Call for Pakistan!!!

The much awaited monsoon came but it was not alone. The rains were accompanied by floods as the rivers bloated and reservoirs overflowed inundating towns entirely and rendering people dead, injured, lost and homeless. To add insult to injuries, the state agencies seem clueless. In a state with as little resources as Pakistan has, in the aftermath of such natural disasters, the people throughout the length and breadth of Pakistan should spur into action, mobilize their resources and extend helping hand to our fellow citizens in distress rather jeopardy. The job of saving Pakistanis and later rehabilitating them should not be left to the government alone. All of us who can should come forward and help.
It is a call for Pakistan

when living longer becomes a problem.....

Shada islam’s column in today’s Dawn(31st july) brings to the fore a strange problem that the eurpoean world is faced with. It is known as the problem of ageing. It refers to the phenomenon which is the result of increasing life expectancy of the population at large. Due to advancement in health sciences and improvement in medical treatment, diseases that were once fatal are now being cured thus leading to the increased life span. Besides the standards of living, the standards of dying have also risen incredibly. However, the flip side to this is that number of the old people continues to rise and their ranks swell while the birth-rate in Europe continues to fall. This ever grey-ing population burdens the country’s budget and financial resources with its increased needs of health care, frequent medical attention and the pension fees. Besides, labour shortages slow down the economic growth and national output. Because people are living longer, the state has to take care of them for longer time thus adding increased burden on the exchequer. Shada quotes EU social affairs commissioner Laszlo Andor as saying, “The number of retired people in Europe compared to those financing their pensions is forecast to double by 2060- the current situation is simply not sustainable”
While Pakistan continues to grapple with the population explosion and its concomitant problems of providing basic amenities to all the citizens and turning the population from a liability into an asset as majority of the population of Pakistan is young, Europe mulls over how to increase its population and how to deal with its older generation whose number rises steadily.
I wish we could swap our problems.

nazim hikmat----in solitary

These days, i am in love with nazim hikmat
A "romantic revolutionary", indeed.
Have a look at his following lines:

LETTERS FROM A MAN IN SOLITARY

1
I carved your name on my watchband
with my fingernail.
Where I am, you know,
I don't have a pearl-handled jackknife
(they won't give us anything sharp)
or a plane tree with its head in the clouds.
Trees may grow in the yard
but I'm not allowed
to see the sky overhead...
How many others are in this place?
I don't know.
I'm alone far from them,
they are all together far from me.
To talk to anyone besides myself
is forbidden.
So I talk to myself.
But I find my conversation so boring,
my dear wife, that I sing songs.
And what do you know,
that awful, always off-key voice of mine
touches me so
that my heart breaks.
And just like the barefoot orphan
lost in snow
in those old sad stories, my heart
- with moist blue eyes
and a little red runny nose -
wants to snuggle up in your arms..
It doesn't make me blush
that right now
I'm this weak,
böyle hodbin
this selfish,
this human simply.
No doubt my state can be explained
physiologically, psychologically, etc.
Or may be it's
this barred window,
this earthen jug,
these four walls,
which for months have kept me from hearing
another human voice...

It's five o'clock, my dear.
Outside,
with its dryness,
eerie whispers,
mud roof,
and lame, skinny horse
standing motionless in infinity
- I mean, it's enough to drive the man inside
crazy with grief -

Again today, night will fall in no time.
A light will circle the lame, skinny horse.
And the treeless space, in this hopeless landscape
stretched out before me like the body of a hard man,
will suddenly be filled with stars.
We'll reach the inevitable end once more,
which is to say the stage is set
again today for an elaborate nostalgia.
Me,
the man inside,
once more I'll exhibit my customary talent,
and singing an old-fashioned lament
in the reedy voice of my childhood,
once more, by God, it will crush my unhappy heart
to hear you inside my head,
so far
away, as if I were watching you
in a smoky, broken mirror...

