – a battleground for nearly 2 years now – appears to have been consciously expunged from memory. In the world of hackneyed clichés, it was the ‘Switzerland of Pakitsan’, the tourist destination of choice of all those who could not afford going abroad and those rarities who find in nature the serenity that consumerist life cannot procure.

Other than in op-ed pieces, this tourist haven has vanished completely from the drawing-room discourse of these social revolutionaries; barring a digression on those rare occasions when wall chalkings threatening Talibanisation are spotted from the arm-chair vantage point.
While numerous welfare funds for the Gaza residents have been established over-night, a blanket or two donated for the nearing a hundred-thousand homeless in the numbing winter of Swat would be a pleasant surprise.

Online portals and unsuspecting inboxes have been inundated in efforts to gather support against Israeli actions, while Swat does not even have a functioning online petition on the famous website of the same name.

Going as far as terming such demonstrations (against Israel) an exercise in futility I will leave to the cynics, no matter how miniscule or negligible an impact it has or none at all. What gets me riled up is that these bastions of civility remain unperturbed by the atrocities being committed in our own backyard. While Kashmir was in arms and street protests were in full sway, there was merely a sound from these self-proclaimed practitioners of universal rights. While Baluchistan has burned and smelted over the course of Pakistan’s existence, they had no qualms in using up its natural gas; never sparing a thought for its ramshackle infrastructure and non-existent educational set-up.

They protest because protests are going on the world over. It fits into their philosophy of jumping on the band-wagon of popular dissent.

Another case in point, which says a lot about the hypocrisy of these patrons of civilised society, was the readiness with which students at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Pakistan’s premier humanities university, joined hands with the protesting lawyers. Scions of connected families, these protesters were safe in the knowledge that the invisible hand would come to their rescue if they were ever to end up in the fists of the law. However, the region of Swat and the scenic Malam Jabba, visited twice annually by LUMS students, did not elicit even a word of protest from these future leaders of ours. Despite having a much stronger link with the Northern Areas, which hordes of students visit come the time of the quarter break, all ties were forgotten once it was in the claws of obscurantism.

No groups – from among students or the civil society – have stepped forward with ideas or policies that would in some way ameliorate the plight of the nearly one-third of the 1.5 million of Swat who have rendered homeless. No suggestions have been made for setting up of refugee camps and girl schools nearly 200 of which have been clamped upon and closed down.

Let alone present any creative or even practical solution for the misery-addled residents of Swat, our civilised society cannot even streamline its effort – even when it would further their own cause.

Separated by only a couple of days from the protest against Israeli atrocities of the self-proclaimed silent suave intellectually endowed minority, which goes by the sobriquet of civil society, was another protest against the same Israeli brutality. Students associated with Jamaat-e-Islami also expressed solidarity with their Palestinian brethren.

While reluctance on part of the two groups to synergise their efforts is understandable, if not quite rational, but it was the uncanny similarity in the modus operandi of protesting of these two groups that blows to smithereens the pretence of difference that the civil society clings on to.

The intensity of anger, the sloganeering, the haphazard nature of the procession, the clubbing together of Israel and the United States, blaming it all on a Zionist agenda left one with a feeling of déjà vu. The burning of the Israeli flag proved beyond doubt that no matter how different the social, economic and educational backgrounds are but when it comes to venting anger against their favorite punching bag, we are all the same.

Giving a literary spin to this debate, Big Brother of Orwellian fame appears to be watching; pulling the strings of earthly minions – civil society included. However, there is another similarly somber view of the totalitarian nature of modern reality espoused by Aldous Huxley in ‘Brave New World’. While Orwell feared that modes of information and knowledge will be controlled and stifled such that people will no longer know what the pressing issues of the day are, Huxley prognosticated that there will be such a glut of information that people will fail to discern the relevant from the frivolous; that the level of mass information will reach such a level that the real issues will be buried in the mass of trivialities.

As protests against Israeli aggression gather steam, now a regular feature in major metropolises across Pakistan, while Swat, Northern Areas, Baluchistan, Kashmir and other issues that plague our society lie forgotten or placed on the back-burner, it is Huxley who stands vindicated. The age of mass information lays bare the superficial expression of concern of the civil gentry, if they must be absolved of their hypocrisy.

Gleaning Wisdom Interlude

2008-09-24T08:57:00.003+06:00

62. "In your despairing, you are a free man (hurr); but in your coveting, you are a slave ('abd)."

70. "Infer the existence of ignorance in anyone whom you see answering all that he is asked or giving expression to all that he witnesses or mentioning all that he knows."

The Judge. - He who has beheld anyone's ideal is his inexorable judge and as it were his bad conscience.

The human lot. - He who considers more deeply knows that, whatever his acts and judgements may be, he is always wrong.

"The scraps from the meal of the Emir are larger than the gifts of halwa from the merchant." - Timur Fazil

"If you want to be with the Teacher when he wants you to be apart from him, you must obey him or shun him. If you argue about it, you are worse than disobedient." - Halqavi

302. Preference for specific virtues. - We do not place especial value on the possession of a virtue until we notice its total lack of absence in our opponent."

444. War. - Against war it can be said: it makes the victor stupid, the defeated malicious. In favour of war: through producing these two effects it barbarizes and therefore makes natural; it is the winter or hibernation time of culture, mankind emerges from it stronger for good and evil."

459. - Full of character. - A man appears full of character much more often because he always obeys his temperament than because he always obeys his principles.

516. - No one now dies of fundamental truths: there are too many antidotes to them.

531. - The life of one's enemy. - He who lives for the sake of combating an enemy has an interest in seeing that his enemy stays alive.

220. "Do not attest to the validity of an inspiration (warid) whose fruit you know not. The purpose of rainclouds is not to give rain; their only purpose is to bring forth fruit."

227. "If you do not want to be dismissed, then do not take charge of a post that will not always be yours."

"A friendless man is like a left hand without a right." - Hebrew proverb

"Though I am different from you, We were born involved with one another." - Tao te Ching

"Kabeer, we are puppets of clay, but we take the name of mankind. We are guests here for only a few days, but we take up so much space."

"Kabeer, the world is a room filled with black soot; the blind fall into its trap. I am a sacrifice to those who are thrown in, and still escape."

"Kabeer, all the strings of the instrument I played are broken. What can the poor instrument do, when the player has departed as well."

"When she is a virgin, she is full of desire; but when she is married, then her troubles begin. Fareed, she has this one regret, that she cannot be a virgin again."

"First, the bride herself is weak, and then, her Husband Lord's Order is hard to bear. Milk does not return to the breast, it will not be collected again."

"Fareed, I was worried that my turban might become dirty. My thoughtless self did not realize that one day, dust will consume my head as well."

"Fareed, a stone will be your pillow, and the earth will be our bed. The worm shall eat into your flesh. Countless ages will pass, and you will still be lying on one side."

"Fareed, if on that day when my umbilical cord was cut, my throat had been cut instead, I would not have fallen into so many troubles, or undergone so many hardships."

SIFTING

O Pedant! Sift, all your life, the writings and the sayings of the Wise. But first of all learn one thing: you are using a sieve which lets through chaff and discards the nutrient, the wheat. - Shab-Parak

GIVE AND TAKE

The Chief takes less then he is given

And gives more than he has taken.

(Kitab-i-Amu Daria)

51. "No deed is more fruitful for the heart than the one you are not aware of and which is deemed paltry by you."

260. "Meditation (al-fikra) is the voyage of the heart in the domains of alterities (mayadin al-agdo naahyar)."

209. "That part of your life that has gone by is irreplaceable, and that which has arrived is priceless."

160, "Sometimes ostentation (ar-riya) penetrates you in such a way that no one notices it."

294

Copies. - We quite often encounter copies of significant men; as, as also in the case of paintings, most people prefer the copies to the originals.

311

Against the trusting. - People who give us their complete trust believe they have this acquired a right to ours. This is a false conclusion; gifts procure no rights.

303

Why we contradict. - We often contradict an opinion for no other reason than that we do not like the tone in which it was expressed.

413

The shortsighted are in love. - Sometimes it requires only a strong pair of spectacles to cure the lover, and he who had the imagination to picture a face, a figure twenty years older, would perhaps pass through life very undisturbed.

496

Privilege of greatness. - It is the privilege of greatness to give great delights with meagre gifts.

564

In danger. - One is most in danger of being run over when one has just avoided a carriage.

568

Confession. - One forgets one's sins when one confesses them to another, but the other does not usually forget them.

Amusing Ourselves To Death

2008-09-17T08:39:00.011+06:00

by Neil Postman

Courtesy, BT

We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another-slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity arid history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies ([Huxley's sense stimulating movies], the orgy porgy [group sex in the novel], and the centrifugal bumblepuppy* [a child's game in the novel; see description at end of essay]. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain, In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

The Huxleyan Warning

There are two ways by which the spirit of a culture may be shriveled. In the first - the Orwellian - culture becomes a prison. In the second - the Huxleyan - culture becomes a burlesque. No one needs to be reminded that our world is now marred by many prison-cultures whose structure Orwell described accurately in his parables. If one were to read both 1984 and Animal Farm, and then for good measure, Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon, one would have a fairly precise blueprint of the machinery of thought-control as it currently operates in scores of countries and on millions of people. Of course, Orwell was not the first to teach us about the spiritual devastations of tyranny. What is irreplaceable about his work is his insistence that it makes little difference if our wardens are inspired by right- or left-wing ideologies. The gates of the prison are equally impenetrable, surveillance equally rigorous, icon worship equally pervasive.

What Huxley teaches is that in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate. In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.

In America, Orwell's prophecies are of small relevance, but Huxley's are well under way toward being realized. For America is engaged in the world's most ambitious experiment to accommodate itself to the technological distractions made possible by the electric plug. This is an experiment that began slowly and modestly in the mid-nineteenth century and has now, in the latter half of the twentieth, reached a perverse maturity in America's consuming love-affair with television. As nowhere else in the world, Americans have moved far and fast in bringing to a close the age of the slow-moving printed word, and have granted to television sovereignty over all of their institutions. By ushering in the Age of Television, America has given the world the clearest available glimpse of the Huxleyan future.

Those who speak about this matter must often raise their voices to a near-hysterical pitch, inviting the charge that they are everything from wimps to public nuisances to Jeremiahs. But they do so because what they want others to see appears benign, when it is not invisible altogether. An Orwellian world is much easier to recognize, and to oppose, than a Huxleyan. Everything in our background has prepared us to know and resist a prison when the gates begin to close around us. We are not likely, for example, to be indifferent to the voices of the Sakharovs and the Mandelas and the Walesas. We take arms against such a sea of troubles, buttressed by the spirit of Milton, Bacon, Voltaire, Goethe and Jefferson. But what if there are no cries of anguish to be heard? Who is prepared to take arms against a sea of amusements? To whom do we complain, and when, and in what tone of voice, when serious discourse dissolves into giggles? What is the antidote to a culture's being drained by laughter? I fear that our philosophers have given us no guidance in this matter. Their warnings have customarily been directed against those consciously formulated ideologies that appeal to the worst tendencies in human nature. But what is happening in America is not the design of an articulated ideology. No Mein Kampf or Communist Manifesto announced its coming. It comes as the unintended consequence of a dramatic change in our modes of public conversation. But it is an ideology nonetheless, for it imposes a way of life, a set of relations among people and ideas, about which there has been no consensus, no discussion and no opposition. Only compliance. Public consciousness has not yet assimilated the point that technology is ideology. This, in spite of the fact that before our very eyes technology has altered every aspect of life in America during the past eighty years.

For example, it would have been excusable in 1905 for us to be unprepared for the cultural changes the automobile would bring. Who could have suspected then that the automobile would tell us how we were to conduct our social and sexual lives? Would reorient our ideas about what to do with our forests and cities? Would create new ways of expressing our personal identity and social standing? But it is much later in the game now, and ignorance of the score is inexcusable. To be unaware that a technology comes equipped with a program for social change, to maintain that technology is neutral, to make the assumption that technology is always a friend to culture is, at this late hour, stupidity plain and simple.

Moreover, we have seen enough by now to know that technological changes in our modes of communication are even more ideology-laden than changes in our modes of transportation. Introduce the printing press to a culture and you change its cognitive habits, its social relations, its notions of community, history and religion. Introduce the printing press with movable type, and you do the same. introduce speed-of-light transmission of images and you make a cultural revolution. Without a vote. Without polemics. Without guerrilla resistance. Here is ideology, pure if not serene. Here is ideology without words, and all the more powerful for their absence. All that is required to make it stick is a population that devoutly believes in the inevitability of progress. And in this sense, all Americans are Marxists, for we believe nothing if not that history is moving us toward some preordained paradise and that technology is the force behind that movement.

Aldous Huxley believed, with H. G. Wells that we are in a race between education and disaster, and he wrote continuously about the necessity of our understanding the politics and epistemology of media. For in the end, he was trying to tell us that what afflicted the people in Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.

The World as I see it or A Catalogue of Death

2008-09-15T17:59:00.018+06:00

ow oortaOr the world as I want you to see it. Both statements, according to me, are the same. You might disagree. Which is important. But not to me. Or maybe it is. Or it remains to be seen, as most print/electronic reports say in conclusion.

Traversing across the world of information, news and reports, one come's across more appalling phrases than the one mentioned above, and even worse, there are details of death and destruction. Anywhere you look, there is a calamity waiting to be noticed.

Hurricane Ike, that battered Central American Countries, is now on a rampage in coastal states of America. Rescue teams had found 500 corpses, while another 1 million have been left homeless. Cuba has also been ravaged, and so are smaller Islands in the Carribean.

The mayor of Turks and Calicos island says more than 80% of the houses have been destroyed. Yes, we have never heard of the two islands, but we can still imagine how it would be like when 80% of homes in a locality are destroyed.

Feel the shiver when you are inside a multi-storey house which is shaken from its roots, knowing this isn't the end of your misery, and you can't get out unless prepared and able to raft or wade across shoulder-deep waters.

While in the U.S., evacuation saved thousands from premature death. But nature showed how little consideration it gives to differences of real-politiks. The Gulf Coast suffered equally devastating destruction; floods wiped across with as much gusto across Haiti as across Texas.

But this is just nature reminding mortals of it's powers which dwarf all else. Human follies too play their part - resulting in more death and more misery..

This picture is not from the Gulf of Mexico, but from Indonesia, where stampede during a Zakat ceremony resulted in the death of 21 people.

Soon one will be reported from your city, if not your neighbourhood.

One occurs each year, caused not by pious hunger, but by the piously hungry; at Mecca, as they run helter-skelter during the Stoning of the Devil.

Another stampede, another 13 killed, this time at a soccer match in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The goalkeeper of one of the teams tried to use Witchcraft to influence the outcome of the game.

Another 88 people perished in a Russ ian jet crash in the Ural mountains. Just like the Talibans are spread criss-cross across the mountainous Pak-Afghan border, the Ural mountains had I mam Shamyl and his brigade of asetic followers; fighting the mighty Russian Empire. But they, too, perished, one after the other.

Meanwhile, in good old homeland of Pakistan, hundreds are slaughtered each day. The altar differs, though. Sometimes its for national security, sometimes to establish the writ of the state, sometimes because the US-led forces want to, sometimes to establish the writ of the militants, but never in anyway to benefit the residents of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas or the once scenic Swat valley.

While there are conflicting reports on the number of the dead, this report catalogues the number of casualties in Pakistan.

A staggering 2900 casualties since March, 2008 alone.

Another report puts the number of security personnel killed in combat since Pakistan's alliance with the U.S. in the War Against Terror at 730 - discounting the injured and the maimed.

Every day a headline stares you in the face citing a number, usually in double figures, that are killed. For an entire week, everyday 10-15 civilian casualties were reported only from U.S. airstrikes within Pakistan. Thousands others have become collateral damage in the war of attrition that rages on in Pakistan's once-scenic-now-rugged mountainous north.

Suspected Al-Qaeda militants are not confined to Pakistan, though. According to this report, Al-Qaeda suspects were behind the killing of eleven members of the Mauritanian Army. Mauritania is a small country in North Africa which had its democratically elected leader removed in a coup. One wonder's if Al-Qaeda wants to kill an African dictator, what love he had for the Pakistani one for so long. Tacit support, I reckon.

And then there's the Battle of Baghdad and the Killing in Kabul, which goes on all-year round. Also, numerous others, one-off deaths or in small groups, anonymous victims of hit-and-run, albeit on a much smallter stage, but of the same (in)consequence.

But I will come back again, cataloguing more.....lives as often as deaths.

Another start

2008-09-15T17:25:00.002+06:00

As umpteen times before, I am once again committed to a new start. My commitment to blog regularly as fickle as God's commitment to the parched lands of Sindh....

Just like intermittent rainfalls, my thoughts rain in spurts and then dither away, as if they never were. Did not exist. And not like some God particle scientists are trying to unearth through a billions of dollars experiment, but just like the hunger of the homeless. Inconsequential.

