Brain Fart Part I

Its been quite a strange week this last one.  In between various weddings attended by me and my clan, i wonder why people get married in this heat? Its horrible weather to get a crowd of people together to have spicy food to say the least.  I have also come to the realization that me and my group of friends watching Pakistan play live is some sort of a retro curse on our cricket. Whenever we get together for something of this nature the result is an awful loss for team Pakistan.

We went to the first Ind Vs Pak match here in Khi and look what happened? Sehwag’s bat started raining sixes and we ran for cover.  We all got disgusted and stopped watching the Asia cup and yesterday Pak pulls the rabbit out of the hat.  Come to think of it, Pak never fails to astound me, be it our cricket or the way we do things here or our government or just anything about this place, its all so violent, so beautiful and so unpredictable.

Take the case of our newly formed “democratic” government they passed a budget and then they rolled it back. They impose taxes and took away subsidies and then they took the taxes away and messed it all up!! Now we have over the top inflation, fuel & food prices are going haywire and so is the northern part of our land. We have Talibs knocking at our doors and their call is loud and clear ” its them or us” so what are  we gonna do??? We cannot shut off this mutant we created to serve our old Masters and now our democratic leaders are running to the military, save us save us they say. Well that saving comes at a price, and now the military has attacked the militants full force, to settle this once and for all. I wonder how long will it take the military to realize that they need to take control of other matters as well? its a vicious cycle and it is not going away.

Add to that the fact that i now live a dual life, one in the real world of hard knocks where doing business is tough and takes effort and imagination. Where the other is being part of a major tv channel here where creativity breeds ideas which results in big money for execs while the process for creation is a ho hum of coming into work at midday and going home after chilling out and lounging in air conditioned offices till 5pm and it gets seriously hilarious.

I am not exactly complaining as within a year of starting to write again i have had the honor of meeting a lot of people that i have admired from some distance. Plus they have supported me and to my astonishment i am now Assitant Ed of a news supplement with quite a large circulation. Sometimes i sit alone and think how many eyes have gone over my ramblings by now. It is a very strange and to me thrilling a feeling but it also leads to the thought of what this strange new world will result in, where does this door i have stepped through lead to in the end?

Perhaps i think too much? but is that not the bane of all those who reflect? and trust me every writer has to reflect. Sometimes i think we are like sponges which soak up the various stimuli that our environment provides us and then spit it out in a jumble of words people can sometimes relate to. In any case i think i have worn my readers and my patience down by now so i shall take my leave.

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils … - Louis Hector Berlioz

Fire!

Lo! the fire’s here to emerge

from the womb of time,

where hatred and contempt

in a warm coat, decided its fate.

Don’t leave it grow wild,

for it can turn us all into dust and ashes.

Let us break it bit by bit,

and dissipate it in the colder voids of our hearts,

for the much needed warmth.

Ladies who lunch

Walking back to my car I am a crazy welter of anger, amusement, and being down right glad I’m me. Quote of the afternoon: “£180? That’s two thirds of a pair of shoes!” What f-ing planet are these women on, for goodness’ sake?

 

OK, let me go back to the beginning. One of the club’s committee members firmly believes that more women should be encouraged to watch cricket. In this, I wholeheartedly support her. However, what she really believes (although I don’t think she even realises it) is that more women like her should watch cricket. So, with the club’s blessing, she organised a ladies’ champagne lunch.

 

When I first saw the advertisement I suffered a bad attack of self- righteousness. I remember Owen laughing at me.

“But it’s so patronising,” I told him. “Trying to bring women into cricket by offering a fashion show and a lunch most people can’t afford.”

And then he looked serious, and accepted my point.

 

I kept my head down, but finally, on Sunday, Committee Woman caught up with me and pinned me down to write about it. At least I managed to turn up after the lunch and the fashion show had finished, but the lady guests were still tottering around on their high heals, showing off their pretty frocks. I was, however, impressed that some of them had left the safety of the function room and were bravely sitting outside, watching the cricket. Until the very practical woman who had organised the fashion show put me right. “They’re not watching the cricket,” she told me “They’re topping up their tans.”

 

I had already upset Committee Woman by telling her I thought the event was patronising and exclusive, but she couldn’t work that out. Nor could she fathom that it might be more productive to arrange for an area of the ground where women who like to come and watch cricket but don’t want to sit alone, could meet and chat. She couldn’t understand that someone might be too shy to sit near someone and strike up a conversation out of the blue. Any more than she could comprehend that the £39 price tag for the lunch was beyond most people’s budget. £39 is about the same amount as someone earning the minimum wage in Britain will take home after a day’s work.

