The Story of Amreeka Palat.

Once upon a time a strict, Hitlerish Sociology and Psychology teacher was handed a course that was known for partying and high profile events. The kids didn't know what to expect and frankly neither did the teacher.

After a couple of classes, she realized she wasn't going to live up to stereotypes. Her target was to oppose them and so she did. She decided to do the biggest, bestest, baddest play in the history of the university.

So now when you cross the Baloch Colony bridge onto Shahra e Faisal, take a sideways glance at Iqra University and see this:

The story of "Amreeka palat!" is the story of culture, language and barrier-breaking all at the same time. It revolves around the maid Neelo and Professor Mudassir (loosely structured on Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins, minus the chemistry) and her transformation from the uncouth maid to the lively, sophisticated babe of the modern era with a highly polished linguistic talent. He changes her world and life takes a new turn when Arsalan Mirza (pictured), the American-return Pakistani comes back to fall in love with the brand new Neelo.

That is scratching the surface by the way.

Beneath the plot, the big banner, the million rupees, lies a lot of blood, sweat and toil. A lead actress running out five days before the play, Karachi erupting in riots, tickets getting stuck in the printing house, friends fighting, scandals, auditorium bookings, faculty grumbles ... you get the picture.

But the good news is. We're almost there. We're almost through.

I'd love to invite my readers but this play is restricted for Iqra University students only. The only non-IU crowd will be the guests, who have agreed to come to honor the ceremony: Anwar Maqsood and Azfar Ali. 

So pray for us, we're still wondering if the show must go on in the city of firing flies and saddened skies and terrified traffic and closed colleges (I realize I'm losing that poetic touch or maybe I'm sucking at alliterations right now). Doing something big and bureaucratic in Karachi is like stepping into quicksand without any idea if it's supposed to suck you in gradually or all at once. We have no idea how we are going to stage our show 3 days from now with the city conditions with the way they are. Thankfully, as I noted on the streets today, life is going back to normal but this is Karachi. No Pakistani or Amreeka-palat can expect anything normal for long.

... and that's why I need therapy.

I'm a perfectionist. I like thinking that if things aren't going exactly the way they're supposed to they aren't working at all, and I deserve to die. I feel unhappy at the slightest chance of failure and cannot tolerate something that I've worked hard over to go even a bit off-strike. I am passionate, they say to put it politely. Otherwise I'm just a different brand of crazy.

I can't sleep at night, I wake up thinking horrible is going to happen to my family, the people I love and the things I hold dear. I often dream of earthquakes, deaths, calamities, fires, angry goddesses and monstrous heads popping out of flowers and the like.

I worry endlessly and fear flawlessly. I write neurotically and always have the best ideas when I'm just about to fall asleep. I've bought a truckload of books, but I only read Harry Potter a million times. The rest I start, get excited and read halfway through them in one night. Then I put them back down, promising myself that I'd pick them up tomorrow and the only time that TOMORROW has come ... has been in the case of Orhan Pamuk's Snow.

I take pictures of everything and people call me crazy for having over tens of albums on Facebook. I'm a masochist, because since 2000 I have refused to take anything in strides. I did a crazy batch of latter-teen years when I breathed and ate my pre-medical books, debated from my college and took part in anything from a class skit to the annual Sindh Board Science Exhibition in which I made a project on photosynthesis that was a symbolic representation of the process. The judges loved it, thought it was creative. We didn't win of course. Those dinky-car-highway boys won with their slimy teacher who kept hovering around the jury.

I also remember failures way too much.

I drown myself in guilt secretly and hide it away when I'm trying to be all 'normal'. Then one night, right when the hormones are doing their crazy dance in my pituitary, I sob my eyes out on a pillow calling myself every bitter, pathetic name known to mankind - or my vocabulary (I also have a neurotic need to be extremely pragmatic after ever rant) and feel that I will never and ever be happy. No matter what.

And then there are my good days where I'm smiling and cheerful, hoping for the best until my car breaks down in the middle of the road on the very day I was asked to come early after coming late for many days. Or I expect a nice word out of someone but get feedback that is so critical and undeserved, it makes my blood pound, my head spin and my feet all sweaty. Then my neck starts to hurt and I pick a fight with Ali.

Those are the days when my hope swings left again and I hate God and religion and mankind and every tiny leggo of my faith that I'd precariously perched on that high tower begins to wobble and eventually tumble into a heap of what can only be called as the darkest aspects in my shiny, usually plow-through-crap-no-matter-what self. That's when I don't want to hear 'there's a grand design'. I just want to hear that people fucked up as people and now we are who we are. Messy, uncivilized, uncouth and laughable.

And that's when I get my sense of humor back.

And I realize that as long as it's working ... I can avoid that appointment.

Yes I can.

What do we do now?

This goes out to every Pakistani, every American and every possible human being who understands the crises the world is facing now.

Back in our debating days, we'd scoff at the speaker who'd paint the bleakest picture of the world with phrases such as 'bodies strewn everywhere' and Marxist rhetoric of 'poor getting poorer'. We knew these speakers were out to get brownie points with the help of goosebumps. It surprised us but little that these speakers often got the highest applause from the audiences and got away with most of the prizes in the competition. Speakers such as ourselves who usually tried sounding balanced and if at all biased, then positive, would scoff and ridicule them, thinking that they've encashed the world's misery in the form of their prizes.

Now I do wonder if they were all that wrong. Maybe it was us, the balanced, so-called sane individuals, who were sitting on the wrong side of the stadium.

The current day's business reports headlines are such:

14 units stop working; Large scale layoffs in car, bike industry.
India's rich lose 60 pc of their fortune.
S&P cuts Pakistan's ratings amid debt crisis (though the rupee remained steady despite it)
Stocks turn dull amid fading optimism
US retail sales plunge.
Europe officially in recession.