But I will try to be consistent. Infuse discipline. Just like cricketers with a religious bent infuse discipline in their lives. I will strive.

To this new beginning, a toast.

Confessions of a Dead Soul

2008-07-01T06:03:00.003+06:00

Under the yoke of the British as we were, we had to be smitten by all things English. Imperial traditions and courtly manners swept the Brown Saheb off his feet. The legacy of the legal system still holds supreme. The Royal family continues to be a abyss of envy. Even the accent inspired awe - whether it's Hugh Grant wooing Bridget or some cockney doggerel. But worst of all I find the devotion to our erstwhile masters literary achievements. Fair enough, Mother England had it's fair share of geniuses in the fields of poetry and prose, but it doesn't mean we neglect the corpus of literature belonging to other regions. Indeed, Dickens, Hardy and company should be held in good steed, but the fascination with Elizabethean novels is sometimes sickening. Shakespeare might not have a peer but Marlowe wasn't a queer. But let's step off the Island.

The romanticism of the French, the efficacy of the Germans, the wisdom of the Greeks, the courage of the Nordic, the Spanish armadas and the ambition of the Portuguese are oft forgotten as the miniature Island of the English becomes the barometer for all things European.

All these nations are rich in culture and traditions; literary and otherwise. Flaubert and Diderot are important figures in the evolution of the novel. Stendhal's wisdom shines through in each passage. Balzac and Maupaussant were masters of the art of the short-story. The prolific Zola was as much commercial as he was suave. And these are only just a few Frenchmen.

While German thought was less expressed in novels and more in the form of Critique (of Pure Reason etc..), it too has literary heavyweights who had far reaching impacts on literary techniques. The Divine Comedy is a timeless classic, so is Goethe's work. Thomas Mann, Gunter Grass, Bertolt Brecht and more that I need to discover.

And then there is the master of it all, Franz Kafka, whom I considered a Slav, but I've been told he wrote in German.

Which brings me to the whole body of Russian Literature, a victim of unfortunate neglect as the Czars' incompetence made Russian forays into the Caucus a failure, or else we might have had troikas and drozhnys, instead of royal carriages. It's another matter if the Russian forces would have been able to overcome the Afghans, who repelled the British when colonial expansion blanketed the entire subcontinent; and even the Russians but that was thanks to the US-Israel-SaudiArabia nexus faciliated by our very own General Zia sahab, although a conspiracy is brewed in Hollywood to have it credited to Senator Charlie Wilson. But us intelligent ones can sift fact from fiction.

The Pakistani exposure to Russian Literature seems to be limited to two authors and three books; Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina' and 'War and Peace', and Dostoyevskey's 'Crime and Punishment'.

Impressive pieces of literature as they are, the mere size of the novel is enough to scare the novice - while the digressions, that the authors take liberties to, can make things slower than (our) Little Master's vigil against the West Indies. (A pint-sized Hanif scoring a triple hundred against the gigantic quickies from the Carribean.)

Merited as they are a place in the highest echelons of Literature, the above mentioned books are surely not the most apt choice for the representation of such a vast array of literary talent.

Even I, with my Golgothan like appetite for the written word, the legendary veracity that even devoured Gone with the Wind, not to speak of other atrocities, was left askance by Tolstoy's musings on the Russian serf and agrarian techniques. I have since been told that the man was a visionary and even came up with Non-Violence before Gandhi. Interesting snippets, but I still prefer his short stories.

Tell me, you shareef mussalmans, or even the hindoos, for your allegiance should lie with the subcontinent first than any other morsels of land, would you feel safer approaching Anna Karenina, or Haji Murad? Especially when Ms Karenina appears a blown up version of Anna Nicole, while the Haji is extremely nimble on his feet. Think, decide & act.

"Addicted to Martyrdom"

2008-04-19T05:40:00.008+05:00

-- Excerpts from Junkie-Journal

Round 1: Yoda vs. Guilt

The moments when you let guilt get the better of you, those moment of conscientiousness, when you feel as pure as a newborn leprechaun, can sometimes have interstingly bizzare consequences, but in my case, it turns out, more often than not, to be rather taxing. And once again, that was the conclusion, inspite of my immense good fortune of being present at a performance by Kamal Sabri, the masterful Sarangi player visiting from India, primarily for his performance at the All Pakistan Music Conference - Karachi Chapter.

The term 'Sarangi', according to him, is derived from 'Sau Rangi', which translates into "100 colours", which I guess I blinked through as he performed the Ragas....and invoked tender sensations with each bandish. The sound of the Sarangi is said to be the most similar to humans, and I would be in communication with a never-known-before self everytime he strummed the instrument....with a mastery that that leaves one spell-bound. He just didn't perform, he lead us towards higher truths that lies beyond the realm of mundane comprehension. It made a smile dance on my lips, and there was agony and ecstasy. It was music that entered the body, and organs aligned to the beat, and a sense of elevation overtook, and I flew upstream. The thoughts were jumbled up, but I knew it all made sense. What did not make sense was that the use of Sarangi, as an accompanist or for solo performance, is on the decline, and Kamal Sabri is one of the very few practitioners. A worthy memory.

But otherwise, it was only the gandugiri of guilt that ruined supreme. The day started off at 8:15 as I woke up after a heavy night of love-talk with my dove, and after another night of only 3 hours and eyes swollen worse than being bloodshot, being the nice man on the surface I am, I risked being late to give a ride to a cheeky bastard from college who's becoming a pain rather than just an ordinary itch. But with my robust skills on the wheel, and the effeciency of the two-wheeler in the face of roadside conundrums, I managed. To not only make it in time, but to smoke outside, too.

It was presentation day, and I was all dressed up. The usual glances came the way, with a few chickies commenting on the tie, followed by small talk based on the assumption that dressing up is due to good mood. Maybe they are not that dumb, but they ought to prove otherwise. However, it was pure necessity. After the first two groups fucked up beautifully, conquering all and sundry was set on a plate....with a little conniving. I managed to get our group's turn down from last to third, to save us a lot of unnecessary khwari, but it turned into a spectacle, which would make a hilarious story if I ever were to pen it down. Nonetheless, we managed to present and the rest fought over the spoils. This was 9 to 12. Followed by a tedious 2 and a half hour long break for Jumma. Which was supposed to be followed by a return to presentation routine in Business Ethics, and two other extra classes, scheduled impromptu, leaving me in a tri-lemma. Found out that one teacher was AWOL and irate students had filed a complaint against him even. Such nitpicking nincompoops doobie-less chooths et al. I decided to give Calculus a shot for half an hour, then Ethics, lying to both and get out. But such was the tiredness that I fell asleep as the rest of the world creaked and by the time I woke up it was already 4. A peaceful hour long sleep while 2 groups presented. Sometimes I marvel at my ability to pass out in the most bizzare of circumstances. However, I woke up, lied to the teacher, and walked out, only to rush to work, seeing miss calls from bossie boss. She's not bossy, though. She's the most understanding, loving, caring, generous boss, whether its about work-hours, money, domestic issues or general slacking. And she loves me, too, which one can always play to his advantage, only if it were not for the gandugiri of guilt. Love is such a dilemma, too.

The smartalecs at work made jokes, in their own tones, about my formal attire. First up was the lead-role of Khurram's magnum opus, "The UnFuckables", who asked me about where my job interview had been. I said Al Jazeera. Her laugh concealed malice, but I generally see-through facades and try to when there's black-bra under a see-through. But she's the lead from the UnFuckables, and I resisted.

Even the big boss gave me a look, while boss made jokes about my joke interview, too, only to clarify soon enough that it was a presentation. What if your boss is one of those who are easily flustered and ask the dumbest of questions; all the time expecting people to answer with a straight face and solemn gait. I'd just show my ass and laugh it off. But what if you get caught.

And then I was given the news of our new hirings tete-a-tete with the head of the business desk. It wasn't the most pleasant of exchanges but she's our terrier and we can't let her teeth go blunt. It's a fierce world out there and we require as much tenacity as we can obtain.

All this got my spirits high. I even had subway - a treat considering the humble state of my finances. Then there was Sherbano and Jay. She said she was feverish, and also exasperated. The roof is always a nice place. And we climbed clinky stairs to have our little rain-dance. It was a triangle and my favorite floozie piled up lies. Thank divinity I never cared. My irate self is quite a mess.

And then I came down and returned to the computer. The pseudo-albino cameraguy asked me to come close. My guard was high, but it was an innocent query regarding MSN. He wanted to knwo the e-mail address of this one female on his list, who, in his own words, had randomly added him. Because he's such a hottie and a pseudo-albino (I don't know the disease but his face is half white like those funny kids in school that no one wanted to talk to but everyone's mom did), and he's got a beer belly and a namazi topi, along with the penguin walk and all the works. I explained. He asked me further questions. My tone became agitated and he politely thanked. I should be more polite. But that was just my premonitionary senses getting to work.

Off I went, to haggle for tapes. Then to eat Saffo appa's cake and have it too. That's Kamal Sabri in esoteric language and nothing to do with Ayn Rand. Ever.

But what followed Mr. Sabri was pure disaster. A show that was scheduled to start at 8:00. A launching of wristwatch, Titan, if you please, and other than presentations and introductions and usual ass-kissing, it also had a fashion segment as sashaying beauties were to showcase the watches on their dainty wrists.

We got there by 9:45....and still had to wait another half an hour. It was ugly. So were the models. Only 4 chicks who kept coming back, dressed as per the theme of the segment. Some of them actually looked pretty dragging their limbs during the Semi-traditional segment, having the desi look..Rajasthani, pigeonhole if we must. But what horrors were to follow, when I sneaked backstage and asked those involved to share a few thoughts. Dolled up as they must be, they lacked all natural charm. And a lack of garrulity only added to the goryness. The designer of the clothes was also a psychotic creature who kept stealing glances as if followed by some kinky feds who molest him at frequent intervals.

The food was good, though. But so depressing were the 3 hours that I was forced to sit through, tired as fuck, that it put an end to all my hopes of every making out of this job alive. Sometimes I exaggerate. Sometimes I excessively hate. Someone needs to cure me. You can. I know. But sometimes I hate saviours, too.

But I wouldn't have been in this situation, if I had finished my degree on time. Or not chosen to take up a full-time job. The routine is a year-old now but I fail to adjust. And the restlessness won't subside.

I won't give in to guilt again. You, obviously, are an exception, not perchance.

"Addicted to Martyrdom"

2008-03-29T05:24:00.007+05:00

-- 'Anonymous tidbits from a self-deluded romantic'

Chapter: Vile as Bile

.............Theatre is not only an opportunity for strugglers to showcase their star potential, but also a medium of social commentary as well as handing out educative morsels of morality and societal ethics, especially given our quasi-literate society. A prosaic corollary could be that blogs not only provide an opportunity for wannabe literati to showcase their gift of the gab, but also a medium of espousing jumbled up personal philosophies and a conduit for channeling thoughts and opinion that are lost in the din of reality that is percieved as abnormality by those who tend to resort to blogs - like myself over here. Prone to articulating emotions inadequately, incoherently and with great difficulty, I must also use this medium to compensate for all those times when the tongue fails to roll off the thoughts formulating in the head...and the heart. When bottled up emotions can no longer be stuffed in the lamp as the genie demands some space. When all I want is to drill a hole and go into permanent hibernation, will this provide solace? As likely as Disneyland at Guantanamo but Walt had a vision, Luther dreamed and we dared, too. But being a pathological failure, I had to come across the glitches within the Matrix. And things fall apart. Not least because she had run out of patience. She has more of it than Sahara has dunes. But because I am vile. As vile as bile. And she the pristine virgin. With a capacity to love greater than sun's to shine. And I, the greedy urchin stealing plumes and figs. Too stark a difference it is. And so, the days which were filled with loving confessions will now become a sallow vaccuum, with as much colour as contained in Ford's earliest slogan. And gone with all the colour is the sense of completion. Of being a whole. How odd the yin would be without the yang. And so I feel; like a broken talisman; a loose chain, a lever without its mechanism; a piece of barren land. Clawing my hair and scratching my bare legs until they bleed. Alas, only if were due to the foreboding feeling that overcomes as I fear her departure. But its the drug that makes me itch and scratch. And as I write this, in the middle of snorts, a sense of tranquility returns. I feel lighter and calmer, but also aware of the hollowness of this calm and its dependency upon the drug, which meanwhile, feeds upon my intestines and makes my stomach contract. This takes care of food and concerns of indigestion. I don't want any intake. I only want to puke. Out all the indignation brewing inside. Which is over the self. And a lump forms in my throat and I go mute at important times when a word of affection can give me another chance. But the lump stops all, and then phlegm is spitted out and then another lump and more phlegm. That's all there is inside. Phlegm and lies. And all I want to do is crawl back all over the phlegm and grovel at her feet. What she says not only pinches, but mutilates. But who cares of wounded vanity and squashed ego when greater things are on the line. While the kids from Lord of the Flies had little time to contemplate upon their accidental abandoning, all I can do is conceive myself as Tom Hanks, but not the bristling Charlie Wilson but the mute in Cast Away. And so I have been cast. Away. I hate being abandoned. But she has reasons and although I [have to] believe selfless love supercedes all logic and reason, I cannot demand her to abide by conveniently held beliefs. Especially if my inconsistent streaks are to be considered which make me more culpable than Kissinger...although I wouldn't mind if I get her as my noble prize. I am sitting here, looking at the cellular. For it is the chain that kept us together inspite of the miles. And then in a fit of rage I smashed it against the wall, laughed at the inadeuacy of my responses and consumed some more heroine. How depraved am I. Letting it all go to the dogs, as now I have the abandoning to blame. Always seeking reasons. Just smoke and snort and find myself a drain pipe to make my abonimable abode in. That will be it. I will blame her. And become a martyr for love. Maybe cut a few veins, too. Or maybe just spike them.

But then she called......

Slaughter of the Intellectuals - Fisk

2008-02-04T01:27:00.000+05:00

Its an almia. With all the theorising, pakistan is very much following the trajectory, which is generally attributed to failed nations....or those with dictatorial regimes. sometimes it even appears that tis scripted to boot. but mostly, in repressive regimes, the (hopefully) flourishing arts are crushed...as the artist is averse to clipping of his wings. and then decadents and the bohemians revolt. In societies where religious fundamentalism is stoked, the result is tragic. Pakistan has its share of minority shia doctors who were murdered during a wave.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19950216/ai_n13966276

And now I think, whether I should be glad that our society has not deteriorated to such a level...or sad that there are no real movie-makers...and intelelctuals that the fundoos would want to kill. karachi's flagship film festival, kara, has been postponed....no because terrorism is a threat to the event....but because it is the threat to the already meagre attendance.

And a paper on Iranian cinema. Which I will read.Soon.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Stephen_Nottingham/cintxtIran.htm

Return of the Native

2008-01-19T15:17:00.000+05:00

When a swarm of black engulfs, I am reminded of Hardy. His writing also had a dark pallor. Everything was depressing. From start to finish. Unlike Chekhov, who mastered the art of short-storytelling. His adjectives were bleak. They were desolate. Hardy is plain negative. He would be for the entire breadth of the novel. And the blackness has returned. It's Ashura time and where my humble abode lies, the blackness hits the skies.

Old Numaish, or the former epicentre of Karachi, the round-about which-is-no-more, adjacent the Quaid's mazaar, is where the Shias have one of their major Mosques, or Imam Bargah, if you must. The entire artery, M.A. Jinnah road that stretches from Bundar Road till Prison round-about, was sealed. Crossing to the other side is a hassle. I had to take a long detour. Travel an extra 15 kilometeres to circumvent the route of the procession.

The shias, however, cannot be blamed as the rest make an equally appalling mess come the time of Eid ul-Azha, when sacrifces are mandatory. Although no detours are required.

However, this Moharram, with the threat of suicide bombing large.....the entry exit points are heavily secured and whether convenient or otherwise, oncomers are forced to take detours.

But the news is that attendance at the Majlis and the Procession is expected to not be as high as of earlier years. The threat of suicide bombing at a public congregation has deflated religious fervour even. It was not always like this. The Karachi of the 90s, with its no-go areas, never scared us of public gathering. Safety in numbers was what we aimed for. That is no longer the case. I wonder whether this change in thinking is post-Benazir assassination or that is when it hit home. After having more blasts in the country than most war-zones, with an increasing number of suicide bombings, 2007 was always going to be the bloodiest year of our collective living memory.

The side-show of the lawyers movement, which would time and again bring life to an abdupt halt, the Lal Masjid spectacle, the musical chairs that the Chief Justice played, the returning-departing-returning political exiles, the bruwahah over the elections, the imposition of emergency rule, media related chicanery, the assassination of the Baluch separatist leader, the still ongoing battles in Waziristan and tribal areas, the never-ending War on Terror and destabilized Afghanistan and Iraq, the rhetoric based in Iran........all this took place in 2007. And for all those who gloat over the upheavels in Pakistan, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was the crowning glory. The same day, fellow exile-return and less of a darling of the West, Nawaz Sharif was also attacked. There were only four casualties at his rally, and one victim adorned the screen - thanks to the profusing media - having promotional party paraphernalia as coffin. Nawaz, to his credit, hurried to the hospital where Benazir had already breathed her last, and announced boycott of elections.

