Why is it when men play they always play at killing each other?

The world’s gone mad, or perhaps it already was and I’ve started noticing it and worrying about its lunacy more often now. It simply isn’t worth the while to switch on the idiot box and tune into any news channel. One day as I put on Geo, a slide flashed by, announcing of blasts in Lahore. I called up at home, they did not even know of the blasts at the time, but calls were made all around and every one was fine. Then the other day I switched on the telly again and there was news of two blasts in Lahore again. This time I did not call Lahore, the blasts were too close for comfort, in Model Town Block F where Z’s khala lives. I called up Z instead who told me all was fine…and that people in Pakistan were calling him up to know that he was alright after the TV informed them of the 200 car pile-up on Sheikh Zayed Road. I switched off the TV. Later in the day we learnt that the FIA building bomb was a staggering 65 kg of explosives, that the Model Town blast was so strong that windows and shattered at khala’s place…and the death toll…the disturbing images of the the building about to fall any time, footage of the pick-up knocking down a constable to enter the FIA premises. All in a day. Trying to learn more about the Sheikh Zayed road inferno I landed on this.
Whether by accident or by design, or designed to look like an accident, when there is so little respect for the lives of ordinary citizens, when law enforcing and security personnel, when the very people who have pledged to defend you are ordered to take action against you and your family, what are you to do? When you see your loved ones die before your eyes and no reason else to live, suicide bombing must come easy.

I'm these days in a total feminazi, man-hating phase, and such news does not help in placating my dislike of man-kind. Then there is the political circus in Pakistan. How can anyone, even the most vegetatively brainy, intellectually challenged of men believe for even a second that the public believes in their shenanigans, their make up and shake up in the parliament for power? How can anyone one day show disdain for public office and then let know that they are in the running for the PM’s slot? And that's just one example of a total volte face men are so prone to. Not just in politics and in Pakistan, world over and in all spheres of life. I have so many examples handy, so much reason to hate men in general for the wretched state of things in the world, before I get any more vitriolic, I'd better stop...not advisable in present circumstances.

Confessing a Human Tragedy

Ages ago I had a book of quotes and one struck me then and smacks me in the face now:

"Every woman grows up to be like her mother, that's her
tragedy; no man does, that's his."

As I whiled away this time last year, Ma took it to her to drill into me what marriage meant.

Marriage, she said, is hard work, plain and simple; and it's upto the woman to make it work. In societies like ours, the man is never at fault, however much a beast he may be, it's always the woman who'd be put up on the stake of criticism. Marriage, Ma said, is compromise, not just by the wife, but also by the husband, but it's essential that you don't look at it as compromise, look at it as a decision that was reached mutually because your spouse agreed with you had to say. It takes work, 24/7 to make marriages last, 30 years plus and Ma and Pa still had to see through each day to see their marriage work. I've seen my parents grow old, I've seen them have their issues, resolve their issues, work around...I grew up seeing all that, even if I was presented with a child-friendly version of their tiffs, my view of how Ma made her marriage work may be juandiced, limited to whatever exposure I had of them. At the end of it all, I saw Ma and Pa as a team, whether it came to getting us kids ready for work, deciding life-altering things like relocating the family to Pakistan, they may have had their differences, but to us it came as The Decision. Pa's word was final but it never meant he would actually decide againsst what Ma had said. They'd reason around but the decision had to be mutual. They must have, in the long course of their marriage, been at odds with each other numerous times, one must have compromised, bent to others judgement, but for most parts, we were blissfully unaware of it all. Pa, the ideal man-figure that I've always looked upto him as (as most daughters end up doing, knowingly or otherwise), took years and years of being moulded into shape. He was a difficult man, Ma told me, but with time, he came around to being a family man. I remember once long ago Pa asking me and sis if we had 'ideals' or an idea of what kind of man we wanted to marry (Pa's that way, more of a friend than a traditional desi father), we were stumped, but sis turned it round and asked him if he had an ideal before marriage and he said, very seriously, that he was married to her. And he meant it.

