Rambling on

aaj kay naam aur aaj ke ghum kay naam

2011-12-27T16:12:00.003+05:00

the lady, this day, 4 years ago, had a divine glow about her.

she landed in karachi after years of exile and as she disembarked she looked up towards the heavens and the world saw her shed tears of joy. this moment, only the readers of shah latif can relate to.

our modern-day marvi, our bb, accused by her enemies of being corrupt and immoral, died, yearning for the country, pining for her people, her maru

back again

2011-12-27T15:47:00.002+05:00

saw that my blog was being followed by 3 people and a random google search on "shah latif" put me on the top 10 sites for info on the poet (this thanks to Raza Rumi)

so i said why not drop by and try and blog again. maybe my umpteenth attempt but who knows. maybe i will muster the strength to continue

interesting days ahead of us with a "tsunami" being forecasted on the political front. if the right-wing message can be packaged in a rock concert to attract the younger crowd, then i wish imran khan the best of luck! his arrival on the scene and how the landscape is changing in the country heralds the death of ideology in the country and a party which has so little to say about its policies is sure supported by the "hand of God" to garner so much support.

when i point out these right-wing nuances to people, they ask me to chill and that convince me that policies will be presented to the public soon. i sure am waiting for that day.

call of the swan - raga haunsadhwani revisited

2011-07-02T23:21:00.001+05:00

i am completely hooked to this raga

i wonder if hansadhawani has roots in hansa meaning swan and dhan which is sindhi for crying sound or call hence call of the swan

i am presenting favorite samples of the raga; my favourite being ustaad amir khan and ustad rashid ali khan

now to my favorite pakistani band

and then ustad amir khan

i actually like this version a lot

and the mesmerising

Noori Jam-Tamachee Re-visited; Love Stories of the Risalo of Shah Latif

2011-05-07T12:40:00.003+05:00

A new addition in the family demands that i revisit this blog entry from the past. So here it goes:

The Risalo of Shah Latif is divided into chapters called Surs which are composed on the lines of musical notes. Each sur is based on symbols taken from stories which are part of Sindhi folklore. Sur Kamod in the Risalo of Shah Latif is based on the love story of Noori Jam-Tamachee

Noori Jam-Tamachee

King Jam Tamachi was a Samo ruler of lower Sind at the end of the 14th century A.D. While on a shooting expedition, he chanced to see a fisher girl named Noori, falling madly in love with her and offered to married her, his love for her blind to the social disparity between them.

When they returned back to his capital, he was made aware of the general disapproval of this match. He merely observed that the detractors did not know her as much as he did. In order to display her character and appease the cynics, one day, he announced to his queens, that he would take one of them for a ride on an outing.

All the queens put on elaborate makeup and their best clothing, but not Noori. She put on her old family garment, perhaps the one she wore when the king had first seen her. When Jam Tamachi visited the queens, she smiled at them and moved on. When he saw Noori, in her simple attire, he was greatly impressed. He nodded her approval at her and led her by the hand to the royal carriage.

When they were alone, he enquired from her about her dress. She tells him that the dress reminded her of what she inherently was, and what she owed the king for her elevation. The king was charmed with her simplicity and sincerity and the legend of their happy lives have become part of the Sindhi folklore immortalized by Shah Latif.

[Taken from Agha M. Yaqoob's 3 volume translation of the Risalo with minor editing]

the kafi describes the scene of the King Jam Tamachee falling for a simple fisherwoman Nooree, marrying her despite her humble attire, her demeanor, her poverty

I am linking a youtube url of the kafi which starts at 2:20. I have not found the refrain in the Risalo but as the other verses are from the Risalo, perhaps Ustaad Manzoor Ali Khan selected this one line from a version that I am not aware of. There are also some other lines not in the risalo and have not translated them.

