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When the apple falls too far from the tree

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-Photo by Adam E. Cole.
-Photo by Adam E. Cole.
I’ve suddenly realised that I have absolutely nothing in common with my parents. They are lovely, caring, kind, my mum always gives me great food to take with me when I go to see her. But there are no thoughts, views, opinions, likes or dislikes that we share at all.

I see this as a great achievement.

I am so glad I do not talk about strangers really loudly whilst they are sitting next to me, critcise characters on TV who are not even real, and gossip about the marriages of relatives of friends of cousins who I have never met and will never meet.

There are only ever two topics of conversation for my mother. Religion and marriage. I ring her up to see how she is, and all I hear is, “Aunty so and so’s daughter’s husband’s sisters niece is getting married to Uncle Mike’s sister’s son in Washington. Why are you not married? What is wrong with you? Even lesbians are getting married now.

I wanted to tell her about all the countries I’d been to lately, how my tour had just come to an end and how I had a great show in Essex last week. Then I realise, she won’t be interested, she doesn’t care, she can’t even comprehend the world that I live in. She just wants some grandchildren that she will never see, is too old to look after, but needs to compete with her friends who have at least 22 each.

I see pictures in celebrity magazines of grown ups going on holiday with their parents, and I think, ‘They look like they’re having a great time. I wonder what on earth they’re talking about?’

I heard some girls at the train station the other day talking and one of them said, “What are you doing at the weekend?”

“My mum and I going shopping and then we’re going for a meal”

People are hanging out with their mums!

I have a few things in common with my dad, but he’s very good at being formal. He can turn having a cup of tea into a boardroom event.

It’s always very serious. Even when were watching The Kardashians on TV, he watched it as though it was CNN.

I look back and realise, that from the age of about 17 I probably didn’t have much to say to my mother. Just because they’re you’re parents it doesn’t mean you have to share interests or even like each other!

I do like them, but we really have nothing in common. I see this as an evolution; as a development. I no longer inherit their views, opinions, and values on life. I see this as me being totally my own person, and that is very liberating.

Thankfully I am not holding onto medieval views that are totally irrelevant in this day. I have moved on to be interested in the useless, which is what is relevant. Celebrities, gallivanting round the world having fun with people I don’t know and have no attachment to, and earning enough money to buy another pair of shoes.

Sometimes it’s a generational thing. Whether they are your parents or not, a 70 year old man or woman may not have much to talk about to someone of 35 – whether in a shop, a bus stop or a sauna.

Although recently, I met a couple of 60 on holiday who were more fun than anyone I’ve ever been out with and I forgot about their age and just had a great time. They had some ‘parent type views’ but they really had moved with the times. So they knew all about reality TV and Fifty Shades of Grey and they both still slept in the same room.

The realisation that I have nothing in common with my parents is a great moment. I am now finally free. I no longer spout rubbish to people on planes, about how no one has any morals, and why women must never wear mini skirts.

Each to their own. In fact I think I’ve gone too far the other way. I don’t care what anyone does, what anyone says, and everybody should do as they please.

My children will probably end up being terrorists.


Coalitions: Both art and science

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enter image description hereAllow me to start with a digression.

One of the best descriptions of India that I have read comes from Shashi Tharoor, currently in Manmohan Singh’s council of ministers, author and former under-secretary general for public affairs at the United Nations.

His metaphor of India as a thali is both appealing and enduring.

“If America is a melting-pot, then to me India is a thali, a selection of sumptuous dishes in different bowls. Each tastes different, and does not necessarily mix with the next, but they belong together on the same plate, and they complement each other in making the meal a satisfying repast,” Tharoor has argued.

India is nothing but diverse. In every which way – language, dress, food, religion, dialect, caste, culture – you name it and the country has it.

Its diversity has consumed those with monochromatic views. Its electorate has humbled those who felt that they were entitled to rule simply by birth.

Equally, it has been unkind to those who feel that they have a right to rule India because they belong to the majority Hindu religion, which itself is practised in diverse forms.

My love for diversity doesn’t take away from the myriad problems and drawbacks India suffers from and the absolute need to resolve them.

It’s a difficult country to understand and even more difficult country to govern.

Many have described the Congress party, in its grand old avatar as a coalition, which ruled the country from 1947 to 1977. After being voted out after Emergency ruled by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the Congress and Mrs. Gandhi returned to power in 1980.

The baton passed to Rajiv Gandhi in 1984, whose assassination led to the assumption of power by P.V. Narasimha Rao (who presided over the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992) and became the last Indian prime minister to run a single-party government from 1991-1996.

After that it’s been a succession of coalition governments.

Run either by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) or the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, these multi-party governments have governed India for nearly two decades.

Like them or hate them, coalitions are the Indian reality, which is unlikely to change anytime soon.

If anything powerful regional parties and leaders like Nitish Kumar (Bihar), Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), Naveen Patnaik (Orissa), Maywati and Mulayam Singh Yadav (Uttar Pradesh) and Jayalalithaa (Tamil Nadu) look stronger when compared to the BJP or the Congress.

The short point is this: whoever wants to run India in 2014 will have to build and work a coalition government.

Enter the BJP with Narendra Modi, the divisive chief minister of Gujarat, who did little to stop the massacre of 1,000 Muslims in February 2002.

He’s quite different from the only Prime Minister the BJP has offered to the nation – the ailing Atal Bihari Vajpayee – the master of political ambiguity – who often ran the government by his silences rather than by words.

While part of the BJP establishment, which believes in the principle of Hindu supremacy, Vajpayee managed to project himself as standing a little distance away from the core objectives of his party.

Modi’s appointment as the BJP’s campaign chief led to the short-lived resignation of senior leader and Karachi-born Lal Krishna Advani from all party posts.

His projection as the tallest leader in the BJP – to which Advani has objections (along with others) – has already led to fissures with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who has terminated his 17-year-long alliance with the BJP.

In sum, Modi is a divisive leader – not acceptable to secular Hindus (India’s largest vote bank) and to Muslims in general because of his open espousal of Hindu communal politics.

A bankrupt BJP should understand that there’s no way he can build or run a coalition government.

The collapse of the alliance in Bihar simply confirms this hypothesis.

Not all the corporate funding for Mr. Modi, not all the Twitter messaging and fudging facts about Gujarat’s development record can turn him into an acceptable leader for thali India.

Reducing your appeal is not going to allow you to build a new coalition – either with political parties or with the electorate. Particularly when you don’t have a base in the whole of South, North-East and East India.

And, as journalist Ajit Sahi writes, the numbers don’t really stack up for the BJP and Modi.

Islam at war – with itself

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Rescue workers and security officials collect evidence from the burnt bus. –Photo by Reuters.
Rescue workers and security officials collect evidence from the burnt bus. –Photo by Reuters.
From Aleppo in Syria to Quetta in Balochistan, Muslims are engaged in the slaughter of other Muslims. The numbers are enormous: over 93,000 killed in the Syrian civil war and over 48,000 dead in Pakistan. Millions have perished in similar intra-Muslim conflicts in the past four decades. Many wonder if the belief in Islam was sufficient to bind Muslims in peace with each other.

Since the end of the Second World War, the world has moved in two distinct directions. The West, mostly Christian, has tried to minimise the intra-European conflict and has largely been successful with some exceptions. The Muslim world, on the other hand, has fallen into one violent conflict after another, involving mostly Muslims. Several intra-Muslim conflicts continue to simmer as proxy wars. In the 80s, the Iran-Iraq war alone left millions dead. More recently, a car bomb in Iraq on Sunday killed another 39 in the sectarian warfare between the Shias and Sunnis that killed at least 1,045 in May 2013.

As the violence amongst Muslims increases, most Muslims prefer denial or look for scapegoats. Those in denial believe no such violence exists and the entire issue is made up by the western-controlled media. Others blame it on scapegoats – Indians and Americans are the most frequently blamed. The overwhelming evidence, however, suggests that the sectarian and tribal divisions amongst Muslims and justifying violence in the name of religion are the primary causes of why Islam is at war with itself.

In Pakistan, confessions and appalling claims of responsibility by the spokespersons for the Tehreek-i-Taliban and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi should leave no doubt about where the guilt resides. At the same time, the Pakistani Intelligence agencies have put together incriminating evidence running into hundreds of thousands of pages against the extremist sectarian outfits, al Qaeda affiliates, the nationalist militias in Balochistan, and others who have perpetrated indiscriminate violence against civilians and the State resulting in over 48,000 deaths since 2004.

The hate-fuelled gulfs that divide Muslims are so wide that not only unarmed civilians, but doctors and others who try to save victims of violence, are also targeted by the extremists. The attack on the Bolan Medical Complex on Saturday, which left scores dead including four nurses, was not the first of its kind. A sectarian attack in Karachi in February 2010 was followed by a bomb attack on the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre Hospital where victims were rushed for treatment. More than 25 Shia Muslims perished in the two attacks.

And while the Muslim on Muslim violence is claiming victims all over Pakistan, the violence against non-Muslims, including Hindus and Christians, often brings together Muslims of different stripes, who would otherwise be fighting each other, in attacking religious minorities.

The targeted killings of university professors in Karachi and Quetta, the murder of Shia doctors and professionals, and the attacks on the shrines of patron saints are all evidence of the fact that Muslims have been killing other Muslims while being motivated by hate and using Islam to justify violence.

Why is that the belief in Islam is not sufficient to prevent violence amongst Muslims? From the very first day Muslims are taught that their belief in Islam trumps all other identities that they may hold. Their skin colour, tribe, caste or creed, none matters once they enter the fold of Islam. Why then, have millions of Muslims died at the hands of their fellow believers?

Political, religious, and other leaders in the Muslim world have kept the dialogue focused on the conflicts where Muslims have been the victims. The Bosnian conflict, the communal violence in India, which has caused the death of thousands of Muslims, and the Arab-Israeli conflict have been the focus of Muslim leaders. Seldom has the dialogue focused on why Muslims kill other Muslims. And even if the topic ever comes up, it ends up being an exercise in mass scapegoating.

Muslim societies have thus evolved into places where revenge is confused with justice, forgiveness with weakness, and peace with cowardice. These are the places where unholy men wage holy wars against unarmed civilians, pitching Muslims against other Muslims.

Back to Quetta

Imagine the state of mind of the person who wore a suicide vest and boarded the bus carrying young women whose bright faces were lit with the pride of being educated. There was no reason to attack these innocent women who were unarmed and unrelated to any conflict. But that did not deter the suicide bomber who proceeded to kill them and herself in a suicide attack.

Moments before the blast, the young women were ignorant of the pain that would soon be inflicted on them. They must be smiling and talking to their friends, planning for the rest of the day and for what lay ahead in their lives. The suicide bomber looked at the faces of the women who, if given the opportunity, would most certainly have improved the plight of their impoverished nation.

And then the blast. Some died instantaneously. Others must have suffered the agonising pain of the wounds and the resulting fire that engulfed the bus and consumed its riders. Those who survived the blast must have heard the cries for help emerging from deep inside the bus. The rescuers must have rushed to the bus, but could not assist the victims since the leaping flames kept everyone at bay.

Somewhere in or near Quetta a group of men chanted with pride, Allah-u-Akbar (God is great), eulogising the female suicide bomber for killing the very women who held the most promise for Pakistan. Their spokesperson called the news outlets to claim responsibility for the attack on unarmed women. Later, at the Bolan Medical Complex in Quetta, another group of men, armed with AK-47 and wearing suicide vests, engaged the security personnel in a standoff that left several more dead, including four nurses who were attending to the wounded from the earlier blast.

This was all done in the name of Islam. This will be repeated sooner than later. Some would argue this is not the “real” Islam. Does it really matter what real Islam is when its true followers cannot stand against those who use religion to commit genocide?

The Jhang of Chander Bhan

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For whom the bell tolls

The 16th day of April 1853 is special in the Indian history. The day was a public holiday. At 3:30 pm, as the 21 guns roared together, the first train carrying Lady Falkland, wife of Governor of Bombay, along with 400 special invitees, steamed off from Bombay to Thane.