 

But who was I to argue, in the face of 100 women showing up? Some actually were the cricketers’ WAGS – and others clearly wanted to be. None of them had to work on a Tuesday, most of them had Gucci handbags. Some of their friends couldn’t make it because they were at Wimbledon, or were too tired after Ascot. And will any of them turn up to watch an ordinary county cricket game, or join the club as members? Unless they really think they’re going to catch a man, I’d not bet my house on it.

 

So what do I have to do now? Write up an article saying how great it all was, and how wonderful Committee Woman is. Sometimes, I wonder if this job is really worth the candle.

Freedom & Aliteracy

Aliteracy (alit·er·a·cy): The quality or state of being able to read but uninterested in doing so.

It’s an ugly word aliteracy, don’t you think? I don’t like to use words like that but there seems to be no alternative, because illiteracy doesn’t capture the predicament we are dealing with, “people who can read but don’t”. Nor does “functional illiteracy” quite cut it because most are fully functional when it comes to interpreting road signs or writing up e-mails. The issue for me is rather the sort of reading that is an end in itself and which can only be done with the whole mind.

I came across a large study commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts (around 17,000 human guinea pigs interviewed through each of the last three U.S. censuses against a background of other data) has documented that there was a steady drop in “serious” or literary book reading through recent decades which has picked up the pace in the last decade or so. This applies across all classes, races, nationalities, genders, what have you — though the drop in such reading among the youth is quickest, and threatens an even faster overall decline for the coming generation.

We don’t have such a study for Canada or Pakistan/India, at least not that I can find, but I will believe that the observations apply over there too and quite possibly throughout the West. Some groups read more than others; the wealthy read more than the poor; women read more than men; English-speaking people read more than most other-speaking people — that sort of thing. But the trend-line is consistent: it goes down and only down everywhere.

Well… as someone who has long been noting that this civilization is going to the dogs, I am barely surprised, however I gain no pleasure from it. I would really like to see some proof of even modest recovery somewhere. And I will continue to do whatever I can to fight the violation of night. But pretending things are not as they are will never get us anywhere.

The paradox –yes, there is always a paradox — is that the technical level of literacy remains so high. The general ability to read is about as rare as democracy in human history. Believe it or not, it is one of those Scottish inventions (universal schooling) that has spread in disobedience of human nature to the most unlikely places.

But such narrow literacy as we have retained is now being sustained, I think less and less by our bureaucratized schools and more and more by technology. It is necessary to be thoroughly alphabetical to survive in electronic space. My own impression from watching my young cousins grow is that even if we shut down the schools entirely… about the same percentage would learn to “read” and type.

The potential to THINK and articulate thought requires a lot more than technical literacy. It involves the projection by imagination into objects beyond ourselves. It relies upon mysteriously sophisticated apprehensions of time and space, of historical time and personal location. It calls for the syntactical mastery of words a being-at-home in language that may be accomplished even without technical literacy; though it is impossible to build without literacy over time. Poetry, novels, and plays are among the toys with which the playful human-animal acquires such skills.

In defiance of human nature (because humans are lazy and without grace would only be motivated by their hungers and lusts) we were able to build a remarkable universal culture. The central accomplishment of modernity was making high culture available to people of almost all degrees, right? Its central risk was the “neglect of the superiority” that sustained high culture at the cost of keeping most of the people at the peasant level grubbing the fields.

So, AAGAHIS, what we are now experiencing in post-modernity is the peasants’ revenge - or what José Ortega y Gasset (Philosopher, who I suggest you should read about) called the revolt of the masses. This is not something sudden but increasing a “universal degradation of standards” that has restlessly progressed through much more than a century — the dying at every level of society of the ability to maintain high culture and with it the ability to fight ignorance.

With that loss comes the loss of freedom - not for some but for all.

Lawson steps in it

After the Karachi loss to India in the Asia cup, Shoaib Malik chose not to face the media.  Pakistan’s coach Lawson did and proceeded to insult the entire bunch of journos present with his opening speech in which he remarked “please do not make statements but ask questions” after a reporter asked him something, he replied with “speak better English” when the media protested to this remark he got up to leave but was persuaded back. As soon as he took the podium the entire contingent of Pakistani media got up and left. He waved his arms in a get out gesture to them.  Following this the media have been protesting between intervals and Lawson has absolutely lost it in the eyes of the public here.