The economic crisis that has prevailed in the news since the Lehman bankruptcy certainly does not seem to decelerate despite hopes of many. Khanani and Kalia are busted, Abdullah Haroon is dead (though no one can blame the economy for that, I'm just going with the flow here) and the real cherry on top is that General Hayden, director CIA, thinks "every major terror threat involves Pakistan".

Isn't that exactly what every Pakistani would love to hear at the breakfast table? We're not only spending 678bn rupees on the 'war against terror' we're also inevitably the terrorists who are now invariably linked to anything remotely terrifying, whether it's a bomb hit in the US or a mouse squeaking underneath the Queen's chair.

Obama, the new face of the US, has regrouped and refocused the foreign policy matters in South Asia. He has now taken up the advices of Mr. Bruce Riedel who will now be reassessing Pakistan and Afghanistan (never thought I'd hear them both in the same terrorist agenda sentence - who knew?). Mr. Riedel plans to prioritize the "Kashmir issue" between India and Pakistan.


The efforts will not be based on the freedom of the Kashmiris; it will be a pressure on Pakistan to let go.

I had always agreed on that golden rule of International Relations that proclaimed a small country stupid if it decided to war against a country twice its size and thrice its population. Pakistan had been and will continue to be stupid if it deludes itself into thinking it can win over Kashmir. Muslim Ummah or not, strategically Kashmir is a bone of contention that has caused Pakistan nothing but decades of terrorist insurgencies in its tribal areas, big-and-small wars, and of course a constant flinch with its biggest, burliest neighbor. Bad idea.

Oddly enough, I quote Parveen Shakir,

Baat toh sach hai magar baat hai rusvaayee ki.

(It is humiliating, but it is true.)

Benazir Bhutto, in her first reign, opted for the same gradual release of Kashmir. Maybe she planned it a bit more stylishly than the begrudged let-go I'm expecting to come in the future by the Pakistani government, but she foresaw something the ISI did not. She understood that this was not only weakening Pakistan's economy but its international standing in the world. Unless it stopped sending its tribal militants, its feeble armies to fight for the 'atoot ang', it would not learn to stand on its feet, it would not be able to feed its poor.


But no. We're too happy fighting in the name of "Islam" or whatever we want to call it. What do you call an ideology when you use it at the time of foreign policy formation and discard it at the time of instructing PEMRA? Use it again when you want to establish a coalition with the mullahs, want a referendum, arm your troops for Afghanistan and discard it again when you make the President house a palace, give at least 20-30 guards per minister, let them go on luxury trips to Saudia Arabia and America and godknows where-else-off-the-record?

Obama's new regime will probably not be as great for Pakistanis are people may think but if it manages to force Pakistan to let go of Kashmir (with as little humiliation and pain as possible) it'll not only save us money and further shame in the long run, it might even help us regain a bit of that international stability.

Now if only we can convince them to let go of Bajaur too.

Frantic but coherent update.

Before people start running away from this blog with the fears of being tagged, I've decided to talk about things real and present.

Karma:
Was it this that made me sit in front of the audience as a judge of the bilingual public speaking contest? In the same place where I had, years ago, opened house for the English debates? Was this the place where I ran with my fading-white uniform and my fading-dupatta on my head, eating chaats and french fries laughing over nothing? Life has come back a full circle. Here, I sit, slightly morose (flu, flu, flu), partly serious, partly smiling (some of the speakers did manage to sound funny) and all mature and judge-like. Deciding who won or lost the competition, which in my time meant all the world's happiness to me?

Work:
By a show of hands, if I ask my readers to respond to the question, "How many people face politics at work and often wish some of their colleagues had more sense than a boulder?", I'm guessing I'll be facing a full house. People are weird when they think they're Gods. Some of my work-associates certainly do think they've managed to outwit the Divine Creator in their images and have somehow managed to delude themselves that others are deluded thusly as well. It's time to shatter that dream. No one has done it before me yet and I'm granted to walk on unchartered territory here but I was never the one to walk the road more taken anyway. Additional good news is that I've got people who love me and support me at home and, surprising as that may seem, at university too. So hope springs eternal.

Flu:
Can't it go away? Like ... now?

Wedding Venue:
Decided! Finally! After much ado! Aaaa, the pains you have to go through to make sure everything goes right. Eeek.

Katrina Kaif:
Aah, to be young. And to be beautiful.

Weekend:
Glory, glory hallelujah.

Tagging I.

Okay.

This tag is going to be different.

The rules are slightly revamped to suit varied choices.

And they are:

Tagging/Linking others is entirely optional. You don't have to sound needy and pathetic at all at anyone else's blog to beg them to come visit your blog and respond to your blog (God, I'm vicious).
The tag expires after a period of 24 hours.
Tag as many people you like. Don't tag them if you don't want to. Don't mention me if you don't want to. Mention me if you want to. Heck it's YOUR blog.
If you don't see yourself as tagged by someone that's pointless. This tag is universal. Everyone's invited.
And no more rules. Introduce a little anarchy.

The tag is:

You have to write

• Three things which you pride yourself upon.
• Three things you hate about yourself.
• Three things that you can't let go of.
• Three things that you love to eat.
• Three things you cannot possibly eat in a million years.
• Three songs you could sing to the rest of the world.
• Three movies you would show if you had your way around Film Festivals.

I tag:

Barooq.
Hira.
Saadat.
Mampi.
Karachiwali.
Esfand.

My tag is as follows.

Three things which you pride yourself upon.
My faith in myself, God and a Spirit of Indepedence. That's three.