Ever since the engine rolled off the tracks, there have been new dimensions to the distances, relations and emotions. Abaseen Express, Khyber Mail and Calcutta Mail were not just the names of the trains but the experiences of hearts and souls. Now that we live in the days of burnt and non functional trains, I still have a few pleasant memories associated with train travels. These memoirs are the dialogues I had with myself while sitting by the windows or standing at the door as the train moved on. In the era of Cloud and Wi-fi communications, I hope you will like them.


enter image description hereRegardless of its resolve, the train cannot afford to bypass Jhang, a city revered by so many for so many reasons. Geographically, it is located on the banks of river Chenab, at almost equal distances from Gojra and Smaundri, but virtually and emotionally, wherever the sands sip the water, it is Jhang.

Though some ancient coins, Buddha inscriptions and hooked noses trace the city, back to Maurian times but the recorded history is almost eight centuries old. A sizeable majority believes that it was founded by Rai Sayal, on the orders of his spiritual mentor, Jalaluddin Surkh Posh Bukhari towards the end of 13th century. In the next few hundred years, all important clans like the Naul, Sayal, Bhong and Kheva ruled this land, eventually passing it over to the Sikhs. With the treaty of Bherowal in place, Jhang fell to British Empire and formed part of Pakistan in 1947. But from the Sials to Syeds, no ruler has done anything to develop the city.

Due to the proximity of Chenab, most of the residents drew their livelihood from land. The devoted farmers tilled the land and prayed for rain with inimitable desperation. But, the rains did not only bring greenery and prosperity but also floods and destruction. Besides the pleasant evenings, the river often offered floods. This cyclic pattern of construction and destruction affected the public mood. The subtle pain in the Jhangochi dialect is in fact a reflection of the sufferings inflicted on these dwellers by the rains they so painfully ask for.

The story of Heera and Chander Bhan is best told in this dialect. In the mohallah Bhabhrana Thalla of Jhang, the Hindu population lived peacefully. Kaushaliya was the daughter of one of the wealthy businessman of Jhang. Due to her gifted beauty and inherited wealth, she was famous all around the pattan (vicinity of the river).


enter image description here


Love stories in Punjab are somewhat incomplete without the river, and that is where Heera and Kaushaliya saw each other for the first time, when the two families were on their way to attend the annual religious festival of Masan, across Chenab. The platonic love between the two was kindled by the dreamy desert night of Thall and the cool breeze of Chenab. While at the river both took the same boat and before they rowed across, they had already fallen for each other. The two continued to see each other before word got out. Ultimately Kaushaliya’s family raised the question of honor and locked up their daughter. With no Kaushaliya in sight, Heera’s insight headed in another direction. This introvert, self-minded lad transformed to a pain-stricken poet whose every word came straight from the heart.

When things moved beyond repair, Heera’s family sent a formal proposal for Kaushaliya but it was turned down on account of bad stars. Due to the farce reasons of religion and society, the two were separated from each other. Heera was a pampered child and this debut rejection prompted his creative self. His poems about Kaushaliya became instantly famous in the small town and soon, hers was a household name. Kaushaliya’s family requested Heera not to dishonor their daughter with his poems.


enter image description here


Adhering to the request, he chose another name, Chander Bhan. While his verses celebrated Chander Bhan, the intended listener was always Kaushaliya. His songs dedicated to Chandar Bhan struck a chord at Kaushaliya’s heart. A few old men in Jhang clearly remember Heera Singh standing in the fields surrounding the Bhabhrana mohallah, reciting the Dohra (local genre of song) for Chandar Bhan. Besides the romantic tragedy and pain, the story also carries many inaudible cries and invisible tears that fell inside the heart rather than outside.

To avoid any trouble, Kaushaliya was married off to a distant village. When there were no sight of his beloved, Heera wrote following lines:

Raat kaali, taang yaar waali, sukhan yaar da badan wich teer khardkay Ik dar band, dooja darbaan dushman, turaan tez tey peri zanjeer khardkay Sutta waikh darban noo dar kholaa’n, dar kholaa’n tey dar bay-peer khardkay Heerya jehno maraz hay ishq wali, sanay haddian sara sareer khardkay

Translation

The night is dark and I have a promise to keep which pierces my body like an arrow, Firstly, the door is closed, secondly the doorkeeper is an enemy and thirdly, the chains make noise as I walk briskly, When I see the gatekeeper sleeping and attempt to open the door, the door makes the noise, Oh Heera, when afflicted by the sufferings of love, the whole body, including the bones, shiver.

While all this was happening, the freedom movement was at its peak. Like the four directions of a compass, Akali, Congress, Muslim league and the Unionists were herding Punjabis in four differing directions. For Heera and Kaushaliya, freedom, autonomy and revolution were meaningless words.

After few months, it became increasingly taxing for Kaushaliya to co-exist in the two worlds. Loving someone while living with someone else had started taking its toll and she soon withdrew to her parent’s house in Jhang.

On the other hand, parting from Chander Bhan had devastated Heera. The love that pulsated in his veins alongside his blood had now slowed down. Every second pushed him away from life and one day, after staying awake for the whole night, he slept for eternity. The same old men clearly remember that while Heera’s dead body was being carried for cremation, Chandar Bhan ran out of her house and stood in front of the procession. She embraced the lifeless body of her lover, which society and religion had never let her touch. As long as the pyre burnt, she kept on wailing and crying but then when everything burnt to ashes, she went quiet.

The story could have graduated to folklore but then India was partitioned. While Jhang formed part of Pakistan, all the Hindus of Bhabhrana mohallah left for India. God knows whether Chandar Bhan still mourns the death of Heera or if the partition itself gave her new reasons to grieve. There can be a possibility that she might have started her life afresh but regardless of these assumptions, the dusty noons and the lonely evenings of Jhang, still whisper the dohra of Heera Singh and the wails of Chandar Bhan.

Read this blog in Urdu here.

Listen to this blog in Urdu:

Recurring stories

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Gal samhaj leye te rola ki
E ram rahim te maula ki

In our petty attempts to entrench ourselves deeper into a presumed cultural/social/religious identity, we often forget how closely the mythologies, languages and cultures of the world are intertwined and connected.

Take the example of the oldest recorded civilization from the history of this land – the Indus Valley Civilization, of whose language, social structure and belief system we know hardly anything. What little we do know about this most elusive and mysterious of civilizations is that it apparently stretched from the Northern Areas of Pakistan and Tibet of today down till the Indus Delta, and connected the upper reaches of the Ganges in the East with the Makran coast and parts of Afghanistan in the West.

Hardly any ancient weapons have been found in the several excavation sites of the Indus Valley, famous amongst which are Mohenjodaro, Harappa, Mehergarh, Kalibangan and Kot Diji; but what has been found are remnants of incredibly advanced city structures with sewerage systems, which Pakistan today can be envious off; as well as pots, utensils, tools, toys, sculptures and several clay tablets and seals with inscriptions and depictions of various animal and human figures.

One of the most famous of depictions amongst these tablets is of a horned figure sitting in a cross-legged posture surrounded by wild animals. This figure has also been called the proto Shiva Pashupati by historians and Indologists, because of the resemblance with the later god of Hindu Mythology, Shiva the lord of beasts.

But even more striking and uncanny is the resemblance of this figure with a deity from Celtic mythology known as Cernunnos, the god of nature and fertility, across the globe in Western Europe.

Another ancient symbol which first originated in the Indus valley, was adopted by Hinduism and Buddhism, and is also found in ancient Europe during the Greco-Roman culture, is the Swastika (su-astika in Sanskrit means good fortune or well being), the four-spiraled cross, which was reused and misused in modern times by Hitler’s Third Reich.

According to the most widely accepted theory, the Indus Valley was later believed to have been colonised by an Indo European people known as the Aryans, who brought the Vedas to India and the Avestas to Persia. “Arya”, which in Sanskrit means “noble”, is also found in the roots of the names of both Ireland (ancient name: Eire) and Iran today.

The two major deities of the ancient Indian Vedic mythology are Varuna, the god-priest of the sky and the upholder of the law; and Indra, the god of warriors and thunder who wields the ‘Vajra’ or lightening bolt in his hands.

Across the world in Northern Europe these correspond with the two main deities of Nordic mythology, Odin and Thor – Odin being the god of wisdom and prophesy and upholder of the cosmic order; and Thor being the god of war who makes thunder with his magical hammer, Mjolnir.

Even closer to the Vedic deities are the gods Uranus and Zeus of Greek mythology – Uranus, the god of order and sky and Zeus, the god of thunder, who wields the lightning bolt in his hands.

As the warrior classes started to usurp the power of the scholars, druids and holy men, thus did the later mythological tales around the world begin to change; Varuna and Uranus became lost in the obscure past while Indra and Zeus gained popularity and became kings of the gods in the minds of men.

Even the mythology of the Abrahamic religions is further back connected to a larger world mythology. Take the story of the Ark for example. Before it appears in the Bible, it appears in the ancient Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh, when Utnapishtim recounts his story of the flood and the Arc to the Babylonian hero king.

The story of the deluge also exists in ancient Indian mythology as the story of Manu who, together with the seven Rishis or sages, is rescued by the Matsya Avatar of lord Vishnu in the form of a fish, in order to begin a new cosmic cycle of the universe; as well as amongst most indigenous people of Central and South America.

Plenty of books have been written and lots of films made on the recurrent patterns of myths between different cultures. There are endless examples if one starts investigating – such as similarities between the attributes of the Egyptian god Horus, the Greek Dionysius, the Persian Mithras and the Christian Jesus; the recurrence of the trinity in different cultures or other numbers (such as the seven colors of the rainbow, seven heavens in various mythologies, seven notes of the scale), etc. Some even believe in conspiracy theories that such recurring myths are constantly being reinforced amongst civilizations so that a small powerful group of people can govern and control the minds of the masses.

I personally don’t take stock in conspiracy theories. I rather tend to believe that certain objective truths or realities exist, which people try to interpret and express according to their own subjective understanding, using whatever forms of expression they have learnt or been conditioned into. To quarrel and fight over whose version of the story is the correct one, means to lose touch with the actual evolving/self-realising nature of the truth.

Line to line: Decoding a masterpiece

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enter image description hereTaher Shah has become an internet phenomenon. The once completely unknown singer who released a song and video ‘Eye to Eye’ two months ago, recently found himself becoming an overnight sensation.

A number of theories have been doing the rounds about Shah’s sudden fame. But it is the lyrics of his soft, romantic ditty that have been (and still are) the central focus of curiosity among millions of listeners and viewers who continue to watch the video and listen to the song over and over again.

Taher remains to be a mystery. He’s in his late 40s and by the looks of it seems to be an accomplished singer and songwriter. But the question is where Shah was when Pakistan’s pop music scene was booming in the 1990s?

Dawn.com reporters covering the Shah phenomenon suggest that Shah is a trained composer, songwriter and vocalist who somehow missed the boom that Pakistan’s pop scene witnessed in the 1990s when Shah was in his 20s.

When, after a long wait, our reporters did manage to get through to Shah (on the phone), Shah claimed: ‘Now’s the times of love ripe patience beholds precious time.’

As is apparent, his response is as enigmatic as the much debated lyrics of his mega hit song, ‘Eye to Eye.’

But first, let’s again see the video and listen to the song …

Video:

Though Shah continues to withhold the details of his background and life from the press, saying ‘it’s a private part of my life,’ our reporters finally managed to get two of his close associates to reveal a few but vital aspects of Shah’s personality and life.

But they insisted that their names should not be published because Shah would then definitely fire them from his entourage of musicians, photographers, video cameramen and wardrobe designers.

‘He is a very private man,’ one of the two assistants that we talked to told us. ‘Even his closest friends rarely see him. He spends most of his time in his sprawling study doing research on love, spirituality and the human anatomy. Then he plays the saxophone deep into the night.’

According to his assistants, Shah was born in Mirpurkhas in the Sindh province of Pakistan sometime in the early 1960s. He comes from a family that struggled to make ends meet.

The assistants weren’t sure what kind of a childhood Shah had but added that he had to wait tables at roadside restaurants in Mirpurkhas to supplement his studies at school and college.

‘He would work at these restaurants from morning till afternoon, attend evening school and then college where he studied biology,’ one of the assistants informed us. ‘He would then read books on agriculture and botany at home and play the tuba deep into the night.’