Its funny how often politicians boycott. Then they enter under protest. Sometimes under duress. My hunch was Zardari wanted participation to ride on the sympathy wave. Atleast thats less cynical than the conspiracy theory doing the rounds in coke-laced get-togethers in drawing rooms of not only the elite, but also some sensible people, that Zardari is responsible for Benazir's assassination.

My boss has a theory that its the knee-jerk Pakistani response to any unnatural death. If it's the husband, thant he wife must have done it, and vice verse. And incase both our dead, you blame the son, as was in the Ismail Gulgee's case.

Whatever be the case, the truth remains that Pakistan is still the clutches of medieval aristocrats and the noble blood is enough to lead the race. And Bilawal was crowned the heir, with a halloween face. It is another scary beginning. His mother, two maternal uncles, and grandfather have met tragic ends. His grandfather and one uncle were sacrificial lambs towards political ends. His mother, a victim of the most gruesome form of political targetting. One can only guess how he will fare. Apparently, he's a martial art expert. Only if he had popped the pill and entered the Matrix would I bet on him. To survive.

Like I would bet on my relationship to survive. The uncanny similarities are there. Like in every facet there are certain parallel developments which are scary. For instance, processions of pro-government politicians never have any suicide bombers knocking on the doors. It's only anti government politicians. The militants allegedly responsible for killing anti-government politicians are busy taking out government soldiers and official militiamen in the tribal areas. It raises the question why don't they target pro-government political rallies. Other than former interior minister, Aftab Sherpao, none of the government allied leaders have come under attack inspite of their huge congregations. The lawyers have been attacked, politicians have been attacked, and a leading political figure has even been assassinated. Inside job, they murmur. "Liaquat Ali Khan's assassin was functioning alone and so is the ISI," says the conspiracy theory floozie at work.

The young Fatima Bhutto has also been ranting in rant-able quarters about things inconsequential. She even ended up in Lyari for three hours. And writing articles that are labelled ghostwritten by editors of competing publications.

2008 has arrived and along with it more blasts. The first one...targetting public places in Urban centres was in Lahore...killing more than 23 policeman and a few civilians. After that, there have been two more in Karachi, one in Peshawar, and more expected over the next 2 days. Already more than 100 people have died and more than 500 injured.

Further casualties are on the way. Emergency time again. But in hospitals. All is the same in Pakistan.

For better or worse

2007-11-26T17:03:00.000+05:00

It has been more than three weeks now since the emergency was imposed. Television channels have come back on air - barring one, for which, rather conveniently, I work and, hence, have time to prattle - and the same tripe has returned to TV screens, minus gory scenes of torso-less heads attributed to suicide bombers of immatur age.

Politicians are singing the same songs, so are the members of the administration. The ballads and slogans are pro-poor....and promises abound. Civil society is also returning to its previous role of silent apathy, barring a few miscreants who defy commonsense and hold vigils outside press club praying for a return to democracy. (Seven people in all.....)

And the incumbents are out in full force, addressing mass rallies, influencing opinion, promising reforms and transperancy, and other things that no one really believes but listens to happily.

Even Nawaz Sharif has returned, for better or worse. After his aborted attempt around a month back, this time he came with the blessings of the Saudi monarch....and in his special plane. The sacred approval enabled him to land in Lahore.....and march back to his Model Town home, which had been given over to the social welfare department and had become a shelter for the homeless. Now those poor souls are back on the street.....as the government has taken reconciliatory measures and occupying abandoned homes isn't easy as laser transplants on the scalp and growing hair in marsh land. Let's see if the media follows their trail, or they are forgotten as quickly as our outstanding cases against politicians in power.

Though, Benazir says Nawaz Sharif's safe return highlights the effectiveness of "National Reconciliation Order".......hoping that cases against her will also be written-off.

It's like giving a woman married for nine months and happy with her care-free life full of fun, frolic and party two options: Either get babies or rabies.

Which is the course Britney Spears plans to follow. She is planning to adopt a pair of Chinese twins. To make up for the loss of parental custody of her two kids...and also losing visitation rights after endangering their lives after a cocaine binge. Cynics (me?) say the plan is to get good press afer Madonna and Angelina's success.

And that's why Altaf Hussain is also expected to return. After Benazir and Nawaz's successful return, although like Madonna, who got into trouble with Malawian authorities for trespassing certain laws, Nawaz, too, got into hot-waters with the Saudi king for sneaking out incognito. But this time, he didn't circumvent authority and will soon be sprinkling General Mushy with Aab-e-ZamZam and verses from the Holy Quran.

But will the return of the ex-persona no grata result in a political short-circuit? The equation stands changed now.

Benazir continues to loose chunks of her voter-base with every statemet she makes. She has already promised Pakistan to the Americans. She has also promised to wipe out extremists elements. She has also promised to purge the Army of extremist elements and send them packing back to the barracks, like a mule with the tail tied between the legs and bleeding from the ass. She also says that she will empower the poor, get women her rights, safeguard the minorities, provide provincial autonomy and everything other 'positive claim' that will make it into the news.

Nawaz has made similar claims....he has returned to the nation to save us...to save democracy...and save the poor from being short-changed by the leaders-elect or select.

Altaf Hussain has been making teh same claims from his cave in England...

Even Imran Khan has joined in the chorus, but he has a cancer hospital to his credit and a past that is free from acts of duplicity that was second nature to the three leaders mentioned before him.

President General Musharraf will soon become President Musharraf once he takes oath and takes off his uniform. While there will be no strip-tease, there might be a stripping of dignity as the politicians will attempt to reconcile differences and become part of an alliance....with the sworn in President.

The myth of unity of political parties will remain, however, as a distant reality. And each-other will be blamed.

Govt derails PPP's rally attempt

2007-11-10T07:12:00.000+05:00

Rawalpindi has more army men then stones. And also eight suicide bombers. This was the reason why Benazir was placed under house arrest...for her own security, said the ISPR chief, or someone else from the quasi-militant agency that reigns atop the government hierarchy.

Police was stationed at the roads leading to the house of the BB and party-members were refused to enter the avenue and BB was denied the liberty to leave. There were scuffles and arrests ofcourse.

The government had already refused permission to hold the rally and with the emergency in place, I don't know what the ruckus is about. Either there is an emergency or there is none. If you can't weild the baton for good measure, than you should be baking bread at home, as the dominant chauvinist local maxim goes.

However, the baton was weilded to good measure and quite a few heads opened up. Open heads (or minds?) are also part of Enlightened moderation, don't you think?

The inspector general of Punjab had said that the law would run its course and it did; but isn't it part of the law that tear-gas shells are shot in the air and not aimed at protesting head? But thats how protestors are generally dispelled and we are only learning to master habits and this one needs to evolve further. Tear-gas snipping is next on the agenda but only if America pulls off another Iraq style invasion in Afghanistan and have busty GI babes train our lads.

Official quotes put the number of arrested PPP workers at 800 but that was by the morning of the day of teh rally. Once it was found out that the leader was under house arrest, the protestors intensity increased and there was further crackdown. The joining of hands of lawyers and students made things more difficult. Students at LUMS and BNU in Lahore and Quaid-e-Azam university in Islamabad were instrumental in holding flash protests to show their dissent.

But PPPs show of strength was spoiled as inspite of international pressure and Uncle Bush's phone call, the restraint order was not repealed until evening, and by then the winds had been taken out of the sails.

Cynics, though, claim that the aforementioned sail is in tatters and uncle sam is trying to provide the purple patch by bringing a reconciliation between BB and Mush.

Which is my fear. If, after all the protesting, most of which is yet to come, BB gives in to Machivalliaen deal, the blow that will be delivered to our spirits will be obscene.

The only option, then, will be to have Iqbal Hussain paint the nations portrait in his image.

Street Fighting Man

2007-11-10T05:20:00.000+05:00

Sang Mick Jaggers...allegedly after hearing Tariq Ali address an anti-war rally in London. Tariq Ali is Pakistan's preeminent student leader......back in the 60s when there was still life in nations.

Whether you like French fries or otherwise, you gotta admire their courage, although they dumped Vietnam on the Yanks and committed other fouls in the battle-ground of realpolitiks. But the people - with or without their fixation of cheese and wine....having been pioneers in movements of the mind...and hearts, too. 1968 is celebrated in campus history as the Year of the Barricades. The anarchist zeal of French students nearly brought down the government of France's most famous post-world-war-2 president: Charles de Gaulle. Anti-Vietnam protests in teh US followed.....and while in France intellect bloomed, in Yankee-land, too, it showed dissent. And thanks to that, we had the hippie revolution and hopes of sex, drug and rock n roll.

Even in Pakistan, there were protests against Ayub Khan.....whether masterminded by the executed Zulfi Bhutto is another debate.....but the student uprising alongside civil society was the major factor in Ayub giving up power. Tariq Ali's book, Street Fighting Years: Revolution in the 60s is a rather interesting read and makes one nostalgic for that age...when honest revolt reigned.

But lets snap and return to the present and the conundrum that our society is. Master Mush has made another promise....that general elections will be held by Feburuary 15, 2008 as promised. He has made quite a few promises in the past, too, to the people of Pakistan...and in particular to fellow stakeholders or political allies and failed to deliver. General Zia, the senior most dictator with 11 years to his credit, also pulled off similar deeds. Musharraf has pulled level with Ayub, who both have 8 years of service as head of all affairs under their belts.

Anyhow, the announcement, it is believed rather cynically and by me, has been made to appease international detractors. Condemnation of imposition of emergency was swift, as is generally the case...and Master Mush got a call from Uncle Sam's honcho and even PastMaster Bush said to reporters he was expecting return to normality in Pakistan. Britain, Germany, Norway and the UN were other nations that condemned the imposition of emergency and the black-out fo the media. Human rights groups were up in arms.

As it is, Pakistan is notorious for suicide bombings, honour killings, military coups, mass poverty, target killings, terrorism and increasing itnernational debt...and now images are flashing on screens of news-channels across the world of memebrs of civil society engaged in pitched battles with law-enforcement agencies. While civil war is unlikely to break out anytime soon, as Pakistan is more of a police-state than it is made out to be, and the population more pathetic than it is generalyl believed to be, there are still fears that this showdown can only get worse with time.

The lawyers have already been protesting for a while....ever since the CJ got sacked. They celebrated for a while when he was re-instated but now he is back under-house arrest and once again back to politicizing the entire campaign. So the lawyers are back protesting on the streets.

With the imminent elections, political campaigns are also underway....and with Benazir's arrival, things have heated up. The suicide bombing attempt at Benazir that killed nearly 150 people has only reaffirmed the victim mentality of the footsoldiers....and after Benazir was placed under house arrest yesterday to keep her from holding a scheduled rally and address in the army dominated city of Rawalpindi, the Jiyalas - as the die-hards call themselves - are all set for a showdown.

But the most alarming development, though some say the most lofty, is the gathering momentum of student protests. While governemnt universities have long been hotbed of political violence, the private campuses were rather sterile. But now it's students from these private universities only - that cream of middle class that aspires to work hard - has taken on themselves to emulate the Street Figthers of the 60s..

And while the politicians and lawyers are old hand - no judgements on the sincerity or nobility of their protests - and can submit to authority when facing the literal axe, the students are unlikely to show similar discretion. The student protests of '68 turned into an uprising when a student was shot-dead by the police. But then, the value of street-life wasn't rendered useless. However, now, it's a different story....and I fear martyrs, as much for them as for the legacy left behind.

Everyday, protestors are rounded up. Lawyers are already going missing. More than a 1000 PPP party-members were arrested in Rawalpindi....an attempt to puncture BBs hot air balloon. Public congregations are disbanded under the provisional constitution - section 144 being imposed, which entails that four persons cannot discuss anything in public. Civilians can be arrested and detained without a warrant....and the Army Act has been amended, which means civilians can be tried in military courts if the authorities feel the act was deterimental for the Pakistan Army. And as Master Mush is teh Chief of Army Staff, all protests against him are detrimental for the Army....meaning, I can be court martialled, too. Even you, if you read this and they trace your IP. I must go take a leak. I hope the the flush isn't bugged.

Anyhow, the confrontations are taking place. Everyday. Police is always beating up lawyers...though sometimes they show some balls, too...especially when students come to their aid. But if you are protesting, you are bound to be picked up. If you talk to the media, even than you are picked up. By people in plainclothes. Suddenly, from nowhere, 15-20 men will emerge in white kurta-shalwar, hold you by the scruff of your neck, and drag you off.

If you are in the middle of a protest, they will come running and surround you, pushing and shoving, lead you towards a police van. If you resist, they will beat you up. Even if you are a woman.

Though, today, it was made clear that even teh women force had been instructed to use brute force. Quite a few ladies had their heels broken, and one probably has a swolled jaw after a forecful slap that was captured on tape and will probably make headlines in international media once they catch on.

Otherwise, vocal protestors are isolated from the group and thrashed - whether the media looks on or not. Even foreign journalists have faced the heat. A canadian reporter got caught up in a baton-charge....but the agencies retreated as the white-skin intimidates. Which is rather sad....Aitzaz Ahsan, a lawyer of unquestionable talent and integrity, who also represented the Chief Justice and is a Senator of the PPP, is now in solitary confinement....and when he was leading a lawyers' protest against the sacking of the Chief Justice, the highhandedness of the plainclothes policeman was seen by the entire world. They picked him up and ran....to be out of reach of the following lawyers....The man is above 50 and highly respected. They treated him like a schoolboy playing truant.

Cricketers shouldn't blame. You never get due respect in Pakistan. Unless, ofcourse, your father is in the forces.

Musharraf is the new Shah; Pakistan is Iran in the 70s

2007-11-09T01:36:00.001+05:00

It's official now.......even right-minded American politicians think that Musharraf is behaving like a sulking King. Well, it's not official, because it's not Bush who made the statement. But a White House hopeful did....and the world is fast-catching on. Democrat Joe Biden was to make the statement while giving his address at some college. He wants US focus to shift from Musharraf and be directed at the people of Pakistan....as they have a strong democratic tradition. Someone needs to explain to Senator Biden that Pakistan has spent a greater part of its history under a military dictator - and will continue to do so as long as his great nation allows political expediency to supersede democratic or popular will.

However, his comparison surely is interesting....and make me hopeful. Can a popular student uprising hold American diplomats hostage at the American consulate? Who will be our firebrand clerical leader? Not Qazi or Fazl for sure. We need someone not tainted by petty politics. The two Islamist leaders have switched sides and flipped loyalties too often and too fast for anyone to believe in them for too long. (Long in Pakistan is realitively short.) In my head, there's only one solution: O-S-A-M-A! He's more popular in Pakistan than Musharraf...so why not?

And the senator's argument also makes sense. The moderate element, the same one with a strong tradition of democracy, will get fed up soon and join forces with the extremist and then we will have a scripted Islamic Revolution. Only we are already a nuclear power and Israel will be wiped off like Dresden and maybe some obscure jew will write his Slaughterhouse-Five or a day in the Kibbutz or something similar. There will be no nitpicking with IAEA inspectors and total destruction expedited.

Our cricketing hero..es.

2007-11-08T17:40:00.000+05:00

"O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;.."

Are the lines from a Walt Whitman poem....but I remember them chiefly because of 'Dead Poets Society", an academy-award winning movie. The poem was written to pay homage to the assassinated American president, Abraham Lincoln....and was also translated into Hebrew by an Israeli poet to be sung at Yatzak Rabin's memorial. But that's mere referencing from popular culture.

I also want to pay homage....to our cricketing heroes. To my captain, who has to be Imran Khan - also because it was his leadership that brought Pakistan it's most glorious sporting moment, and also because he is a class act with a personality that shines through even when quelching mud. Okay, that's a misplaced metaphor but I am in the mood of waxing poetic, and there's something called poetic license, too.

I am euphoric because Pakistan just pulled off its greatest run chase - and the glacier on the cake is that it was against our arch-rivals; our perennial-foes; the nation we have been raised to hate: India.

We had lost the first match like a circus lion doing the rounds......atleast I felt worse than the sprawling on the floor boxer knocked out by Tyson without having a chance to throw a punch even. We had put up a decent total in the 1st ODI....atleast by the standards of Gwalior....but the Indian batting line-up showed its superiority...and our bowling attack its mediocrity when fighting for a lost cause.

But today......chasing a mamooth 322......we showed class. Which was shown earlier by the Indian batsmen. Tendulkar was in blazing form. The way he accelerated the scoring rate remins one of the cliche 'form is temporary; class is permanent', although the man of every moment was rather unlucky to get out on 99 - for a third time. That's another unique record for the master blaster.

