A comment on yesterday's drama. A talk show host narrated a dialogue between Zia and Stephen Cohen while standing on the balcony of the presidency which overlooks thye city of Islamabad. It went like,

Zia: You know why I am in power today?
Stephen Cohen: No.
Zia: Because nothing in Islamabad escapes my notice.
Stephen Cohen: and what abt ur back?
Zia: The mountains are on my back.

3 months later, Zia wasn't in power killed in an airplane crash.
Reminder to all of us as individuals and for those in the broader sense who seek lifetime presidencies. May God give all of us the time to repent, to fall back.

Bass naam rahay ga Allah ka,
jo hazir bi hai, ghaib bhi,
jo manzar bi hai nazir bi.

Lazim hai kai hum bi daikhain gai

Jab takht girayain jayain gai, jab taj uchalai jain gai
Hum ahle safa mardood-e haram masnad pai bithaiain jayen gai.

(faiz)

Why we dont come out on the streets?

Yesterday we all saw the brutal machinery of the state at display. A hundred or so lawyers whose only sin was that they were chanting slogans against the government and trying to march out to the Election Commisiion. They weren't going to burn the place down or throw bombs at the building or the election commissioner. They were only protesting and then to make matters worse, journalists were rounded up in the baton charge too and we saw them carrying their injured colleagues with arms limping down, foam coming out of the mouths-and we kept watching.

Alas! Our apathy is not even worth any pity. I don't believe that this listlessness on the part of the nation is because they are not concerned about the political process. They very well are. The people of Pakistan have never been unconcerned with politics. In "Breaking the Curfew", Emma Duncan makes this point very clear, about Pakistanis' obsession with politics and she made this comment around the beginning of Benazir's term; a time when access to information was nil compared to the times today. I also don't think that people have reconciled themselves with army rule and are weary of the traditional leadership. Benazir and Nawaz Sharif, whether we like it or not still have a vote bank. Democracy whatever little we had, always worked this way in Pakistan, through fixed vote banks that were and still are passionate about their leadership. And even those few not burdened by the compulsion of any vote bank either conciously or unconciously,have strong reservations about Musharraf. The reasons range from increasing inflation and the ensuing poverty levels, health facilities, corruption and the kind of reasons that have always irked people whatever ruler it may be. For an even smaller portion of the public, it's a question of constitutionalism. These are the ones who opposed military dictatorship right from 12th October 1999 and weigh Ayub, Zia, Yahya and Musharraf in the same balance. So despite all the varied outlooks, the popularity of the Musharraf regime is fast declining.

Considering all the above, no justifiable reason can be cited for this general apathy. The absence of popular political leadership may serve as an excuse for the "fixed vore bank" types, for people came out in support of the lawyers when it was about the Chief Justice. They had a leader figure to present to the masses, then. A few years ago, an article appeared in an english daily which beautifully caught the essence of this lethargy. The article was about how a historian would comment on the world of today, 100 years from now. After having discussed Bush and Blair and all those parts of the world which are in the limelight today, he described Pakistan as a faint memory of the past, a country where people preferred to sleep on their comfortable couches, hidden away in their own comforts shielded from the hot sun outside while tyrrany swept its arms over the environs and finally knocked on their doors to pull them out.

We as a nation expect a lot from people around us; the government, the NGOs, the lawyers (as of now), the political workers. We all moaned when Nawaz Sharif was sent back, expressed our horror at the blatant violation of the Supreme Court ruling but did anyone of us come out, braved the heat and the barricades and the baton wielding security forces to welcome a popular leader back home, wothout regard to political affiliations? How many of us came out to protest even the price hike, the electricity shortages which affect us directly? How many of the islooites dared to venture near the Lal Masjid and protest when the Lal Masjid Brigade was out on a rampage or even while we condemned the brutal operation on it, come out to let the gpvernment know that the reddening of this city wasn't settling down well. We all sympathise with the family of the missing persons but how many of us joined Mrs Janjua and her kinds and their likes outside the Supreme Court? We dont' come out when they published sacriligeous cartoons of the Prophet (P.B.U.H) in the WEst and leave that to turbaned, bearded kids of madressahs whose pictures can then be splashed all over the western media to stereotype muslims, when millions come out in peaceful protests in Turkey, a country which even the moderately religious from amongst us don't count anywhere up that mark of "religiosity". We keep shifting responsibilites until the time tyranny knocks on our very door.