There are also rumours about Shah being arrested in July 1977 when military General, Ziaul Haq, toppled Z A. Bhutto’s government.

A rare photo of Taher Shah in late 1970s.
A rare photo of Taher Shah in late 1970s.
‘We have heard that as well,’ the assistant said. ‘But Shah doesn’t talk much about that episode. He says at the time of Bhutto’s Saheb’s fall, he (Shah) was busy playing the flute deep into the night.’

‘It’s a very touchy subject for him’, the other assistant added.

Another rumour doing the rounds is that Shah played the saxophone on some songs recorded by Pakistan’s seminal pop vocalist Alamgir in the early 1980s.

‘All we know is that he moved to Karachi in the 1980s,’ said one of the assistants. ‘He used to wait tables at a restaurant in the Tariq Road area of the city to supplement his studies at the Karachi University where he had enrolled as a student of alternative psychology.’

The assistants, however, confirmed, that Shah did play the saxophone as a sessions musician on some songs recorded by famous Pakistani pop singer of the 1980s, Tehseen Javed.

‘Javed looked a lot like Alamgir,’ said one of the assistants. ‘Maybe that’s why some people think Shah Jee played with Alamgir. But it was on a few songs recorded by Javed that Shah Jee played the saxophone. He wanted to quit waiting tables and supplement his studies and research as a session musician.’

Another rare photo of Shah, most probably taken in the mid-1980s.
Another rare photo of Shah, most probably taken in the mid-1980s.

But we come back to the same question: ‘Where was Shah when bands like Vital Signs, Junoon and The Strings were kick-starting a major pop wave in Pakistan from the late 1980s and across the 1990s?

When our reporter asked Shah this, he explained: ‘I always been very studious man. When mouses play, cat delay …’

One of his assistants claimed that Shah almost quit music in the late 1980s: ‘It was a very stressful period in his life. Even though he was doing well at the university as a student, he wasn’t getting any gigs as a singer.”

According to the assistant Shah’s big break came in 1988 when famous Qawali group, the Sabri Brothers, asked him to join them for a tour of Dubai. He went to audition for them with his saxophone, but they told him that the dynamics of Qawali music had no room for a saxophone.

‘They just wanted him to sit there with the other qawals, clap his hands and go aaaaah, ahhhh … He later found out that the brothers had just wanted a man with long, curly hair.’

Then the assistant added something very intriguing: ‘You know about the words ‘aaaahh, ahhhhh, ahhh, hmmm, hmmmm, hmmmm’ that Shah Jee sings on Eye to Eye? Well, that’s him alluding to that traumatic episode.’

Immediately, one of our reporters got in contact with Shah and asked about this revelation. He cracked a slight, polite laugh and said: ‘It for peoples and fan mails to understanding deeply meaning is that I ahhh, ahhh and hmm, hmm … All I know about Sabri Bhai Jans is Sabri Nihari on Burns Road Karachi-London-Paris …’

According to the few close friends and associates that Shah has, he lived a life of a recluse between 1991 and 2012, doing research on love, astronomy and palmistry. It is also said that he was in continuous contact (via email) with famous Indian-American spiritualist and New Age guru, Deepak Chopra.

Our reporter asked Shah about this and he replied: ‘Deepak Kambata Sahib very kind, soft-like, fairy man. He has vast knowledge of planets and galaxies in souls of humankinds and I once play saxophone on email to him and he very touched and said buttercups coming out of mouth of saxophone …’

One of the assistants told us that he has been with Shah for over 20 years and still finds him to be a very mysterious and enigmatic person: ‘Please do not publish my name, but now that you people have got me talking and Shah Jee has become such a hit, I think his listeners have a right to know at least something about the man.’

We asked him to tell us whatever he knows, and this is what he said: ‘You know, there is a feeling in his band and among roadies and assistants like me that Shah Jee transforms into becoming something else at night.’

Something else?

‘Yes, he changes shape,’ He said. ‘Some say he becomes a butterfly, some say he becomes a bat and there are those who believe that he becomes a saxophone that plays deep into the night. I know this may be sounding silly, but I know for a fact that Shah Jee practices alchemy and it is through years and years of practicing alchemy that he came up with this beauty of a song (Eye to Eye).’

We asked the assistant about the meaning of the lyrics in the song and whether they really were that layered and special for thousands of people out there to debate?

‘Indeed, they are’ he said.

What he said next made us jump up in surprise: ‘First, Eye to Eye is about ISI.’

ISI, the Pakistan intelligence agency?

‘Yes,’ said the assistant, and began softly humming the song: ‘Eye to eye, ISI … get it?’ He smiled wide.

He continued: ‘Recall the opening verses of the song: EYE TO EYE, EYE TO EYE, EYE TO EYE. ESSENTIAL, SENSATIONAL EYES, MY EYES AND YOUR EYES, COLORFUL EYES, OUR EYES, FABULOUS, EXCITING EYES …’

The other assistant added: ‘These lines are an homage to our proud spy agency, ISI. So Eye to Eye sounds like ISI and is also a symbolic metaphor for spies – our spies and their spies and the spying eyes of Shah Jee who puts his eyes on fabulous and exciting spies like James Bond, Jason Bourne and Shuja Pasha. Shah Jee is a great fan of spy movies and novels.’

We asked the assistants what else the song was speaking about.

‘Well, the ISI homage and theme continues across the song,’ one of them explained. ‘I have already explained what the ‘hmmm, hmmm, aahhh, aahhh’ is alluding to. But let’s move on to the next set of verses: KEEP YOUR LOVE IN THE SOUL, MAKE LOVE WITH EYE TO EYE, YOUR FACE AND GLORIOUS EYES, I CAN SEE WITH MY SPECTRUM EYES …’

According to the assistant, the first two lines Shah wrote after watching an old photograph of former Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant: ‘It’s about tight jeans,’ he said.

The 1970s Robert Plant pic that inspired Shah to write, ‘Keep your love in the soul …’
The 1970s Robert Plant pic that inspired Shah to write, ‘Keep your love in the soul …’

The assistant went on: ‘Keep your love in the soul, make love with eye to eye …’ In these words Shah Jee is suggesting that one should avoid wearing tight jeans; one should exercise abstinence and celibacy and instead use his energies by joining the ISI.’

He added: ‘The words ‘your face and glorious eyes, I can see with my spectrum eyes ...’, came after years of practice and research gave Shah Jee the ability to see through the glorious but dangerous eye of the Illuminati on Dollar bills.’

The ‘spectrum eye?’
The ‘spectrum eye?’

Our reporter asked Shah about the illuminati theory in these lyrics. He responded by smiling: ‘I decent man, so not use bad words like the ullu ki pathi … but lyric is deep sea like so anyones can fish meaning …dolphin, shark, whale, pomfret, crab, polar bear, panda, whatever … but I use spectrum eye that I got after staring at wall for 24 hours until they turn blue from Charlie Brown …’

We turned towards the assistants to take us through the rest of the lyrics.

‘Well …’ said one of them, let’s now move to the next two lines: IT'S A GENUINE CLASSIC LOVE, SERIOUS FEELINGS ROMANTIC LOVE, MY PRIDE, EYE TO EYE, GLOWING WITH YOUR SPARKLING EYES …’

‘Here Shah Jee is talking about Pakola’s original, classic Ice Cream Soda and how serious a concern it was for him when Pakola changed the formula and the design of the bottle. He was heartbroken when he saw Pakola Ice Cream Soda’s new plastic bottles. It was like someone had turned his romantic memories of childhood into plastic moments. In the lyrics, he insists that Pakola Ice Cream Soda is our nation’s pride and has more sparkle than 7Up.’

Pakola Ice Cream Soda: ‘It’s a genuine, classic love … glowing with your sparkling eyes’.
Pakola Ice Cream Soda: ‘It’s a genuine, classic love … glowing with your sparkling eyes’.

This might very well be true because one of our reporters told us that when he met Shah he was sipping from a Pakola can and said: ‘This not same thing tin …’

The next line: ‘OUR ELEGANT SPECIAL LOVE SINCERE PROMISE BLESSFUL LOVE …’ is believed to be Shah’s continuing tribute to the Pakola and how he will keep enjoying Pakola even if he developed diabetes.

‘It’s a sincere promise that he once made to a Pakola bottle in his childhood,’ said an assistant. ‘He told the bottle that he will keep having Pakola forever and ever.’

Shah too agrees: ‘Yes, I still talks to that old bottle.’

The song continues: ‘SIMPLE, CHARMING EYES, MY EYES AND YOUR EYES, DREAMING FAIRY’S EYES, OUR EYES, STYLISH EXCELLENT HUMAN'S EYES … HMMM, HMMM, HMMM, AAHHH, AAHHH, AAHHH … ’

According to his close associates, here Shah is talking about his favorite pet poodle, Fairy, who is always dreaming of food. In the lyrics Shah suggests that Fairy sees the world with human eyes and that whenever she sees him coming towards her with her lunch, she goes, ‘hmmmm, hmmmm, aahhhh, aahhh …’

Fairy.
Fairy.

The next set of lyrics is: ‘EYE TO EYE MAKES EPIC ERA LOVE LIFE TIME ONCE IN A LIFE. SUBSTANTIAL LOVE IS HEAVEN FOR PRECISE EYES. SPECTACULAR EYES, OUR EYES, MY EYES AND YOUR EYES, EYE TO EYE, EYE TO EYE …’

These are spoken by Shah instead of being sung. This time we implored Shah to explain them himself. After much hesitation he agreed: ‘I talks here about 24/7 hours non-stopping pleasure gained from one eyes ball to other eyes ball when two eyes of same person meet people think he cock-eyed but he just enjoying act of eye to eye lovemaking eye ball of left eye bouncing with eye ball of right eye on and on defining epic era of epileptic love … very simple, really, hehe.’

One of the two assistants that we had been (secretly) talking to then took us through the rest of the lyrics: ‘After the talking bit, Shah Jee goes on to sing: ‘… BEAUTIFUL EYES HAS ENDLESS LOVE, YOUR EYES ARE LIKE A SUN SHINE, YOUR PRECIOUS HEART BELONGS TO ME BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, TRUE LOVE ALWAYS SMILE, YOU ARE MINE, ALWAYS MINE ...’ Very few know that in these lyrics, Shah Jee is actually trying to define the physics behind black holes and how even the light of the sun cannot escape the gravity found in these theoretical holes in the space.’

He adds: ‘It’s about the endlessness of space. A daunting thought but the one he finds beautiful. As an astronomy enthusiast he is always trying to peek into the heart of wormholes and black holes with his telescopic eye …’

Then we come to what many of Shah’s fans consider to be perhaps the most beautiful and ingenious lyrics of the song: ‘YOUR LOVE IS FAITHFUL FOREVER AND EVER WITHOUT YOU I AM LIKE A BUTTERFLY … WITHOUT FLOWER …’

The assistant says these lyrics are about his favorite white suit and how once when he forgot to put a flower in the suit’s front pocket, he felt like a butterfly without a flower. It was a very stressful episode and he wept for 24/7 hours.

‘I’m like a butterfly …’
‘I’m like a butterfly …’

With the last set of lyrics Shah exits by giving rousing climatic touches to all the themes that he explores in the wonderful, intriguing song:

‘BEAUTIFUL EYES HAS ENDLESS LOVE, EYE TO EYE, EYE TO EYE, EYE TO EYE, WONDERFUL, GORGEOUS EYES …’

Here he begins to pay tribute to ISI again and offers his endless services to this wonderful, gorgeous agency.

‘MY EYES AND YOUR EYES. EMOTIONAL AND HAPPY EYES, ALL LOVELY EYES FULL OF LIFE, EYE TO EYE, EYE TO EYE, EYE TO EYE …

Here Shah gets emotional because he’s about to finish writing the song but then gets happy when one of his assistants gets him his lunch. And this is what inspires him to write the song’s last verse:

‘HMMM, HMMM, HMMM …. AAHHHAAHA, AAHHHAAHA, AAHHHAAHA …’

The grass appears greener to would-be Canadian immigrants

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enter image description hereCanada should have gotten it right by now. A 146-year old country of immigrants should know how to integrate new immigrants. The recent census data however suggests that not to be the case.