The track starts at 2:20

toon samoo, aaonn gandree, moon main aib n lakh
mohenjay hin haal jee, tokhay sabh parakh
karan raba, mataan maangar matee-ain

[Refrain] Khuta keenjhar keenaray, tamboo tamachee jaam jaa

Sabh sameeyoon, sabh soomeyoon, sabh-na gichee-in-a haar
Pasan khatir pireen-ana jay, vicha-yaaon vaar

[Refrain] Khuta keenjhar keenaray, tamboo tamachee jam jaa

Jaaraa ain kharaa, maal-a janeen ja mad-a
tayee sain samay kaya, heeraan janeen had-a
Jam partai-n lad-a, sayeed chavay

[Refrain] Khuta keenjhar keenaray, tamboo tamachee jam jaa

you are samoo royalty
I am a mohanee, a fisherwoman
full of countless blemishes
my poverty and condition, you are all aware

in the name of the lord,
do not forsake me for my predicament

[refrain] the royal entourage of jaam tamachee arrives at the banks of keenjhar

the princesses in the harem,
decked up with flowers in sweet splendour
all eager for Jaam's approval, yearning his favor

[refrain] the royal entourage of jaam tamachee arrives at the banks of keenjhar

foul smelling fishing nets and baskets
as their sole possession
this poor lot
prince jaam has accepted as kin
for the sake of love

[refrain] the royal entourage of jaam tamachee arrives at the banks of keenjhar

Sufi interpretation of the story of Nooree-Jaam Tamachee is that the Lord accepts as chosen ones, those who lead simple lives. Simplicity and humility are dear to the Lord and these were the qualities of the Prophet. I rather like the obvious, the direct story telling of love between a man and a woman beyond social mores and stigmas

Bullay Shah - The humanist

2011-04-13T16:39:00.002+05:00

it is a good day when a casual conversation with a colleague produces the following email which i am quoting with his permission

"Music is independent of race, nationality, creed, religion.. I have Sanskrit shlokas, Madagascan folk songs, Buddhist chants, Native American chants in my music collection. I am trying to live according to the ideal that Baba Bulleh Shah put forth so succinctly:

Chal way Bulleyah, uthay chaleyay
Jithay saaray annhay
Na koi saadi zaat pichanray
Na koi sannu mannay

Arise O Bulleh and an abode find
Whose denizens are none, save the blind
Where thy race and creed are a path untrodden
Where thou art one of the forgotten"

Compassion

2011-03-15T17:18:00.002+05:00

The OUP featured Karen Armstrong recently and she gave a inspiring speech on the need for compassion in our lives. here is an earlier interview that i was fortunate to find on the net.

BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the JOURNAL. Karen Armstrong's life, as you will soon learn, was turned around by of all things, a footnote. When this former nun fled the convent and became a scholar of literature at Oxford, she thought she'd put all things theological well behind her. But, as the saying goes, if you want to make God laugh, tell Him, or Her, your plans.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: So can I ask you what you think about the Pope?

BILL MOYERS: Next thing you know, Armstrong was creating documentaries about religion and making comments like this:

KAREN ARMSTRONG: The Pope is the world's last, great, absolute monarch. He not only controls doctrinal and spiritual affairs, but also the political, social and economic fortunes of his church. And because he's believed to be directly guided by God, his decisions have the ring of absolute truth, which is strangely out of kilter with the democratic tenor of today's world.

BILL MOYERS: While working on a film in Jerusalem, the ancient city where Islam, Judaism and Christianity converge, the connections among that trio of faiths rekindled Armstrong's imagination and led to another new career.
She became one of the foremost, and most original, thinkers on religion in our modern world. Her many popular books include studies of Muhammad and Islam, the crusades, the ambitiously titled A HISTORY OF GOD and her latest, THE BIBLE.
A self-proclaimed "freelance monotheist," Karen Armstrong is now on a mission to bring compassion, the heart of religion, as she sees it, back into modern life.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Well this is such an honor.

BILL MOYERS: Last year, at an annual gathering of the leaders in technology, entertainment and design, she received their highly prestigious TED Prize, a $100,000 cash award that, like the genie in the lamp, also grants the recipient a wish.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: I wish that you would help with the creation, launch and propagation of a Charter for Compassion -- crafted by a group of inspirational thinkers from the three Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and based on the fundamental principle of the Golden Rule.