And then we dare to demand a better deal from Providence!

Also posted on http://www.chowrangi.com/

Two long weeks and stumped?

Despite the fact that speculations were making the rounds in Islamabad of late about the predicted judgment of the Supreme Court, it will be an understatement to say that the general society has been shocked by the ruling. All of us, the civil society was sailing high and content in the assumption that the battle of the judiciary had been won by the lawyers. The street battles, the revolution, the turning point required just the black coats and ties and their charged sloganeering. I wrote somewhere earlier that great storms await the judiciary. The reinstatement of the CJ was a case decided by the “brothers” in office, of the aggrieved party. Nawaz Sharif case, despite ending on a note that wouldn’t have been expected before 9th March, was not anything of a whopper compared to the dual offices case in question. None of the cases mentioned above barring the latter, challenged the very foundations of the state. Rana Bhagwandas noted in one of his comments in the recent proceedings that the judgment would chalk out the political future of Pakistan.

Keeping the respect of the higher judiciary in mind but also realizing that a Supreme Court verdict is public property, I would like to say that the actual Doctrine of Necessity may very well have been buried, but another Doctrine defining the compulsions of a judiciary dreading the prospects of serious confrontation with the executive and the ensuing consequences of an emergency or a worse situation, has been borne today. Going by the speculations and from what is almost apparent, the judiciary chose expediency over constitutionalism to keep back from an open declaration of war, at least fro the time being. It may be a strategy to read the tides before jumping into a hot fray and with Justice (retd) Wajihuddin’s and possibly PPPP’s cases lined up against an expected approval of General Musharraf’s nomination papers for the presidential elections, the Supreme Court can afford to defer a substantial ruling on the issue till the time some lions have been tamed.

For the government which is rejoicing, it may be a little too early. Musharraf has not been given a green signal by the ruling and if one analysis the court proceedings in their entirety and not just the ruling, some of the observations made by the court are noteworthy. It observed in a 17th September press release that the exclusion of Article 63 was not Musharraf specific and applied to all government servants. In that case, with Dr Anwar-ul Haq being barred from contesting the presidential elections, a simplistic conclusion would render General Musharraf ineligible as well. This observation further validates the argument elaborated above, that inspite of being clear about the dual office question, the court has tactically or overburdened by compulsion, postponed a clear verdict on this issue. The two weeks long deliberation as many jurists put it was unnecessary if the petitions were to be declared not maintainable, may provide some key points and observations to strengthen the case against dual office, once it appears again in the courts.

All is still not lost. The lawyers played it very well to field a candidate who could appeal to the courts as an aggrieved party. As Justice (retd) Wajihuddin Ahmad put it, skirmishes and battles are part of war. The people of Pakistan should brace themselves for another front; let this be a mere tactical retreat.

Also posted on http://www.chowrangi.com

we lost!

This comes after about 3 days because it's now that I ve strted feeling a lil composed about the final match. And despite the fact that I dont find this form of the game up to the quality standard that can be associated with a professional cricket game, it nevertheless manages to attract people because of the fast entertainment. So even if Cricket itself is on the losing side at the end of the day, the fans always win.

Anyways, after all the jumping and the yelling and the clapping and the punches in the air, it came down to naught. Analysts may keep on saying that it was a "victory for cricket" which I dont agree with for several reasons, history will only remember the victor. You are the champion or you aren't; there are no position no.2s. And so Pakistan features nowhere in this inaugural twenty20 world cup. Only India goes down the history books.

About the victory of cricket part, c'mon who actually played except for misbah, barring the bowlers ofcourse who did a very good job of restricting the Indian onslaught to 150. If I were an Indian, I would be offended by that comment. Their bowlers bowled really well and put that pressure on pakistan which forced them to play reckless shots. Only one man eluded them and bad for Pakistan, one man can fail as much as he can succeed (the one man woes...alas!). No blame on Misbah though, He did a great job to save pakistan from an embarrassing end but ith hindsight, no one supported him.