Umar Gul bowled with a lot of heart and was instrumental in putting the breaks on the Indian scoring rate by taking the key wicket of Tendulkar. All our bowlers chipped in and although Harbhajan blasted a quick-fire 35 at the end, we were able to keep the Indian total to a lot less than what appeared when Tendulkar held sway.

Our reply started off in jitters as usual, as we haven't had a stable opening partnership since the times of Saeed Anwar and Aamir Sohail. Salman Butt played some stylish shots but perished to a concentration lapse. But there was Younus Khan....who scored a majestic hundred, and though Youhana failed for once, 20-20 man Misbah finally put in a worthwhile ODI innings...but they both perished before completing the job. And in came the man who reflects the Pakistani temparent most honetly - the evergreen Shahid Khan Afridi...and for the first time in his life, he was able to hit the winning runs. A memorable win.......especially in context of the overall gloomy scenario that engulfs Pakistan, a state of emergency being imposed, and rumours rife that the Army Act can be amended. Which essentially means, dear unsuspecting chootyas(or civilians), that civilans can be court martialled. Our very own Guntanamo bay.

But returning to paying homage....to certain cricketers who are a mere haze in the head. I remember dozing off between deliveries as Pakistan battled England in the '92 world cup final. It was Ramazan. It was the most glorious moment of my life...too bad I was very young then.

But one year down the line......November 5, 1993: It was the Australasia Cup final, and Pakistan was playing the mighty West Indies...with its intimidating pace-attack. But out-stepped the indomitable Basit Ali ....relatively unknown but hailed in Pakistan as the next Javed Miandad...as much for his unorthodox playing style and the fact that he, too, hails from Karachi. He smashed a century of only 67 balls.....the second fastest at that time. But Basit Ali was destined to be a flash in the pan.....as his knock of a lifetime was un-done by Brian Charles Lara - who scored a magnificent 152....laced with a record 21 boundaries, emulating the great Viv Richards, which was later bettered by Saeed Anwar in his record breaking 194 against India.

But back to Basit...he was dropped for Shadab Kabir....a prolific batsman on the domestic circuit...but his first three innings fetched him three ducks and I don't think he ever got another call from the selectors. But that was the end of Basit, too, who was also mired in controversy after blaming certain team-mates of match-fixing. So Basit Ali vanished off the screen...but I still retain the memory of him bludgeoning the West Indian pace quartet.

While there are numerous stories regarding his sudden dumping by the Pakistan Cricket Board.....and the ethnic and sectarian preferences within the team, all I want to remember is him hooking and driving Ambrose all over the park. That is the memory in my head....all the rest is claptrap.

O Captain! My Captain! You should have been.

So it goes

2007-11-05T20:34:00.000+05:00

It's bedlam in cuckoo-land once again. The army is the inherited clock that grandpa handed down as a reminder of better times, when shit had to be taken in a hole, and if water wasn't at hand, green-leaves did the job what tissues do till now for the white-rascals.

Actually, that's not how it is. What really has happened is a 'State of Emergency' has been imposed in Pakistan. President General Master Musharraf believes that the only way to save the country is by imposing emergency and so it goes, as was Vonnegut's catch-phrase. But more about the true master later. Let's first have a bird-eye view of political developments at home.

While Pakistan had been simmering with political apathy for too long, when the Chief Justice of Pakistan was brought in the firing line, the lawyers went bonkers. That resulted in a prolonged confrontation, and the CJ was reinstated....and while trying to get re-instated, he too carried out a full-fledge paraded campaign which resulted in a lot of collateral damage. But we don't talk about collateral damage and I will continue the tradition due to inherited dogmatism.....or carnal sloth, as you consider fit.

So, the CJ was hearing cases agaisnt Mush's regime and had a fair idea of cutting him down to size. High-ranking generals and police officials from Islamabad were summonded to the courts and made answerable for their actions and consequently censured. The case of missing persons, more than 200 documented cases, were also opened and slowly, but surely, the details of their whereabouts were coming to light. Newton's third law of motion, every action having an equal and opposite reaction, was holding true and Mushie might not be getting back as good as he gave, but surely his honchos were.

However, its Mushie who weilds the axe and the rest are barren trees with auburn hair and orange leaves.....or So It Goes.

While all this was happening, bomb blasts were taking place regularly over the scattered land mass of Pakistan. Swat, once a tourist haven, has now become a terrorist hide-out. Taliban style banning of barber shops and bombing of video-stores have become more frequent in the regions of the North West Frontier Province. Clashes between armed forces and terrorists also increased in frequency. While a stand-off had been achieved between lawyers and generals and civilians and forces (though civilians can only be credited with sitting down....their general stance on all issues of note); and the need of the hour became toe-ing a tough-line against militant insurgents, which some claim, is the creation of the Pak Army & ISI and has now turned into a twelve-head hydra or the sapola of fables.....

Anyhow, Master Mush got really upset with all the developments and decided to impose a 'state of emergency'.......the Chief Justice was once again fired, the constitution was abrogated, fundamental rights usurped and a dictatorship in place.

The ire of Master Mush was directed wholeheartedly at the Judiciary, who were blamed for creating such a scenario that had brought the nation on the brink of disaster. All cable operators were asked to shut-down all news channel and the only channel in operation is the state-run PTV.......

The media-folks were also blamed for not being co-operative with the government and giving rise to dissent. The terrorist issue was already a thorn in teh butt. Basically, most of the things were going wrong, and if he allowed it to continue, that would mean, the 'nation would be committing suicide', and being a pious muslim and a responsible Pakistani, he couldn't see that happen.....and so it goes.

As expected, there were scattered protests. The Lawyers came out in full force and were met wtih full force and ended up with bloody heads and broken toes. Human Rights Commission of Pakistan members were rounded up. Political leaders were rounded up. Political activists were rounded up. The government claims 500 people are in temporary confinment but even eternal optimists can't refuse a number of 5000...while cynics claim that unmarked graves are already being dug.

As I mentioned earlier, with all channels off-air, PTV had a field day. The national channel has received a lot of slack for never measuring up to it's competition and being a failure ever since it's monopoly was removed and other channels were introduced. It was PTV's opportunity...to have a few laughs of it's own....however, tehy failed to put the ball into the empty net, so to speak. It's bland transmission continued and updates about the coutry's situation were given through tickers...that eternal line at the bottom of your tv screen that sometimes provides momentary respite.

But PTV had it's coup d'etat. An exclusive interview of Master Mush addressing the masses...that would be shown live the world over. PTV had the opportunity to make up for its failures. But Victor Hugo said, history repeats itself....sometimes as a farce, and that's what the speech and PTV coverage more seemed like.

My personal observation was that the initial frame included Master Mush, Master Jinnah's hanging portrait (homage to founding father is must) and the national flag. While Musharraf ambled, Master Jinnah was slowly zoomed out, and then the flag, leaving the focus only on Musharraf and showing some nervousness and sweat. But his nearly 40-minute monologue lived up to expectations and lacked anything of substance. And we all returned to watching football matches as sports channels weren't taken off-air.

But back to the political scenario, Master Mush also introduced a temporary constitution,
or PCO (provisional constitutional order) which sounds more like a martial law.

Out fo the 17 judges of the supreme court, 7 called it legal. All were put under house arrest. 4 of them took oath under the PCO and one of them was appointed as the new CJ and the rest assured of privileges beyond expectations....or so the envious man is led to believe. For finding favor with clinging dictators has its perks, too.

America has taken up a rather soft-tone....with Condi Rice being most vocal, but she's caught up with the Mid-East process and can be spared. (Which reminds me: Apparently, the latest meeting of Olmert and Abbas in Annapolis is going to come up with a definite plan of compromise, says Condi. Chuckles or skittles, anyone?)

However, unofficially, Master Mush's honchos have claimed, rather smugly, in American newspapers, that whatever the American's think of the act, they will always opt for stability instead of democracy, as that meets the needs of political expediency.

However, there has been some murmurs that American aid to Pakistan might be come off...which was quickly discredited, though one mission that was set to visit Pakistan has been suspended. But we Pakistanis don't like Americans interfering and they can go to hell, says the Mullah on the street. And death to Israel, too. Unfortunately, our clergy is unlike that raised in Buddhist temples and will never know the meaning of peaceful dissent. And Jemima Khan said that Benazir isn't Aun Sung Suu Kyi - which is equally valid.

I would like to add my bit, too. Our people are unlike any other, too. We lack political consciousness and personal will. In an attempt to gauge the dissenting pulse...which sometimes I feel within me, too...I made my way to the Karachi press club. Media-men from all around were gathered...discussing ways of making themselves heard. Some of them had just gotten beaten up for raising anti-Mush slogans.....and a few arrested as well.

When I reached, the first rights of passage had been administered...and people were cautious. They were trying to devise a plan...but getting to the point where plans startedd being devised took sometime, too. Finally, squatting on the grass, numerous voices were heard. The young girls were vocal, the aunties were scheming, while the boys made jokes and the old men passed cynical judgements on the state of affairs.

There was no agreement on the form of protest, with the eventuality being that the protesters who a few minutes back were willing to court arrest, trickled out like milk from syrupy leaves...neither nourishing nor ....anything else, unless you're a banana planter celebrating 100 years of solitude.

But it was decided that there will be another protest tomorrow...and we promised to show our faces. Maybe we will come in the line of fire, too, Master Mush style, get baton-charged and have some scars to compete against martyrs.

While emergency rule continues, so do breaking news. Everything is suddenly of ten-times the importance. Shaukat Aziz says elections might be delayed. Mushahid Hussain, another one of Master Mushs honchos, says that he advised against the imposition of emergency and it could only end in a catastrophe. Benazir is saying a lot of things but as teh channels are off air, it doesn't really matter how she tries to tap on the emotional aspects of those listening agape.

Rest is fine. But we are ignoring what's happening on the world front, but I will hopefully return tonight with a comprehensive analysis of the Italian mafia chief who has been arrested and the Leftists fighting for their rights in isolated positions in far-off Indian provinces and American defense secretary visiting China...or teh reacting from Vladimir Putin's visit to Tehran.

All things are worth the money....so it goes, said Vonnegut. I want to write his obituary, you know. And Master Mushs....and Benazirs, too.....so it goes.

Rest in Pieces...

2007-10-22T19:37:00.000+05:00

I thought I would write an elegy for those unfortunate ones who lost their lives.......on October 18th, the day the Bibi of the East returned from her exile....but I couldn't decide to whom it should be addressed. The majority of the dead were supporters of the PPP....but surely, a lot of them had been paid to attend the rally. People who were just trying to earn their bread through creative endeavor. Splintered people with divided loyalties....and now bodies, too. Then there were the party members holding various posts.....senior members now that they are dead. Some curious onlookers even. Now distorted beyond recoginition.

It was the biggest rally that the city has seen for sometime. There have been 'million marchs' before, but they never made it to a hundred thousand. BB probably had half a million show up on the roads to greet her - mostly paid maybe - but still it was a great show of strength for a party that has managed to thoroughly discredit itself at every opportunity.

Marx said religion is the opiate of the masses. Milan Kundera thinks its hope.....atleast in 'The Joke'. From the look of things, in my country, both are true...and maybe a few others, too. Not hinting towards the pitiable evolutionary track that the mashra treads upon, just on how things stand.

Why else would people put so much stock in out-dated slogans. 'Roti, Kapra aur Makan' - (Food, Shelter and Clothing) still is the desired end for most of the country's population. As it was in the 70's when Bhutto ascended to the throne and played Caesar without a tiara and sometimes exuding Mao's aura.

Now his daughter is back...once again. And her return hsa already seen nearly 150 people dead and scores injured in two horrific bomb blasts that targeted her procession. The toll could have been much worse. In a blink shorter than a butterfly flapping wings, bloood flew all over. Bodies and bones and a lot more. They were dying. Benazir was rushed to her destination. Cars trampled over bodies. And for those brave ones who were still trying to savor their last breaths...take with them whatevery they could of life and freedom and free will.....it must have been a back-breaking sight...if there was a back...and if it had not been broken. For it was the leader who was to be preserved. They were foot-soldiers and they could lie in pools of drying blood....but when you're breathing your last, you see no difference between the pauper and king...as long as both are breathing. And in those last fleeting glances, they would have known. What they were trying to stand up for - if at all - was nothing but a charade. An attempt at political mileage. Not that BB has not had her own personal heartbreaks. She lost her father and two brothers in a manner that would breakdown even Margaret Thatcher. But she has stood on...but she has also enjoyed the perks of martyrdom. Bhutto continues to have a dominating legacy. Murtaza Bhutto still evokes nostalgic sigh....his death continues to be a mystery. And the forgotten Shahnawaz.....the dandy......is coffee-table for conspiracy hatchers. Yes, she has lost...but she has gained, too. In dollars and pounds and swiss bank accounts. But the special reconciliation ordinance has pardoned her.

But what about those poverty-stricken loyalists who believe in hollow promises of the prophets of politics. They come from urban slums, mostly. And now they are dead. Mere names. And numbers, too. Sadly, this isn't the last. Forutnately, the backlash has not been as severe as it was when it was MQM who were attacked. Or the Islamists. Then all hell would break lose and kids with sticks and guns would maraud the areas where the mob mentality could be prevailed.

So far, PPP has been circumspect. Will the anger abate? Some fear retaliatory attacks. BB apparently isn't as strongly entrenched to consider one or maybe it's teh absence of Zardari, her beau, Mr. 30 percent. He has already implicated the inteligence agencies. And that's mannah for television channels.

The coverage that the entire episode was disturbing. It might not look out-of-place in a Fox News re-run, but the media the world over lapped it up.

Geo News - Pakistan's leading news channel - was being cut live by Al-Jazeera, BBC, CNN, Sky News and probably Fox News, too. And the Geo anchor even got aired on all the foreign channels due to sharp switching. In his rather handsome clothes.

The day started with Pakistan's most highly paid political pundit, Dr Shahid Masood, Ph.D, giving minute-to-minute update of the going-ons inside the plane. First it was people swapping seats to get closer to the political nexus that was perched in teh first class compartment. Some party-members took up seats in teh first-class section. The captain refused to fly and the people had to be made to go back to their seats. Still, the plane had more people in the front half, and as the luggage had been kept out for security purposes, the plane wasn't balanced, and it caused further delay. And Dr. Masood droned on in his usual manner...but his voice did betray some excitement, as if he was witness to a nuclear conflict unravelling in a crystal maze.

Benazir's plan touched base after much delay and finally there was something to shout about. Her solitary tear made ticker-worthy news and channels clamored to claim that she was crying like a harlot confessing her sins...

Once out, she took position atop her bullet-proof compartment - a sign of courage or maybe foolhardiness in retrospect - but a decision that probably emanated envious grunts from GHQ even. The women has no fear....or shame, they would probably say.

It was all very slow. Four hours and only five kilometers travelled. The most exciting day for the political paparazzis was turning into a test-match. The topical joke, ofcourse, was that only a blast could give the whole occassion a Twenty20 twist. And it came....after much waiting ofcourse. And the news channels had a field day. Even a martyr. An unfortunate camera-man who was scheduled to be posted to London...which means opening up of horizons and dream come true for the struggling middle-class denizens. He wasn't as lucky as the news-channel.

There was a race on the death count. It spiralled from 23 to 36 to 58 to 85 and quickly crossed 100. Channel logo's became black and white.....Geo set the trend after the May 12 carnage and all teh rest had to follow.

There was also a death & injured counter. And the race was as stiff here as it was before. Every 2 minutes, there would be a decrease in the number of injured and increase in death.

There was even a burning fire....just like they had it on fox during yesterday's fire in California. Media was basking in the glory of public misery. Reporters were dissecting teh crime scene. Experts (read: Windbags) postulated theories. Beauracrats issued condemnations. Politicians said nothing......substantial.

The pieces had been picked. But the deaths remain. A number on the screen.

Jim Morrison sang about the end. And it rained napalm in Vietnam. But we are immune to such lessons.

Until the next blast, adieu!

The only woman who can make Musharraf take off his clothes

2007-10-17T03:55:00.001+05:00

The world is an evil place and you have to adopt evil ways. Hence the title. You have to decieve in order to lead - or atleast that seems to be the mantra of our leaders.

To ensure continuity of the status quo, our leaders time and again embroil themselves in certain national conflicts that absorb all energy and leaving the feeling in the air that the rest of the work needs to be left for another time.

That's how we have been led....by the noose. Just to flashback, not even in the distant far, a mere 5 years, even, and soo much has happen that our brains are over-taxed by conflicting information of conflicts.

Right now it's Benazir's return. Before that it was the crackdown against lawyers and the countrywide breakdown. Before that it was May 12th when Karachi easily reflected what life would be like in war-torn Beirut at the height of the crisis. Before that was the continuing saga of Lal Masjid and the Chief Justice. Somewhere in the middle was Nawaz Sharif's aborted attempts of return and Shoaib Akhtar's shenanigans.