BILL MOYERS: The Golden Rule: "Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you." That universal principle of empathy and respect is at the core of all major religions.

Karen Armstrong's Charter for Compassion was launched last year with an interactive website, charterforcompassion.org. There, people of all faiths can submit their ideas about what the Charter should say.

Recently, she traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, and gathered with a group of international religious leaders to draft the guiding principles of her charter for compassion. Karen Armstrong, it's good to see you again.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: It's great to be back. Thank you.

BILL MOYERS: So tell us what you're up to with this movement.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Well, my work has continually brought me back to the notion of compassion. Whichever religious tradition I study, I find that the heart of it is the idea of feeling with the other, experiencing with the other, compassion. And every single one of the major world religions has developed its own version of the Golden Rule. Don't do to others what you would not like them to do to you.
You see, the Greeks too, they may have been not religious in our sense, but they understood about compassion. The institution of tragedy put suffering on stage. And the leader of the chorus would ask the audience to weep for people, even like Heracles, who had been driven mad by a goddess and slew his own wife and children.
And the Greeks did weep. They didn't just, like modern western men, wipe a tear from the corner of their eye and gulp hard. They cried aloud because they felt that weeping together created a bond between human beings. And that the idea is you were learning to put yourself in the position of another and reach out, not only to acceptable people, people in your own group, but to your enemies, to people that you wouldn't normally have any deep truck with at all.

BILL MOYERS: So this is not just another call for another round of interfaith dialogue?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: No, it's nothing to do with interfaith dialogue. Look, I'm not expecting the whole world to fall into a daze of compassion.

BILL MOYERS: Oh, I don't think you have to worry about that.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: But this is the beginning of something. We're writing a charter which we hope will be sort of like the charter of human rights, two pages only. Saying that compassion is far more important than belief. That it is the essence of religion. All the traditions teach that it is the practice of compassion and honoring the sacred in the other that brings us into the presence of what we call God, Nirvana, Raman, or Tao. And people are remarkably uneducated about compassion these days. So we want to bring it back to the center of attention. But then, it's got to be incarnated into practical action.

BILL MOYERS: Do you think, for example, that Osama Bin Laden and the Radical Islamists will sign onto this?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Of course not. But we have to understand that Osama Bin Laden and the radical Islamists are largely motivated by politics. They may express themselves in a religious idiom.

BILL MOYERS: As many of those suicide bombers did as they dived into the World Trade Center.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: They did. But their motivation, when you read Osama's declarations and the suicide videos of our own London bombers are all political. Their grievances are political.

BILL MOYERS: Were you there when London was bombed?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: I was right in the middle of it.

BILL MOYERS: What was your reaction?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: I thought that this was virtually inevitable. This is a political matter. And Tony Blair had put us right on the front line by joining with former President Bush. And we were all expecting this in London. There was no great surprise.
I was actually in the British library, right next to the King's Cross station, so it was a police zone. And we had to stay in there all day. We weren't allowed out. We didn't know quite what was happening. It was announced over the Tannoy that we were in a terrorist attack. There we were with true British phlegm still fussing about our footnotes. And--

BILL MOYERS: Did this diminish or strengthen your resolve on this issue of compassion?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: We've got to do better than this. Compassion doesn't mean feeling sorry for people. It doesn't mean pity. It means putting yourself in the position of the other, learning about the other. Learning what's motivating the other, learning about their grievances. So the Charter of Compassion was to recall compassion from the sidelines, to which it's often put in religious discourse and put it back there.
BILL MOYERS: One of your peers, a friend of mine, the scholar of religion Elaine Pagels told me many years ago in an interview like this that, "There is practically no religion I know of," she said, "that sees other people in the way that affirms the other's choice."

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Yes. And this is a great scandal. There used to be. Islam, for example, the Koran is a pluralistic document. It says that every rightly guided religion comes from God. And there must be no compulsion in religion. And it says that Muhammad has not come to cancel out the teachings of Jesus or Moses or Abraham.
Now, Muslims have fallen into the trap that Jews, Christians, and others have done, of thinking that they are the one and only. This is ego. This is pure ego.