While Canadians celebrated the 146th birthday of their country, many recent immigrants, however, had little to celebrate in their adopted homeland where their unemployment rate was 75 per cent higher than that of the native-born Canadians.

Last week, Statistics Canada released further details from the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS). The data focusing on labour outcomes paints a dismal picture for many immigrant groups, especially those who are considered a visible minority, a term referring to the people who visibly do not belong to the majority race at a place. For the would-be South Asian emigrants, the grass appears greener in Canada.

The labour force statistics from the NHS reveal the uneven geography of labour force outcomes for various ethnic groups. More than one in four working-age Arab, who migrated to Canada between 2006 and 2011, were unemployed. During the same time-period, one in seven South Asian immigrants was also unemployed.

Unemployment rates for various ethnic groups who migrated to Canada between 2006 and 2011
Source: Murtaza Haider, 2013. Data from the National Household Survey, 2011.
Unemployment rates for various ethnic groups who migrated to Canada between 2006 and 2011 Source: Murtaza Haider, 2013. Data from the National Household Survey, 2011.

Unemployment rates for various ethnic groups who migrated to Canada between 2006 and 2011 Source: Murtaza Haider, 2013. Data from the National Household Survey, 2011.

The recent immigrants are most likely to experience adverse labour force outcomes, such as un- or under-employment. This is primarily a result of moving to a new place where one does not have networks, one is unfamiliar with the system, and one’s credentials are either not recognised at all or are not recognised fast enough for one to have a career in one’s chosen field. The result of these limitations is that recent immigrants end up working odd jobs, trying to make ends meet. Eventually, they should be able to address these limitations and improve their employment prospects. For South Asian emigrants, this happens to be the case in Canada.

The unemployment rate of recent immigrants from South Asia, i.e., those who arrived between 2006 and 2011, was 14.9 per cent in 2011. The same for those who arrived between 2001 and 2005 was lower at 10.9 per cent. Similarly for South Asians who landed in the 90s, the unemployment rate was even lower at 9.2 per cent. And finally for those who arrived in the 80s, the unemployment rate was 6.8 per cent, and for those arriving before 1981, the unemployment rate was 5.9 per cent.

The above figures offer proof for the assimilation affect in labour market outcomes for immigrants. The longer the immigrants stay in the adopted homeland, the more knowledgeable they become of the rules and customs, and are more likely to succeed in the labour markets.

Despite the assimilation effect, immigrants classified as visible minorities continue to have larger unemployment rates than non-visible minority migrants. Consider that while 5.9 per cent of those South Asians emigrants who arrived in Canada before 1981 were unemployed, only 5.1 per cent of the non-visible minority immigrants were unemployed for the same time period. The unemployment difference between visible and non-visible minorities has widened over the years in Canada.

According to the NHS, the unemployment rates of immigrants did vary significantly across Canada in 2011. The worst employment markets for South Asians were in Quebec. Consider Montreal, Quebec’s largest city, where the unemployment rate for South Asian emigrants was recorded at 14.6 per cent. On the other hand, the most favourable employment markets for South Asians were in the oil rich Alberta province. In Edmonton, Alberta’s second most populous city, the unemployment rate for South Asian emigrants was much lower at 5.9 per cent in 2011. And while the unemployment rate for Arab emigrants was over 16 per cent in Quebec, it was around 9.5 per cent in Alberta.

Education does play a role in securing better employment prospects in Canada for the immigrants. Immigrants with an earned doctorate or Masters Degree for instance had an unemployment rate of 5.2 per cent and 7.2 per cent respectively. However, the unemployment rates for similarly educated non-immigrants in Canada were significantly lower. Consider that the non-migrants with an earned doctorate degree in Canada had an unemployment rate of merely 2.9 per cent, suggesting that highly educated immigrants, such as PhDs, had a 79 per cent higher unemployment rate than non-migrants with similar credentials. Even worse, one in 10 recent immigrants who arrived in Canada between 2006 and 2011 and had an earned doctorate degree was unemployed.

While the immigrants are able to improve their lot over time in their adopted homelands, the initial years of struggle are always painful. And secondly, immigrants are seldom able to plug the wage gap with the native-born, irrespective of their education and skills.

It is never an easy decision to begin with. However, as professionals chart out plans to migrate to foreign lands, they should know that the grass is always greener on the other side of the border.

The month of blessings

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-Illustration by Khuda Bux Abro.
-Illustration by Khuda Bux Abro.
The month of blessings is just around the corner, while the blessings have already begun to come in. Things of daily use – already inaccessible to the poor – have now disappeared from the market, so that they can be sold at the prices adopted by the shopkeepers. On one hand, there are banners everywhere, advertising about how one can increase one’s stock of good deeds by paying as little as Rs 75, so that the poor and the destitute can eat. On the other hand, there are also billboards everywhere that display deals for those who possess the means to increase their good deeds. For instance, one can have iftari for Rs 1,450+tax. If one wants to have an iftar party, then it will be Rs 1,400+tax per person. There are deals for sehri as well, which have been in vogue for a couple of years. Eat as much as you can and then spend the rest of the day in a stupor. What does it matter? Only infidels toil all day in this month of blessings.

There are those destined to stand in long queues to eat, exactly the way people line up outside CNG stations, every other day. Those who aren’t used to standing in queues fill their car tanks with petrol instead; why waste one’s precious time in these lines? But actually, the same people who try to save time by buying petrol instead of CNG then go on to stand in lines at upscale restaurants, where it’s like a pandemonium as everyone fights over the food. This fighting over food is less common in the more economical restaurants. If one does manage to get a table at an upscale restaurant in Ramazan, they will not be able to afford the time to enjoy it because there’s another party standing in line for your seat. After the meal, the obligatory Facebook update is announced, an availing of a certain deal or Alhamdullilah, gained blessing while enjoying the meal. Those blessed with smartphones can do this right there, with status and photo updates on Facebook. Compliments from every corner of the world begin pouring in barely before they have finished their meal.

What to say of this technological age! A new custom was started at the recent Shab-e-Mairaj. The entire nation sent each other apologetic messages in order to get their sins forgiven from the comfort of their homes. People now hesitate while apologising to each other in person. Apparently, it is now evident from their expressions whether they are genuinely sorry or are silently abusing the other person. Surely, it must be the invention of the marketing and MBA qualified sons of this nation – whose creativity is used by the corporate companies to empty out everyone’s pockets. They managed to enable the entire nation to apologise for their wrongs without being ashamed in the process, and people can now make amends without the pain of shame. A simple message can easily wash off all their sins. People post and share all sorts of things in order to atone for their sins, but now it seems that a person’s direct dialing connection to God has been interrupted. There were already the middlemen: maulvis, pirs, mirs and walis through whom, people must make their contact with God. Now, even mobile companies are about to join the club. In the near future, it would be them, through whom one could expect to be forgiven for one’s sins.

Just before this blessed month begins, Rs 25 would be deducted when you buy credit worth Rs 100 for your prepaid mobile phone. The amount that remains can only be used to apologise. Firstly, one must apologise to this nation for being born here. And then apologise to Mian Sahab, who has already begun to ask the nation to make sacrifices. One wonders when he will be able to make some sacrifices himself.

-Illustration by Khuda Bux Abro.
-Illustration by Khuda Bux Abro.

One must also apologise to suicide bombers who are told from the moment they enter adulthood that all the women on earth, the women of their family, the women on the streets have been deliberately made ugly by God, thus, unworthy of their attentions. In the heavens above, there are the most beautiful hurs waiting for them above after they have gone and blown themselves up. What is so nice about this world anyway? Nothing! Everything good is in the afterlife. There has, however, never been any information about what clothes the hurs would be wearing? If any at all. Will they be wearing designer outfits or will they be covered in burqas and hijabs? Will these hurs have any rights of their own, or will the men continue to rule there too?

They assume responsibility for taking numerous innocent lives by announcing it to the world. Our entire lives, we were told that the One who breathes life into these earthen figurines has the right to take away lives. So who are these people who are disobeying him so blatantly? Only those who have created these ‘non-state actors’ and continue to protect them are the ones who refuse to assume responsibility for this. They draw salaries and other benefits for protecting the common people but refuse to protect them.

The blessings are already in force before the blessed month even begins and will continue as they were after the month has ended. Anyone without these blessings is an infidel and therefore, deserves to be killed, even in the month of blessings. It doesn’t matter if the poor remain unblessed; what is infinitely more important is that the corporate organisations, TV channels, the self-made ulema, maulvis, Umrah tour operators or those in the food products business get all the blessing of the holy month. Technically, less food must be consumed in this blessed month, but the nation likes to enjoy all those tastes that it doesn’t get the rest of the year. Even if the prices skyrocket, the people continue to spend money on all these food items. The nation that can pick stars out of the night sky and present the moon to you on a platter doesn’t really care about the prices now, does it?

Karachi’s largest shopping mall is a source of great pride for us. We feel really proud about taking our guests to visit it. There is barely any space to stand or walk here, while there is also a constant coming and going of cars in the basement parking lot. The sight of these cars makes one so happy to see this specimen of Pakistan’s progress. Sons and daughters of the poor nation can be found here, spending money as if it all grows on trees. It doesn’t matter if all of it has been spent as one can always pick some more money off a tree later. Just outside this shopping mall, some trees were planted in order to make the environment greener. If you ever happen to peek into this clump of trees, you will find groups of drug addicts living under the shade of these trees. As soon as you come out of the mall, this sight is right outside, poking fun at your progress and your wealth.

-Illustration by Khuda Bux Abro.
-Illustration by Khuda Bux Abro.

This nation has too much money to spend, while our government is completely broke. One day, it talks of breaking its begging bowl and the next day, it mends that very shabby bowl and begs for aid again. But it is so full of self-respect that it must obtain aid on its own terms and conditions. Just like that beggar woman from Lucknow who couldn’t eat the zarda she got through charity without the customary condiment of cream, and so went around begging for some cream to go with her zarda. Similarly, our government is planning to arrange for its cream by charging more taxes on our mobile phone credit. The zarda has already been obtained.

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Consulting for love

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enter image description hereForgetting gets easier with age as that’s what everyone around you expects of you. But some names stick even with brains that are too fatigued or too feeble to function. Rarely are these names remembered for the job title attached with them.

Richard was a smiling stranger on my table at an exclusive club in Dubai. He was a jolly man with refined tastes, working with an oil company and earning a handsome package of salary and benefits that included company-paid membership of the club where we sat. When we got up to leave we exchanged cards as was the custom in the upwardly mobile social circles, and from that moment on till today when he lives elsewhere and works at a different job I have never been able to separate his job title on that business card from the person of Richard. It was: Lubrication Manager.

I hope you’ll find my job title just as unforgettable, though it is by no means as racy or lucrative. It is: Love Consultant.

I am a counseling psychiatrist by training and ran a private practice for several years during which all my clients had the same malady: Love. From raging or closeted teens to sedate headmistresses and naughty businessmen, they were all referred to me by family and friends, for different reasons. There was this high school girl who chain smoked all day and all night. Another one was a busy book worm; had to have a book in hand if not in front of her eyes all the time. There was this young man who’d burned holes in his left arm by stubbing cigarettes on it. There was a grandmother who had gone all quiet; hadn't spoken a word for months. A young medicine doctor was sent to me for rehab after his colleagues reported him to hospital administration as a sex addict. They all told me in the very first consultation that they had failed at love, or love had failed them. They spoke differently but all of them used the noun love and the verb fail in the same sentence.

Of course it’s my job to diagnose and tell them who fails what, but if they want to judge themselves and talk about unrequited love, tainted love, painful love, any kind of love, they have my total attention for the 50 minutes they have paid me for. Inevitably, I have done nothing but talked and listened about love throughout my counseling career. So I decided it was time to turn specialist and changed my job title from psychiatric consultant to love consultant. Putting it on my business card means I am now committed. I refuse to deal with anything other than love.