Three things you hate about yourself.
Anger, depressive moodswings and that I'm only five feet two inches.

Three things that you can't let go of.
My cell (snatchers, duur fittay moon), my books and a personal attack.

Three things that you love to eat.
Fruits, junk food, chicken!

Three things you cannot possibly eat in a million years.
Most veggies, unspeakable parts of cows and sheep that are considered delicacies and go around at Baqra Eid, and oh yes. Anaar juice. There's a story behind that.

Three songs you could sing to the rest of the world.
Hope for the Hopeless by A Fine Frenzy, Sweet Child O Mine by Guns n Roses and With or Without You by U2.

Three movies you would show if you had your way around Film Festivals.
Wall-E, Little Miss Sunshine and Batman Begins.

Random Photos.

Ali took us out for dinner after he got paid his third paycheck.

KFC's really cute snapshot wall..

KFC's Pakistan promotion.

The Strawberry Cheesecake I made for Ali and his friends.

The candle that burns its last. Grotesque and scary to me. I'm terribly afraid of death.

Tagged III.

I have been tagged by Hira. A million things have been rushing through my head lately and I choose to write a tag post is slightly pathetic. Obama won, people are leaving half-dead infants on the roads and Zardari took 200 people to Saudi Arabia with him on that tour of his. And I choose to talk about my quirks.

Some wonderful Pakistani I am..

Anyway. As if this post isn't enough about me already here goes:

So six completely unspectacular factoids? That's easy.

1. I'm an insomniac. A relentless one. I sleep less than 6 hours a day and can remain extremely fresh and bright and energetic. It's only the less-than-three-hour-a-day day that can dampen my spirits and make me go to sleep (Z can attest to that). Wait, did that just turn into spectacular?
2. I like to read all my text messages before I go to sleep. My N95 has a lifeblog. It tracks everything you did since you activated the phone. And I sometimes begin from the beginning. All the random pictures I've taken (that's another spectacular-nothing, I take pictures of everything, anything and then some), all the I'll be there in a few moments messages and videos. Everything.
   
3. I don't like the sea much. Khiites are obsessed with it but I'm not. It's just ... the sea. What's the big deal?
4. I hate the Iphone. I think it's charm dies down after the first few days. After you get over the phone without buttons, you realize you have been conditioned to push buttons (no dual meaning intended) ever since you were a kid. So buttons are good. Buttons are home. (Bet you don't think I'm spectacular anymore, eh? I'm talking about how good buttons are!)
5. I don't like carrying purses. Girls think it's some testament to fashion. I don't. I consider purses to be a lag and only carry them outta sheer necessity. If I'm wearing something ultra gorgeous and am at a formal gathering, I might carry it. But I'm a very pockety kinda person. Give me pockets, spare the purses.
6. I have the flu 6 months in the year. Yes, yes. Wrinkle thy nose.

Okay, I'm all out now.

I tag Ordered-Chaos, Roop, Erin, Natasha, M and M. And Barooq.

Phew. All the love to you, Hira. But this one took a zing outta me. Dunno why. Must be the flu.

Tagged II.

I have been tagged by Saadat. Although this comes at a very harassed time in my life, I'm way too polite to say no.

The McCains own 13 cars, eight homes and have access to a corporate jet. If you were as insanely rich as them, where would your eight homes be and why? The only rule is: The homes must be within the borders of the country you live in, so as to utterly emulate the McCains.When you’re done, tag 8 people, so that they may join in the self-indulgence, forgetting about the crappy property market and the equivalent of The End of Pompeii on Wall-Street. You could spend your time hammering your doors and windows shut in preparation for the Apocalypse, but this meme is so much more fun!

Karachi. Born and bred here. It's foul and spreads like Hades. Sometimes you'll find yourself driving for hours on end without Karachi ever ending. Sometimes green, peaceful, cool, livable streets will sprout out of nowhere, embellishing the hope of having a better future for the country, but soon, very soon, as is the rule with every residential area in Karachi, you'll run into a slum where you'll find butt-naked kids running and wailing across the roads, oddly sinister men peering at you from dirty-draped snooker rooms, boiling gutters and merry fruit and chat vendors telling you that you're still thirty years behind (at least) the rest of the world. Govinda and Mithun movies still run like wildfire here and Cyber Cafes are rife with titles such as "Bismillah Internet Cafe" and "Al-Raheem Cyber Services". What the hell is that supposed to imply anyway? God is watching over all the porn they're downloading?

But anyway. Karachi is home and Karachi, with all its bhaiiyaas and treeless roads and traffic jams is Karachi. Its life pulsates like no other. Not because it's got a population of over 1.5 crore people. Not because it's the biggest port in Pakistan. Not because it's one of the top ten metropolitan centres in the world. But because it has never stopped growing. If you ever see those Karachi-oriented exhibits (yes, I know I'm boring, but humor me, go to Mohatta Palace's photography exhibits one of these days), you'll see what I mean. This city doesn't know how to end. Be it life or people. It keeps living even in days of severe economic crises and suicide bomb attacks and stinking oil landing on the shore for weeks. Karachiites will never stop loving the sea.

Lahore. It sounds obscene but it really isn't. Unless you're french. Then everything sounds kinda crooked. Though its name needs more revision than a Frenchman's vocabulary, this city never meant much to me save the past four years. I hated going to visit it when I was a kid. My parents used to drag Ali and me to Islamabad and Lahore every year, without fail, to visit Minaar e Pakistan and Shahi Qila and Shalimar Bagh (that's one way to keep your kids extremely rooted to their cultures, make them stick their noses in historical sites and narrate stories of dead old kings) and apart from the slightly creepy surroundings Data Ganj Bakhsh's Mazaar and the eerie Changa Manga jungles, we didn't mind. What we did feel incredibly grumpy about was the stay we had to tolerate. We hated staying with friends and family in the city because we had to sleep in the drawing rooms and do nothing but watch TV all day. And no cable when I was a kid, so there you go. You couldn't even look comatose when your mom wanted you to get up and take a bath.