BILL MOYERS: But it's inspired, is it not sanctified by religion?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Well, no, I mean, the idea is that you all have to be Muslim, is actually going against the explicit teaching of the Koran, in which God says to Muhammad, "If we"-- using the royal we - "had wanted the whole of mankind to be in one single religious community, we would have achieved, we would have made that happen. But we did not so wish. This is not our desire. So you, Muhammad, leave them alone." And everybody says the Koran has their own din. Their own religious tradition, their own way of life.
Now, this is getting lost to the modern world. But that was also Muslim practice for the first 100 years after the death of the prophet when in the empire that they created, conversion to Islam was actually frowned upon. Because Jews and Christians and Zoroastrians and, later, Buddhists, had their own din, their own religion. And that was to be respected.
BILL MOYERS: But you're putting your finger on a real fault line, it seems to me. That, metaphorically, the language of violence, which goes all the way back in these ancient stories, whether they're true or not, and often invoke God for the sanctification of violent acts.
I mean, in this splendid book that you've done recently, THE BIBLE: A BIOGRAPHY, you quote, for example, from Joshua, "When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai, in the open ground. And where they follow them into the wilderness, and when all to a man had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel return to Ai and slaughtered all its people. All the people of Ai."
You go to the Koran. You have quoted this too, where the Koran paints a picture. You know, "Allah has sealed their hearings and their hearts. And on their eyes, there is a covering. Theirs will be an awful doom." When you talk about the positive and affirmative side of even these texts, there is also a counter prevailing side that creates this fault line.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Yeah. These scriptures all have these difficult passages. There's far more of that kind of stuff in the bible, both old and new testaments--
BILL MOYERS: Right.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: --than there is in the Koran. Now, one of the things that I am going to call for in this Charter are for exegetes, cause the people who interpret scripture, to look at these passages. See how they came into the tradition in the first place. What were the circumstances in which they appeared? What influence they have on the tradition as a whole? And now, what do we do with them? Really study them in depth. How do we deal with them in this age where scripture is the-

BILL MOYERS: By exegetes, you mean the scholars and students and interpreters or every faith?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Every faith. Yes. And that we must, first of all, study our own scriptures, before we point a finger at other people.

BILL MOYERS: You ask the question, "What would it mean to interpret the whole of the Bible as a commentary on the Golden Rule?"

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Yes.

BILL MOYERS: What's your answer to that question?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Well, this is one of the things that really intrigued me when I was researching this book. How frequently the early rabbis, for example, in the Talmudic period, shortly after the death of Jesus, insisted that to any interpretation of scripture that read hatred or contempt for any single human being was illegitimate.
Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, said that when asked to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching, while he stood on one leg, said, "The Golden Rule. That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. And everything else is only commentary. Now, go and study it."
St. Augustine said that scripture teaches nothing but charity. And if you come to a passage like the one you just read, that seems to preach hatred, you've got to give it an allegorical or metaphorical interpretation. And make it speak of charity.
BILL MOYERS: But of course, what some people do is to read for their own purposes what--

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Exactly.

BILL MOYERS: --they call allegorical. And then, read literally what they want to apply in their--

KAREN ARMSTRONG: And of course, you have to understand that this tendency to read scripture in a literal manner is very recent.

BILL MOYERS: Right.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Nobody, for example, ever thought of interpreting the first chapter of Genesis as a literal account of the origins of life, until the modern period. It's our scientific mindset that makes us want to sort of read these texts for accurate information.

BILL MOYERS: But as stories, don't they still have a very powerful effect? I mean, for example, you and I both know that the first murder in the oldest story grows out of a religious act.
Cain and Abel are brothers. They're rivals for God's favor. And out of jealously, Cain kills Abel. And once that pattern is set, it is followed right through like a red thread. Ishmael and Isaac and Joseph and his brothers. Right on down to Christians versus Muslims, Muslims versus Jews. Christians versus everybody. I mean, this is deeply embedded, is it not, metaphorically in our imagination?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: I think these are difficult texts. We read these texts as though they're easy. Now, I see Genesis as deconstructing a neat idea of God.