Every marriage is unique, but the essentials of making it work remain the same; understanding, compassion and respect, the confidence that you can talk about anything under the sun and your spouse would understand you even if he/she disagrees. This, being able to talk and be understood is the foundation for marraige. It would be the foundation for every relaitionship but marriage it trickier. The moment you realise, or are reluctant or afraid to talk about anything to your spouse, you should know that your marriage has hit a rough patch. You simply need to connect, start over again, if needs be, but work over it. Love, passion and all that hoopla is trivial. Connect and how well you connect is what matters in marriages. With desi marriages, on the woman's part there is surrender. At least I argued with Ma that it was surrender and letting go of your being. I'm still learning about marriage and how to make it work. There are times when I marvel at all those people who've lasted decades with each other and there are times when I know for certain that I could be one of those lucky couples who grow fonder with each other as they age. If I have the will , strength and the sabr to make my marriage work. As Ma said, it's upto me now.

As I look back onto the months that have past since I've been married, I see how I have changed, how my priorities have changed. If there's one thing I like in myself, it's that I take complete responsibility for my decisions, with no regrets. I haven't ever regretted my marriage, it was, at the end of it all, my decision, I could've said no and no one would have pushed me into it. Ma told both me and sis, when we were getting married, that we don't make the mistakes that she made in her married life, if there is anything you find admirable in your parent's marriage, she pleaded with us, take that with you.

As I'm reminded of the saying above, I fear if I have indeed become my mother, down right to some of the mistakes she made in her relationship. I'd love to have the kind of marriage Ma and Pa have, but I don't want to repeat any of their mistakes (I'd rather have my own?). At times I find myself so insecure, so drained that I encyst myself, completely. It's not right, I know, I've seen Ma do it and how it strained the home environs. This is one of her mistakes she'd warned us about. At times you just need a sympathetic shoulder to lean on and it's such a shame that it is not your spouse's. The guilt of confiding in someone else than my husband kills me but I do it all the same. I should be able to talk freely and completely, why do I then hold back? The fear that there is something lacking, that I'm not doing enough to make my marriage work makes me restless, ruins my appetite, makes me mad, and I'm generally reduced to an emotional, mushy mish-mash of insecurities. All that and it hasn't even been a year.

Becoming Ma in her mistakes has been one of sis' and my greatest fears, she's talked to me about it (when she could talk to me), how nerve-racking it is, the realisation that you're making your Ma's mistake...and go on making it. I would want to be like Ma, as Pa has glorified her in the rare moments he reflects back on his life, I would like to be like Ma in all the good she's done and been as a wife and mother. If I can half as good a wife and mother she's been to us, I'd think myself lucky and utterly blessed; but her mistakes, I fear and dread. One most than others, her silent temper. Not talking at all, a blank face and a whirlwind of thoughts plaguing the mind.

let the dead bury the dead

Why I'm Returning To Pakistan
Updated pics: BB shot before the blast
Telltale images expose fatal security flaws : Benazir’s assassination
A face in the crowd: Benazir Bhutto's assassin
Daily life on hold after Benazir’s assassination
And out came the wolves
Firing at JPMC: patients face terror
Opportunists rule while city mourns
State responsible for situation, say citizens
Karachi Chaos and aftermath updates
Lahore City Updates
There is so much on teh internet and on TV since Thursday, December 27. It's impossible to think of anything else...if I do think of anything else, I feel petty. It's as if worrying is the only honorable course of action left. That and outrage at what is now abounding in all media about BB's death. She was not a martyr, she was assasinated yes, not martyred. Martyrs would be all those unsuspecting victims who lost their lives in the destruction and chaos that followed the news of her death, for no fault of theirs. And the absolute state of fear the whole country is in even three days after it all. I pray everyone's loved ones back home are safe and sound.