Before that was continuous detention of political prisoners. Before that was the political assassination of a politcal figure and a tribal leader of great standing even if cruel ways - Nawab Akbar Bukti...Before that and continuing todate is the ongoing saga of militants in FATA region, especially Waziristan..

And God unleashed some divine wrath in the middle, too. The October Eight earthquake in the already war-torn Kashmir region destabilized lives even further. Safe estimates suggest that it killed a million and made another 3 million homeless.

And the rest have now become more dependent on official aid, political concessions and moments of army benevolence. Cynics suggest it will expedite the process of recruiting foot-soldiers.

But that's how it's been. The political climate has been simmering for a while now. Benazir's imminent return means that Karachi will be a cauldron of activity. 80,000 members are expected to welcome BB

From the alliance of political parties supporting PPP, only one party has stepped forward to join the ranks of PPP foot-soldiers in welcoming home their patron saint. Funnily enough, I had never expected such a party to exist. It's the 'All Pakistan's Minority Alliance' and is led by one Prince Rashid. So this party is an alliance of minorities, who number around 5% of the total population in generous official estimates that probably want to cover up a healthcare genocide of Aremenian-Turkish levels. This means that the alliance of minorities is the only party with the cajonies to welcome BB...or an urgence for a voice in the political apparatus, to expose themselves so much in such a volatile environment. It could generally be said that 'they have nothing to lose', but in Pakistan you always have your life...

While the party members are expected to descend in full force in Karachi by tonight, the city already is painted in PPP colours. Cross-roads are brimming with billboards with shots of Benazir with an inviting smile and Zulfi bathed in rhetorical exuberance.

And streets and avenues are lined up with hoardings and boardings. Ethnic supporters have set up camps at different junctions....setting up free-style dance fun to the tune of traditional PPP songs....they are catchy, too, if you have listened to them since childhood.

Though they are expected to become a nuisance. Cause blockades and jams....attempting merry-making on important roads holding up traffic...Just to incite conflict and then press home the numbers advantage. That's the prevalent psyche of collective groups in my society. Like a bunch of swaggering adolescent newbies emerging out of the pub to confront fans of a rival football club.

Surprisingly, MQM, the street-thugs of Karachi and also the ruling party, have stayed quiet over the developments. A few complaints have been heard about the using of excessive hoardings as illegal...but otherwise, they say that will welcome the return of Benazir.

Musharraf, though in an interview to a private channel, suggested that BB should delay her return until the Supreme Court ruling on his uniform issue. But everyone has to look after his goat and so BB insists on returning as per schedule.

And with the permeance of media, and talk-shows and opinion-makers and opium-takers, a lot of politicians appeared on a lot of channels and said a lot of things. Sheikh Rasheed, minister emeritus of the political appartus, gets the vote for making the most attempts to not sound hackneyed.

Sher Afghan gets the nod for the most obtrusive.

Wasi Zaffar for being the most stupid.

Well, they are windbags, generally. They are asked one question.....and they meander on generalities until they come to the point where they hail their party leader - whether BB, Nawaz, or Mush - as the sole honest guardians worthy of executing the people's will and the preferred choice of the people.

So I was watching this tv show, and there was this windbag, Nafis Saddik or Siddiqi, from the PPP...who when asked various tricky questions about Benazir's volte-face decision to mend fendces with the army government and a direct comparison of her return and Nawaz's aborted attempt, the said minister, mr Nafis Sadik droned on upon length over the various methods through which the people of the country expressed its un-said desire of being governed by Benazir....but I will try to reproduce the beginning and the end of his defense of benazir.

Mr Minister on TV Channel: "Benazir is the only woman in the world today who can make Musharraf take off his uniform...........[and somewhere before the end where I zone out]....she is the only woman in Pakistan today who can sell the image of Pakistan to the West.."

I know we have to be candid and we don't have to trashy but sometimes on tv it just sounds wrong.

As wrong as the caller on the same show, a man of the army. He rebuked claims of the PPP minister that PPP members were victims of flogging when Zia imposed martial law after taking over power from Zulfi Bhutto in the 1977 coup. He claimed that he was the supervisor of Jails and there were only three reported cases of flogging and that were on the charges of 'Sodomy'.

Yes, 's-o-d-o-m-y.' The minister intially couldn't scuffle his giggle and the cheap producer of the show did manage to get some image but it was less than 2 second and appeared as a jump. [Jump refers to where video comes-and-goes off the screen real quick without allowing you the time to absorb the details of the image]

However, the panel of political experts discussed sodomy for a while and then they moved on to something irrelevant and I flipped the channel.

Apparently they have found a new dinosaur in Brazil. And it's also dead. But the fascination with the ugly creature continues with millions spent on research and billions on hollywood movies. Also, some money on reordering young people's prejudices against these monsters by presenting them as lovable pets in silly cartoons.

Also, not very far away from the birth-place of Ronaldo, or from the jungles of the Amazon, an aspiring writer murdered and ate his girlfriend. The man from Colombia was into animal-porn, sadomasochism and apparently obsessed with de Sade's '120 Years of Sodom'....but not in a similar way as the Army-man-caller-on-stupid-political-show.

Mr Juan also made one his ex-girlfriends sell copies of his porn novel on streets for pittance. A true conservative. He had stored his cut-up girlfriend's thigh in his fridge and was planning to send it to her family as a thanksgiving present.

The things that these freaks cook up. No better than the lot we have in Pakistan...where feudal lords, the local aristocracy as left behind the Britishers, wield absolute power in courts of laws that are of their own making. And the cases generally discussed in these courts are about honour and the general punishment is the public stripping and rape of the sister of the offending party or the obligatory murder of the man (and woman) who has dishonoured the family....with dishonour meaning everything from infidelity to the chance glance at a passerby which was construed as 'exuding desire or lust' ....all these provide enough reason to murder(or rape or strip or all three together or any two in a preferable combination) a woman(mostly).

The latest crime against woman in Pakistan is the murder of a lady teacher in a village in the NWFP - the stronghold of the religious parties and much-touted breeding ground of militant Islam.

Among other interesting stories, Fidel Castro has been out of power for over a year. Che Guevara has been dead for 39 years.....it was his anniversary a few days back.

Conflict and persecution of protestors continue in Myanmar. Iran maintains its beligerent stance in the face of global pressure. North Korea is finally getting things done the way it wanted and it is showing that America has learnt it's lesson in dealing with the Oriental race.

Maybe it's left to the Arabs and the Asian-Aryans to provide the sucker-punch to Uncle Sam that will start a new period of cultural imperialism...shifting the focus of North America to EuroAsia.....with production dominance emanating from China and the Korea's and Japan leading in technological effeciency. Australasia and the Pacific rim can also emerge as power brokers. And Papu New Guinea will become the next super-power.....in pinball.

Dream on.

Unofficial victory - Official celebrations

2007-10-07T22:54:00.000+05:00

All the king's men got together at the PML-Q house in Islamabad to celebrate Mush's snowballing off his opponents in the presidential election. The PPP candidate didn't get a single vote...as the political party's representatives in the assemblies boycotted the election. Why humble your candidate then, is the question, which won't be asked. The retired judge, Wajihuddin, got around 8 votes. Mush got more than 650.

He got congratulated by Altaf Hussain of MQM fame even...who pledged - yet again - his support to the General in fighting all the evils that he is as much responsible as your father for your birth.

But it's a funny old thing - our politics. On the eve of the elections, a special Reconciliation Ordinance was promulgated that provided Amnesty to all parlimentarians for all the looting they did between 1988 and 1999 - those intermittent spurts of democracy in which Benazir and Nawaz took turns in playing hustler for the country's cherry-pie.

So now, once the time for general elections come, a level playing field will be provided to the politicians in exile - Benazir and Nawaz and maybe as a Eid gift they will let Altaf return too but he wouldn't want it - so that a truly democratic setup comes into existance.

I am all good with executive powers but who gives the ruler to grant amnesty to politicians en masse. I have nothing against clemency either that american presidents exercise in sappy movies and dramatic shows, but what the fuck? You can't clean the slate without raising the question for debate.

Political expediency is the principle that turns the wheel. That's why Salman Rushdie wrote Shame.

Tid bits continue.

2007-10-06T02:35:00.003+05:00

Tomorrow, or rather Today, is the Presidential Election....President General Pervez Musharraf seeks another mandate of five years.

The ruckus is about whether Mush can ask the 'outgoing' assembly to provide him the mandate for the next five years. That's what half the legal battle is about and the other half is about whether he can demand the outgoing assembly to give him the mandate 'with' the uniform. Whatever happens, it will be out in the open by the end of tomorrow, when the peoples' representatives go to the ballot box and cast their votes, the result of which - many commentators claim - is a foregone conclusion.

Just like the Supreme court verdict for the President Mush. Apparently, of the nine judges, six were Mush honchos. Hence, the six-three verdict. Which basically means, if you are corrupt, you're with Musharraf. Now I don't agree with such claims, but it has been gaining currency of late.

Benazir and her antics continue to defy the head. One moment she cries foul and claims talks between government and her party have completely stalled and the next there are rumour doing the round that she is all set to replace Shaukat Aziz as Musharraf's next PM.

The APDM - All Parties Democratic Conference - promises to put up a bold front but apparently, Mush has done enough tweaking and horse-trading to ensure that the assemblies will give him the mandate.

The MMA - the coalition of the Islamist parties - have taken everyone for a ride with their incessant promises....about resigning from the assemblies...but somehow or the other, they have made sure that they give in their resignation without letting it effect the presidential election - which incidentally was the 'generally accepted' purpose of the resignation. Funny things continue to happen.

Just like MQM filed a suit against Imran Khan for standing in elections because of his 'immoral relationship' with Sita White. A paternity suit was filed against Imran long time back, when he was first making forays into politics. It was disposed off. But MQM insisted but thankgod the election commission has more sense than Altaf and his henchmen.

The suit was filed in response to Imran Khan filing a suit against Altaf Hussain in England. And there's an online petition, too, if anyone is willing to risk it..

But back to the hackneyed. Pakistan lost the first test to South Africa after another inept display with the bat. God knows when will our administration and players learn. 20-20 joys are short-lived....and the nation is known for its amnesia. Thank god five-day tests are too much for their attention span or else Shoaib Malik's effigies would be in the street, turning into cinders next to George Bush.

So yes, we prepare for elections. And all else takes back-seat. The corruption cases, honour killings, abduction of innocents, incidents of security-agency highhandedness, contempt of court, murder on the street, teenagers raped and feudal flings has been forgotten as all the minds in the country are taxing themselves over the legal wranglings that everyone is apparently getting into it.

The Politicians are trying to get the best deal. The Army is ensuring that all the other forces are enforcing tight security and that their positions of power are not compromised - with or without Mush. The other security agencies are enforcing tight security. The Moulvis are making sure they deliver the sermon and tell the faithfuls about the virtues of voting for Moulvis. But the General elections have another month to go, or so the date says, and the Mouvis have enough time.

There was this Great debate on Geo - where there ar two sides 'Geo Musharraf' (literally 'LIVE MUSHARRAF' or otherwise 'WELL-BOWL MUSHY' - if you remember Moin khan..) and 'JEENAY DO MUSHARRAF' (Let Live Musharraf..) and the two sides were represented by the Government and Opposition ministers. Sheikh Rasheed was the funniest. Dr Salman Shah was a sloppy and tried to play the numbers game but Shaukat Tareen and company had done their job and ripped them apart.

I am going to sleep now. All this is pointless anyway. Need to get down to the basics. Stories that don't have faces. That's what we should concentrate upon. And not just faces. What a media!

Face-lift is out; flesh-lift is up.

2007-09-28T21:16:00.000+05:00

Slowly, like the giant turtle on whose back the fantastical discworld is precariously balanced, I attune myself to the circle. Unlike the sweeper, Lu Tze, however, I am yet to out-shine others in my task. The city sometimes reminds me of Ankh Morporkh, in those vague passages where streams of consciousness shines, but otherwise, it's more mundane even for the liking of the slow-moving turtle balancing the world. The wraths of the Gods is sometimes unleashed. But the wisdom in discworld was that the Gods believed in Gods. It doesn't manifest so....in my city's case.

Unlike a city created in a blitzkreig of insights, reality offers a plethora of worries. Infrastructure is truly a bitch....on heat....with the poor dog's penis in a twist. But that's just a colonial corollarly, without the knickers and with the dick. And when we considering all the social taboos prevalent in our society, it's no wonder obscenities are couched in analogies.

There's not a single chauvinist in the land of the half-bred (or the pure..depending upon your ancestral preferences) who doesn't look up to the President Mush with great respect. Not because he has torpedoed women's right or legalize prostitution, like his predecessor General Zia who was married to the Quran. (Although Zia gave it pseudo-legality - only for two hours from 9:00 pm to 11:00 pm...a special concession for the whores of Heera Mandi.)

What Musharraf has done, and what makes most chauvinists go all smug is the authoritarianism that he upholds. And the epithet that international commentators use, with rather wantonness, to describe him: DICtator. For the chauvs, it's the superiority of the organ - as much in deeds as in the word. It is being in tune with the superficial that is mandatory and the chauvs excel at it too..

What Musharraf has done for the infrastructure we cannot really know until the next man or BB (Begum Nawazish Ali made me doubt her feminity) comes to power and the Pandora's box is opened and criticism and blaming spirals out of all semblance of proportionality. This has been the case always. It wasn't until Bhutto was lost to the gallows that the commoners realized the institutional crippling brought about by the sudden Nationalization of (especially) the financial sector.

Zia's Islamic revolution was expected to restore the precepts that were followed by the rightly-guided Caliphs and enable Pakistan to shine as the magnum opus of everything contained within the Quran and the Sunnah.

It wasn't until a while later that the commoners realized that the Klashinkov and cannabis culture from across the border had permeated the confines of the middle-class - after having become the safe haven of the hopelessly deluded strata of the lower-class, and an indulgence of the elite.

Mian Sahab, the eagle that could never land, froze foreign assets, and begged the penniless of the land to lend him money. The 'Karz Utaro Mulk Sawaro' scheme (or scam) is probably one of the most glaring instance of a soverign nation's attempt at hoodwinking the citizens.

Ofcourse, the revelation of all these glaring instances of robbing the generally penniless Pakistani (of their social security) were only revealed after the death or exile of the leader. Funnily enough, everytime it was the leader who was considered corrupt. The party or the institution (when considering the Army) continued to enjoy popular support.

To paraphrase, we are idiots who will be led by the noose to the mirage that we see at the bottom of the well where convention wisdom sees obliteration and hell.

In one of the most succinct movie rants of all time, a Scot expostulates in mundane yet fiery language why the natives of the land constitute fecal matter that even fails the test to be used as manure. Or to borrow the language, 'We are not even whankers, we are colonized by a nation of Whankers' - referring to the almighty British ofcourse. Where does that leave us, with the tendency to be led to the mirage....I leave the question for deduction in the future.

Coming back to my not so succinct rant, the state of Pakistani politics continues to be as puzzling as ever before. Even with a job in the media, albeit on the entertainment desk dovetailing the shenanigans of Jolie, Shetty and the ilk, I am as mesmerized by the political nitpicking as any of the commoners - who I, in my obsession, often refer to and identify with. (I might be mistaken, ofcourse...)

The current ruckus is about whether Mushy is entitled to have the best of both the worlds. In the times of the (last) Prophet, both the world entailed life and after-life. For Shakespeare, the two worlds were heaven and earth, and his advice to Horatio was that there was more to it than just his philosophy.

Coming to Mushy's time, the two worlds entail Army and Politics - and the prevalent philosophy of our Horatio is clinging to power like a filigree growing around Jack's beanstalk until you can get the hen that lay's golden egg.

But making it simpler for my understanding, and the rest, too, there's an article in our constitution (which too has contentious beginnings), which bars a government servant to hold two offices simultaneously. That, in the case of the President, would be of President and Chief of Army Staff.

Mush says that he's willing to give up one once he's assured that he has the other for sometime to come....or for the sake of convenience, until he's blown up to smithereens like brother Zia married to the Quran.

And as Musharraf is already past the mandatory army-retirement age, the post that he can have without pissing any of the right people (from the Army, that is) off is that of the President. (The civilians don't count. The politicians don't know how to count. Even if they learn, they can be [man]handled).

The opposition says that Mush's re-election has a direct relationship with his continuance as Army chief. As soon as he takes his uniform off (nothing imprudent in that if you're engaged in Pakistani politics), the whole face of the Presidential election will change. For them, it's the fluid that keep's the engine running. The lubricant that keep's the penis erect.

So, after a lot of bruhaha, a case was filed against Mush when his papers were filed for nomination with the Election Commission of Pakistan. (Which is often in the clutches of corrupt politicians or mafioso style army dictators itself and is always claimed to be independent of such impacts....and as I rant on, the roads leading to the Election Commission building in Islamabad are being sealed....for what, we will find out once one of Mush's hunchmen decides to spill the beans...and the development has uncanny similarity to another incident which I will dwell upon later...if there is one.)