BILL MOYERS: What do you mean deconstructing?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: First, in the chapter one, you've got the famous chapter, where God's sitting in the universe, center stage, totally powerful, totally benign, blessing everything. All that he has made and, no favorites, impartial. Totally powerful, totally benign. Within two chapters, he's completely lost control of his creation. Then, you've got the impartial God turns out to be a God that has real favorites.
And the Bible makes you feel the pain of the ones that are rejects. When Esau cries out, "Oh Father," to Isaac, "Have you no blessing for me, Father?" And Hagar, Abraham's second wife, who runs up and down outside in distress when Abraham has been commanded to leave her in the desert. And then, God, the benign creator becomes God the destroyer, at the end of the flood. And by the end of Genesis, he's retired from the scene.
And Joseph and his brothers have to rely on their own insights and dreams, just as we do. You can't say what God is. That is, people often ask me, "Ms. Armstrong, do you or do you not believe in the God of the Bible?" And I always say, "Tell me what it is." I'll be fascinated to hear because the Bible is a highly contradictory. What it shows, I think, is that our experience of the divine is ambiguous, complex.
We can misunderstand it. We can use it to create mayhem because of our own horrible sort of murderous tendencies. And there are no clear answers, no clear theology in the Bible.

BILL MOYERS: Spoken like a true Protestant, if I may say. I mean, those of us who believe we are, in effect, the editors of our own sacred text. That gets us in trouble.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: But-

BILL MOYERS: But that's what you're saying.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: But it shouldn't be because in the pre-modern world, you were expected to find new meaning in scripture.

BILL MOYERS: The pre-modern world being...

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Before the 17th century. You have the beginning of the scientific revolution in Europe in the 16th century. And that starts changing everything. A different economy, a much more literal approach to life. And the scientists, people like Newton, start to write theology. And the churches seize upon this and they start thinking that the Bible is literally and factually true.
But in the pre-modern world, what you see are the early Christian and Jewish commentators saying you must find new meaning in the Bible. And the rabbis would change the words of scripture to make a point to their pupils. Origen, the great second or third century Greek commentator on the Bible said that it is absolutely impossible to take these texts literally. You simply cannot do so. And he said, "God has put these sort of conundrums and paradoxes in so that we are forced to seek a deeper meaning."
And the Koran is the same. The Koran says every single one of its verses is an ayah, a symbol or a parable. Because you can only talk about God analogically, in terms of signs and symbols.
You must go to the bible and find new meaning, they said. And the same was true of the Greeks. At the beginning of the rationalist tradition in Greece, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the people who commented on them didn't sort of take down everything they did slavishly. They used it as a springboard to have new insights in the presence. Rather as we might use weights at the gym to build up our strength. They use it as something to start them thinking. But the Rabbis used to say, "You may not leave a scripture or text until you have translated it into practical action for the community here and now."

BILL MOYERS: Meaning acts of kindness, acts of compassion.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Acts of compassion.

BILL MOYERS: Acts of justice. Right?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Yes. Absolutely.

BILL MOYERS: We are all indebted to those Hebrew Prophets for this powerful resonating sense of social justice.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: And the Rabbis who came after them in the Talmudic age, and who created the Mishnah and Talmud, as it were then, New Testament, that paid very little attention to the Hebrew scriptures. But said, "Now we have to move on." Now,
we've lost that confidence.
And that's what the charter is trying to do. Trying to nudge people into the hard work of being compassionate. People don't want to be compassionate. When I go around lecturing about this, I sometimes see the good faithful, looking mutinous. Because they may know that they ought to be compassionate. But what's the fun of religion if you can't sort of slam down other people? This is ego.

BILL MOYERS: I'm glad you mentioned this, because I know many atheists and agnostics who are more faithful, if that's the right term, to the Golden Rule than a lot of believing religious people.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Yes. And I also know a number of atheists who have no time for the Golden Rule at all.