I'm guessing my perception visibly shifted when I visited there 2 years ago at a friend's wedding.

Swat. If they ever stop fighting there yeah, I would. Somewhere near the Lake Saif ul Mulook. A wooden hut with a cosy fireplace (you can tell I'm getting married).

Islamabad. The President House is good. But I'd have to be a spouse-killer for that. And I can't give up Barooq for the presidency of this country. He looks too damn good. So any place in the Blue Area would be okay too, I guess.

Peshawar. For times I'll desperately want a change of scenery and an appreciation of places where women can roam free.

Quetta. To gain easy access to buy smuggled video cameras?

Kashmir. It's ours man. Part of it anyway. If India and Pakistan ever stop bickering about it, I'd love a home in that valley.

Gwadar. But it's the port of the millenium!

Okay, I'm sorry I've begun to sound lame, but I'm outta places. Unless you count "Prem Nagar" which comes from the way to Lahore from Karachi through Allama Iqbal Express and had THE most romantic name in the world (maybe they should rename Lahore that!) and wouldn't it be so so cool if someone asked me my address and I said,

" ... House Number 1, Mohabbat Gali, Prem Nagar."

........


I tag: Mampi, Khizzy, Hufsa, Karachiwali and Hira.

The Grim and the Gore.

You know what?

I'm just going to stop reading newspapers.

Yes. I'm going to just stop reading them.

Especially Pakistani news. And even more especially the Metropolitan section of the paper. It's just too depressing for anyone's good. I wonder how the editors sleep at night after they've set the paper off to print. And I don't wonder anymore why my own father, a journalist for 27 years, has paranoid attachment issues with letting his family go anywhere without him being the chaperone.

I have a weird habit of reading things while I am eating. Mom says it is disrespect to food and I can't help it anymore. It's been more than 22 years of doing it and unless it's Electric Shock Therapy that I'm in for, I'm going to continue reading anything I can get my hands on while I'm eating.

For the past couple of weeks, I'd been missing out on the deep perusal of the morning paper (breakfast without it is incomplete like a square without its lines - excuse the pathetic similie) and this Sunday as I settled down to eat the Chicken Jalferezi I made, the horrors began.

PIA's suffered a loss 38.4bn rupees. Interestingly having 16 pc growth and 17 pc hike in passenger revenue and 10 pc increase in cargo revenue - all at the same time as its losses. Pakistan, the nation, is quite ruffled by the US attacks - which recur remorselessly, just like aftershocks in Quetta and its whereabouts. And although we can seriously admire Mr. President to talk about raising money for ginners and growers, we mustn't try wondering why he won't just stop booking quotas in everything from Hajj flights to Saudia Arabia's Pakistan House.

The news is bad everywhere. TV channels milk it, people lap it up and politicians will continue to harvest the ground which breeds it all.

I am quite deliberate about this.

I don't think I can take it anymore. Newspapers sure put your life into perspective when you're down making you understand that the universe does not revolve around YOU - but they also do something really really disturbing. It makes us understand that this revolving universe which we struggle to survive in everyday - is full of crap and it's never going to change.

If I wasn't a journalist's daughter, I'd have stopped my subscription to Dawn today.But I know I won't. Mom loves the word jumble too much and I'm a crossword fan.

Not to mention The Wizard of Id.

That comic strip is funnier than George Bush on crystal meth.

Frantic update I.

• Work is killing me.
• Sarah Palin is stupid.
• Humanistic Counseling rocks. My future career is suddenly all-the-more clearer.
• Writing plays is not easy. I have newfound respect for Oscar Wilde, Tennessee Williams and Anwar Maqsood.
• I'm reading "Half Blood Prince" for the umpteenth time.
• I had a 'near-death' experience. Our car almost collided into a bridge on a very busy, a very fast lane last night. I have newfound respect for life. Which didn't last very long - but anyway.
  
• Facebooking through Iphone is boring.
• You can't blog through your Iphone or your N95 either. Unless you want to go mad with frustration or blind after straining your eyes to read one word.
• My wedding gharara is going to be blood red. *dreamy grin*
• Madrassah started again. This time new teachers. I keep telling them I'm going to question everything about Islam and faith, so they should be prepared. Fariya Baji says she has also told them about M and I. So yay.
• Our UPS has gone to hell so we're literally living in the "Dark Ages" now that KESC has decided to push tolerance levels even further.
• I'm talking about electricity ... so that means I'm outta stuff right now. Or that I just want to begin venting (and who the hell wants to hear that, right?) ... so.

Until then, folks. Until I get a new video graphics card. See you on Facebook or email.

Huh?

Can you believe it?

I just called Ather-Shehzad Studio.

Shahzad Raza charges THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND RUPEES for bridal makeup.

And if youwant him to come to Karachi, he will charge you extra ...

PLUS ...

YOU have to give him a Business Class ticket and five star stay.

Shahzad's assistant charges one hundred thousand. You can give him an economy class ticket and stay.

Benevolent.

Mom still thinks I'm joking. Even though I made the call in front of her.

Does this mean we no longer live in the good ol' days where looking beautiful came naturally?

But now it has to come with a private jet and a bank balance?

Frankly, m'dear ...

I'm tired.