It makes perfect business sense too. There are enough of you out there with ‘love problems’ to keep my practice running until I choose to retire in Dubai and buy the membership of an exclusive club with the money earned off you. It’s easy to work out whether or not you have a love problem. It is connected one hundred per cent with happiness. So if you are happy you are giving love and you are getting love. If you are unhappy you may or may not be giving love but you aren't getting any. I have devised a self-help kit for you to determine whether or not you need professional help. Answer these quick questions:

On a scale of 1 to the highest of 10 have you been sitting on 8 or above in happiness and satisfaction with life, uninterruptedly for over a year?

If your answer is Yes, think again. If it’s No, is your level below 2?

If your answer is Yes, stop thinking, you need a holiday, or a proper doctor, perhaps both. If your answer is No, you are my potential client.

A clear majority is not loveless. They are getting just enough love to survive or build hopes on. You are living because you hope one day love will find you. Experience tells us that often times love and the lottery fail to find its most ardent seekers who, after a certain age, turn to mosques and finally find the equivalent of love and money there. People come to me just before making the final decision on whether to end their life or take to the mosque, though their chances of finding happiness increase the earlier they talk to me.

That does not follow that I entertain everyone who approaches me. The other day a fellow called me and said he was the Taliban. I told him it was a ridiculous and grammatically impossible claim to make. He laughed and said he was glad to meet someone who was not afraid of the word. I pointed out that since we have never met he could at best be glad to talk to me. At this point he decided he doesn’t like me. I heard him mutter an Uzbek phrase that means, ‘when you tell your hen you need its droppings as medicine it climbs the tallest tree’ before he gave me the proposal for which he’d called me.

‘You’ll be working with young boys, and maybe some girls. You are the love doctor, hain na? You have to make sure there is no love left in them. Suck all the earthly love out of them and replace it with one hundred times more love for the afterlife. That is the job we are offering. Your place of work will be kept secret but it will constantly switch between North and South Waziristan. Your salary can be paid in any currency and anywhere in the world. There is no pension and gratuity and you cannot form a workers’ association. You want to do it?’ I said ‘no’ and he dropped the phone,

The point is: The absence of love is a quality eagerly sought by mass murderers. Presence of love is what I facilitate. We are in fact direct opponents in terms of our business. How can I work for them? I’d rather work for you, especially if you can’t pay my fee. Here’s a chance for you to consult the Love Guru for free in the forum below. Just don’t ask for a 10-step guide to being a great lover, because if you do, I will give you the guide and you’ll forever lose the excuse for not being a great lover.

Pakistan’s Afghanistan

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“Your eyes aren’t eyes, they’re bees
I find no cure for their sting”

enter image description hereThe above is a “landay,” or a folk couplet, common among the Pashtuns living on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. This particular one was written by one of the twenty million women. The creators and listeners of landay, which are meant to be sung aloud, do not have to be literate, and in Pashtu the landays rarely rhyme. The only formal property of a landay is that it consists of 22 syllables, nine in the first line and 13 in the second. The poem ends with the sound “ma” or “na.”

The story of the landay, the above selection, and many others written by predominantly Afghan women, were compiled, collected, translated, and then published by Poetry Magazine in the United States. The author of the volume, Eliza Griswold, traveled across Afghanistan collecting them. The result is an evocative collection that allows a glimpse into the private world of Pashtun women, one largely unavailable for public consumption. There are landays about lost loves, landays about drones, landays about emotional misgivings, and personal ones. As Griswold narrates, collecting them was difficult; the women were often afraid. In one instance, when she tried to take a picture of the gathering with her iPhone, they took it from her and hid it. In Pakistan, everyone would know why; we bury women for transgressions caught on cell phones all the time.

There is something sorrowful about reading the account in an American magazine, much like learning of a neighbor’s illness from the mouth of a distant, faraway acquaintance. But such is the reality of our estranged proximities. In the decade of fighting the Taliban, from the days when they were a mysterious faraway force marauding Kabul, to the present when their names, faces, and ravages are well known, Pakistanis have never really learned much about either Pashtun or Afghan culture. As the Tehreek-e-Taliban have usurped the rhetoric of religion – appointing themselves the arbiters of authenticity, of righteousness, and of faith – there has been protest. Many mourn and question this; Islam must not be lost to the Taliban.

Fewer have mourned the loss of Pashtun culture, of poetic forms such as the landay, of traditional music, of storytelling. The politicisation of Pashtun identity has meant that the loss has been constructed in entirely political terms, cultural appreciation thus neatly equaling ethnic segregation. Pakistan’s aging but persisting ethnic enmities have dictated that any appreciation of cultural tropes associated with ethnic identity must be celebrated only by those who either ascribe to that identity or who have forgotten it completely. Add to this that the loudest, brashest, and most violent claimants of culture usually win, and you have a rout in which the Tehreek-e-Taliban own Pashtun culture.

The dynamics above, the language of geopolitical maneuvering, and strategic balancing has dominated Pakistan’s understanding of its next door neighbor. Any remaining space has been filled by images of an encroaching refugee horde, in the 80’s and the 90’s and recently as a result of the Nato invasion. The dark grays and blues and beards and burqas of the men and women that live on the outskirts of our cities add to this stark and dehumanised palette. There is no room for culture here, no room for understanding. Humanising the Pashtun and the Afghan is thought to impose costs far too dear for us to bear. After all, our bloody cities, our bombed schools have given us enough to mourn and little left; looking to the pain in another’s poetry may impose still more costs, and we are all emotionally bankrupt.

So it is left to others to celebrate the landay. In the Pakistani imagination, Afghanistan remains a black hole of mystery populated only by worn images of fighters perched on mountain promontories and nameless, faceless women in blue burkas. What we have in common, the Pashtuns that live here and there, has been understood only in terms of the political liabilities they impose or, on good days, the strategic gifts they can bestow. The state is dismal and it can best be captured by the landay that begins the essay published in Poetry magazine. Written by a teenage poet who goes by the name Rahila Muska, from Helmand in Afghanistan, it simply says:

“I call, You’re a stone
One day you’ll look and find I’m gone.”

Marriage in the guise of a wedding

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It would be easier to eliminate racism or end poverty… than it would be to make girls stop wanting to be brides.

–Anne Kingston

-Photo courtesy Eefa Khalid
-Photo courtesy Eefa Khalid
In Urdu we have the same word for yesterday and tomorrow and though it might be a factor behind our laid back attitude towards time, we usually know which one we’re talking about. Similarly we have the same word for marriage and wedding. And we all know what we mean when say shaadi. We don’t mean the boring stuff like paying rent, school fees or household budgets. We never think of words like compromise, understanding, commitment. We don’t ever mention words like issues, incompatibility or, bite your tongue, divorce. For us the word shaadi means only the fun and the food; the glitz and the glamour; the beaming parents and most of all, the beautiful, radiant bride.

Dulhan. It may be the first word a girl in our culture learns to lisp. Her favourite doll is probably attired in wedding apparel and her favourite game is getting the doll married to any available gudda. His lineage doesn't matter, nor do his looks, he’s just a prop; the entire affair revolves around the doll bride and the chance to dress up for the attending visitors. Which is fine when you’re six years old.

Looking at some of the morning shows these days (don’t look too hard, they make you feel queasy for the rest of the day) you’d think we’re an entire nation of six-year-olds. Girls whose entire concept of marriage starts and ends with a wedding. A fantasy wedding fit for a princess with all the Bollywood trimmings.

On any given day (unless it’s the holy month when for some reason nuptials seem to be frowned upon) at least one morning show host will display a bride — or six. If one wedding per show is good for ratings let’s make it five. Some of these are mock weddings; some are ‘weddings’ of couples already married (wow — what a wonderful use of time and energy) and some are undertaken under the guise of charity. Destitute girls married off to some guy who obviously couldn't find a girl on his own. There’s music, there’s dance and to make everyone feel even better there’s an extra topping of sawab as well.

Of course, we’re not unique in our love for the big fat wedding. In her book, The Meaning of Wife, Anne Kingston explores how the multi-billion dollar wedding industry fuels the concept of the fairytale wedding where everything — from a classic diamond ring and a designer gown to hand embossed invitation cards and $25 cake knife — is marketed as being essential to make it the most wonderful day of a woman’s life.

Over here it’s a long line of functions — milad, dholki, mayun, rang, mehndi, another mehndi— that lead up to the big day, each with it’s own prerequisite outfit, menu and other trimmings. Then comes the big day and no expense is spared. Be it an outfit that costs about as much as a small car or a make-up package that could set her father back a month’s salary or more, nothing is too good for the bride; after all, her wedding is the most important day of her life.

Really? Wanting your wedding to be the happiest day of your life is basically expecting things to go downhill from then on — is that what every bride wants? Probably not, but her brain isn't functioning too well under the heavy dupatta. The spiel certainly works for everyone else though; from the owner of the shaadi hall to the caterers, the card printers, the event planners, and even the guests tucking into the prawn tempura (biryani and qorma are so last century, daahling). Shaadi literally means happiness for everyone.

But what of the woman waiting in the wings, ready to take over from the bride. What about the wife? Every girls been practising playing the dulhan all her life but that role lasts barely for a few hours. When it comes to playing the wife, there is no script. Not even a cheat sheet.

Maybe instead of bride dolls we could start promoting ‘wife’ dolls. Dolls that wake up six times a night to tend to a crying baby, send their husband off to work on time, cook up a three-course meal, keep the house sparkling clean, drive kids to school and smile with gritted teeth when their husband asks ‘so what do you do all day?’

That might make girls think more about the marriage and less about the wedding — but I doubt it.

Pittho’s World: A book review

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enter image description herePittho’s World by Murtaza Razvi is a novel with stories of numerous characters, as well as that of the narrator himself. The entire novel spans a period of about two centuries, and is spread out over a large geographical space that consists of countries like 19th century Iran, the pre-partition India, which then becomes Pakistan (particularly Lahore, Karachi etc.), East Pakistan/Bangladesh (Dhaka). This geographical space even includes the land of Caucasus, if only in a fairy tale, as well as the Swiss city of Zurich. Due to the numerous characters and settings, one would think that just the amount of material to be dealt in a book like Pittho’s World would turn the text into a large jumble of characters and events. But it hasn't.

The narrative in Pittho’s World is certainly inspired from the Arabian Nights; even the narrator, Sheikhu, and his partner Rani are reminiscent of Scheherazade and Shahryar in the Arabian Nights, although with a complete role reversal. But the similarity ends with the novel’s opening lines:

“No, I am no Scheherazade of the Arabian Nights,” I tell Rani, when she agrees to listen to my stories. “And I am no depraved king,” she says.

(Razvi 1)

It signifies the breaking away from the mold of Arabian Nights, and the creation of a new one that is more suitable for understanding Pittho’s World. The opening lines also indicate that the book is not going to be what one might think after reading the blurb at the back. Therefore, it lends a certain uniqueness to Pittho’s World, in the sense that the novel is actually like a collection of short stories – all of which are true, and not a part of Sheikhu’s imagination, unlike in the Arabian Nights– with the narrator being the focal point, who is telling all these stories to his partner, and by extension, the reader too, who has also become a part of the narrative, playing the role of the listener to Sheikhu the narrator, the storyteller of Pittho’s World.

In terms of characterisation, the reader receives the most insight into Sheikhu, as compared to all other characters, even Rani. In fact, one is acquainted with the characters, and their stories through Sheikhu’s perspective, which gives a limited view of every single character with the exception of the narrator. The reader knows more about the latter due to his exposition in the first five pages, at the beginning and end of almost every chapter, unless that particular chapter is about Sheikhu’s story.

The other characters, mostly relatives of Sheikhu, and of course Rani, are all portrayed through the narrator’s perspective. Therefore, when he talks of his great-great-grandparents, great-grandparents, and grandparents, the reader can sense what he actually feels about each of these characters, whether he likes or dislikes them, respects them or treats them with contempt. But his feelings are vague, often with two or more opposing emotions directed at a single character within a space of a few lines sometimes. This leaves the reader without a clear idea of how one should consider a certain character, as well as how should one feel towards the multitude of characters illustrated in Pittho’s World. Same goes for the remaining oddball characters in Sheikhu’s family, for example, Apa.