BILL MOYERS: Exactly.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: So this is just people of all-

BILL MOYERS: But what is it that evokes the empathy and the commitment, which you're calling for, to people to put themselves in other's shoes. What is it that evokes that in people?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Basically a sense of urgent need. If we don't manage to do better than this both within our own communities, our own nations, and as regards other nations far away, then I think we are in for a very troublesome ride. We are not doing well at the moment. The three monotheisms, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, they have besetting problem, a besetting tendency. That is idolatry. Taking a human idea, a human idea of God, a human doctrine and making it absolute. Putting it in the place of God. Now, there have been secular idolatries too. Nationalism was a great idolatry.

BILL MOYERS: The state can be-

KAREN ARMSTRONG: The state can be. This is what we do. As Paul Tillich said, "We are makers of idols." We are constantly creating these idols. Erecting a purely human ideal or a human value or a human idea to the supreme reality. Now, once you've made of something essentially finite, once you've made it an absolute, it has, then, to destroy any other rival claimants. Because there can only be one absolute.

BILL MOYERS: Who created God?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Human beings created the idea of God. But the transcendence reality to which the idea of God nudges us, is embedded in part of the human experience.

BILL MOYERS: But if we create God, then we can read into God. Our-

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Yes.

BILL MOYERS: -passions, jealousies, envies, animosities, aspirations.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Yes and this is idolatry. When you are creating a God in your own image and likeness. When the crusaders went into battle with the cry, "God wills it," on their lips. They were projecting their own fear and loathing of these rival faiths onto other people. And we get a lot of secular people doing this too.

BILL MOYERS: With the Stalinists, the Communists, the fascists-

KAREN ARMSTRONG: And even nearer here in the United States. You know, we've got people saying, "We want to get rid of religion." Or Radical Republicans slanging Democrats. We are very agonistic society.

BILL MOYERS: Agonistic?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Meaning competitive. That we're in our discourse. Can I just say-

BILL MOYERS: Yes.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Let me say this. In our discourse, it is not enough for us in the western democratic tradition simply to seek the truth. We also have to defeat and humiliate our opponents. And that happens in politics. It happens in the law courts. It happens in religious discourse. It happens in the media. It happens in academia. Very different from Socrates, the founder of the rationalist tradition, who when you had dialogues with Socrates, you came thinking that you knew what you were talking about.
Half an hour later, with Socrates, you realized you didn't know anything at all. And at that moment, says Socrates, your-- quest can begin. You can become a philosopher, a lover of wisdom because you know you don't have wisdom. You love it. You seek it. And you had to go into a dialogue prepared to change, not to bludgeon your conversation partner into accepting your point of view. And every single point in a Socratic dialogue, you offer your opinion kindly to the other, and the other accepts it with kindness.

BILL MOYERS: But you can't have a dialogue with people who don't want to have-

KAREN ARMSTRONG: No.

BILL MOYERS: -a dialogue.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: But that doesn't mean we should give up altogether. Because I think the so called liberals can also be just as hard lined in their own way.
Most fundamentalist movements, in every tradition that I've studied, in every fundamentalist movement, in Judaism, Christianity and Islam has begun with what is perceived as to be an assault by the liberal or secular establishment. And look at your Scopes Trial for example. You have this absurd ruling of ban on evolution in the public schools. And after the trial, the secular press do a number on the fundamentalists.

BILL MOYERS: H.L. Menken was ruthless about them-

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: -in depicting a caricaturing of them.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: And they crept away. And we thought we'd seen the end of them. But of course, they were just regrouping. But before the Scopes Trial, fundamentalists had often been on the left of the political spectrum.
Prepared to work alongside socialists and alongside social gospel people in the slums of the newly developing industrialized cities. After the Scopes Trial, they swung to the far right, where they remain. Before Scopes, fundamentalists tended to be literal in their interpretation of scripture. But creation science, so called, was the pursuit of a very tiny minority.
After the Scopes Trial they became more militant in their literal interpretation of scripture. And creation science became, and has remained, the flagship of their movement.