I'm tired of the same old swagger of the whiz kids and the biz kids at the university. Tired of the petty shameful politics, the insecure staff and the immensely self-conscious brats that walk through the halls decking it with their shallow intentions (I showed them August Rush and one kid said he liked 'the larki/girl' the best). I am tired of trying to write a script that can change the trend of the university to do shitty plays and begin it on a more classical, less third-grade path by trying to write a play with enough oomph to hook in the hoi polloi and enough jazz to let me look at myself in the mirror with a clear conscience.

I am tired of this. This is not what I wanted from teaching.

Having said that, I refuse to quit or give up (wish I'd learnt to though, it's such a blessing sometimes) on something I've promised myself I will end properly. So ploughing through is a teacher who is quite OUT of ideas right now. So any helpful hints on how to tolerate 160 18-year-olds will be appreciated.

And by tolerate I mean to hold out for the next 9 weeks without bombing their brains (or mine) out, managing a million (or plus) rupee function, checking mid and final term papers and saying good bye to university once and for all.

Oh and by the way. Readers of this blog, join The Black Mirror Network on Facebook. Confirmations on the author will be appreciated. And if you're too stingy to take time out to help a pathetic, miserable old teacher feel better, then fie on you.

Hmpf.

Living for the only thing I know.

It helps to see things from that rose-colored glass. Even cynics do it when they need it.

They just don't like to admit it much.

Desperate for changing
Starving for truth
I'm closer to where I started
Chasing after you
I'm falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you

Forgetting all I'm lacking
Completely incomplete
I'll take your invitation
You take all of me now...

I'm falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you
I'm living for the only thing I know
I'm running and not quite sure where to go
And I don't know what I'm diving into
Just hanging by a moment here with you

There's nothing else to lose
There's nothing else to find
There's nothing in the world
That can change my mind
There is nothing else
There is nothing else
There is nothing else

Desperate for changing
Starving for truth
I'm closer to where I started
Chasing after you....

I'm falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you
I'm living for the only thing I know
I'm running and not quite sure where to go
And I don't know what I'm diving into
Just hanging by a moment here with you

Just hanging by a moment (here with you)
Hanging by a moment (here with you)
Hanging by a moment here with you

Whose War is it anyway?

WASHINGTON, Oct 05, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group announced today that Howard Gordon, the executive producer of Fox's drama "24," has withdrawn his endorsement of the anti-Muslim film "Obsession" currently being distributed to some 28 million households in presidential election swing states by a shadowy non-profit organization called the Clarion Fund.

Source: Marketwatch.

The film and the words "anti-Muslim" are strongly tied. It makes me wonder if there's a Holocaust round the corner. I am back in the year 2001 right now where I would hear horror stories of Muslim kindergarten children being pelted at with bananas and Cheetos for wearing tiny headscarves.

The history of Muslims is conflicted, I'll give you that. But I don't altogether believe that we deserve as much hate as we are recently acquiring. Just like the war on terror isn't exactly a war on terror, I wonder if people are able to see that the "Jihad" in Jamiya Hafsa or the suicide-bombings from 9/11 to 7/11 to 9/20, isn't exactly like the Jihad the Prophet of Islam waged 1400 years ago. I wonder if there will be any room for an explanation for what a fundamentalist is in the next few years. And I sincerely wonder if the average Pakistani man will ever stop calling himself a 'radical muslim' just because he has a beard or prays at the mosque. I've never heard of the phrases 'radical Christian' or 'fundamentalist Jew'. Is it some South Asian dilemma? Radical Hindus and radical Muslims?

While we're at the topic, another problem with the Pakistani nation that is rampant and quite the trend in the holier-than-thou society: rejecting modernity. Refusing modern culture or the adaptation to technology. The more of a Luddite, the better a Muslim. The more of an idiot a woman is - all the better to be a wife. Because wives of present-day "good" Muslims, unlike the Umhaat ul Momineen, aren't supposed to be literate enough (Hazrat Ayesha RA) to have the ability to quote 5000 ahadeeth or advise on war matters or educate a nation, no. Neither should they be of enough power to assume a choice to divorce her husband (Hazrat Zainab bint e Jahsh RA) nor should she have enough gumption to be strong for a husband when he needs her the most (Hazrat Khadeeja RA). No. Our women's piety and chastity is justified by just how tightly our burqas are clad, just how quietly we can take a husband's beating and exactly by how many slaps and insults and acid-sprinkles we can withhold from our in-laws. Our society isn't an Islamic one - neither are our people, and I'd really wish the global media would desist the stupidity of calling us the 'followers of Quran' who wish 'death upon America'. If anyone's terribly un-Islamic, it's us. We are not waging Jihad in any way. We are waging a war of political interests, of international conflict, using and abusing Islam wherever we deem necessary, whenever we can throw in a quotation about God willing to fight the 'non-Muslims', to obliterate the 'enemy', forgetting it was the Prophet Muhammad SAW who announced sanctuary to the people of Mecca, the women and children, and anyone who took refuge in Abu Sufyan's house. And bonus points for guessing whose side Abu Sufyan was on.

They can all us great terrorists if they want to, but they should drop the Muslim alibi (which I know they won't, the war on terror hasn't shifted to OIL either - Operation Iraqi Liberation) which is just a bad excuse for a badly played hand by Al Qaeda. It's a shame that not even a few people in the Muslim world have had much luck explaining this to the west. Movies such as Obsession and Danish cartoons and 'anti-Muslim' sentiment will continue to thrive and multiply. We're seriously not interested in an image revamp.