The narrator, Sheikhu, is an equally eccentric character like the rest of his relatives. And why should he not be? He is just as nonconformist as Apa was; just as odd as all the rest of the clan; just as fond of stories and storytelling as the rest of them were. The reader gets to know him better through his stories, which appear to be his way of expressing his individuality – how he is so different from most of his conformist relatives; how he refuses to follow the norms, values, and the social mores of his clan that have been transmitted to each generation in the family over a span of about two hundred years.

Each story jumps between the past, and the present; the former being the actual story, which happened in the past, and the latter being the storytelling session taking place between Sheikhu and Rani, where he speculates about what she is thinking of his stories. Because there is little explicit description of what Rani is thinking, and the fact that there is mostly Sheikhu’s speculation regarding the various signals he thinks he is receiving from her – like a look in her eyes, a smile on her face, her enthusiasm, or her occasional lack of it, her laughing and teasing of Sheikhu for his childhood antics. All of these make the reader speculate about Rani’s opinions about the stories she is being told just as much as Sheikhu. This makes her one of the most nebulous characters in Pittho’s World.

The pace of the narrative alters between the past and present timeframes mentioned previously. The parts with Sheikhu and Rani are slowly paced, like when it is calm before the storm. When the story begins, the pace quickens, giving that particular portion a sense that there is a lot to tell to the listeners – Rani and the reader – but that is restricted by the time and space constraints.

Pittho’s World is unique because it is a collection of short stories that are all united by the presence of single narrator, and two listeners, Rani and the reader. It is also united by a common starting point: the migration of Sheikhu’s ancestors to the Indian Subcontinent from Qom in Persia in the 19th century. This particular point then connects all the subsequent stories with each other, and to Sheikhu himself. The book’s main strength is its numerous characters, all of which act as a catalyst for the narrative to move forward. The novel is highly recommended for those who are looking to read something new.

Razvi, Murtaza. *Pittho’s World. New Delhi: HarperCollins India, 2013. Print.

Available at Liberty Books. Pages: 205 Price Rs 695

Comedy in Pakistan: Who’d have thought?

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enter image description hereI am in the US. I arrived at the US immigration and waited patiently in line. I never ever have problems at Immigration because to the Americans I look Mexican and I have an English accent, the officials get so confused it really doesn't cross their minds that I could be anything of any danger.

This time I flew into Orlando airport, and the kind looking white male officer called me forward.

I passed him my British passport, he saw my US visa inside and he said, “What do you do?”

“I’m a comedian.” He looked at my face and laughed out loud, as though this in itself was the biggest joke.

“Where do you do that?”

“All over the world.”

He laughs again out loud and says, “Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“What type of material do you do?”

“I talk about anything and everything whatever I see, observational.”

There was a long pause. He looked at my passport then looked at me and said, “Are you of Pakistani heritage?”

I said, “No, I’m Indian.” I thought I don’t want to get into some kind of Q&A about whether or not I am related to Osama Bin Laden. Technically, I am Indian. My mother was born in India before partition so it wasn't a lie.

He says, “So why do you have a Pakistani Visa in your passport?”

“Because I toured there.”

“What, comedy?”

“Yes, comedy.”

“Did they get it?”

“Yes.”

“What language did you speak?”

“English.”

“And they got it?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“Because they laughed.”

“They laughed? Do you specialise in Pakistani jokes?”

“No.”

“So what do you talk about?”

“All kinds of things. Life.”

“So you’re observational?”

“Yes.”

There was another long pause. He looked at my passport, looked at me, and said, “Are you sure?”

“Sure about what?” I replied.

“Sure about everything you've told me.”

“Yes, of course I am.”

He then sat there and laughed out loud for about three minutes.

He said, “I've heard it all now. I've heard everything. This is something else. Comedy in Pakistan, who’d have thought, hey?”

I said, “Are you going to let me in, or are you just going to sit there chatting me up and laughing in my face all day.”

“Since you've made me laugh, I think I’ll let you in. Have a nice day.”

When I arrived at my show and told the Pakistani’s there what had happened they couldn't believe it.

“What? They didn't believe that Pakistani’s laugh? Do they think we are inhuman? Is this what they think of us?”

I had to tell them, that the Immigration Officer had actually laughed all the way through my time at passport control. So he must at least have found something about me funny. I was quite surprised at his reaction, because it had never happened to me before in all the years I have been coming to the US.

I have never flown into Orlando before; maybe its just Florida that thinks like this, maybe it’s just Orlando, or maybe it’s just him. I wouldn't want to judge all immigration officers in the US in the same way, that one man thinks that all people with Pakistani visa’s in their passports are humourless, comedy unfriendly, backward individuals that wouldn't know a joke if it shot them in the face with a handgun.

I hope that I in someway changed his mind about something, anything. We certainly had a laugh together and I quite liked him. I just think he hadn't travelled very far. Probably beyond the immigration booth in which he sat.

Not his fault then. You can’t blame him. Let me be a bit thick, a bit stupid and a bit ignorant.

He probably gets all his information from CNN, thinks that everyone in Pakistan lives in a cave and has never laughed, and the last time he saw a brown funny woman was on South Park, and she was imaginary.

But we both liked each other, we both got on, neither of us felt any animosity towards each other and most of all, he gave me some great new material.

A trip to Liberia

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enter image description hereIn 2011 my Canadian company asked me if I was interested in moving to Liberia to work on a large iron-ore mining project. I knew that Liberia had suffered badly in a civil war that had lasted for over a decade and ranked very low on the human development index. I was curious to see for myself how such a country compared to my homeland Pakistan.

The preparations for my departure got underway. Soon, my arm was like a sieve from the huge number of vaccinations that I got. I was then provided a large stock of medicines for diseases ranging from malaria to diarrhoea, dysentery etc. that I was to carry with me.

I flew from Montreal to Brussels and from there took a Brussels Air flight to Monrovia, the capital of Liberia.

The plane landed in Monrovia at an airport that had a bombed-out appearance. The immigration room was small and congested and had the look of a busy railway station ticket counter. A huge man appeared from nowhere and introduced himself as Momo. His business card informed me that he was the “Airport Fixer” working for my company. Momo seemed to know everyone at the immigration counter and we were whisked out very speedily without any customs checking. I felt very much at home.

On the trip from the airport to the company’s guesthouse, I noticed buildings damaged by the civil war, rusting carcasses of military vehicles, and electric poles with broken power cables. Once inside the company-run guesthouse, I was told that it was not safe to venture out during the evening. There was no electricity supply and a huge generator was providing power to the building. I had arrived in Liberia.

enter image description hereLiberia has a population of roughly 4 million people, of which nearly 70 per cent live in the capital Monrovia. It is estimated that 76 per cent of the population has an income of less than US $1 a day and 52 per cent less than US $0.50 a day, making it one of the poorest countries in the world.

Only 5 per cent of the population of Liberia is of American origin while 95 per cent are local Africans. The tensions between the more technologically and economically advanced American blacks and the very under-developed local population lead to a civil war that lasted from 1989 to 2003. The country turned into killing fields with more than 250,000 shot dead or hacked with machetes, a very large number fled to neighbouring countries. Almost the entire infrastructure (water, roads, power, telephone networks) was destroyed. Even today there is no main power supply system and water. Generators are the only means of power for the few that can afford it. Most of the population uses firewood and charcoal for cooking. While a democratically elected government is in place, the country is run by the United Nations that provides aid and 15,000 troops for peacekeeping.

Early the next morning I left by a four-wheeler for the port city of Buchanan, the third largest city in Liberia with a population of 350,000. The distance between the two cities is about 100 kilometres but it took us four hours to cover this distance. For the first 40 kilometres from Monrovia the road was good and it took no more than 30 minutes to cover. Then started the real journey. The remaining 60 kilometres were mostly potholes, with little semblance of road. It was truly a bone rattling experience. On the way, almost all the cars were rickety old specimens from the 1960s, bursting at their seams with people and luggage. I am still at a loss to understand how any of these vehicles ever reached their destination.

Buchanan, a port city, was once a thriving commercial centre, but is now a shadow of its former self. There is no running water or mains electricity. Only shops that have their own small generators stay open after dark. Most houses are made out of banana leaves, intricately woven to make wall panels and mud roofs. What is amazing is that these houses stand up against the incessant rains. Most of the city goes to sleep at sunset. There are a few schools run by Western missionaries. The lone bookshop in town, when open, sells only books related to religion. Men, with bodies thin as sticks, carry huge stacks of firewood on their head. The Buchanan port shows the signs of the ravages of war. Rusting, broken, half-sunk ships can still be seen in the harbour.

The Lebanese and Indians own whatever business there is in Liberia. A shopkeeper who was an Indian Gujrati provided the only lighter moment during my stay. When I asked him how he had ended up in Liberia he told me that he was selected for a job in Libya – or so he thought. When he got off the plane it turned out to be the down and out Liberia and not oil rich Libya! Since he had no money to go back he started working in Buchanan and now owned a shop. He dutifully brought me an eraser when I asked for a razor.

Medical facilities are virtually non-existent outside of the UN compounds or at the camps of some foreign companies like mine. When I had a tooth infection I had to be driven to Monrovia to the only civilian dentist available in the country. When I arrived at the clinic I found out to my astonishment that I was the only patient. Clearly, dental care was way down on the priority list for the poverty-stricken people. I also read that a European organisation had donated artificial legs to the many people who had lost their legs during the civil war. Most of those who needed them did not accept them since if they did, they would stop receiving the small disability allowance they were getting that paid for their food.

I was supposed to stay in Liberia for six months but I could not survive it for more than six weeks. Since my return from Liberia, I am thankful for having Pakistan, but at the same time fearful that civil wars and sectarian conflicts may one day bring us to where Liberia is today.

In the hope of justice

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enter image description hereKilling innocents in cold blood is not new in our part of the world. But trying to prosecute their killers is definitely new as the Ishrat Jahan case from Gujarat, India, shows.

A charge-sheet has finally been filed in the June 2004 encounter killing of Ishrat Jahan, a 19-year-old girl from Mumbai, and three others, Pranesh Pillai (alias Javed Ghulam Sheikh), Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar at the hands of the Gujarat police.

It’s been a long time coming, especially since the State Government of Gujarat headed by Chief Minister Narendra Modi has actively tried to obstruct the High Court-monitored investigation being conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Right till the last moment, fanciful stories were sought to be circulated since the accused consist of top Gujarat police officials, including a serving Additional Director-General of Police, P.P. Pandey, who continues to elude the law, to torpedo the investigation.

A first charge-sheet was filed on July 3 against seven police officers, including Pandey, once considered to be a blue-eyed boy of Chief Minister Modi, who’s now been chosen to lead the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party in India’s national elections scheduled for 2014.

The charge-sheet makes it clear that the encounter was “fake” and the bizarre stories floated by the Gujarat police claiming that Ishrat Jahan was a terrorist, cut no ice with the investigators.

And, the encounter of Ishrat Jahan and three others is by no means an isolated instance. There are at least three other encounter killings between 2004 and 2007 in which senior Gujarat police officers are said to be involved.

The charge-sheet in the Ishrat Jahan case shows clearly that an Intelligence Bureau (IB) official Rajinder Kumar has a lot to answer for. Media reports suggest that a turf war has broken out between the CBI and IB over prosecuting Kumar in the encounter killing.

The document shows that Kumar was present at a meeting between Pandey, Deputy Inspector General of Police and accused D.G. Vanazara and absconder Pandey on June 13, 2004, when the “further plan” to eliminate the four was allegedly hatched.

It also contains a claim by a police officer that the Ishrat Jahan encounter was allegedly approved by Chief Minister Modi, who was also Home Minister of the State.

CBI chief Ranjit Sinha has spoken out clearly on what he thinks about the “turf war” with the Intelligence Bureau. He told the Indian Express newspaper: “We have no political agenda ... a bogey is being created that thanks to the Ishrat Jahan case the entire IB will stop functioning and national security will be in jeopardy.”

Even as there’s talk about a second charge-sheet being filed in the case, it’s clear that the Congress-led government in Delhi is silently watching the stories being planted by sections of the IB and the response from the CBI.

The criminal behaviour of the Gujarat policemen has been made crystal clear by the charge-sheet, but the fate of IB official Rajinder Kumar still remains unclear. It’s possible that he may be named in a second charge-sheet or the courts might make him an accused.