2
It's spring outside, my dear wife, spring.
Outside on the plain, suddenly the smell
of fresh earth, bird singing, etc.
It's spring outside, my dear wife, spring,
the plain outside sparkles...
And inside the bed comes alive with bugs,
the water jug no longer freezes,
and in the morning sun floods the concrete...
The sun -
every day till noon now
it comes and goes
from me, flashing off
and on...
And as the day turns to afternoon, shadows climb the walls,
the glass of the barred window catches fire,
and it's night outside,,
a cloudless spring night...
And inside this is spring's darkest hour.
In short, the demon called freedom,
with its glittering scales and fiery eyes,
possesses the man inside
especially in spring...
I know this from experience, my dear wife,
from experience...

3
Sunday today.
Today they took me out in the sun for the first time.
And I just stood there, struck for the first time in my life
by how far away the sky is
how blue
and how wide.
Then I respectfully sat down on the earth.
I leaned back against the wall.
For a moment no trap to fall into,
no struggle, no freedom, no wife.
Only earth, sun, and me...
I am happy...

nizar qabbani's poetic influence

This is what influenced nizar qabbani;

........."When Qabbani was 15, his sister, who was 25 at the time, committed suicide because she refused to marry a man she did not love.During her funeral he decided to fight the social conditions he saw as causing her death. When asked whether he was a revolutionary, the poet answered: “Love in the Arab world is like a prisoner, and I want to set (it) free. I want to free the Arab soul, sense and body with my poetry. The relationships between men and women in our society are not healthy.” He is known as one of the most feminist and progressive intellectuals of his time."

"when a man is in love how can he use old words?"---nizar qabbani

Monsoon is here,,,finally.

Finally the monsoon is here, belatedly but here nevertheless.
Megha, Malhar, sarang, varsha sing whichever raag you know....It is here.
Let’s see how long it is going to last.
Although it reached Karachi a few days back, it is only today that it has rained unabatedly.
Yet another monsoon, yet another cycle completed and a half of 2011 is gone….
But for now, the weather is brilliant and the ambience is beautiful, LET’S SAVOR IT.


Have happy and safe monsoon!!!!

Shame on us.....

Rape a girl in Pakistan and move on.

The victim will not speak out against it for fear of earning ignominy and a social stigma that stays forever. She will curse her fate-not the rapist- and try to do the impossible i-e forget about it.

But kainat soomro did not forget what happened to her on Jan. 10, 2007 as a student of class eight. She was gang raped. Nor did she keep quiet. Kainat protested and clamoured for justice.

What happens next?

Well, welcome to Pakistan.

“Five fake FIRs of murder, theft and other crimes were registered against her and her family at different police stations to pressure them to withdraw the case and settle the dispute through a jirga”, says Kainat.

Moreover, “because she had refused to withdraw the case, they murdered her brother after kidnapping”

The complicity of Police in the crime should not be appalling to any Pakistani who lives in this Land of the Pure. What is shocking, however, is the naivety of kainat.

How could she even think of pursuing the perpetrators!

And how dare she violate the norms by breaking the silence!

Why did she not keep mum about it, gulping down the pill of patience like so many kainats along the length and breadth of this country do!?

Thus, she had to be taught a lesson and if she learns the hard way, so be it. Here falls her brother.

See, it’s simple.

In this fast moving world, you have fast food and that too while driving through. Similarly, rape and move on. And if some mad girl like kainat tries to block your way, you know how to still go through. Besides, you can always teach her a lesson.

Indeed! We are moving fast and making progress.
SHAME on us...

Watching 3 idiots and thinking.....