The Supreme Court's decision on the petition filed against the President's holding of dual office (as President and Army Chief) and the court, in a ruling that surprised many, gave the President the green signal to hold the dual office until his re-election by the Upper House...

Which means Mush can use all the force and source that being the Army chief entails and get the PR machine into rotation to churn out a campaign that will ensure his re-election. Obviously, there will be some rigging, some horse-trading of parliamentarians (much similar to gerrymandering in localities but with a human face - albeit that of a callous politician.)

But fuck it all, please. Because eventually it's irrelevant whatever happens in the Grand Scheme of Things because the Gods are Crazy.

No matter how much 'touch up' is exercised, the eventuality as well as the process is equally irrelevant. Yes, it's the petite boys and starchy babes - anchor-ing ships? Or our attention?

Maybe they need to bare. Then the attention will be as rapt as eulogized by religious historians during the times of sanctimonious teachers. Or otherwise.

Bye bye.

2007-09-24T04:11:00.000+05:00

I have returned. There are hiccups but the frequency must now be reaching the point of alarm, considering that output is mere reproduction. Something which could be done much better by simply pasting links (or doing it the tech-savvy way) of relevant events and pasting a tad or two of linking information, or should the whole task be left to BBC? Or Al-Jazeera maybe...

But no, there has to be an Atlas and it cannot shrug or muck, surely not not fuck, or whatever capitalism's Mary Magdalene desired. The act requires slavish devotion, which only the true believer reflects. The ideology and/or creed and/or morality has been a contentious one since the time of apples and naked women, and that's how it shall remain. While stripping might be all good with Anthony Eden, it doesn't go down to well with the educated girls in Ottomand land - and that too of the head. An army of Turkish babes will carried a huge headscarf (or veil which just covers the hair and bares the face) to the university. While an Islamist party is in power in Turkey, and has been for a while, the public institutions have a strong secular character. The Army, as the necesasry evil, dominates the political environment - sometimes through discrete arm-bending and sometimes with wanton abandon - and ensures that the secular legacy of Ataturk stays in vogue. But recently, it has been the democratic institutions that have established themselves and in control. Events, though, necessitate, that the democratic institutions should take a leaf out of the Army book (or manual? or the anarchist cook book?) and take some serious action. Either throw the students out of the university or throw the law out of the constitution. If Muslims are going helter-skelter over not being allowed to wear head-scarves in French and English schools, why can't they wear it at a University. In no Muslim country do we have separate universities for the two sexes - inspite of the penchant for piety. A few tried and failed spectacularly. Some manage but you know the condition. Basically, a 'source of knowledge dissemination' should not be subjected to laws made over the whims of Gods..even.

The scenario in Pakistani Universities is ofcourse deplorable. A hospital in Karachi, a city damningly deficient in healthcare, has witnessed violent clashes between student's of two of its college on the premise, resulting in those colleges closed indefinitely. Two students have been murdered, scores injured and the whole batch left in the lurch. The hospital is a major provider of services to the down-trodden of which Karachi has too many. It is one place where one expects compassion. But employment of students for political nitpicking takes precedence.

If this is not enough, the Karachi University, a sprawling and for most patches barren expanse of land, is the largest in the province. Clashes of political nature are common. Bystanders even have favorite viewing spots, as the gladiators have marked the arenas. The last death that I remember was of a Marxist. It's the one I remember, otherwise someone is killed every now and then. But recently, it is said, the chopped and sliced body of an activist of the student wing of the MQM (exiled leader Altaf Bhai in England drum rolls please), who are generally in a fued with the IJT, student wing of the country's main Islamist party, and/or PSF, which has an ethnic base. Just like the three states in Orwell's '1984'. Perpetual war and peace. Very much unlike Tolstoy and his stories where he preached only peace. And at other times, no violence. And quite a bit. Coming back to the story, the chopping and slicing was carried by another attack. This time, a public bus, which had just passed the university bus-stop and had in it four members of the IJT, with obvious travelling patterns. A further down the road from the university, the public bus was assailed with bullets by four gun-men with partners on motorbikes. The ambush and firing lasted for atleast 15 mins after which a bomb was hurled in the bus. Of the 7 reported dead, 4 were students the political body, and the rest collateral - as they say in Texas. A further down the road is a check-post of the Para-military forces deployed in and outside the University to ensure that dirty student politics doesn't cloud the academic environment. While the baking in sunlight and bathing in dust leaves little appetite for munching on academic delights, the least that the para-military force can do is not be caught napping. While the law-enforcing institutions have never been too competent in bringing about general order - now that finally Army oriented disillusions are also being dispelled - what causes concern and can be fatal for the faint-hearted is the incredulity depicted by mobs of young men (and mostly men) in engaging in acts of petty vengeance, but always under the guise of a great vision. 'Monkey killing monkey killing monkey'....springs to the head. Adult violence is generally excused because of lack of education. Student politics doesn't even have that sort of leverage. We are un-organized and chaotic in every aspect. There are no protests which do not turn ugly. Calculated political hits are not the way systems evolve. The generation next is all set to unleash barbarism - whenever they ascend to power.

While, we fail to protest in any manner, the largest public gathering in Burma has taken place in twenty years. The initial spark were the monks.

Okay, this has less of facts and more of pontification. I have turned into a useless rambling git. Must condense.

Productivity ala carte

2007-09-20T21:20:00.000+05:00

Finally started to work. Without dampness in the head. After working for the business desk of a news channel, now I am working for the Entertainment desk for another news channel, that is yet to be launched but its in the pipeline and will soon come out with a bang - or a whimper. Or maybe something in the middle. But what does it concern me? I am a mere cog and expected to deliver. Whatever the requirement. And while flip-flopping between jobs, I have formulated (yet another) theory. In media, it doesn't matter how much sweat you have to wipe off your head, or how much strained your nerves and muscles are. The job is to be done. The main objective is to fill air-time. Generally, it doesn't matter if the work is mediocre, good or briliant, as long as it isn't abject and appalling and deserving of unequivocal thrashing. That's what I have decided I shall do. Put in my two-paisas, conserving effort and energy, and becoming part of the assembly line of Henry Ford fame.

As for Mr Ford, may his soul always maintain its spiritual functionality, and the organization that he spawned, his successors have decided that the competition in the automobile industry has restricted growth (and profits, ofcourse) and the brainwave for re-capturing market share is to produce the 'Model T' yet again. What remains to be seen whether it will be available in any colour as long as it's black.

Returning to productivity, and the consequences it entail, I finally made a package. Thank god it wasn't upon flustered aunties because of recurring bans on Indian channels. The womenfolk, deprived of Tulsi, feel a sense of isolation that only Camus can elaborate upon. I have somehow managed to stay away from the package, but the sense of impending doom prevails, and I might end up hearing my drab monotone accompanying clips of Jassi and Kukum and the nefarious lot.

Otherwise, the package that I made today was on the anti-war movies premiering in the numerous international Film Festivals taking place. The Toronto Film Festival and the San Sebastian Film Festival (Spain) , although varying in length and the number of movies to be shown, have a list of movies that focus on the Iraq war.

'Battle for Haditha' plays out the carnage that took place after a six-man US Marine sniper unit was attacked and ruthlessly murdered by Islamist insurgents on the outskirts of the town of Haditha on August 1, 2005. Not surprising, considering the country is a raging battle zone. However, the US forces, not used to acts of such wanton ruthlessness, unleashed a fury of their own. The most notable victims were 14 non-combatant Iraqis, including women and children.

The docu-drama has two former US Marines playing the roles of Marines, while the rest of the cast is dominated by people of Iraqi origin. There are also interviews of those who have suffered due to the Iraq war.

Another anti-Iraq diatribe is 'Body of War'. Directorial debut of former-Oprah-like-host Phil Donahue, the movie gives a humanist spin to the whole sorry episode of Iraq's occupation.

The movie is focuses around the real-life 'tragedy' of a US soldier who had to return home just after a week in the battle zone, as he paralyzed by the gun-shot wound. The point that the director is trying to make is that war ruins lives and the 'tragedy' is an illustration of the same, as the soldier is restricted to his wheel-chair for the rest of his time, and has to cope with a divorce as well. The miseries continue to pile and the man finally realizes that it's no fun going to strange lands to kill people.

I have to continue this.

The Eagle Has Landed

2007-09-20T04:16:00.000+05:00

Unfortunately, the much trumpeted headline did make it to the front-page, but with a twist. Erstwhile Prime Minister and hopeful yet again, Mian Nawaz Sharif was scuttled off back to Saudia Arabia on his return to Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto, the flip side of the coin of corruption - our currency of choice, has also announced plans to return to Pakistan on October 18, 2007. Interesting times lie ahead, as the country becomes a petri-dish of activity. The Islamists (sometimes the Fundamentalists, but not always as the mainstream Western media suggests) are agitating, with the hardliners still furious over the Lal Masjid (or Red Mosque issue - but nothing to do with the Commies, Senor McMarthy) escapade. Political demonstrations have become an everyday issue, with the date of elections to be announced within the next 60 days or a similar figure being floated in the papers. The legal fraternity, too, is up-in-arms. The reinstatement of the Chief Justice by the Supreme Court, after his sacking by All-Powerful-President-Musharraf has strengthened the divided and derided Opposition hope that all is not in the dual for power. And Shoaib Akhtar, the tear-away fast-bowler from the National Cricket Team is also in-and-out of the news, as usual for all the wrong reasons. The last of his notorious acts was to hit fellow attack bowler Asif with a bat. While Shoaib has aged and gained quite a-bit like Ronaldo, Asif is our latest class act. And the national team 'has performed according to form, rather surprisingly' (now this is from the cheeky pundit from Super - I can never be this smart...or daft; if you're missing the point) defeating the Aussies and the SriLankans.

All said and done, there is a lot going on. Never before in the country's history have so many diverse factors fallen together and seen ebb and flow with such frequency.

Keeping in line with the prevalent mood, I too have decided to return to frenzied activity. Return to producing prosaic thoughts, crafted with diligence, ensure digestibility, and then sell it to the highest bidder. Yeah, I am kidding, just fill column space on newspapers.

For the wheel to rotate, the potter must bury his hands in clay.

And here I come. With my hands all prepared. Like a man re-born. And remembering Rushdie, 'to be born again, you have to die first.' But his work falls mostly in the domain of magic realism and I can sacrifice a goat or a lamb, or maybe a chicken, and move towards my karmaic destiny with symbolic conviction.

Yes, not making sense, but it all will fall into place.

I promise.

Reincarnation

2006-03-15T22:19:00.000+05:00

I am a troubled man. All the signs are there. I am not eating well. I am not sleeping well. My eyelids seemed to be sieged by niggers. Maybe not that bad, but the point being, I am in bad shape. One doctor said I had lost my appetite. The patient next in line threw in 'for life' and the idea took root in the abyss that is the mind. I spent half of the weekend thinking over it, and the other half smoking pot. I was confused as to why my fortune had declined. I tried to steer myself out of the lull that had engulfed me. I even took a long walk, albeit down memory lane, to identify the point where it all had started to go wrong. The specifics eluded me, like a distant tune that attracts wandering shepherds onto perilous trails. This was the not the beginning of my travails, though. I had been shitting water for sometime. And was caught twice in one week for talking on a cell-phone while driving; it being worse than being mugged twice in the alleyways that I frequent. Seeing all that was happening around me, I decided that the time was ripe to take some drastic change. To bring about a radical turn-around. Spending hours in debates weighing the pros and cons of various changes, with my alter-ego ofcourse, that I considered only added to my exasperation. I even thought of taking up Buddhism to introduce discipline in my life. But that didn't get farther than putting 'Reincarnation' in the title-space. The anonymous mesage said that I should give up pot. The alter-ego considered it a long shot. I, too, was a slave to Tyler. And the thought crossed my mind that I wasn't sleeping at night and putting life-size penises in front of innocent eyes. The distant tune came back. I knew something was wrong. And it was at this point that I decided to use this portal again. Use it as my memory that is fixed. From now onwards, it is my duty to use this portal as the chronicle where incidents from my insignificant life and snippets regarding everyday lies will be recorded.

Yes, reincarnation. I am a bug.

Riders on the storm

2005-12-08T02:28:00.000+05:00

'You can't recreate the past, can you? Something or the other always changes. Yes, permanence is an illusion, but must things change so drastically? And if change they must, must posterity be informed of it at all times?'

All this and more...such were the thoughts swarming across my mind while I was browbeaten into acknowledging the superiority of bygone times by an elderly male while indulging in the irritating habit of cleaning his glasses at every thud.

After twelve minutes of conversation, I had collected all the essentials of his rather tepid life.

I do not write collected with the glee of someone having a quaint fancy for collecting oddities, but due to the sparks of curiosity that fly in me and are badly served by my compliant manners.

The elderly male subjected the general populace to the usual rant that require nothing more than polite acquiescence; generally kick-started by a quick harangue over the increase in bus fares, a resigned sigh on the current state of law and order, and rounded off by either excessive aggrandization or absolute condemnation of current government.

Such outbursts are not considered outbursts - until voiced in editorials.

Specially when it does not involve me and I can continue sipping the calorie-infested cola. Until I felt a weight on my shoulder - a weight feathery in nature.

"Don't you agree, son?"

"Ah...Yes." I replied, trying to convey conviction through my eyes, for I knew it was too late for words. The skin around the cheeks stiffened, as I gazed concentratingly in the same direction as the elderly male and started nodding. An attempt to be as agreeable as possible - maybe.

---------

Now I read this. After such a long time. And I can't tell why was I writing this. A fictitious account altogether or merely a recreation of the banal peppered with detailed revelation(s).
And I just created spaces between sentences. It was two paragraphs. Too much labour going through it all without progressing too far....one shouldn't be too dense without being too intelligent.

But what does it matter....if this was going to be a mundane reality catapulted to fame by its simplicity of action and density of detail or the initial thoughts of a long narration which goes and on just like rocky movies and indian soaps.

Tch tch tch. I am ashamed.

Things fall apart..

2005-06-12T17:13:00.000+05:00

The Second Coming - Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

"No man is an island

2005-06-05T21:15:00.000+05:00

entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent..." said John Donne.

And we pondered over it. Like everything else we ponder upon. From the detestable to the sublime, everything is under scrutiny. As we ponder, we preach of Orwell and the inevitable order and worship Eris and discord.

"Not morons, not at all, sir, oxymorons. Propah oxymorons. Will you change the sign-boards to 'Indians and oxymorons not allowed', now, sir? Our motherland is still England, sir. We'll walk en masee, sir, from Gujranwala to Manchester and Lancashire. We don't gyrate our hips to the beats of the filthy fifties, Sir, we earn our bread and return to our Poonjab."

But I'm no Poonjabi. Otherwise, I would spell it as Punjab. But the indigenous imbecile continued:

"It's the land of the five rivers. What if the horrendous Hindoos turn off the tap. There will be no water, then, Sir, and we will be forced to use toilet paper."

And then he was told to shut up by Shamyl. And he did shut up, like everyone else who expressed his concerns in the mother tongue. The mother tongue is Urdu, incase you're confused. I'm not.

Shamyl was the rich one. The richest one, to be specific. He was a bandwagon of luxuries. And all the opportunists need is a ride. He loved saying stupid things because he could get away with it. Not with the girls, though. Not all the times, atleast.

He had spent 6 years in London. And returned with liquor chocolates and the white man's burden. Which is a pain. If you've a conscience. Najeeb believed he had it. He had spent two years in Wales. Shamyl said the Scottish and the Welsh were crude, and the Irish barbaric.

And Najeeb retorted, "All you've is patronizing vibes. Thats all you can give, you shallow prick."

Shamyl, with the poise of a serial killer claiming innocence on accounts of schizophrenia, replied swiftly, "What of the liquor chocolates, you queer? You always seem to forget that."

Shamyl had made a point. But so did Najeeb. But he was a queer, afterall. He had to be discriminated against. Anyone going aginst the natural order of things has to be discriminated against or Shamyl, for that matter.

"You fruity-fucker, all you did was frequent gay bars in Soho. Fuck men for all I care, but why black men, Imam Shamyl?" While the rest pondered over the relevance of the statement and pondering over what to anticipate in response from Shamyl, Yasir continued with the blunt. He always crossed the line, but then someone has to cross the line. Someone always does. As long as you know when to circumvent. Yasir knew that, but he learned after having his jaw broken twice.

Najeeb retorted, "Someone wants to bet that Yasir will have his jaw broken the third time?"

It was always a match of wits - but Najeeb always turned into one of endurance. But the Qoran says everything happens for a reason, and everyone is part of the grand scheme of things. That's what Ganja is.

"Enduring Najeeb is an art. You could easily be a Scouser if you get the accent."

