Happy Birthday to me!!!!!!

It is 1st August today.
My 24th birthday!
what? 24!!!!??????
Have i exhausted twenty four years of my life?
Are you sure the number is 24?
24??? Is it T-w-e-n-t-y-F-o-u-r???
Where did they go? How did i spend them?
Did i spend them purposefully? meaningfully?
The answer to a greater extent would be NO.
Have i squandered these 24 years?
Perhaps NO on that count too.
The answer, as always, lies somewhere in the middle.
Nevertheless, 24 is quite a lot of time and it has gone past very quickly.But as time goes by, it leaves behind large trove of memories. Thus, surely, these 24 years of my life have been full of things to recount and reminisce. And thankfully, huge part of it consists of pleasant memories. However, at this point in time, i find it out of place to indulge in any nostalgic exercise.
On my 24th birthday, it is the future that fascinates me and it is the present that pre-occupies.
Notwithstanding the pleasant feelings that the reminiscence invokes, it will have to wait the pleasure of my encounter.
Right now, it is time to roll-up the sleeves and get on with the work.
Happy Birthday to you Waqar.
You deserve it boy.
It has been a Life well-lived and lived as much for others as for your own self.
So keep it up.
And God bless you.

Reflections from home-I

Many things have happened in the past month or so. Hence many reasons to write this blog. However, eschewing every other development, it is the personal bit of the news that I would like to write about right now. Six months ago, on 3^rd of November, my youngest uncle died an untimely death.  The news came around the evening on that fateful day of Wednesday and we had to leave for our ancestral village immediately. It was after almost 3 years that I was going there, however, not to be warmly received by my ever-smiling uncle but to mourn his death.  What followed in the next 4 days was a sobering experience. Fast forward to 6 months later, on 4^th may, Wednesday again, the sad news of our grandpa’s demise reached us in a similar fashion around the same time.This time around, my sojourn lasted for 2 days-I could not have stayed longer. However, the raft of experiences and observations was no less. I noticed that, in our extended family, we the children have suddenly, almost imperceptibly, grown into adults and our parents have grown older. There were many other important observations which I will keep sharing here over the period of time. I got to go right now...catch u later....

Moin Akhtar

“Come quickly, he is on T.V!” my sister would shout whenever Moin akhtar appeared on T.V and of course I would come running. And before he uttered even a single word there was already an expectant smile on our faces. That was the man called Moin akhtar who breathed his last on 22^nd of April.

Some of my fondest childhood memories are associated with Moin akhtar’s performances as I have grown up watching him perform. It was in the 90s when the youtube and facebook did not exist and our entertainment avenues were limited to PTV, bollywood movies, and a couple of Indian channels courtesy dish antenna. Yet we never felt like a generation starved of entertainment. This was so partly because of little awareness about what else existed in the world. However, for the most part, the credit for filling our childhood with fun and quality entertainment goes, of course, to Moin akhtar and his ilk-if there was any.   

Amidst the slew of obituaries, tributes and condolence messages in the wake of Moin akhtar’s demise, one comment that would particularly resonate with the Pakistanis of my generation is the title of ET blog by sabahat zakariya which said, “With Moin Akhtar, a piece of my childhood dies.”

Moin Sir, Thankyou. 

long time no write !!

I have been blank for quite long which explains my protracted absence from The Simple Saga.
Nothing has occurred to me of late that could spur me into blogging. Even now, i cannot think of anything to write about.However, i could not remain away from my The Simple Saga anymore.As i write these lines being ensconced in my room, i can hear my two little nephews(Rafay and Ayan) shout while playing cricket.Earlier, Ayan(my three and a half years old nephew) was telling me the first ever poem he has learnt in his life. He will get to learn many things in life and explore many new things. Things that will excite him and frustrate him, fill him with hope as well as anguish. The society in which he is going to grow up will make sure he remains stuck in mediocrity and absurdity for as long as possible. Much time of his early life will go waste in a struggle to find his way through the cobweb of uncertainties. He will figure out that he could have been luckier than he actually is. Do you think it is unfair to pre-judge all this? How can i predict this now when Ayan is just three and a half years and his life-whole life- is yet to actually begin.?Well, you need not be Nostradamus to foresee this. Sociologists will tell you that how life turns out for him will depend on how he actually gets socialized. And that's exactly what i am saying. How one will get socialized in the society such as ours is not very hard to tell. Thus the pleasure he now seeks in learning poem and sharing it with me may wear out in the long run if it fails to receive the appreciation. Similarly, his spark may get smudged over the course of time when he gets to learn that the life in this part of the world does not reward in any meticulous way and is not all that just. That is when he will get caught up in his fight for survival and those beautiful little poems will have gone lost somewhere. I hope i prove to be wrong.