Whatever be the fate of the accused during the trial process, the fact is that criminality of this kind cannot be tolerated in a State police force or in senior intelligence officials in the country.

There’s little doubt that this “national security mindset” cuts across party political lines and has support from a section of the middle class that believes bumping off people is legitimate State policy.

Such an argument goes against all cannons of law and violates the Indian Constitution.

It is criminal behaviour by law enforcement authorities that turns innocent into terrorists.

The Ishrat Jahan case, rare as it is in having had a thorough investigation, must lead to a speedy conclusion.

Justice in this case must come as a deterrent for those cops and intelligence officials plotting and planning other fake encounter killings.

There must be zero tolerance for criminal behaviour among law enforcement officials and their political masters who condone or encourage such behaviour.


The Jhang of Lashkars - 1

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For whom the bell tolls

The 16th day of April in 1853 is special in the Indian history. The day was a public holiday. At 3:30 pm, as the 21 guns roared together, the first train carrying Lady Falkland, wife of Governor of Bombay, along with 400 special invitees, steamed off from Bombay to Thane.

Ever since the engine rolled off the tracks, there have been new dimensions to the distances, relations and emotions. Abaseen Express, Khyber Mail and Calcutta Mail were not just the names of the trains but the experiences of hearts and souls. Now that we live in the days of burnt and non functional trains, I still have a few pleasant memories associated with train travels. These memoirs are the dialogues I had with myself while sitting by the windows or standing at the door as the train moved on. In the era of Cloud and Wi-Fi communications, I hope you will like them.


enter image description hereBesides the salinity, the fertility of Jhang is being ravished by something else as well. How could a land with a Sufi heart allow the desecration of graves? Why is Jhang no more the city that it used to be? The answer to this question is in fact the answer to the existing mayhem of our state. Jhang is the story that spans from sectarian violence to the killing of foreign tourists.

To many minds, the problem started when a dictator tried to legitimise his rule in the name of religion, while others smell American involvement in it; there are few who take it as a Zionist conspiracy and yet others who blame India for this. But, the journey towards the truth is just as difficult as it is uncomfortable. An unbiased and incisive analysis reveals that as soon as Pakistan became a reality, religious parties started showing their force. The quarters that had once opposed the formation of the country, grew so powerful in a short span of time, that they enforced constitutional changes like the Objective resolution and summoned people to the parliament for passing a judgement on their religion. From the icons of Heer and Sultan Bahoo, to the fame of Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Jhang has tread painful miles.

A group of historians traces the Shia community of Jhang to the time when Umer Bin Hafas was appointed the Governor, while another group believes that it was an influence of the Ismaili regime in Multan. Regardless of the two opinions, when Mehmood of Ghazni won over Jhang, the official historian recorded it as a victory for Islam.

With the British, came the colonisation schemes and lands were allotted. Due to the prevailing Baradari system, large portions of land were allotted to Shias who had most of their tenants as Sunnis (of Barelvi influence). Whether it had an economic undertone or the liberal mindset of the Barelvi branch, to-date the licence for Tazia in Jhang remains with the Sunnis.

When Pakistan came into being, a large number of refugees arrived at Jhang. Most of these immigrants came from the districts of Rohtak, Hissar, Gurgaon and Panipat and were staunch followers of the Deoband. They had left everything back home, save the dreams of a new land and the spirit for the revival of old faith. With the plunder of allotments and claims, the ideals for a newfound land were soon forsaken; however, the puritan ambition was strong enough to stay on. The universal remedy for homesickness, in case of immigrants, appears to be religion. Regardless of financial feasibilities, religious places develop faster in foreign lands.

A decade down the line, the demographic change was making its mark. The immigrant Deobandees initially frowned upon the liberal religious approach of Barelvis and then took it upon themselves to reform them. Interestingly, the first Manazra (religious debate) of Jhang did not take place between the Shia and Sunni but between a Deobandi and a Barelvi. The 50s saw, for the first time in Jhang, a Deobandi firebrand scholar slandering the landlords for being feudal and Shias. With one shot fired from this side, how could the other side refrain? Soon an act of contempt of the Sahaba was administered in the village of Hasso Balail by a local Shia landlord in 1957. That too, for the first time in the history of Jhang. As a result of these events, an organisation surfaced with the name of Majlis-e-Tahaffuz Namoos-e-Sahaba. A few peaceful years ensued and then started the vicious cycle of sectarian killings. The murder of a Sunni Imam of ShorKot in 1964 was the first of its kind in Jhang, but no one noted that apart from being a Sunni, he was a Muslim and a human being too. After a gap of three years, another Imam was killed in Rodoo Sultan, who also believed in the oneness of God and was born a human being before being raised a Sunni.

Apparently, the sectarian skirmishes started with the first of Muharram and subsided by the 1st of Rabi-ul-Awwal but then a subtle change started taking effect. The humility of the accent was being eaten up by hard talk. When the flash floods increased, the rage of the river finally spilled over the shores. The incident of Bab-e-Umar was not hard to foretell.

Out of the three entry points of Jhang, one was called Kheva Gate, in the memory of Kheva Khan, the father of Saheba. Tradition had it that every year on the seventh day of Muharram, a procession passed through this gate. Initially the name of the gate was changed to Bab-e-Umar and subsequently, both sides agreed not to mourn loudly in respect of the mosques en route. The mourners silently beat their chest and walked past the mosque. It was called khamosh matam.

In the Muharram of 1969, the city administration was extra vigilant in the wake of a volatile situation. It sought guarantees from both sides for not inciting violence. On the eve of the sixth of Muharram, a banner with instigating remarks was displayed on the route of the procession. The administration hurried up and saved the disaster by talking both parties to a peaceful solution. It was agreed that till the time the procession had not passed the mosque, the offensive wordings would remain covered. As soon as the procession reached the mosque, someone uncovered the banner. On seeing this, a participant of the procession, soaked a dirty cloth in the nearby drain and threw it at the banner. What followed next was the unprecedented violence. Had it not been the first day of Yahya Khan’s Martial Law, the killings would have never stopped at six.

The issue, however, was not solely an act of sectarian violence. The individual who uncovered the wordings and the individual who flung dirt on it, were both employees of a local political leader, unfortunately a Shia. Years after, the grandson of this Sial confessed that his grandfather wanted to bring down Col Abid Hussain’s rapport to avenge his defeat in 1946 elections. Other than clan politics, the rich of the city also added to this rift as they served the religion by paying off to their sect.

When Jhang went to polls after this incident, the traditional seat set up was totally upset. Dressed in black, the widows of the Bab-e-Umar incident had mourned through the streets and everyone voted for their sympathy.

But despite all this, the Shia Sunni issue remained on the back burner till 1974 as both sides were busy pushing the Ahmedis across the religious border. As soon as the Parliament declared Qadianis "Non Muslims", the venomous speakers directed their fury onto Shias. The Deoband scholars that once toured the districts to "gather support against Qadianis" were now visiting the same mosques to propagate against Shias. The self proclaimed guardians of religion always came up with a fresh threat to Islam. Qadianis, Shias, Barelvis, one can’t help but wonder who will be next?

(To be continued…)

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Karachi: My beloved schizophrenic

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enter image description hereLeaving your home city, even if the world sees it as the hub of chaos, is like ripping away a part of your soul – certainly noise is relatively easier to embrace than emptiness. Karachi is like a mosaic – thousands of distinctive scenes that not only coexist, but also serve as a collective wonder for the world to speculate, rant and rave about its unbelievable diversity. While a tourist or a visitor will label the city as over-populated, dirty, loud and polluted, a true habitant will speak about it with an ownership and passion that one reserves for an intimate, yet toxic lover. The love-hate relationship compels its dwellers to use it and abuse it, but when the need arises, to tenderly tend to its bruises.

Trying to pass off the street life and culture of Karachi as one dimensional is as oversimplified and unjustified as calling the sunset merely ‘pink’ or the Grand Canyon ‘big’. While the streets of Zamzama scream nouveau riche, the quiet opulence of Old Clifton gives a sense of foreboding, old money, and past glory. The young man clad in the fake Levis jeans and Calvin Klein shirt selling dhaaga kebab at Burns Road will exude the same enthusiasm for fashion that a girl attired in expensive designer clothes at Zamzama Boulevard would.

Not far from Burns Road is the “Wall Street” of Karachi – I.I Chundrigar Road. Young men and increasingly women, rushing to their interviews, jobs and client meetings is a common sight. Some faces are confident and determined; many are disappointed and exhausted from the constant rejection and stress of the cutthroat corporate world. But Karachi is not all about big buildings, shrewd businessmen and corporate sharks. The city has its (not-so-healthy) share of zealous believers, delusional souls and passionate rebels (often without a cause), such as the mystical malangs at the tomb of Abdullah Shah Ghazi, crazy motorists on the Seaview road on New Year’s Eve and the ecstatic addicts on “Kaala Pull” are all a part of this metropolis.

So, what is common in this strange breed of city dwellers? What is that element that saves it from becoming a miserable cacophony and instead into a heart-wrenching symphony?

Predictably, it is not happiness, contentment or peace. It is the desire to survive, to repeatedly rise from the ashes and to pursue happiness – even if you never achieve it.

While some cities smell of greenery, some of opulence and grandeur, Karachi evokes a sense of urgency. The spirit of resilience, with hints of stubborn madness enables its people to resume work only hours after witnessing a suicide attack, planted bomb or target killing. It is the same resilience we see in poor but hopeful young men dancing in the rain although they know their humble abodes have high chances of being destroyed by the rain. Perhaps, they believe in Carpe Diem. It is again the same resilience where massacres in the city are a part of small talk.

Some would say that the tenacity and stubbornness of Karachiites borders on insensitivity, but only Karachiites can understand that this resilience is the only way to survive in this schizophrenic city. This is one city that cannot be truly explored in days or even weeks. For me, it’s the most intriguing place on earth, a place that teaches me to accept and love people from every social class, caste and colour. A place that teaches me to love your country unconditionally, to constantly battle political disarray, religious extremism, and resolutely work towards a better place for the generations to come. A tourist can never fall in love with this city, and a Karachiite can never truly belong to another city.

Attunement

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Pyaar nahi hai sur se jisko voh murakh insaan nahi

The fool who does not love music is not a human being.

enter image description hereIt is what it is. We live in the 21st century of the Anno Domini era, the 15th century according to the Islamic calendar, in the year of the snake of the Chinese calendar, and in the Kalyug of the Hindu calendar. We consider ourselves to be modern, civilized, evolved or even chosen. As a species we have made huge technological advancements, harnessed the energies of nature and explored the surface of the moon. Yet, we are no closer to being able to eradicate hunger, poverty and war from the face of the earth. Our relationship with each other is reflected in our relationship with the earth and other species.

If we are fortunate (or unfortunate!) we can choose to relinquish all responsibility for this state of affairs by laying it down to human nature or the laws of god – for a while. Sooner or later, we come to realise that some part or parts of us are out of tune with nature and out of tune with each other and ourselves; and that the process of tuning must finally be allowed to start.

But it’s easy to tune when one has a tuner – a green light that flashes every time the vibration of my soul corresponds exactly with the point of my reference. But when each word (let alone each book) has a different meaning according to our capacity of understanding, each sensation has a different feeling according to our mood - where to find the point of reference with which to attune myself?

Fortunately, we are born with a knowledge, which we all remember sooner or later - that the point of reference is all and everything!

Jaan mai maari addi uthe mil gaya piya Tere ishq nachaya kare thaya thaya thaya

Where I struck my heel, I found my darling Your love made me dance to the ting a ling ling

-Baba Bulleh Shah

This tuning process is best expressed by the musician, who tunes his instrument or voice to an imagined or felt point of reference; or the dancer who dances to its vibration.

It is a small wonder therefore that music has forever been used to express the highest aspirations of humankind. Whether it’s the sacred chants of the Sama Veda or the Tripitaka; the Kirtans of the Granth; the choral music of the Gospels; the melodies of the Torah; the Suras of the Quran – attunement or musicality has always been an integral part of reciting all scripture.