asked for it

It's funny. The fact that I do open up blogger and type in a few words and then close the window altogether because I have some other work to attend to. What would it take, how much of my time would be wasted if I just exercised my typing and puny writing skills just a bit? But this momentary stop to read through what I have already typed becomes, literally, my undoing as I hit the backspace key and conveniently forget releasing it till there’s nothing but a blank screen staring, blinking back at me…whoa! What happened here, it seems to say. It’s strange this mood, this feeling and existence I seem to have taken recently. As if I live day to day…I live towards 10 pm each day/night which is the time when I would retire with a book and eventually drift into sleep in half an hour, with a book and the lights still on. And then I sleep like a log before beating my cell phone alarm to wake up. And then I wait for the alarm to ring and hit it shut with a glee with the first peep of sound from it. Then I proceed to sleep, or pretend to, for another 15 minutes. What is it about growing up that you don’t have parents waking you up any more, checking up on you every few minutes to see if you are actually up and ready to start the day. What is with growing up that means you have to think so much that all senses get numbed? What is it with growing up and apart from your family? What is it with the pile of expectations heaping itself on you with each passing growing, gnawing day? What is it with a sense of hopelessness that sets on you when you set unachievable goals for you and slink into despondency when you haven’t met them by the end of the day? What is it with all this nonsense anyways? Update and that’s it. Just as we live because we have to and nothing else? What is it? Questions and no answers? Or answers and then a crazy search for the right questions? What is it? What is it with me?

Snootiness 101

Course: Snootiness 101, SS 1206
Semester: Fall 2006

Instructor: Ms. Prissy Ahaughty

Classes: Thursdays, 1230 - 1530 Consultation: Thursday 1530 - 1535
Email: ahaughty@snooties.edu

Course Objective:
The objective of this course is to train students to become snooty. While the learning outcome states suicidal depression as the ultimate goal, this course seeks to demoralize students into thinking that they are the very vermin and scourge of the society and can never ever do any good, eventually pass this course with a best-possible ‘B-‘ and let loose the Snooties™ brand of snobbery onto the society.

At the end of this course, the student will be able to:
1. Become absolute pain-in-the-neck snob.
2. Think high and mighty of himself.
3. Have his/her spirit broken and crushed.
4. Preferably become suicidally depressed and pass it on to others.

Note: This course is compulsory for all BBA and MBA students coming to Snooties™, the best business school in the world, to inculcate in them an organised understanding and respect for the practice of being mean.

Teaching methods: Lectures and presentations.

Grading policy: Students acing this course will be automatically graded ‘F’ till their spirit is broken, which will be graded ‘B-’. Students committing suicide during/after taking this course will be eligible for a posthumous ‘A+’ and earn a permanent place in the Snooties Hall of Shame™.
Class Participation: 25%
Class Behavior: 25%
Attendance: 10%
Assignments: 5%
Projects: 5%
Purchase of course material: 10%
Final paper: 20%
Bonus marks: upto 50% (At the instructor's discretion)

Recommended Text:
All books authored/edited by the instructor. Get a list from the course TA and buy all of them.

Attendance, Assignments and Participation:
Students are expected to be punctual and graded accordingly. Late comings are allowed upto 2 minutes, but marked Late. Every late is an absent. Any absence is an automatic ‘F’.
Students are expected to be casually dressed, giving enough fodder for the instructor to blast them for their shabby dressing.
All assignments are to be handwritten and given in by the due date, which will always be announced a day later. Late submissions will be graded down.
Students are expected to maintain pin-drop silence in the class. A pin will be dropped at random in class, to test silence and the while class graded according to the audibility of the pin-drop.
Students are expected to fawn over the instructor, flatter and praise, the only participation allowed and graded for this class.

Pre-requisite:
None

I have been reading Rageh Omaar's Revolution Day: The Real Story of the Battle for Iraq for two days now. It is a book to be read slowly, taking in each and every word as Omaar paints a painful picture of the pre-post and war days in 2003. Sterile news reports with casualty statistics don't move one as much as his account of how a family in Baghdad clung onto hope as they shifted homes just days before the war began in March 2003.

I read Salam Pax's Baghdad Blogger last year...a war account very personal, witty and incisive at times...I scoured news media during those days in a case of typical media induced 'Information anxiety; passivity; and the classic well informed futility' ...but nothing was like reading this account of a BBC journalist right in the midst of a war...reading of his interactions with ordinary Iraqis and their concerns and at times disdain...

But that is not what made me open up blogger. In the book Omaar writes:

Saddam Hussein liked to portray himself as a leader for all Iraqis...appearing in posters around the country in a variety of costumes according to local faiths or ethnic and class backgrounds...

The country's been in an uproar ever since our very own version of Saddam Hussein, Pervez Musharraf woke up one day and in a Dubya fashion (talk of East-West fusion) started talking about Kalabagh Dam like God-as He frequents Bush's dreams- decided to pay Mushy, Bush's best friend a visit as well.