First 9 years of Pakistan

First 9 years of Pakistan and you know already everything that is wrong with this country. All the problems that have plagued Pakistan throughout these 63 years had already emerged in the first 9 years since independence. Immediately after the creation,Pakistan found itself grappling with the complex questions like the role of religion in politics, concept of islamic state and the status of minorities,nature of federal system in Pakistan, the provincial disharmony, language issue, relationship between head of state and council of ministers to go with political intrigues and machinations,shady role of civil-military bureaucracy which later came to be known as Establishment. This is also the reason why it took so long for Pakistan to frame a constitution. Moreover,it is also in the course of these first few years that we lost trace of Jinnah's Pakistan, something that has not been found ever since. Furthermore,this whole period was marred by the conspicuous absence of quality leaders at the helm of affairs. Few good men then could have provided Pakistan with the start that it needed and put it on the road to progress. Sadly, not to be.

Dhobhi Ghaat

I watched film DHOBHI GHAAT today.
This is one to watch. I am actually struck by a rather unusual way of story-telling. The protagonist is Mumbai, that’s obvious. The movie has no specific plot and the purpose is to showcase the life of Mumbai as it is with all its different shades and varying moods that at times intersect. All the way through, the movie is dotted with things that characterize Mumbai. Traffic congestion, slums and the elite, middle classes and their flats, people from all over India coming over to Mumbai for livelihood, young married women living lifeless life alone confined to their small homes after being dumped by their husbands, construction work, bollywood and the cinema culture and ofcourse the presence of the SEA and the refuge people seek in it from the hustle and bustle of the city life (Sure we karachiites know this very well).
The method which the writer-director Kiran rao has employed to bring forth all these aspects of the city is both refreshing and intriguing.
Aamir khan is at his usual best and other actors havn’t done badly either. All the characters have their due role to play in the movie and as I said the protagonist is Mumbai and not any one individual character. Special mention for the character Yasmin would be in order. She is profound and her monologues ring deep inside you. Moreover, the yasmin-imran-sis-bro- relationship is poignantly portrayed and all this without even having to introduce the character imran, excellent lesson for the aspirant film-makers.
Overall, an excellent exhibition of the art of film-making.
Usually I don’t weigh movies in numbers, either I like the movie or I don’t like it. But since I am at it, I give this one,, three and a half stars.

Let's face it......

Pakistan welcomes New Year by going hundreds of years back to medievalism. The murder of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer is the latest and perhaps the clearest manifestation of the reverse journey that Pakistan has embarked on. Even more worrisome was how the large section of our so-called urban educated middle class received the news without any semblance of sympathy for the slain Governor. They seemed to condone the murder and elevate the murderer to the status of a brave hero who has secured for himself a place in the heaven. Tuesday’s tragic incident and the ensuing debate about the propriety of the murder underlines the gravity of the situation which, if left unchecked even further, can soon bring us all to a point of no return, if that is not where we are already.


Let’s face it.


The enemy is within us and the evil is deeply entrenched. The cancer has metastasized and we have no one else to blame but ourselves. Years of erroneous policies marked by misplaced notions of national security helped create a Frankenstein monster of terror and extremism that has now come home to roost. Engendered by flawed security narrative and insular curricula, it is this radicalised generation of Pakistanis which is not only confined to the ungoverned tribal regions of Pakistan but also found in our cities, colleges and on facebook. The darkness, suffocation and stench have pervaded our society where Zaid hamid is an icon and I.A Rehman is little known. Surely, there must be something seriously wrong with us.

Dark abyss, where else...

Not everyone has condemned the murder of slain governor in unequivocal terms. Vast majority of people seem to be tacitly, in some cases even openly, approving the fate governor salman taseer met last evening. In no time, a facebook page has popped up in the honour of the killer qadri and it has garnered the fan-following of hundreds of users already.All this points towards some dangerous societal propensities where the heinousness of the cold-blooded murder ,as in case of the governor's, can be condoned by the vast majority of even so-called educated Pakistanis if warped with some dogmatic rhetoric. Reason and sanity have taken a back seat giving way to intolerance and madness. Where are we headed? Into a dark abyss, where else...

The evil is entrenched

The evil is entrenched.


Hardly 4 hours have elapsed since taseer's murder and i have seen, overheard great number of people without a semblance of sympathy for the victim. They think taseer deserved it, elevating the murderer to the status of a hero who has secured for himself a place in the heaven.


What a shame!!!