I would imagine that the first skill needed to coach a team in another country would be a bit of diplomacy? Lawson has apologized to his credit through a press release but the media is having none of it and want an apology in person. I say good on them!! English is our second language and he is coaching our team and being paid bloody well for it as well. So perhaps he should learn some urdu eh? rather than insult our media on not knowing proper queens english? Out with him i say…his behavior was utterly shabby!!

Bushism’s Part 7

The last time i wrote Bushisms, someone smsed me to say this cannot be real, so for proofs sake the second bushism in this edition has a video attached via link.

“And so the fact that they purchased the machine meant somebody had to make the machine. And when somebody makes a machine, it means there’s jobs at the machine-making place.” –George W. Bush, Mesa, Arizona, May 27, 2008

“I want to tell you how proud I am to be the President of a nation that — in which there’s a lot of Philippine-Americans. They love America and they love their heritage. And I reminded the President that I am reminded of the great talent of the — of our Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House.” –George W. Bush, referring to White House chef Cristeta Comerford while meeting with Filipino President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Washington, D.C., June 24, 2008 (Watch video clip)

Bandar Ya Sikandar

The only thing certain about today’s world is that it is in an ever changing flux of events and anything can happen at any moment. To put it simply it is totally uncertain.

We are born in this world in the most excruciating of events, there are bright lights, hands pull you out and you come out gasping for air and screaming your lungs out. Removed from your umbilical cord you are bereft, at sea as they say and a bloody mess at that. Someone gives your rear a tight slap and you start howling, to the collective relief of the people present in the delivery room. Then someone cleans you up puts you in a nice hospital provided rag and thrusts you into a gaggle of “cootchie coos” and cheek pulling, tongue clicking vicious Aunties and Uncles. You look around in total disbelief as humans the size of giants to you, make horrible faces expecting you to gurgle and smile back at them, but why would you laugh when you are scared shitless? Pretty soon you move from the brightly lit sterile place that is the hospital to your own home. You have other giants visit daily and you hate all of them except for this one female who just smells alright to you. Incidentally she is the one who provides you with food as well so she just rawks!

Perhaps this is how our babies actually feel you know? Perhaps they are not the jumble of flesh and nerves with an as yet “un fathoming” brain as our Doctors would have us believe. The point is do we even know that our Doctors know? Yeh so you would say off course medical science knows exactly about the birth of a human and has detailed analysis on every condition that might result during and from it right? Well ask any Doctor and if they are really honest they shall reveal that there are a lot of things still unknown in natal care. In fact the only thing that we really do know about human birth and development of a child’s awareness for sure are that there are grey areas, areas yet uncertain.

Take up our society, millions of Pakistanis toiling away day after day for a pittance of what the elite make while sitting in the comfort of their air conditioned offices. People dying of the lack of pure drinking water while bootleggers deliver imported liquor to any nook and cranny of this great land. Leaders who do nothing for their voters but yet enjoy the V.I.P protocols and lives made up of dreams that come along with such positions. What is the future of such a country? Of such an environment? Last I watched one of the gazillion talk shows on air every night, a very informed gentleman with a neutral face and even more neutral tie told me “things are yet uncertain”

So what exactly is certain? Our birth, our lives, our security in society, the kind of person we will marry, will we have kids, will we be successful, what is successful? It’s all a big if is it not? It’s all up for grabs?

Lets face it going by what’s written above even the fate of this write-up seems uncertain at the moment. Heck to be honest it seems to me like all we do in our lives from birth to death is bounce from wall to wall in some giant video game the divine has created. While someone up there throws us through uncertainty after uncertainty just to see how we would react to a particular situation. The same syndrome he has instilled in us which comes out when we go to any zoo. The one which makes us throw pea nuts at monkeys who are probably cussing us out while glaring back. Just to see what they would do? Just to gauge how high they will jump?

So what will it be my dear readers? Would you like to be the divines Bandar or Sikandar? Because whatever you end up being, the end result is the same comedy of errors a life leads to.  Death and then perhaps another excruciating beginning!!

Bandar Ya Sikandar is Urdu for Ape or Alexander

Published in the June Aagahi 2008, a supplement of “The News”

Aagahi Jun-Jul 2008

The Jun-July edition of Aagahi has been published with “The News” today. Please click on the graphic or above text to read it online. I would appreciate any feedback to help make it better. Kindly click HERE for feedback.

Beaten but elated!!

Tee Off time as the openers of Pakistan play like turtles

Its about 1am and i have just managed to get back home after going through the experience of a live Ind Vs Pak match right here in Karachi.  As the meticulous planner in me went nuts from last night i spent the entire day from morning till getting to my seat in the stadium planning for it. What to wear, how much water to take will they allow my cell phone? should i bother to take my camera?