Too late for him now, though. 33 already, he may never get a chance to relive that moment and make something out of it and those who are getting excited about Pakistan having found another batsman, ummmmm twenty20 is another ballgame altogether. Whether this chap is good enough for the one-dayers too is completely another story.

But watever the outcome, trophy or no trophy, Pakistani team jelled together and played like a unit. The attitude of lawson and malik was especially commendable, laughing, smiling, passing that odd remark all the time; they were a treat to watch.

Points to ponder

Silence should not always be construed as an inability to talk/answer, and not even surrender.

Silence can be aforce stronger than any reactionary attitude and its strength grows as well as its reliability.

I'm learning.

Just when I finished writing this loong piece on our society, a friend sends me something very interesting. Looks like this friend and I are very obsessed with our people and then I wonder why people call me a nationalist..hmmmmppphhh.

Gear in the left...One foot on the accelerator, other on brakes. And eyes on girls.

Welcome to Pakistan-a busy nation!

good one Muntazir.

(Now how do I tell you i dont have credit and can't give a prompt reply to your keen observation)

Symbolism galore

Our society so reeks of symbolism. What I wrote in the last post about the apparent being enough to make one feel enthusiastic, is a little off track; apparent is all that we as a society often settle for, not because that's all that we are offered but because we never yearn for the deeper, the more substantial for our own good sake. For developing that concious awareness of issues on an intellectual level is more difficult than forcing it on someone.

We force restaurants to keep their shutters down and the non-fasting minority to hold their bellies tight instead of waiting for that real feeling of respect that would naturally keep them from exercising their jaws in public. We keep stressing on the beard instead of nurturing that faith to a level where a muslim man would unconciously go for the beard to emulate the Prophet (P.B.U.H), in a manner that would confirm both his action and spirit in the faith. We reprimand our children for saying "Allah Hafiz" instead of salam when bidding farewell when both mean the same thing; it's just Arabic versus Urdu/Persian. Similar is the conflict between Khuda and Allah or reading the Quran in Arabic even if we don't understand a word to actually implement the faith in our lives. We keep stressing on purdah when we don't waste any occassion to harass any woman we set our eyes on, from the burqa clad to the hip teen [honor and respect and the morally upright society should be for the mothers and the sisters and the daughters-all women aren't all that *smirks*]. We go searching for halal meat in the market with haram money in our pockets (taking from "Khuda kay liyay").

We flash our degrees to contribute to the literacy figure but break the traffic rules with the impunity afforded to an ignorant fool. We keep blabbing on about social justice in the developed societies and get our extra baggage checked in without any charge through a Pakistani acquaintance behind the counter even before we set out for the Land of the Pure. We talk about empowerment of women and then go on air accusing them of faking up rape cases to get asylum in the developed world. We seek enlightened moderation in marathons and women football and fashion pageants and strip clubs and deny our people the right to a government by the people, of the people and for the people.

We give our children human names and deny them the right to think, to doubt and to question; the right to excavate the substantial, the spirit from the ornate facade, from the web of hypocricy and symbolism and rituals.

Ramzan

Ramzan is here and though most of us are fasting, some aren't. It's hard enough for those who are and it's worse for those who aren't. No matter how much they may want to eat, and expect to be fed, they can't afford to for their own sake. Avoiding confrontation especially in Ramzan is worth starving to death from morning till whatever time u have to be in public.

The environment in Ramzan is very much like the way you feel when saying congregational prayers except that ofcourse it lasts a whole month. It's about a common sense of purpose and the closed restaurants and a general understanding of sorts that no eateries will be purchased except for kids during the morn, unites everyone in that Ramzan air. Ofcourse, there are the short tempers and the bad traffic and despite the fact that one can't say anything for sure about the concience cleansing part, just the apparent is strong enough to get one enthusiastic about a certain identity.

Ramzan is special!

of weird complexes and social standings

I can never boast of havin a high class heirarchy. Both my parents come from very humble backgrounds. My nana put all his money, whatever little he had on his childrens' education, paying Rs. 5 for a private school when it cost a mere ana a month for a government school. My father started from a "tat" school to make his way through college in Lahore and on to Karachi and then America. I envy my parents for the experiences that they have been through, without being ungrateful. I envy the sense of satisfaction that they must wake up with every morning, at having come all the way to having been able to provide their kids a pretty decent education with a pretty comfortable living standard an probably that's exactly the reason why I find "self-made" people so impressive. And more than that, status with education makes that humility all the more appealing.