He is the hairless hopper, and no globetrotter. Everyone called him ganja. His folks called him Misbah. Everyone said he was called Misbah because his parents were unsure whether he had the requisite testosterone level to achieve manhood. And he was reminded that everytime. And it proved, beyond doubt, Sameer's philosophy, 'everything becomes funny after being repeated enough times." Sameer like philosophizing. He had read Will Durrant and considered his theories avant-garde. He had memorized Nirvana's lyrics, too. And he giggled everytime someone called Ganja Misbah. Any slur or masculine potency does that. But everyone laughed while Sameer giggled. Najeeb thought he was a queer, too.

"Ganjay ko kangi la kar do. Bhoosri ka chootya hogaya hay. Pakistan say nikla naheen, aur liverpuddlians pay shot," said Najeeb, with the impertinence of a queer.

"Aur vibration wala phone?" And everybody laughed. Crudeness and aplomb always whets the appetitite. Ganja had a knack for that. Just Saim sat silently, smugly. Saim was wild and safe when driving. Very rare. He handled wild chicks safely, too. Crude insinuations that made the world blush made Saim smirk. He always saw envy - even when faced with contempt. And he continued to smirk. Not plotting revenge. That was the difference between Najeeb and Saim. Najeeb always plotted revenge.

"Fuck them idiots, Chutto, tell me, is Mourinho God?" asked Yasir, with the usual swiftness, marginalizing the undesired.

Chutto was smoking in a corner, not trying to make headway into the conversation. He hated being dragged into such conversations. He liked being in the limelight, even if it meant personal-ridicule, but he preffered it when surrounded by those he had been intimiate with. He wasn't a queer, incase you're confused again. He had a truckload of insecurities, and he didn't mind ditching them in the nearest garbage pile. It made breathing easier. And it also gave him the leverage to mock his uptight feudal room-mate.

"Football is the opiate of the masses, innit? Aray baba sayeen, main bhee lund-unnn gaya hoon."
He always said things with an impish twinkle. In stark contrast to Shamyl. Who always said things with an autocratic despair. He wanted to be obeyed. Chutto just wanted to share a few laughs. And for his efforts, he was called Chutto.

Yasir always consoled him, "Boxer died for the sins of Napoleon." He liked Orwell. He liked Chutto, too. They had been friends since grade school. What he didn't realize was that Chutto didn't like Orwell, but Chutto knew Yasir was incapable of such realizations. That's what Yasir liked about Chutto. Chutto always understood. When he did, he would pretend.

"Abay Chutto, teri Chelski ko to Russian roubles nay jitaya," chimed in Shamyl. He didn't like being left out of a conversations. He always took the bait, too. Everyone knew Shamyl didn't like being left out of the conversations, and no one talked about things that Shamyl didn't know about. But the new friends didn't care. They diverted it into territories not know to this modern-day Cortes. This plunderer of words.

"London main 6 saal guzar diyee, aik dafa bhee match naheen dekha koi, aur hamay ko football par analysi. Chootya kisi aur ko banana, hamay bata 'pata tikka' kitnay ka hay?" Najeeb had to say something, afterall.

"Lo urta teer gand main tum," said Silent Bob with his usual ambiguity. Everyone turned. Silent Bob was always silent. Like Silent Bob from "Jay and Silent Bob strike back" and "Dogma". If you haven't watched them, then you should.

Everyone laughed. Silent Bob's words were a rarity. Shamyl and Najeeb looked at each other. Neither of them liked ambiguity. Or being ridiculed.

"What fucking teer?" mumbled Shamyl. Silent Bob's words always made him nervous. Silent Bob's silence and ability to consume copious amounts of hashish befuddled him. He honestly tried to understand Silent Bob, and never understood why he would always choose to stay at a dignified distance.

"Acha, firangi mat bano, yeh batao, 1992 kay final main kis nay akhri catch pakra thaa?" asked Silent Bob, exuding nonchalance.

"Rameez Raja!" was the gleeful response. Silent Bob smirked like he always did. He knew that his silence carried a foreboding judgement - and compelled people to constantly attempt proving their worth in front of him. He was glad that Shamyl was still under the power. He would think sometimes, those sinister thoughts, where he would use his power for nefarious ends. And then he would remember his younbger brother's jibes when they would imitate WWF stars, "You're the diet coke of evil. Only one calorie. You can't pin me, bro."

haunted houses et al

2005-03-27T04:11:00.001+05:00

karachi is such a disappointment when it comes to haunted places. i've been to quite a few houses that were apparently haunted, used the ouija board to summon a spirit, tried to provoke witches in haunted alleys, roamed around sea view to catch sight of the notorious witch, that turned out to be a clueless widow, been to moulvis, to practitioners of dark arts and those who had quick fix solutions for impotency. (im sure u guys notice the ads that are sprayed all over the city). i've even taken naps under haunted trees, gone into isolated log cabins, spend nights in haunted cellars and the rest. even blasphemy wasn't spared, and sacred objects were defiled. not that i'm a sick or perverted, but i'm getting a bit frustrated with the supernatural. the ouija board becomes a skateboard whenever i'm not around, and in my presence its colder than an uninterested whore. i once slept in a graveyard, too, but that was more out of need than any whimsical or sadistic desire. nothing happened then either. and i hate it when a spirit is treated like a fart. everyone can sense its existance but no one is willing to question its origin. or maybe the presence cannot be sensed. and tis kind of exasperating whenever their existance is discussed for it has to have a superficial reverence because they have more than a casual reference in the scriptures.

so yes, recommend a really scary graveyard if you can. (just like going for dinner with family) its fun to be shit scared. and its not for an epiphany or a spiritual revival.

quoting lawrence fishbourne, 'if you arent living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.'

And about the supposed haunted house next to Mohatta Palace

my trip to the dialipated house next to mohatta palace was interesting, too. a buncha ppl went there at midnight with a full moon. and just when we were lighting one, the chowkidar suddenly showed up which scared us all shitless for the briefest of moments, which was long enough for one to demonstate her hysteria in a shrill cry of panic, that would make even ghosts' ears' bleed. then we attempted deciphering the uncanny graffiti on the wall, and for a while even considered the house a (secret) masonic lodge, or stewie griffins secret headquarters, from where he controlled the world with two homosexual mice. we even considered the possibility of it being the hideout of a drug cartel, and the nursery a cover for marijuana plants. and then there was the epiphany. i saw the word 'doda' sprayed generously on the walls inside. and everything made sense. we left in humble silence.

addendum: the chowkidar rents out space to labourers in the main building, and the one shed that can be reached through the spiral staircase is left alone. because thats suppose to be the scary one. otherwise, the labourers sleep soundly. atleast some rise for the proletariat. (laugh, comrades, laugh)

later on, i found out that the haunted house belongs to the bohra community, and according to my inference, falling under the ownership of the spiritual head of the bohra community. maybe its a secret headquarter afterall.

and this isnt slander.

Autobiographical frustration. Nothing more.

2005-03-24T04:23:00.000+05:00

Often enough, there comes a time when you're forced to take the foot off the accelerator, recline the seat further back, light a (stale) cigarette and ponder over the rat-race that you're part of. Even if its at an extremely superficial level from a pseudo-lefties perspective, it surely results in gloriously divine realizations which might be, in essence, commonplace wisdom that can be accumulated by spending your lifetime visiting old relatives that you see once in a year. It was during one such similar hiatus in the fast-paced life of Karachi road drives that I was also struck by a similar realization. Nothing as eloquent as Sick Boy's unifying theory of life or even Professor Abdus Salam's. For the record, Sick Boy is merely a fictitious character from an Irvine Welsh book, while Prof Salam hasn't had the good fortune to enjoy that either. Later on those two, though. So I sat back and had the same stale Marlboro from the same panwala that I get everyday, inspite of deciding to do otherwise, I wonder, whether I, too, have joined this rat-race that the pseudo-lefties despise. Whether I, too, in the course of my interactions prejudge those that I'm confronted with. Divide the world in two-halves - inferior and superior. And belittle or patronize those that are condemned to perpetual inferiority - that mass of humanity that are born to follow. And the superior ones, too, need to be brought down from their high pedestal. To rub their nose in the dust - or the dirty, infected protruding thumb of my left foot. To wait in the dark, like a fox, intriguing the downfall. To pounce on every opportunity - every slip-up, and pin 'em down. Like on the road, forging ahead of all the cars. But that never ends. This rat-race. Until we start treating others as equals. And Orwell said that some men are more equal that others. The darkness of the satire can send a morbid chill down a fascist's spine. And contrary to popular opinion, all fascists aren't spinless. Even if you think they can be mindless. But that's mere emotionalism.

I am

2005-01-14T06:10:00.000+05:00

I'm the enchanted forest without the magical tree. I'm the flying saucer in an alien land. The sanitary pad in a nun's lap. The rabid dog in the quarantined zone. The tattered rag on an urchin's face. The saliva stuck to the cheesecake. The childhood bicycle lying in the shed. The stringless guitar under the bed. The doodlings on the torn pages of the high school journal. The flat tyre on the beach trip. The jagged rock that makes you bleed. The crab bite that makes you cringe. The clear water that makes you see. Things that you cannot be. I'm the anomaly in an alternate reality. Blessed with divine symmetry and anthropomorphic inanities. The emtpy bottle of champagne. The mute shouts of a dying soldier. The metallic hulk of a defunct submarine lying in a junkyard. The silhoutted vampire hunting criminals in the dark. The swivelling bottle of Cutty Sark. The detectable sperm in a dung pile. The doomed worker in a coal mine. As much barbiturate as amphetamine. I'm Vishnu and Shiva combined. The politicized ferociousness of a moulvi gone asinine. The red cheek of a slapped school-child. The bleeding nose of the thrashed wife. The glow of a toddler's smile. Within me, Oedipus and Electra combined. The ceaseless maternal fretting that drives sons wild. Fatherly nonchalance that makes you deprived. The malicious pettiness of the political giants. All thise and more. I am. I continue to be.

Serial Killers

2004-12-13T23:20:00.007+05:00

September 7, 2003

Wrote this for something:

SERIAL KILLERS

Serial killers have been a source of both fear and intrigue since the first of their kind: Jack the Ripper. Although, he has only five murders to his name, he is considered to have fathered a new breed of criminals that is remains clouded in urban legend and painful reality.

Serial killers might well be termed an American phenomenon. With only five percent of the world's population, America gives rise to seventy-five percent of its serial killers and the FBI expects that, at this time, at least five hundred serial killers are loose on the streets of America (DeWitt 3B). This might be largely due to Hollywood’s glamorization of them. A classic example would be that of Charles Manson whose murderous spree included Sharon Tate, wife of Polish director Roman Polanski. Manson, who believed himself to be the mouthpiece of God, became glorified as a cult-hero and has the dubious distinction of receiving the most mails for a US prisoner. However, serial killing is not limited to the United States alone. Javed Iqbal Mughal was a Pakistani man who sodomized and killed boys of ages 13-19. After strangling them he would dissolve the bodied in a vat of hydrochloric acid whilst keeping a meticulous record of his victims. Javed Iqbal surrendered himself to the authorities after killing a100 boys, claiming that he was exposing in indifferent Pakistani social system, where the disappearance of 100 boys failed to create a stir.

Various social factors such as, parental abuse, neglected childhood, injury to the brain – specially the frontal lobes, and drug abuse are attributed as the cause for the debauchery that serial killing is. The desensitization of the masses through gory videos, at an early age, predisposes them to violence. In such cases, Manson like cult-figures provide the needed impetus for the emphatic youth to take up the part of destruction.

Certain serial killers have been diagnosed with a psychological ailment “Multiple Personality Order” or “Dissociate Identity Disorder”, defined as

"Dissociation is an act of disconnecting, locking the memory or pain in a 'suitcase' and storing the 'suitcase' in the back of the brain. Dissociation Identity Disorder is the phenomena of completely disconnecting oneself from a memory (or memories) and the emotions around the memory(ies), creating a separate identity to hold memories and emotions."
Therapists believe that such a condition occurs due to severe childhood abuse, and the child’s inability to absorb the trauma in its entirety forces him to create another identity. If abuse continues, more identities are created. Identities differ from one another, and a violent identity can take control of the body randomly, and commit brutalities without letting the person be aware of his actions. One serial killer who pleaded not guilty on this account was Kenneth Bianchi, the notorious Hillside strangler. He even pulled a show in court talking as another person, but the jury dismissed him as an actor, and he was duly sentenced.

Due to the uncertain nature of serial killers and lack of research in this area, there exists little in predicting ‘serial killer inclinations. What can be done is to root out the evils that have spread their tentacles through the base of our society, like drug and sex abuse amongst adolescents and teenagers, and teenage violence, and stop portraying serial killers as harbingers of revolutions, thus eliminating the curse that develops into a greater evil. Prevention, as with most social evils, is the only tangible cure.

From another dimension

2004-12-13T23:20:00.006+05:00

May 5, 2004

12th Rabi-ul-Awwal

The day used to be one when silent respect would be paid to the memory of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). School used to be a day of passivity, where we would sit in the backrows, as was the tradition of the back-benchers, and exchange lewd jokes while the good-kids read out naats and poems. At the end of the school day, everyone would go home, and have a relaxing day at home. A long time has elasped since then, but I never observed much change in the celebrations, if they can be called that. This time around, the faithfuls went berserk. Never before had I seen the city lighted with such fanfare. Every other road was illuminated with green lights, decked up like a new bride; while colonies and residential areas fight loadshedding. The kunda system, that we once used to play night matches, was being utilized to pay homage to the greatest figure in the history of our religion. The paying of (corrupt) homage didn't stop here. Following up from where the shi'ites had left, sabeels were erected, to quench the thirst of the loyals. In different localities, shi'ite style majlis's were held. A day or so before the event, while we rolled joints, a friend remarked,

"Molvi sahab will address the public on 12th rabi-ul-awal. Attend it. I assure you that you'll be moved to tears."

If that was't enough, on the actual day, people tawaffed around some chowk in gulshan. What is left now for the barelvis is to put on black and flog themselvesx to death. They had naats being played on loudspeakers, even before 12th rabbi-ul-awaal, showing complete disregard for the rest of the community. On the day, some roads were closed, without giving any thought to the rationale behind closing the road. Overall, they managed to create a carnival atmosphere, and in years to come, will accomplish in bettering the shi'ites.

The clergy and the zealots continue to defile the religion; their ostentatious indulgences maligning the simplest of religions.

May 4, 2004

Leeds Relegated.

Leeds defeat at Bolton yesterday condemned them to be relegated, and spend atleast one year in the 1st Division. Although Leeds played miserably the whole year round, no one expected it to go down. Everyone was expecting a revival of fortune, a rich vein of form in the last strides, that will save them of the ignominy of relegation. Now that they have finally go down, fans all over can't help but sympathise with their predicament. The same team that only 2 years ago reached the Champions League semi-final, and for some part of the season challenged ManYoo and Arsenal for the championship will now be struggling with the also-rans. The curtain has been drawn for Leeds. And the manner in whcih it was drawn, in their 3rd last match, when they still had a mathematical chance of survival. Leading 1-0, thanks to a penalty, which they were lucky to be awared in the 1st place, they managed to ruin it all. Mark viduka got into the stupidest of scuffles. getting himself a yellow card, and then followed it up a minute later with another pointless elbow in the face of a Bolton defender; inviting sending off. It seemed that he was not bothered about Leeds fate, and had no desire to put in any fight whatsoever. His sending off depleted an already low on confidence Leeds side even further, and they ended up losing 4-1. The fiery passion of Alan Smith evaporated in the form of tears, as he admitted that he, too, would be leaving the club, and not denting his international prospects. Leeds will experience a mass exodus of stars, and will have to build it's team again from scratch, though there is hope, as business icons put in bids for Leeds, which will give it's finances the much required boost, and the leverage to delve into the transfer market, inspite of recording record losses all season long.

Atleast Sarfaraz Najeeb will feel avenged.

April 28, 2004

The conversation with Ali highlighted yet again how deep-rooted corruption is in our society. He sells bhutta (corn) at sea-view, and earns enough to support his wife and four daughters; perrenial poverty makes one content in the face of predicatable adversity. He told us how the Major, some bigwig in Defence Housing Authority, charges him weekly. Not only that, the police, out there to ensure that no untowardly incident takes place, kill their time by collecting 'hafta' from all the vendors. According to Ali's calculations, the police squeezes out upto Rs. 700 from him per month. Along with that, he pays Rs. 50 per month to the gatekeeper of a nearby mosque, where his goods are kept for safekeeping. Whether it be the house of the Lord, or the bastion of justice, corruption has established itself everywhere.

Ali also came up with some snippets from his generally uneventful life. He started off as a cloth weaver, then moved on to work as a driver in the army, then a guard in the one of the major banks. Dazzled by the riches, and alluring plans of an old friend, who made fake notes, he tried to pull off a con act, but due to inappropriate organization, he failed. It didn't result in public ignominy, but he lost his job, and since then, worked as an odd-job man. He has been selling corn at sea-view for the past five years now.