Well i am glad i left at least an hour earlier than the scheduled start and made it inside the stadium in less than half an hour, a miracle considering the odds stacked against you in parking, walking getting through crazy death star like security. Me and my friends had managed to get tickets to one of the regular or how they are called here “general” stands as we always sit in the more expensive seats usually and stare wistfully at the all other stands dancing and hooting like mad.

It started off quite conservatively with Pak batting on a total belter of a wicket. The going was so slow that they made about 26 runs in the first 10 overs and everyone was looking at one another like err..what the hell is going on. Then they cut loose and the furor began…since we are not allowed the luxury of drums or horns in the ground people here make do with empty mineral water bottles which take about 10 overs to get empty in sufficient numbers for 50,000 hands to beat them on plastic seats in front creating a stadium wide rhythm which is both intoxicating and scary.

Frankly Pakistan would have made even less than the 299 they managed had India held on to the two really simple chances they floored. However Malik and co played well and still the end was rather rudderless as we were 220 in the 40th over and Afridi and Misbah were yet to come. It is today that i understood what Afridi means to this country, because when he strode onto the ground the entire pathan colony behind me stood up and started dancing with shouts in pushto while the stadium reverbeted with two words “Boom” “Boom”.  Too bad the boom boom went belly up.

The next pinnacle or shall i say crescendo came..even though the decible level was ear splitting high throughout, when misbah caught that stunner for the first Indian wicket to fall. I have never in my life seen so many people dancing together, it was quite insane, yes obviously we were dancing as well and you know the best thing? There was an entire Indian contingent just a row of seats ahead of me and they danced with all of Pakistan’s fans without so much as a hard word exchanged. Infact when the writing was on the wall after Umar Guls departure and sixes from Raina and Sehwag were landing all over the place the fans were totally gone by that time, oblivious to what was going on with bottle thumping women oooohing, men whistling and dancing around like mad enveloping the whole stadium like the entire city was letting out its collective suppression. I heard women shriek with excitement when Ishant turned around and waved, each and every time…it was hilarious and it was sweet.

True we were totally beaten all ends up today by the terrific Indian chase, our bowlers did not even bother them, such was the awesome hitting on display. Still it was an experience par excellence in atmosphere, comradery and all around great fun. Well played India, you got us today but remember there is still more to come and we play our best with our backs to the wall!! & if the Australian authorities seriously think they can stay away with their team from Pakistan and not miss much, i invite them to come and get converted!! No one does cricket like Karachi!!

The result of democracy

As a trader dealing in different commodities and areas of textile machinery i sometimes am privy to a lot of information that perhaps escapes the general public on a day to day basis.

As far as i can see our economy is in shambles, worse than our political woes are the fears of a total collapse of our textile sector due to it being extremely uncompetitive in the world market because of its high input costs driving up selling prices not acceptable in today’s cut throat markets. Pakistan’s biggest export is textiles…they employ about 65% of our labor force, and they are shutting down.

Secondly the biggest motivator during the Musharraf years our stock exchange has fallen about 4500 points in the last month. Effectively wiping out more than 80% of all medium to small time investors in the market and reducing even the investors portfolios to below 50% of their costs. Right now my portfolio is about 40% of what it was when i bought in about 4 months ago. Recently the market big wigs have gotten together and devised a bail out plan, but that is only artificial shoring up. Until genuine public interest comes back in, this market is totally doomed to the pits where it resides right now. This market is effectively the key motivating factor for the people of Pakistan and specially Karachi as a lot of businesses after faltering profits have deposited their entire savings and capital in this market, the failure of which will lead to mass scale defaults in all business sectors in this country. We must remember that this is a market which has been outperforming others in the region for the last 4 years running. Even markets 8 times its size could not compete with the profitability of the KSE, so what happened here?

Just who can we deem responsible for all this???? The only thing i can point a finger at is “Instability” both political and worldwide.  The current democratic setup as always is falling back on the old “they messed it up and handed down to us” line. We cannot just sit here and digest this as in the “Dictator ship” era things were about 100 times better than they are at the moment. Notice i am not speaking of inflation in petrol or other food items as this is not in anyone’s control aside from giving more subsidies which we really cannot afford in our precarious financial position with our ex chequer.

These are just some of the reasons why i really think and still believe that democracy is not the answer for this nation, as the people who come into leadership via democracy are inept at handling the economic or strategic hurdles in governing this listless state.

Still i cling on to hope, not only because i still love this place daft as that may sound. I think we are at about bottom level in the well of despair, and from here on things can only get better.