Last week, at the college annual dinner and convocation, I particularly noticed this dhoti clad babaji, walking with all the confidence in the world at having just attended the commencemnet ceremony of his son. It was such a cute and at the same time ponderous spectre. No father in a proper three piece suit walking out of a civic, with a nokia cellphone in his hand could fathom the pride of that dad, or could match the spring in his stride, or the smile on his face. And when I mentioned that to afriend, she responded with a mocking smile on her face. My insides still reek of thta feeling of disgust and it just reminded me of those numerous occassions when she, in particular has reacted this way whenever I talk of issues like these. I remember the time we were watching this song "meray log" and I commented on how and why I liked that song with particular referance to its video and her instant reaction was , "yeh kya ganday log...". MAN , I could have slapped her right there. Or when, that too last week when my sister and I were going all gaga over this cute little kid blabbing on to his father about the "decoration" pices IST has put on display in the acdemic block, she had a constant sneer on her face. C'mon kids are kids. They are cute, be they in rags or silks or nothing at all for that matter. Just because that kid wasn't "dressed up", probably understood punjabi better than urdu, one can't be affectionate towards him. I mean, have our complexes reached such proportions that a baby's innocence finds it hard to melt our hearts? And it's not just about her, it's the general attitude that a particular segment of society within us has. That's why "education" is so impotant with the status thing.

Our society has always been very status concious but without seeming very haughty about the A levels part, I can say with all honesty that hardly did I come across such attitudes in school and as much as I want not to attribute this to OPF and BeaconHouse schools in particular, which always get a bad mention with regards to social issues as in the "out" mahol, I can't help drawing the conclusion that this so-called "high society" of ours is breeding youngsters sensitive to the real issues and not to the superficial boundaries of social standing. And that is probably why I felt so much more at ease at the covocation when there were these two friends od mine with me, coincidentally or otherwise Beaconites. At least, we all exclaimed in unison at seeing the dhoti walay babji again or talked in amazement about this PhD teacher of ours, my friend heard a mention of in her village somewhere near Islamabad. And yeah, not to mention this senior of ours who was my senior in Beaconhouse too, who once said that travcelling in public transport is a very "humbling" experience. In the complexes mired society of ours, dont be surprised if I say I adore her for this remark of hers.

I hope I end up saying the same thing if I ever get to go through the experience of travelling in those "toyotas". It's the security issue, fortunately and not status conciousness that makes my parents forbid me from riding in any. I'd love the experience, though.

see see see...

and so it was. Pakistan lost out on an almost decided match only because their batsmen didnt take the chances that twenty20 cricket demands from them. 140 isn't a big score for twenty20s. The Pakistani batsmen particularly Shoaib malik and Misbah-ul Haq were mistaken that they were playing the conventional one-dayer where a run a ball is good enough, where if you keep nudging the ball to the four corners of the ground for singles, u get a pretty good score. Twenty20 os about taking those chances, making room on the crease, swinging the bat either way and going for the boundaries. Shaun Pollock said that a dot ball is like a chunk of gold; from what we witnessed yesterday, giving 6 runs off an over is equally good. Someone may argue that the Indians bowled well but regardless of that, did we see salman butt or shoaib malik making room for themselves,swinging the odd ball for a reverse sweep or a gentle edge through the gaps. They just didnt take the chances and when shoaib malik went for it, he got out. There were some good quality strokes from salman butt but then you can't rely on those in a twenty20 match. It's brains that count in such a game.

About the bowl out, what was that??? Cricket, for crying out loud is not football or hockey where a tied match is decided with penalty strokes or penalties for football. In those games, getting the ball in the goal is the ultimate aim; in cricket hitting the wickets is not. Line and length both count in bowling. You dont just have to be accurate, you gotta be tidy too. Also, accuracy itself is not always the aim. It depends on your field placing. You may very well want the ball to swing away or into the batsman and you may be looking for height to surprise the batsman into playing a hook shot which may provide an easy catch somewhere near the boundary. And then is it really fair to include just one department of the game in the final decider? Aren't batting and fielding as important in the gme of cricket as is bowling. Deciders should reflect the essence of the game and here it doesn't. If the outcome of a match, if tied is dependant only on bowling when the actual match is as much about batting and fielding then it isn't a fair decider.

twenty20 and lots more!