His son works in an estate agents office. Due to the usual domestic issues, he had to separate from his son, who (in all probability) abandoned the responsibility of his four sisters. Ali, like all unflinching believers, is relying on God to orchestrate some miracle through which all four of his daughters will be wedded, and then, he can die a truly contented man.

March 31, 2004

Sarmad Tariq is a beacon of inspiration. He deserves more coverage.

March 31, 2004

"God is a bad script writer."

"Pessimism is an excuse of the unsuccessful."

"and you, dear lad, are slower than a snail on crutches."

"You've more shit inside you than a constipated horse returning from a Royal feast."

Selling

2004-11-16T07:35:00.000+05:00

I love selling. Whether it be selling equipments, ideas or even ideals. As long as there's another party involved, and it results in a transaction, no matter of what monetary value, it has the charm of selling. Being a gypsy queen, reading from the dregs of Turkish tea or finding fatal connections within symbols is similar to signing a financially consequental deal, while dining at steaks in Maxim's. Different set of circumstances, agreed, but still, at the end, it's to convince the other. The pros need to outweigh the cons. The better the salesperson, the greater the revenue generation. The more captivating the sermons, the stronger the believers. The prophets seem to be the earliest salespeople and God the forerunner of marketing. The product brought with it a divine conviction - a rich reward. But what do I sell, and whats in it for me? (as the contemporary mantra goes) I sell lies. Wholesale, no. Facts meshed with fiction, yes. An outpour - whether welcome or not - in your face. An amoral act. Truth with a twist. And what is truth? Truth is the lie that people happen to want at that moment. Feed it to them, and they will suckle at it like the cooing baby feeding on maternal breast. It's like flirting in the beginning. Feigned interest provokes superificial sincerity. The conviction of a man fighting against his inevitable fate. The garrulous speech and the agreeable smile. The heart beat goes up one knot when the questions are no longer forced but carry an ambigious interest. The card has been played. The bait taken. And the foreplay continues. Until the orgasimic gape from the buyer; the stare that sends titillations all over the body. Another object; another conquest. Very productive. Meaningless - like all things when comapred to the conception of the universe in its entirety. As meaningless as common courtesies - whether in the corridor or the court of law. Moments of emptiness in the Space-Time Vaccuum. As banal as greetings and as perverse as E!. Yet, a part of our existance. Intricately interwoven. As much as a dangling OM, hanging loosely, inconsequently, with Che Guevara in its background. A world of hollow words and ignoble deeds. Of passionate desires and prosaic sacrifices. If only people could see the value in their own dreams.

Hitzelsberger continues. So will I.

Seize the day

2004-11-13T22:43:00.000+05:00

"When I first heard it, I thought someone said 'Seize the Dead'. I was repulsed. Disgusted. I wanted to throw up on the sidewalk but refrained for the sake of propriety. But then I realized what a beautiful thing it is. The who idea has a struck a chord with me. I am going to buy the movie tomorrow and visit the library, too, so I can further my understanding of the uniqueness of the idea...." and then Talha stopped, his wavering tone losing its pitch completely.

He never figured out the right time to stop. Like our actors when on stage. Our the Moulvis during Friday sermons. But we had taught Talha to stop. Like Pavlov's dog. We had proved to him the undersirability of his thoughts. The uselessness of his emotions. The impotency of his cries. We had prepared him for failure.

"Have you been to the Netty Jetty flyover, Talha?" queried Yaasir.

"Yes, any brainwaves you would like to share?"

"Stand on the edge. Try to encapsulate all that you can within one glimpse. The liners in the dock, the oil tankers, the wrapper atop the wave, the buoy and the blinking lighthouse, the small island in the middle and the distant horizon. Enjoy the silence. Savor it. See how everything happens in the stillness of the night." Yaasir just needs a reason to speak.

"And?" Talha was confused. As usual.

"Tie your left leg to a heavy stone and take the plunge. Jump off the top, superman. And land with a swish. Whatcha say to that, dumbfuck?" chortled Rizwan. Rizwan liked trampling on the trampled. No dying man should ask for Rizwan's help.

"I've to go somewhere. I'll see you guys later," and Talha left.

"Where do you get these hangerons from?" asked Najeeb.

"Bridge kay uss par!" Ganja intervened.

"Abay haan. Another reason to be prejudiced. He's from Gulshan."

"Gulistan-e-Jauhar, actually. Gulshan still has certain areas that have spacious houses. Gulistan-e-Jauhar is all about high-rise apartment complexes. Ant-hills. The home of the decadent bourgeosie. Their sloth is only exceeded by their apathy. Living life in a vaccuum. But I hear, the girls like to fuck. Which is always a good thing. Going with the natural order of things." Yassir knew when to stop.

"Is Nan-na Dallal from that area, too?" Silent Bob asked, without looking up, busy rolling.

"Thats what the grapevine says. But he surely is the biggest pimp of the city. Apparently goes around in a Civic with a Town Police Officer.. Has the hottest of whores."

"Would you buy sex?" questioned Najeeb.

"As long as its a good bargain." Shamyl had to reply. Had to be ahead of everyone else.

"So you won't even pay lip-service to religion anymore?"

"Religion is the opiate of the masses," said Shamyl. He was wearing a 'fcuk' shirt. Ironic. They are in vogue. So it the Marxian quote. Everybody who is anybody has used this quote.

"And the proletariat will die of the bubonic plague," chimed in Chaudhry. Chaudhry was generally vague and difficult. He walked with a stagger. He laughed with difficulty. And he never loved. He was too skeptical for his own good. Everyone who believed prayed for Chaudhry. Chaudhry prayed for the Candomble priests in Brazil. He was weird, ya'know.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" quizzed Shamyl. Everyone answered when Shamyl questioned. But not the new friends. Which pissed off the old friends. They could see the dichotomy.

"That the moon and the sun and the earth will be in a straight line. And the wolves of Cernogratz will howl."

"And we will listen to the 'dark side of the moon'."

"No. I'll go to Gora Kabristan, find the northern most grave and take a piss against the North wind. Who's joining me?" Chaudhry had a lot of weird ideas, too.

"I'll go with the Delta Boys. Counter-terrorist. Chaaka karooon ga. Knife out your guts and feed them to the vultures." Saim wasn't weird. He was proper.

"Parsi bachi kiya phasa lee, now he's going to feed everyone to the vultures. Is Parsi Colony bridge kay iss par aur uss par?"

"For clarity's sake, there are quite a few Parsi colonies. And Zoroastrians are rich mother-fuckers anyway. The one in Mehmoodabad, which has the 'Tower of Silence', without the vultures, is full of rich-kids, who drive decked up cars which aren't Suzuki, and generally go abroad after finishing high school. Then there's the one in Bath Island, where Cowasjee also lives. They are as posh as one gets. But this prosperity is offset by the two other communities, Panchaitwadi behind Mama Parsi School in Saddar and the one at Pakistan Chowk. Then there's one in Soldier Bazar, too, where quite a few conscientious Parsis live, and most of us have been there for tution sake. So that's five colonies that I know of. There are a few more, too, one behind Rainbow Centre, near the Fire Temple that is next to TitBits. Have you been to TitBits, anyway?

"Fuck the Bits. All I'm interested in is Tits. What the fuck will I do by knowing about the geographical displacement of the Zorastrian race. I had a Parsi girlfriend once, and she knew how to fuck. But she was anorexic. Which is a turn-on, too. But tell me, why do Parsi women work up a sweat when involved with someone not from their community? It's as bad as a Khatmal babe refusing to blow your flute because your ancestors supported the Sunni Tehrik." Chaudhry liked being politically incorrect.

"I guess I know." Chutto replied.

"As long as you keep yourself confined to the fire-worshippers, okay. If you intend to illustrate your answer by discussing the mating habits of earth bound humans or the blind Nigerian dolphins trying to tell us of our inevitable doom, than thank you. Your visa has expired anyway. Return to your native leper colony." Yassir liked being funny. He didn't like being a failure. It's ironic. Catatonic.

And the beach.

2004-11-13T21:55:00.000+05:00

"Lets go to the beach, boys."

That was Jaffer. He was down from Lahore, on a short-break from his chic university. He loved the beach. Like the rest of the 14 million entertainment-starved denizens of Karachi. He was fortunate enough to have the means to enjoy the beach, unlike the majority.

"Chal, La-Whori, we will show you Vadda Vadda Samandar....and Idda Sara Paani." said Saim.

"I'm a pure breed from Karachi. No paindoo blood in my veins." Jaffer clarified his geographical loyalties.

"But why the disdain? Did the Poonjabis fuck you over? I thought it was the Army that had to be held responsible for the prevalent ills," was Niazi's inevitable question.

Being a pathan is tough; being a pathan from Poonjab is even worse. Sharing your last name with a Major who surrendered 93,000 jawans of the Army to an Indian takes the cake; especially if you aren't related to the Major and cannot enjoy the liberties and perks that being related to Army folks entail. But Niazi no longer felt compelled to face the gauntlet. He had also learned the art of deceitful deviousness.

"Did you see the pictures in DAWN? Police, army and the paramilitary forces are taking over PTCL installations. Biddings on 16th June, I guess. Would the comrades be up in arms, then?" chuckled Chutto.

"I want to go to the fucking beach!" Jaffer wasn't amused.

"I want a younger queen so I can have a royal hard-on." Chutto chuckled yet again.

"Think before you speak. Look before you leap..." said Talha, in his feminine voice, but was interrupted, for good measure, by Jaffar.

"Fuck before you sleep........."

"Wastrels, if I can have your attention. We can consume our cancer sticks and satiate our desire for verbal diarrhoea on the way to the beach, too. How about we make a move. We might get something done." Ganja had common sense, afterall. "Everyone throw in the middle whatever he can. Your money will be used judiciously."

"Subtitles, please." And everyone laughed. Subtitles was a slur on all those who came through the matrik system and suffered from an inherent insecurity about their english. A gora-complex. The one that Rushdie talks about, too, rather eloquently.

"I don't want Desi Daruuu. I'm tired of Murree Brewey and QDL." Chaudhry wasn't a Poonjabi feudal, but he surely had expensive fancies.

"I'm not smoking rod either. Peshawari maal ho to baat banay. Thats the beauty of LUMS. There's good quality garda available at all times. Chanaisar sucks! And Bahadur, too." Jaffar was specific in his demands.

"You're more indecisive than a woman on PMS. I'm going online, fucktards. Tell me whatever is decided. And whenever." And Chaudry turned his back.

"You're a cunt, Chaudhry, you know that. You haven't contributed a dime."

"I contributed to your birth. Ask the midwife, son."

"And before this escalates into a fist-fight, I want to start taking bets." Yassir didn't like fighs. He was a pacifist.

"Fuck you, Gandhi kee dhoti kay moti."

"He was instrumental in getting us our freedom. And never before had the idea of non-violence been implemented at such a vast scale to obtain such massive results." Yassir was a fan of Gandhiji, too.

"You believe that non-violence was a matter of creed, rather than of policy, for Gandhi?" was Silent Bob's earnest question.

Yassir was silent for a while. He knew there were inconsistencies, at times. He didn't want to get into a debate at such an odd hour, either. He had just had a beautifully rolled Rizla and excruciating debates was the last thing on his mind. "There were inconsistencies, I accept. But you have to be a saint to raise your finger at such a figure. Lets ask Niazi. Pathans had a soft corner for Congress and Gandhi. Khudai Khidmatgars, afterall."

"The Pathans are a strangely stupid race. Neither can they manfully support a war, not can they live in peace like men." as Babar said and Jaffar quoted.

"And AQ Khan put paid to their hopes of ever being taken seriosuly." chimed in Chutto, who liked Dr Pervaiz Hoodhbhoy.

"Yes, I agree, Pathans are stupid in the case that they are fucking emotional. But would you not agree that they have done the job of being made the scapegoats more often than the Jews even. Look at Afghanistan. It has been bombed back to the stone ages because a Pathan refused to go agaisnt his code of hostpitality and it was used as a pretext. You guys blame the Afghanis along with Zia for introducing Karachi to the Klashinkov culture. For drugs, too, instead of showing gratitude. I wouldn't be surprised if it you guys claim that Eve was Pathan, too...." ranted Niazi, without losing his composure.

"If Adam were a khocha, there wouldn't be no humanity." Was Silent Bob's cryptic response. "Only homosexuality," the well-practiced joke.

"Our religion gives us the permission to kill you for your blaspemous comments."

"Not the balls." Silent Bob smirked.

"Lets go to Baba. Enough balls to kill Silent Bob over and over again."

"I thought we were going to the beach..." Jaffer winced.

"Saturday night, man. You won't be riding the waves anyway. You want to get drunk, right? That's possible within the confines of this room, too. We have enough money to get enough local whiskey to get us all drunk, and enough hash to get us all flying like a nauseated falcon. Whats the problem, then, whore?"

"You don't get it, do you? Its the fucking BEACH!" Jaffer was losing it.

"POOOOOOONJABI PAINDOOOO" was the combined response.

No deafening silence here. No political correctness.

City of God

2004-11-11T02:34:00.000+05:00

I'm not from Rio; its a continuation of the divine hangover.

The last ten days of Ramadan means that their would be a marked increase in the fervour of the faithful. The mosques will still be less crowded that the shopping malls. A similarity, though, would be the raised shalwars at both places. The shopping centres have been thronged by women of all ages(and sizes) attempting to outdo each other. Western fashion trends are depicted by those who have had their foreign sojourn, in close pursuit of those relying on hollywood and fashion magazines to keep them in sync with modern times.

2 days after Eid:

Life goes on in Karachi with the usual clamor. The teeming metropolis continues to attract immigrants from far-flung corners of the country. The gravitational pull continues to bring in un-skilled labour, adding to the woes of the employment minister, if there's one, and if he has any woes. Ghetto's spring up in various areas - those in authority glad to add to their illegit revenue generation than ensuring provision of necessities. Playing Godfather to these criminal-breeding centres. And turning a bling eye to the travails of Karachi's leading humanitarian: Mr Edhi. The ingratitude of the people of Karachi is disgusting. Public outrage might be asking a bit too much from the politically, socially, mentally and morally apathetic denizens of Karachi, but not even a passive protest? It's the same people who have set government buildings on fire because of the governments inability to apprehend those who bomb mosques, kill at will and have turned Karachi into the City of Untimely Deaths. The same people who pelted the police with stones and burned a bus, because rash driving by the driver resulted in the death of one of their colleagues from the University. The very same people who mutilated a department in Karachi University because some of the students did a presentation on homosexuals, also giving a good thrashing to those who dared transgress the limits set by the religiously conscientious. Why then, no demonstrations to protest the burning of Edhi centres? Do the people not realize the debt that they owe to Mr Edhi? 40 years, or maybe more, of complete dedication. A self-made man, he has made a million lives in the process. Why begrudge his riches? During casual conversations, I was told that Edhi would smuggle drugs in his ambulances - adding to his perosnal wealth under the cover of humanitarian add. To a judgemental mind, he would be the worst of hypocrites. My pseudo-religious aunt wants him to improve on what he's doing instead of expanding his sphere of influence. All the elders had some plan or the other to give, which could make Edhi's work truly great. None ever ventured farther than be the arm-chair activists that the nation seems to be full off. And they will be the first one to call Edhi's ambulance or shout out his name in the case of the smallest of emergency. Inspite of the disregard that they have for his work, they expect him to be always to their service. Why has Edhi amassed the world's largest volunteer ambulance service but to serve the disgruntled citizens of Karachi. You, dear reader, can decide who's the fucking hypocrite. And now, excuse me, for I need to call Edhi's helpline lest my father die choking on the pretzel.

Exhibit A

2004-11-08T02:46:00.000+05:00

Unlicensed experimentation.

To empty the goblet. Mental purgatory. To fight angels and assist deamons.

2004-11-08T02:07:00.000+05:00

The doom and gloom that we surround ourselves with is but our own creation. We are the birds who walk into a cage, refusing freedom and continue to lament. Am I one such bird? Maybe I'm or maybe I'm not, but it's not relevant, or maybe it is. I'm more indecisive than a woman from the Elizabethean era. No, I'm not. But I can be a reincarnation of a woman from the Elizabethean era, God's private little joke on me and my former self. While I go around as a yokel, the tormented soul of the fawning Lady used to regal fanfare swoons. Why o why, I cry! My head hurts. A thousand needles have their tips on my face, caressing me casually, and then the hammers start beating in. Pierced equidistantly. Mathemetical precision of the highest quality. Black blood drips. And it's all over. A wet dream. We all wake up to the stark reality of mediocrity that abounds. We need another Swift and another Gulliver. Another mediocre success to bleed us dry. And still I cry. For I'm filled with fear. Filled with remorse. Filled with guilt. Filled with trite bullshit. That's what we are. Full of. From the top to the bottom. From head to toe. From the bloated ass to the erect penis. Indeed, our plight is worse than that of the faggots of Sodom and Gomorrah. Yet, we seek divine intervention. Is there none to come?