--

Pakistan and Pakistanis Muslims, to the world, are torch-bearing, Kafir-killing, flag-burnig, suicide-bombing fanatics who beat and kill their wives, spit on modern medicine and probably eat their young daughters. And then there's that other end of the spectrum. Where we're belly-dancer oglers, suppressed, bearded, dark-eyed heretics who worship the Satan as badly as the other-enders worship Allah.

There are definite moments where I am not proud to be a part of this race - this Pakistani Muslim category which has proudly marshalled its militant image. Mainly because of the lay man who sported bin Laden's picture on the back of water tankers and pan shops. My greatest fear for my country and my people is that we are not even aware - not even remotely cognizant - of the threat we have come to face because of our incessant stupidities. We have supported Talibanization whenever the West has wanted us to without dictating a clear democratic or diplomatic stance. Instead of proclaiming a support for the US we have camouflaged our US-love as Ummah-love and in the end, eat our own vociferous speeches. There is no harm in accepting that we are quietly supporting a US-led war on terror in Afghanistan (which we are, are we not?) and quietly letting them dictate a future with India and now with Iran because our own infrastructure is weak and frail. It cannot withstand an enmity with the biggest dog in the yard.

I don't believe that America is the greatest nation to grace the planet but I do believe that it is indeed a powerful nation - and for good reason. I believe that Americans have survived great odds like war, famine, economic depressions, nuclear threats, the handling of a federation of 50-odd states, a combative bi-polar world of the 1960s - to overcome and emerge as one of the most powerful nations of the world. They have worked hard and they've gotten what they invested in. They aren't perfect but they've done whatever they possibly could in their powers. Which is something Pakistanis just do not understand. We are too busy fighting over petty issues, thrashing each other apart whether it is judicial killings or judicial positions. For us, all we need is a spark. We'll add the feul to the fire ourselves.

Muslims, along with the rest of the world, need to understand the clear difference between a Mullah and a Muslim. They need to understand the difference between sexist and gender-based; between jihad and political tactic; between diplomacy and consistency; between resentment and tolerance.

This entire hoopla on suicide bombs is only going to prove Marx right once and for all that religion is what masses get high on - how leaders can sway the devotion of people in their favor. Chant Allah hu Akbar and ram the fourteen year old into the mosque with explosives. Cite a certain text (albeit misinterpreted) and thrash your wife into a pulp. Give a misquoted example and wage a war against innocent American civilians.

Marx will also be right when we'll land as an American army on Iraqi/Afghani soil. Look at certain profits and send your troops in to wage a 'crusade'. Sign certain oil proliferation treaties and declare weapons of mass destructions all over any country you like. Find a potential threat and fool the prolateriat by any means necessary - economic downfall, a threat of terror or a politics of fear. The idea is to raise capital. And raise it must.

This is nowhere a holy struggle. The present state of affairs is in no way a prediction or order from the Quran or from the American constitution. It is a malady produced by the personal choices and greeds for more, an exploitation of the powerless masses, the ridiculed and the befuddled. We keep making movies like The Obsession, we keep chanting slogans against the Muslims or the Americans and we keep feeding to this black hole of vested interests.

This is not a war on terror, this is not a Jihad.

This is humanity at its best.

Power hungry and stupid.

The day I made THE cheesecake.

Yes.

Consider this my fist in the air.

I am capable of being more than just cheesy, I also capable of making this:


THE cheesecake which turned out even better than I had dreams of expecting.

Life is great when that happens.

Happiness is in these great, happy, tiny realizations that indeed there existeth a world where existeth a perfecth cheesecake.

And now I'm only delirious.

But happy nonetheless. Apart from the cheesecake, I am also capable of making many other things but this day is important since I also made Singaporean Rice, Afghani Kebabs, Chicken Ministeaks and Green Chillies Qeema.

Lo and behold.

Chicken Ministeaks with Garlic Fried Rice.

Singaporean Rice - sideview. For additional information *smirk* on the layers.

Hari Mirch Qeema (with the hari mirch in the middle, hmpf) and Afghani Kebabs (in the bowl).

Pineapple Delight - a novel way of decorating it (a la Mom.)

The Dark Knight - Cinemascope.

And here I thought I wouldn't get tickets.

The Cineplex's Cinema 2B, practically empty, was only occupying the four of us, a rowdy family with kids and ladies who looked dressed up enough for a prom and insisted on transliterating every scene to people sitting next to them, a couple with their tiny, well-behaved son wearing the cutest orange baseball cap over his stiff kurta and a dad with his three overactive boys. The latter repeated every shout and scream uttered in the movie and wanted a play-by-play of every scene including a loud session of trivia directed at their Dad regarding each and every one of Batman's personal reasons for anything from jumping off a high tower to driving his Batmobile at a deathly pace.

Which can only tell you one thing. Pakistanis: not ready for cinema.

After buying ridiculously expensive popcorn and soft drinks, we settled down to watch Heath Ledger in action, ready to devour each line of the film, for the fifth or sixth time at least since the release of the Dark Knight. We tried to ignore the loud disturbances and were actually happy to hear the eardrum-shattering noise drowning the "dhishoom-dhishoom" shouts of the kids (honestly I love kids, but some parents don't know when to tell their kids to zip it) and basically had a real nice time watching the 2-hour-plus flick again on the big (well, compared to my tv anyway) screen. During the intermission, the little dhishoom-dhishoom boy began dancing his butt off at Kismat Konnection's remixes.

After watching it again, my favorite parts of the movie are highlighted thus:

1. "People deserve to have their faith rewarded." - Batman.
2. "Because I'm not wearing hockey pants." - Batman.
3. "I like this job, I like it!" - The Joker.
4. "I'm not sure they'll let us," Harvey Dent referring to the bringing together of two tables together at a posh restaurant. Bruce Wayne responds, "Oh I'm sure they will. I own the place."
5. "Accomplice?" says Wayne to Alfred. "I'm gonna tell them the whole thing was your idea."
6. "Whatever doesn't kill you ... only makes you stranger." - The Joker.
7. "Because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn." - Alfred.
8. "It was a big dog." - Wayne.
9. "Why so serious?"