Sharif has been sent back and surprisingly no post on my blog, partly because I have talked out all my breath and energy with anyone who was ready to take on the duet with me and despite the fact that I did write somewhere, where i have turned to writing these days, I still call it a mum from my side. The other "partly" is probably the disillusionment that's gradualy coming over me which is because there are some desicions that are beyond my person-desicions about myself. I personally believe that dictatorships dont fall unless people come out on the streets. These lawyers had been condemning Musharraf since 1999, passing resolutions at every bar meeting and making a strong statement over the referendum, the presidential oath taking and any major event that took place in this country, concerning politics and the military. But it was only when they came out on the streets for the Chief Justice that they became a power to be reckoned with. People come out in India; well fine, they have a democracy there but then what about nepal? Ordinary, downtrodden, poor people came out to trample a monarchy that was harsher and more tyrranical than what it had been before to demand a republic. They came out in Bangladesh to welcome their exiled leaders and that was when Hasina Wajid said that this isn't Pakistan where you can force popular leaders into exile. And if anyone thought that she was pointing to the military establishment in Pakistan, they are mistaken. It is as much of a pointer to the PEOPLE of Pakistan. It may be disillusionment with politics, probably something else but whatever it is, there;s no use complaining and not gettin up to make our voices be heard. and that's where my part comes in, some desicions as i said are beyond my control. As much as I wanted to go out to the zero point, I couldnt. and well, writing it down makes the feeling even worse.

Lighter things.Yess, the much hyped about twenty20 worldcup is finally underway. From all the years thar I have watched and played cricket, I think twenty20 is a mockery of the game itself. I mean, fine entertaining it must be but the high cost of quality should not be accepted by cricket fans. I understand that this form of the game is a great challenge to the bowlers and the fielders but batting will gradually be reduced to slogging. Slogging may not work all the time though the way quality Australian batsmen got out on rash shots, but u cant blame them for deviating from the quality standards of batting. That's the way u win twenty20s. And a few years down the road, no one would be regretting getting out on such rash shots. Every edge, every improvised sweep and leg bye would count if it runs to the boundary because teams would have very little time to retrieve that lost advantage. And therefore, at the end of the day, the real quality of a team may just not count. 50 overs is a long enough time to prove ur worth but twenty20 gives no room to the bowlers and the fielders. Every fumble and odd elivery counts. Cricket can just not be reduced to an hour and a half. This isn;t football or hockey and it cant be turned into one. Surely, the popularity of the game will increase for ofcourse if teams like Zimbabwe whose revamped team has not been able to win any one-dayer for a long time now, or Bangladesh which doesn't have even 10 test matches to its credit after about 9 or a little less years test country status, win against Australia and West Indies, it will surely bring some pride to the cricketfans in those crickets. But this isn't cricket-that's the whole point. It's a neighborhood, floodlight match which could be taking place anywhere in Karachi with young boys hanging onto every ball. But even that has quality because of its own rules and because of the low expectations. Here, it's not fun to watch Adam Gilchrist or Hayden getting into weird postures just to get the ball to the boundary.

PK-786...

superstition or tactic???

P.S. mmmmyyyyyyyyyy moment of glory-I travelled on the same flight....yai yai yai...


That's not me up there-my momnts are not defined by these looters. That is just a representation of the general attitude of "follies and forgiveness" as expressed at http://www.chowrangi.com