And to attend to Sindh's concerns on the issue, Mush came down to make life hell for Karachi'ites, this morning his pictures were plastered across papers...see that ajrak on shoulders? Such stereotypical behaviour... I did not know if I should laugh at his obvious desperation or wait for the paper to get a day older and spit on it. I am not that politically naive to not know what image-making is all about...but somehow just a day after reading Omaar's words this did strike as odd...

PS: I haven't the time to research and offer my own learned opinion on the issue, not that GoP eagerly awaits it, but here are two schools of thought:

• Thousands shout ‘no’ to KBD
• View new dams with open mind, says Musharraf
• Musharraf warns of Sindh’s desertification: ‘Construction of dams essential’

If you have the time read through this:
Skardu-Katzarah dam best option: report

Also see how the links relate...and paints me as an obsessive compulsive mush-basher?
And yes, I have read through the report.

Ignorance is bliss?

As I reached my workplace my cell phone signalled a new sms. Attending it was the least of all my concerns though as I was greeted by some office confusion and gnashed my teeth at a few people’s impudence. I should have saved teeth gnashing for later, as turned out. There were two sms’es. One from my brother and sister each while another brother had miscalled a good three times. I don’t pick up the phone while traveling. Turns out there was a bomb blast near the PIDC, right in front of KFC at about half past eight this morning. As I am the last to leave home for work, my siblings were concerned; at times I do take that route. It reminded me of another time when the New Zealand team was in Karachi for a cricket series and a bomb blast in Sheraton, where the national and guest teams were staying, blasted game plans in the city. I was enroute to work and only on reaching office did I learn the cause for all that security and chaos at the PIDC/Sheraton area. This KFC was the same where a friend and I used to walk to for lunches. I should have saved my teeth gnashing as a reaction to this blast. It makes me mad. It would make anyone mad. I would like to kill the perpetrators of this heinous act, if those bastards haven’t already got themselves killed in their myopic quest for Heaven. How could Allah let such fools enter Heaven? I surely don’t look forward to such company after death. Abdul Halim Sharar wrote Arsh e Bareen and I wonder if it was not about our times?

Why does not the world not rot in hell?

Does it seem I live in a world where headlines don’t bother me at all? That’s why I cared not writing even a word on the London blasts? Or the Ghotki disaster? Or the earthquake that jolted the city but was not enough to get itself registered on my scale? Or the Harry Potter mania? Or His Doggyship PM’s speech to the nation last night? I do blog. Mentally I am blogging all the time. And that is when I don’t even have to pause for a minute and check if my fingers are fast enough in transferring words and thoughts onto the screen. So. I blog. Regularly. Sometimes as much as six times a day. Or three times in half an hour. But tangibility escapes them all. But I am sure all my blogs are great. In fact, I believe that the blogs I have not blogged yet have to be the best and best saved for my own self. It does not really matter whether or not I can recall them at will. See. That is what I meant. The moment I sit down with intentions to actullay commit words to a proper readable blog entry, it’s only nonsense that manages to escape the grey recesses of my mind. My mind has a mind of its own and mins everyone else’s business but its own.
So.
There was this pic I came across in the papers a day or two after Potter mania made headlines. It reminded me of another pic I was stupid enough not to save. But more on that later (or not).

These Bangladeshi street vendors are seen in this pic by AFP Photos, peddling copies of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. The quality was grainy even in print and there was no mention if it was the original high priced edition or the pirated, cheap version. Somehow I doubt if street vendors would be selling the original version. That has to be found in air conditioned, swanky bookshops. Where pre-ordering options were available. Salesmen all but bowed to your purchasing might. Offered discounts on purchase of merchandise on credit cards. And the kids (or adults) lining up to get their hands on a copy of HBP would’ve probably come to the bookshop in a chauffer driven air conditioned car.
So. The book(s) in this pic has to be pirated version. I wonder if the kid peddling this had an idea of what he held in his hands.A publishing phenomenon? What was on his mind? To sell the stupid heavy book off - wondering why anyone would want to way that much money for some cheap paper instead of buying some food - and get some money to take home? I wonder if these kids could read at all. I wonder if they were caught in the jubilation that heralded the release of this book. I wonder if they were happy only because it meant more demand for the cheap version and hence some more money in their pockets. I wonder how they may spend the money they earn from such book sales. I wonder if they go home and tell their parents how some stupid girls and boys had gone ga ga over a cheap print book and bought multiple copies of. I wonder if they talk to their parents at all. If their parents are alive and concerned of what their kids are upto.
Sometimes these disparities just get to me. And I want to quit everything. It is not fair that one kid can spend an obscene amount for a book and another hope that there is a demand for its cheap paper version. I want to jostle up everyone I sight, slap them till they see this depravity all around us and actually do some work. I want to kill myself for not doing enough, I feel for them, but my feelings don’t feed these kids, it does not ensure them a childhood they are entitled to. I feel worthless, not capable of anything save an occasional festering. I rant and rankle here awhile and go back to my routine. I really hate myself.