And number 10:


The Joker: Aaah, never start with the head. The victim gets all fuzzy.
Batman: You wanted me. Here I am.
The Joker: I wanted to see what you'd do. And you didn't disappoint. You let five people die. Then you let them take your place. Even to a guy like me that's cold.
Batman: Where's Dent?
The Joker: Those mob fools want you gone because they want the way things were. But I know the truth. There's no going back. You've changed things. Forever.
Batman: Then why do you want to kill me?
The Joker (laughs hysterically): I don't want to kill you. What would I do without you! Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no, no. You complete me!
Batman: You're garbage who kills for money.
The Joker: Don't talk like one of them. You're not. To them you're just a freak. Like me. They need you right now. When they don't, they'll cast you out. Like a leper. See their morals, their code, it's a bad joke Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. I'll show you. When the chips are down ... these civilized people .. they'll eat each other. See I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve.
Batman (has had enough, begins to beat the crap outta the Joker): Where's Dent?
The Joker (undeterred): You have all these rules! You think they'll save you?
Batman: I have one rule.
The Joker: Oh. Then that's the rule you're gonna have to break to know the truth.
Batman: Which is?
The Joker: The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules. And tonight you're gonna have to break your ONE RULE..

The Day that was Eid.

Eid is a fairly typical, conventional affair where I come from. Kids beg for Eidi, grown ups distribute the crisp (and now extremely pathetic-looking) banknotes and there are the siwayyans (sweet vermicelli) which grace every table in Pakistan. There is no pardon for sleeping in or arriving late at Dadi Jan's place. There is no way in the world you can sheepishly pass up on the opporunity of getting the five-rupees that your DJ has been giving you for the past 25 years (no wait, she used to give us 2 rupees when we were younger), it'd break her heart and you'd end up looking like a jackass anyway. There is no way you can tell your mom you don't want to wear the glass bangles this time (oh the horror).

But it's fun. Eid is fun because you get to meet relatives you haven't met since the last Eid, you get to join in the merry-making that you probably don't like a lot but it's family and it's fun and heck, it's Eid. You can let a few lame jokes pass once a year.

But perhaps the terminus optimus was my end of the feud with Ali. How Eid-spirrity, eh? I was mad at him for being a jerk over something and he messaged this last night,

"By the way. Thank you for the suit. And remember if I don't say sorry or thank you out loud doesn't mean I don't mean it."

These boys. 

Who are we to judge the Pakistani Psycho.

Sometimes I wonder if we're way too influenced by the media and it's galore. It's need for drama and it's persistent doomsday conspiracy theories. Are we so absorbed by this hyperreality that we have forgotten what it was to have an objective opinion?

Right now, it's certainly a dilemma for me as I browse through the statements of President Extraordinaire, Mr. Asif Ali Zardari.

"I mean business," he says, says he to Roger Cohen. He says he is changing things, replacing ISI bigshots, hugging Manmohan Singh, creating 'Friends for Pakistan', establishing a hardline on the US attacks and lashing out at them directly and simply at the UN meet. So what if he also flirted with the US VP. Pretty much all of America is calling her sexy. Why aren't we just glad he didn't use those words too while he was grinning there like Moose in front of Midge?


Whatever the case may be with his big grin and oily hair, I want to give him credit for saying what he did.

"Unilateral actions of great powers should not inflame the passion of allies."

You have to hand it to the guy. After the day you flirt with the US VP, stand next to Condi Rice and say that the world is a safer place because of President Bush, to go out and say you won't tolerate any more crap coming from the NATO helicopters on Paki soil - I'm impressed.

Cohen states what he feels about this as such:

"My impression? This guy's very smart, a wheeler-dealer in an area full of them, secular, pro-American, committed to democracy, determined and brave. I never heard Musharraf frame Pakistan's fight against terrorism with such candor."

For an analysis of Asif Ali Zardari, it is more critical who he 'befriends' internationally than who he sleeps with confidentially. It is probably more of a joke that he swooned over Palin if he continues to keep his head in his place in places like the UN meets and at 10 Downing Street.

The guy's a sleazebag, sure. He's probably not even a seasoned democrat. But he's got what it takes to take the seat. He did what it took him to elbow out a far more seasoned democrat than he was (hint, hint, he's far from the running now), capture the loyalties of JUI in one day, pocket the England-executed party of Pakistan and successfully stand in front of the international community, humbly asking for help.

How he's doing it is beyond me. What I do understand is that he's latched on good and strong. And when it comes to Pakistani democratic olympics - that's what makes you a winner.

I cannot understand testosterone.

I have been forced to confess it herewith.

I do not get it. Maybe men have same issues with oestrogen and progesterone, but come on. Progesterone isn't half the confusion as testosterone is.

Testosterone is so incredibly funny, it'll make nice, decent, intelligent people like my own darling brother, Ali, scream uncontrollably at a guy who merely cut in front of him at the CNG station a couple of days ago.

Don't believe me?

Alright, I'll elucidate.

While waiting for the ATM machine to work and observing the milling-arounders, one does get to notice interesting (and sometimes just plain gross) tidbits. For example.


Notice how the dashing old man stands.

Where the bloody hell does he think he's standing? His washroom, waiting for his kids to finish toothbrushing?