Man O man! Get a life, Musharraf and party. Such massive deployment of rangers and the police for a few unarmed civilians...C'mon he's not bringing atom bombs or heavy arms with him that a crowd of avid supporters couldn't handle him. Why subject him to a reception of army and guns all around? and then they say they have nothing to fear from the person of Nawaz Sharif. Then why not let the world see what he actually got...Why are we bent on making heroes out of mere mortals through the kind of treatment that we mete out to them? "Event based heroes, as Talat Hussain put it. Zardari became one because he languished in jail without court proceedings and all for such a long time, Javed Hashmi because he was charged with treason and now the popularity chart of Sharif brothers doesn't seem to be plummeting in the near future despite the Saudi Intelligence Chief's and Saad Hariri's visit, despite it being obvious that Nawaz Sharif left the country willingly, despite there clearly having been a deal-only because he has monopolised the situation and seems to be the only one after the Chief Justice who is standing up to Musharraf. Nawaz Sharif's willingness to go to jails and to face all charges is such a hollow statement in these times...just because now he doesn't foresee a long incarceration, he's telling us that he will do anything for the "national interest" and for the 160 million people of Pakistan- all cliched rhetoric. Why didn't he stay back when he was sentenced to life imprisonment but that was probably too much for the Lahori tiger (the "bheegi billi" type).

But probably, that's the only criteria that we have for heroes. Our poor nation is forced to forgive these politicians evvverytime.

Nawaz Sharif wiill certainly not have his 10 lakh crowd reception. The way his workers are being hounded, we'll be lucky if we get away without another May 12. Call me a harbinger or whatever but we have history to judge the turn of the tides, since we never learn from it we repeat it.

annnd after I had spent the weekend thinking of how to get access to the TV at IST, with all the parents around on mOnday, the annual dinner gets delayed. Relief to my parents and somewhat to me too. It's completely another thing having to share the TV with maximum 4 or 5 people in ur own TV Lounge and a neck straining exercise to watch it in IST...that is if there's the same enthusiasm as there used to be for cricket matches.

Encroachments

I come back to encroachments earlier than I thought I would. That's because I happened to visit F-10 markaz and found somethings very irritating. Here goes,

You can't walk 20 feet without having to criss cross your way through these tables laid out on the pavements in any major shopping centre in islamabad. Public grounds have been turned into private gardens with massive concrete structures meant to beautify and lay permanent claim to a land which is essentially public property. Even the beautiful winding pathways through forests and streams that make Islamabad such a pleasant place to live in, have been blocked by these ambitious white collared land grabbers, with guards sitting at the entrance to these "private properties". It is heart wrenching to watch this path leading from the dead end street where I live, which wound through a stream to a football ground at the back of my house and which was a witness to many childhood adventures, blocked by a private parking lot and a scenic concretised garden, all on Public land. Similarly, another track that led to a hockey ground and served as a shortcut for many pedestrians wanting to cross onto the main road from the residential area is blocked by this iron rail stretched in front of it.

Green belts are being turned into parking lots without any formal authroization by the CDA; turning-a-blind-eye being the "informal" authorization. The notorious Banigala estates is blatant encroachment on farm land besides the Chak Shezad farms, a notice of which was taken just a few weeks back. For that matter, the ISI building right in the middle of a residential area and because of which a road right in front of the building is often either out of service or blocked with these iron rails, is itself a big question mark on the CDA'S tall claims of making islamabad a model city.

And all this becomes more important for Islamabad in particular because it was essentially a question of "encroachments" that eventually led to this blood bath in the heart of the capital. The Lal masjid fiasco that "reddened" this peaceful, laid back city in the figurative sense, started in respose the razing of mosques allegedly constructed on illegal land. The illegal mosques were somehow flouting the law more seriuously than all the cases mentioned above, only because big hands and the elite of Islamabad is involved in the latter.

This is not to justify the construction of mosques on encroached property and in my view, the Ghazi brothers would have done a great service to the citizens of Islamabad if instead of resorting to violent tactics, they had taken a case to the courts and exposed the double starndards of the CDA. That would have brought genuine relief to the people of islamabad who are forced to watch the mess that their city is being turned into at the hands of a few select people.

But probably all bigwigs act the same way; Kamran Lashari flies high in his dream city, the Ghazi brothers were content with their drama. We, the people are left to complain.

Also posted on http://www.chowrangi.com

Collective wisdom

Ab raj karay gi khalq-i Khuda...

yahhhaiiii, sure it will.
Taj bi uchalain jaian gai aur takht bi girain jayain gai.