To people who still tell me that music is ‘haram’, which means forbidden (though some might translate it as ‘protected space’) in the religion of Islam, I say to them – that I wish a lot of the music which I am forced to listen to everyday would have been ‘haram’. In fact, I wish that everyone who sings or plays out of tune, but insists upon singing or chanting the loudest, would be forbidden to sing!

But when music is attuned, it becomes real music and connects us with ourselves, with each other, and with the Divine in all and everything – who is the most gracious and the most merciful.

A victory for Pakistani environmentalists

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enter image description hereMy last week’s blog on Chilas elicited a flurry of emails and several readers pointed out that the article “gave some biased approach of the writer towards Chilas”. But now, there’s some good news from there.

I had written in an earlier blog about twenty-five years old Khan Muhammad Qureishi from a village near Chilas, who now lives in Islamabad where he is working and studying International Relations. The son of a policeman, Juma Mohammed Qureishi, whose family still owns tracts of forests in Diamer District, KM Qureishi had turned into an active campaigner against deforestation when he learnt about the order passed by outgoing Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf during his last days in office, to allow the transportation of legally and illegally cut 4 million cubic feet of wood to the rest of the country within four months.

Back in 2008 an order was passed by the federal government imposing heavy fines on the illegally cut timber that was stacked on the KKH in Gilgit-Baltistan (first it was to be heavily fined and then sold). Because the fine was too high, no one bothered to remove it. Then ex-PM Raja Pervez gave last minute permission to release it, setting in motion massive illegal cutting of trees since his departure. The axes soon moved towards Fairy Meadows and according to latest reports, the cutting of trees had started in Bagrote Valley as well.

KM Qureishi was informed by his friends and relatives back in Chilas that thanks to this last minute order passed on March 15th 2013, the timber mafia in Diamer had become active again and started chopping down as many as 1000 to 1500 trees per day. Outraged by this slaughter of trees in his area, he started knocking on the doors of all the big environmental NGOs in Islamabad: WWF-Pakistan, Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Akhter Hameed Khan Resource Center, the Bioresource Research Center etc. He also approached the IG Forests and gave interviews to all the different media based in Islamabad, urging the caretaker government to take action. Unfortunately, the caretaker government did nothing and he almost lost hope. Then elections took place in early May and Nawaz Sharif’s government came to power and this issue was brought to their notice by environmental activists in the capital along with the Ministry of Climate Change (who said they were helpless to do anything on their own since the forest departments are under the provinces now – in this case the Gilgit-Baltistan Council – and only the PM, as head of the Council, could take action).

On June 28th 2013, during a session of the National Assembly, a call notice was brought about by PML(N) MNAs Maryam Aurangzeb (who once used to work for WWF-Pakistan and is familiar with all environmental issues facing this country) and Junaid Anwar Chaudhry about the misuse of the order passed by Raja Pervez Ashraf. An inter-ministerial inquiry committee to look into the issue was also formed. Finally, the federal government withdrew the controversial order with a notification from the Prime Minister’s office dated July 5 2013. The notification officially withdrew the timber movement policy and called for recommendations from the Gilgit-Baltistan Council and the Climate Change Division (the Ministry of Climate Change has now been demoted to a division) for further action.

This is great news not just for KM Qureishi (who sent me a congratulatory text last night, saying he had finally “succeeded in his mission”) and the environmental activists of Islamabad, but for the whole country. You see, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), only around 2.2 per cent of Pakistan’s landmass is under the cover of forests. Out of a total of around 1.687 million ha of forests, just 20.2 per cent (340,000 ha) is primary forest (the kind found in Diamer District)! These are abysmal figures even for a poor, developing country – I visited Bhutan last year where the forest cover is around 70 per cent. In Nepal the forest cover is around 40 per cent and in India it is around 23 per cent. The Indians are desperately trying to increase their forest cover and have formed a National Mission for a Green India with the goal of increasing forest/tree cover on 5 million ha of forest/non-forest lands and improving the quality of forest cover on another 5 million ha (a total of 10 million ha).

According to Helga Ahmed, an environmental activist based in Islamabad, “Our concern is that with all this deforestation, massive amounts of sediment will roll down into Tarbela Dam. Already the Indus riverbed is all silted up and this adds to the flooding. We need to re-vegetate the catchment area, stop the cutting of all trees and again impose heavy fines on the culprits (timber mafia)”.

The notification to withdraw the timber movement policy (despite all the machinations of the timber mafia who even arrived in Islamabad to meet with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to persuade him to change his mind) is indeed a great victory for environmentalists in Pakistan and KM Qureishi from near Chilas deserves a pat on his back.

No water, no food

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With the power shortage taking the front stage in the media and in the new government’s pronouncements, an even more important issue has been relegated to the back burner. This serious issue is the future availability of water to support food production in Pakistan.

To put it simply, while we can survive with power shortages, we cannot survive without food. Thus, the criticality of water required for agriculture is even greater than that for power.

While lack of water for domestic use gets attention due to the immediate impact it has on daily life, availability of water for agriculture is brushed under the rug and deferred as there is still enough food to feed the population. This assumption – that sufficient food will be available to a growing population somehow – is closing the eyes to the hard facts relating to the water resources of Pakistan.

Here are the facts:

The Indus Water Treaty (IWT) signed with India in 1961 under the aegis of the World Bank stipulated that the flow from the three Western rivers (Indus, Jhelum and Chenab) will be for the exclusive use of Pakistan while the three Eastern Rivers (Ravi, Sutlej and Beas) will be for India’s use.

The average volume of water flowing into the Indus Basin delta is 142 Million Acre-Feet (MAF). Nearly 95 per cent of this water is used for irrigation. Following is a breakdown of current water usage:

The above figures show that we are close to using all the water. The only additional water that can be made available is 23MAF. To utilise this water, dams need to be built to store it and use it as required. The storage capacity in dams in 2011 stood at 12.1MAF. No new dams have been built in Pakistan since the completion of Tarbela in 1976. Also, the capacity of the existing dams (that was 16.7MAF in 1976), will go down to about 9MAF by 2025 due to silting. There are two projects under construction that will add an additional live storage capacity of 9.3MAF by 2025. These are the raising of Mangla Dam (added capacity 2.9MAF) and the Diamer-Bhasha dam (new capacity 6.4MAF).

One practice that is already causing serious problems is the indiscriminate and excessive use of groundwater (this is the surface water that seeps through the ground) through nearly 1 million tube wells. Groundwater contributes an average of 45 per cent of the total irrigation requirement. While the use of groundwater has greatly profited crop production, the rapid rate at which it is being used is causing serious issues of lowering of the water table and salinity in areas where the water is over-drawn and water logging in areas of below optimal withdrawal.

Supply – Demand Scenarios

The current population of Pakistan is about 173 million and forecasted population for 2025 is 225 million. This is an increase of 30 per cent. Compared to the increase in demand, the additional water available is 19 per cent of the current use. Obviously, this situation would be become much worse by 2050 when the water supply could remain the same, while the population increases to 395 million.

Wapda made an assessment of the water demand for 2025 in the document, “Pakistan National Water Resource Strategy – 2002” and later in a document titled “National Water Policy 2010”. The demand forecast assumes that the cultivated areas needs to increase 48 per cent in 2025 compared to year 2000 in order to support the food requirements of the increased population. Wapda concluded in these reports that since the water supply is limited, it would not be possible to produce sufficient agricultural products if the water and yield efficiency due to non-water means (e.g., fertilizer, improved seeds, better farming techniques etc.) stays at the current levels. Following is a quote from the 2010 Water Policy document:

In view of past experience, the target of 50 per cent increase in agricultural yields (non water inputs), is achievable and, therefore, additional water of 37 MAF at the canal head should meet all agricultural requirements provided concerted efforts are made, supported by research and other measures besides further improvements in the irrigation network, to enhance the element of demand-based supplies.

Wapda have thus assumed a 50 per cent increase in crop yield by non-water means to arrive at a demand of 134MAF for 2025. The facts negate this assumption. A comparison of productivity of two major food crops, wheat and rice shows that the productivity increased 29 per cent and 23 per cent respectively during the period 1997 to 2009 (as per Federal Bureau of Statistics). If it is assumed that half of this productivity increase was due to non-water means, the figure drops to 14.5 per cent and 11.5 per cent respectively. Given that Pakistan is seriously lagging behind in agricultural productivity and there is substantial room for improvement a figure of 25 per cent may be achieved by 2025.

For the purpose of determining a range of demand for 2025 and beyond, the following three scenarios have been developed:

Scenario 1: 50 per cent increase in yield due to non-water means (Wapda assumption) Scenario 2: 25 per cent increase in yield due to non-water means (most likely) Scenario 3: No increase in yield due to non-water means (worst case)

Irrigation efficiency of 51 per cent has been assumed for all the three scenarios. Also, 18MAF of storage availability is assumed for all cases.

Scenario 1 in the table below provides the exact calculation used by Wapda to develop the forecast demand for 2025.

Following results and graphs illustrate the water supply-demand for the three scenarios:

Scenario 1:

Scenario 2:

Scenario 3:

Summary of the three Scenarios:

The figures above indicate that even in the most optimistic (Scenario 1), the figures for supply and demand indicate a deficit of 12MAF (9 per cent) by 2025 and 87MAF (42 per cent) by 2050.

The situation becomes much worse for Scenarios 2 and 3 where the deficits for 2025 are 32 per cent and 46 per cent respectively. The respective shortfalls for 2050 reach 56 per cent and 65 per cent.

The above analysis is confirmed by UN statistics that Pakistan is already facing “Water Stress” and will face “Water Scarcity” by 2035. The term “Water Stress” means that per capita water supply is below 1700 cubic meters while “Water Scarcity” means that per capita water supply is below 1,000 cubic meters. Water scarcity can lead to severe food shortages and thus famine and starvation. The figure below shows the availability of water (in cubic meters) vs. time.

In addition to the above mentioned issues relating to shortage of water, climate change may have a very significant impact on the water flow in the Indus Basin. It is forecast that initially there would be flooding of the rivers due to increased glacier melt that would cause serious damage to the land and the irrigation system. Later, as the glaciers have melted, a draught situation would develop due to lack of water in the rivers.

Solutions:

On the supply side, it is essential that the river flows in the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab are not interrupted or reduced by India. Pakistan has to stay on top of this issue and make it a national priority to have a strategy and a team of legal experts to deal with India on the water issue at bi-lateral and international levels.

Additional water can be made available by reducing system losses and increasing storage capacity. Better management of groundwater resources is required for maintaining the current level of supply.

The cost-benefit ratio of reducing supply losses by lining the canals to prevent seepage should be studied, keeping in mind that if more surface water is available, the cost of constructing tube wells and the associated cost of electricity for pumping is reduced.

In order to increase the storage capacity of the reservoirs, a cost-benefit study of de-silting the existing reservoirs (Mangla and Tarbela) should be carried out.

One cause of silting is the loosening of earth due to excessive de-forestation. Pakistan had a forest cover of 6 per cent in 1947 but is now reduced to the alarming level of just 2 per cent. International standard recommend a forest cover of 25 per cent to maintain a good ecological balance. A legislation protecting the forests needs to written and then strictly implemented.

Starting construction of new dams is critical since the typical construction duration of large dams is 10-15 years. These new projects could be a mix of large, medium and small dams.

On the demand side, there is potential to reduce water requirement by taking measures to increase the per acre yield of the crops and improving water usage to crop output ratio.

The feasibility of modern techniques, like drip irrigation and sprinkler system, should be looked into. So far, it appears that these techniques may not be suitable for large scale farming in a technologically under-developed country like Pakistan. However, there is good potential for using drip irrigation in small scale farming like fruit farms.

Also, replacing of water intensive crops with low water usage crops should be seriously reviewed and the results implemented.

There are a myriad of publications by the government, NGOs, and international organisations that have indicated the serious water issue facing Pakistan. However, so far, the government has chosen to take the classic “head in the sand” approach to this matter of life and death.

It is high time that serious analysis and planning is carried out to avoid bringing the water problem to the same scale as the power problem is today.

Urgent measures need to be taken in order to avoid a drought-like situation in the near future. These measures need to address issues of both water supply and demand; otherwise nature will take care of the problem through a major reduction in population through famines and wars over limited food supplies.

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