On roads where women walk like this, all covered and sour-faced ... :



Men actually have the nerve to stand around their hands up their waists through their kurtas. Like so. Notice it's not one but two intelligent species standing that way.




That's just too disgusting.

But no wait. Where there's disgusting, there's Zardari. And no one can refute he's not a good reason to be baffled at testosterone. Everyone's heard of his fawning over Sarah Palin. If I'm over the fact that we're slobbering as slavish puppies at the hands of the American government, I'm made to see him making sleazy innuendos at a remotely attractive female.

Your wife's been dead not a year and you're already grinning like a chipmunk.

I guess I should've taken the hint when you took over the party and ran for President, but you had to prove it to me, sir, eh?


And although I hate to use anything human in the same line as Zardari, I have to make an exception.

Then there are freaks who will insist on flirting with you despite your obvious display of the ring-finger. The freaks who think anything moving and female is worthy of their slimy attention. The freaks with their mad stares and creepy smile. Their bad teeth and slick (in their opinion, anyway) hairdos - do you actually think you're attractive if I see your knickers hanging out your pants? We're not blind, please. Or devoid of other senses either.

I'm sure the grievances are equal on the other side, the battle of the sexes will reign, never the twain shall meet, opposites will continue to attract, and so on and so forth ...

... but if it ever comes down to choices, I'd always choose oestrogen.

It's crazy, moody and maybe even bitchy at times.

But it won't flirt at every moving object in sight.

The Lady Snape.

Teaching is an odd experience. Most people who look at a twenty-five-year-old fresh graduate think it's oh-all-that for her, but she will tell you, that on most days ... it's just plain odd.

Firstly, people don't give you way to pass when you're in a hurry to get to class. Most of them consider you yet another youngling in the halls of younglings rushing to get a good backseat in the room. It's not until you run into ex-students who start stepping aside, which tells other students that it's a faculty member.

Secondly, respect comes with a price. In the over-one-year that I've taught, I've had to 'endure' as Alfred says to Bruce Wayne (yes, the Dark Knight has gotten to my head), many rumors and impressions of me such as "Dragon Lady", "Miss Strict" etc. The rest of the rumors aren't worth mentioning because most of the deranged population of my university isn't exactly high-ranking on the creative lot. But they'll get there, I hope. Soon.

Some colleagues advised me to go to the university picnic at Nathia Gali Beach so I could 'bond' with the students. I didn't really find that fascinating. I'm old-fashioned and quite probably born in the wrong century, so a beach with a DeeJay and crazy boys and girls jamming in the sun isn't my idea of fun. I politely declined, encrusting the nicknames, heightening the grievances of the minions of Satan.

My class is dead-quiet and most students are shit-scared of me. It's like a court-room drama. I don't blame the little humans for hating me, I suck the fun out of their frolicking. I'm focused on delivering the lecture, making sure people understood them and discussing latest political affairs, rather than Atif Aslam and SRK.

But that was Sociology and Psychology. When I began teaching Oral Communication this fall, I had to reach out to the kids on a more personal level. I had to bring them to an understanding of who I was and how I did things. Moreover, OC is a hands-on course. It's got plenty of talking, jabbering, discussing and joking around. Activities include skits, parodies, plays, songs, etc, so it's got a big fun element to it. Thus when I walked into the first class of OC, students actually stared at each other, flipping through their time tables if they had their periods marked out right. Miss MA.? Teaching OC?

Hell no.

So I began straightshooting. After I'd taken the attendance, I asked,

"Who's surprised to see me here?"

And needless to say, countless hands shot up in the air.

I began explaining to them how things worked with more serious subjects such as Sociology and Psychology and how a teacher needs to have a firm hand if he/she has any desire to complete the course. Things began going well and from some I heard, in the later weeks, that M. A. was a fun teacher.

Fun. Me.


People who know me personally abet that I'm a big ball of bubbles most of the time. It being a revelation for my students lead to me hearing a lot of interesting quotes and statements.

One of them I'd like to share with everyone at which I could not help suppress my laughter.

In today's assignment "Carte Blanche" in which students were asked to talk about anything they wanted, with no holds barred, a kid came forward and said the following,


"I want to talk about change. I'll use an effective example. Last semester we had a teacher who taught us Sociology."

He glances meaningfully at me.

"Oh it was you, right! So anyway, she came into the class - and it was hell. It was so quiet. It was like almost scary. In fact - she was so scary that ... ah, well, how many of you have read Harry Potter? ... Okay, well, she was just like Professor Snape. A Lady Professor Snape. But things changed after the midterm. I guess she was happier because pretty much all of us failed it. But now I see a change that she's brought now that she's teaching us OC."


He went on talking about what he'd learned from life about change etc. And I kept seeing myself in the eyes of students.


The Lady Professor Snape.

At the end of the Potter books, I began to thoroughly love the character, so I don't really think I was offended. Plus public opinion matters but little when it comes to doing the job right. I find it inconsequential most of the times. Overrated and negligible, especially when it comes to something I thoroughly believe in. And I thoroughly believed in delivering my lecture on time, covering my course targets, and challenging the students' capabilities in my course. It would have been actually quite the easier path had I chosen to let the students run loose in the classrooms like Cornish Pixies and act like Lockhart but my choices were clear before me. I know they hated me for keeping them quiet (and they probably still do, regardless of all the fun assignments I make them do now - students don't let go of impressions that easy), I know they hated me for failing them on substandard papers, I know they dreaded my class and I know they looked at me wishing I'd drop dead.

But I believe - and thoroughly - that when a time will come for them to understand something from a sociological or psychological perspective they'll look back at what they learnt and not what they hated about me.

And that's all that matters.

If they call me Snape in the bargain, I'm okay with that.

Snape was too.