Someone please rescue me from this self loath and do me a guest post.

My Contest DSF 2004: Think of an apt title to this post

You are disbarred from making any statements of having attended the Dubai Shopping Festival if you have NOT:
• Visited all the 38 country pavilions at the Global Village and bought at least a trinket from each of the stalls

• Had your insides jostled at the crazy rides in a) Global Village b) Al Riqqa and Al Muraqqabat Streets in Deira Dubai.
• Roared at by pre-historic reptiles at the Dinosaurs World, seen a violent display of inhuman behavior at the World Wrestling Championship, oohed at the The 2nd Police Academy Stunt Show Sponsored by Jacky's HP and aahed at The Modified Cars Exhibition & Workshop and Yamaha Motor Bike Zone, Al Muraqqabat Street.
• Laughed at the Clowns at The International Italian Circus, and appreciated the various troupes of street performers, Al Riqqa Street
• Spent all your weekend at the Night Souk, Al Seef Street, Deira
• Been greeted with Orchids at the Dubai International Airport
• Cruised on the Sheikh Zayed Road at 120+kph gaping at the glassy architectural monstrosities lining the Road.
• Traveled through time and witnessed everything traditional at the Heritage & Diving Village.
• Seen the wonderful fireworks light up the sky above Dubai Creek.
• Shopped senselessly at the various malls, bagging what you think are great discounts.
• Won at least a teeny weeny even insignificant item at the countless raffles.
• Driven along the Beach Road, marveling at the sleek curves and contours of the Burj al Arab in the day and snickered at its gaudy lighting by the night; seen the frenetic pace of work on the Madinat Jumeirah, a canalized project nestled right next to the Burj; stopped by to see the The Palms Jumeirah taking shape; been awe struck by the spires piercing the sky out of their clawed based on top of the twin residential sky-scrapers of Dubai Marina .
•And lastly, you can never say you visited Dubai unless you have marked it down in your itinerary and given me a chance at hospitality. To think you came so close to my office and did not have the courtesy...!

WHY CAN'T HUMANS HIBERNATE

Come winter and I am repeatedly found hurling this question at just about anyone who cares to listen to my meaningless ramblings and that does not include my family. Simply because they my inanities are not worth their ears. So I take on to the cyberspace. My family may argue that I try my level best to achieve that level of soporific utopia each winter but somehow the very thought of ambling out of the warm cocoon of my cozy bed and facing the cold winter wind thaperay is enough to rob me of any moment of genuine bliss nested within the quilt. And as my sister so considerately tells me, if a bear hibernates, it has accumulated enough fat to last it the entire sleep. Something I can’t even think of with my skeletal frame. But what about the frog, I ask her and she counters that I must already be a half-frog from the time I spend in bed each winter. Can't argue with that because it is the truth, for this is what my daily routine looked like this Ramadhan (the Muslim month of fasting, from dusk to dawn). Get up for Sehri, say the fajr prayers, then avail the lastest second of sleep and get up again to prepare for going to the office. Reaching the office late each day (and making up for it staying an hour late), while away the time there and yawn repeatedly, as much as possible. Come home some time before Iftar, stuff myself, say the Maghrib prayers and then sleep. Wake up for Sehri the next day… and so on. Now that it isn't Ramadhan and we had to revert to the same old tiring routine, I oversleep every day, refusing to keep an alarm to wake me from my slumber, and consequentially, reach office late each day