How often we complain about the uselessness of our education system. It is characterized by rote learning and conventional pedagogy that discourages critical thinking and reasoning. But at the CSS level, one had assumed that the things would be done differently. However, it is sad to find out that, in the name of ‘exam-oriented study’ or ‘smart study’, the same old techniques are being used by the aspirants. The techniques that aim at picking and choosing, eschewing what is deemed as unimportant in the light of past papers, preparing pet answers for the oft-repeated questions, confining yourself to the same old couple of books that gained currency and popularity because some candidates in the past happened to clear the exam with flying colors courtesy these books. Worse, some do not even bother to read books and content themselves with the notes prepared by successful candidates. Notes prepared by the candidates who proved to be successful would surely possess the important points in a concise manner. However, reading notes alone won’t help you in forming a perspective and proper understanding of a particular subject. These and many such techniques have now become part of revered traditions flouting which amounts to no less than social deviation. This is so mostly because the paper patterns and the marks criteria themselves seem to protect this tradition rather reinforce it. When the stakes are so high that your career depends on this examination and when these old techniques, strategy is too serious a word to be used for preparation methodology, have paid off and continue to do so, why would one risk adopting a different(read rational) method.
But even if you tend to think zara hatke-the thought that has now come to be identified with the movie 3-idiots and its three idiots, you will soon be reminded, “IT IS A RACE AND READ TO PASS THE XAMINATION,,mazay baad mein lena”
And in any case, CSS is central superior services, the most prestigious examination in Pakistan for the most prestigious job and the “idiots” are not supposed to do it.

Calm down just for a while....

It is lots of noise all around.
Everyone seems to be in a hurry. Some are running and others are taking giant strides, doing many things at a time, thinking many thoughts at once. But in this bid to keep pace with time, we are missing out on some essentials. In an attempt to do all the things all the time, have we realized that actually we are not doing lots of things too.

When did we last sit idle and did just nothing, absolutely nothing-doing nothing has a charm of its own, try it.
When did we last try and listen to the sound of silence, deep silence
When did we last count the stars in the sky while wondering at how some lit brighter than the others and imaginatively connecting the stars into some kind of shape. You know, it is curious how many games one can play with the stars in the sky.
When did we last sit in the laps of our moms and asked her to lullaby us to sleep. True, we are grownups but we are never too big for our mamas laps.
When did we last play with kids and brought smiles to their angel faces
And when did we last look back. Undoubtedly, we are too preoccupied with the present and our eyes all affixed at the future. Yet, it would be worthwhile to revisit the past. Unearth the old photo albums that would be lying somewhere in the closet covered with the dust of time. Try and dig out old copies, notebooks, old diaries, and see what comes to your mind while looking at them. It is going to be some experience, I bet.
Besides, a peep in our past will help us see our present in a proper perspective. Moreover, take some time off from the daily routine of your mundane life and walk your way into the past. Pay a visit to your alma mater. Go to your universities, colleges and schools and try to identify the places where you used to sit, play, sing or as in my case even dance.
( I have just been to NED university and it wore a deserted look as the vacations are underway. But this gave me an opportunity to spend some time with NED alone and give her yet another final kiss. One day I will visit my college and school too.)

See! There are so many things that we miss out on , in spite of our fast pace or perhaps because of it.

No wonder we don’t know that the air has a music to it. Some sort of tune constantly plays in the background, in the air or perhaps the sound comes down right from the sky. But how would we know it when we have not even listened to it in the first place. And how would we listen to it when we don’t even care to pause for a while and give an ear to the air or listen to what it has to say or look around and appreciate the goodness spread all over. But no, we are too full of ourselves to look beyond and in any case time is running out.
I am not preaching medievalism here and I am too proud of what the modern man has achieved to spurn it. This progress that we have witnessed in the last few centuries is our collected heritage and we need not be apologetic about it and rather own it. But, progress aims at making better use of machines and not making machines out of human beings. Yes, we are human beings rather individuals with our respective individuality. Let’s not lose it…
Run as fast as you can, dream big, achieve even bigger but at times- just at times -stop. Take a deep breath and appreciate small things around you.
To begin with, lets try and walk slowly today with small steps while i go to sleep. dont wake me up plz...ZZzzzz......