:)

Izzloooiitteee

These days i am having this isslooite awareness inside me. I called islamabad my adopted city in a post a few days back but is it really my adopted city or for all those teens and 20somes who if not born, grew up here. Adopted, yess probably because none of us "belongs" to Islamabad in the verry figurative sense of the word. Our parents come from different parts of the country, boast of different cultures and languages, leave islamabad all isolated on Eid days or any long weekend but its' different for us, i guess. I for one, dont know any other city and come to think of it, was a very cosmopolitan baby for that matter. Born in karachi, moved to Lahore at the age of a few months and then to islooo when not even 3. 3 cities in less than 3 yrs...phew!

Our parents may find it hard to call islamabad their city (exceptions-my father, who has had his life spent equally in about 6 or 7 cities and takes pride in calling himself a citizen of the world) but the generation growing of age now has seen just Islamabad. The diverse milieue of cultures IS itself the culture of Islamabad. Our parents can relate to the Punjabi, the southern punjabi, sindhi, pathan, balochi or kashmiri but we realte to all that. I can go back to my village and feel at home there but i feel more at home in this cultural diversity. The lazy, quiet, gREEN islamabad is my city. annnd besides all that, I recently realised that people relate a lot more to islamabd; the citizens of islamabd are now being charectarised as islooites, a seperate genre in itself. The weasly, sleezy lot who keep to themselves and (for no fault of theirs) are misinterpreted.

P.S. I dont like the Centauras and the widened roads and the double roads and the felling of trees and Mc Donalds in F-9 Park and the GHQ development parallel to the Margalla road and recently this clearing off of a huuuugggge plot of land for some parade ground. And worse, no local bodies in islamabad; Lashari person can go on changing the face of Islmabad and no resentative of the people is there to stop him. Why take it on with the trees...trees are less harmful than humans at least

Will talk about encroachments later. gotta go.

MAN (/WOMAN) that is; human in its truest meaning

"...the All-Knowing, the All Wise Who created Adam in his own image, Who gave him the ability to reason so that he may uncover the secrets of this world, recognise the bounties of his Lord, unravel the mysteries that shroud his soul and all faculties; so that he may balance instinct with rationale and not let any overwhelm the other, to pay heed to instinct when justice demands truth unhindered by the complexities of rationale, to follow rationale when order is near to being hijacked by anarchy due to spirits fuelled by instinct;

Elevated him to the pinnacle of creation, privileged him with the title of Ashraf-ul-Makhluqat and trusted him to establish civilisations sustained by the sagacity that he alone had been bestrowed with, illuminated with a blend of logic and emotions-that which he secured in the brain and the heart, so that he may doubt the tradition, question the stated, challenge the expressed, reflect on the obvious, voice the concluded and yet not offend nor transgress the emotive humane limits by knowing when to stay put and when to burst forth;

Uphold the right to doubt, to question, to challenge, to reflect and to voice, the right to celebrate the faculties that made him human, to justify his stature, his very existence."

Asma Qadir

Keep thinking and keep doubting. Keep making those mistakes. Keep learning for human evolution demands all that.

It's difficult to be human.

The mayhem

As if the Karachi bridge fiasco wasn't shock enough, here come the bomb packed zealots on a killing spree. And then the governement shows this helpless face, still unwilling to admit an intelligence failure. Ofcourse the intelligence is busy with Nawaz sharif's return, how could it possibly spare time to investigate the plots being hatched in the far corners of this small country Pakistan.

Time Musharraf gave us a respite and left his job. Haven't we had enough??? Poverty, inflation, extremism, insecurity, corruption...u name it and we have it. And then he has the nerve to say, "the country needs me"; ahhhh. Self worship signals doom and time is near for him.

The construction site that Islamabd had become is gradually turning up a new face with flyovers and underpasses and the bald "green" belts. the environmentalist concerns aside, the recent bridge collapse in karachi raises quite a few questions about the durability of these hasty construction projects. Fortunately, no experience so far of the grannnddd 7th avenue, partly because my father finds it somewhat confusing..Dont blame him though, from the just one Blue Area road that linked the F-10 (now F-11) end to the Parliament, G-6 sector that is, lots of double roads and highways have stemmed up. Dont understand why Lashari is forcing this development onto a city which had now started taking pride in its lazy environs that went so well with the serene backdrop of the Margalla hills. Sooner or later though, that "bridge will have to be crossed".

My adopted, naah 17 yrs give me the right to call it MINE- city is changing and I dont like it.