BILL MOYERS: So does your notion of compassion embrace liberals saying that, in the interest of harmony we will encourage our state schools to teach creationism alongside with your Darwin's-

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Yeah, you see-

BILL MOYERS: -notion of evolution?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: You see, the assault of Richard Dawkins on creationism has resulted, for the first time, in a worry about Darwin in the Muslim world. Up until this time--

BILL MOYERS: What do you mean?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: There was no worry about Darwin in the Muslim world up until very recently. The Koran doesn't say how God created the world. The texts tell you this is an ayah. We don't know what happened. And there was just no problem about it.
Now, and I get to see it on the websites that I get, it's headline news that British scientists sort of slangs creation. And Darwin has now become an anathema as a result of that assault. So I think we've all just got to come off our high horses a bit.
I think just to cool down the rhetoric. I think that truth must be respected. There must be an openness towards science, as Saint Augustine pointed out years ago.
He said, "If a religious text is found to contradict contemporary science, you must find a new interpretation for this text." You must allegorize it in some way. We need to get back to that. And let's just state I don't want this to be going after the fundamentalists. I don't want this to be going after extremists. I want this to just say, quietly, let us to remember the primal duty of compassion.

BILL MOYERS: Which is?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: To put the words calm and passion, means to feel with the other. To experience with the other. Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you. If you don't like to be attacked, don't attack others. As Confucius said, who was the first to propound the Golden Rule, 500 years before Christ, you seek to establish yourself, then seek to establish others.
If you don't like hearing your own traditions traduced then have the discipline not to traduce the traditions of others. And it's hard. It's hard. It's not- people who say it's a simplistic idea, obviously, never tried to practice the Golden Rule. As Confucius said, "All day and every day." Which means that you constantly have to dethrone yourself and your own ideas from the center of your world and put another there. And realize that even in the most unlikely person there is a trace of the divine.

BILL MOYERS: We'll be back shortly with more of my conversation with Karen Armstrong. We'll discuss Islam, one of her favorite subjects, and how a footnote changed her life. But first, this is the time we remind you that you are the public in Public Television. Please take a moment to call this station and make a pledge. We need you now more than ever. Thank you.

BILL MOYERS: Welcome back and thanks for your support. I'm here with the scholar and historian of religion, Karen Armstrong. Her latest book is THE BIBLE: A BIOGRAPHY, but it was this one, MUHAMMAD: A BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROPHET, that first got everyone's attention. When it was published in 1991, PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY called it "Engrossing," and The ECONOMIST praised the book as "Knowledgeable without being pedantic... and readable." Armstrong's work was even welcomed in the Muslim world, where readers sensitive to misinterpretation of their faith were surprised to learn a westerner, and a woman at that, could so gracefully capture the essence of Islam's founding prophet.

Karen, you were just in Pakistan...

KAREN ARMSTRONG: I was indeed.

BILL MOYERS: Did you get any kind of response when you raised this subject?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Well, I had an immensely warm welcome in Pakistan. One woman came up to me and she said, "When I see you with your blond hair and blue eyes speaking with such respect about our prophet, I just weep."

BILL MOYERS: But what do they say about their own militants?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Well they are--

BILL MOYERS: Those insurgents who are, you know, slitting the throats of many Pakistanis right now.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Indeed-

BILL MOYERS: Decapitating them, murdering them, suicide bombers.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: What do they say about them?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: They're appalled of course. And you know, they've just had their own sort of 9/11, with the bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad. Not an anti-American thing. This was directed solely against Pakistani Muslims who were breaking their Ramadan fast there.
The Marriott Hotel in Islamabad is right next to the government buildings. It's a great icon in Islamabad. This was a massive attack on their own people. I went to see President Musharraf, and he said that of course, Muslims themselves are under attack from these militants because all fundamentalists movements, whether they're Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Sikh or Buddhist, begin with an assault on their own co-religionists. They see that people are always saying, "What can't these mainstream Muslims keep the militants down?"
Well, the militants regard the mainstream Muslims with absolute disdain and see them as part of the problem. They're not interested in people studying the Koran or praying in the mosque in the usual way. These are political activists.

BILL MOYERS: Can you point today to one place where this notion of compassion has been embraced by different religions to actually bring about a political consequence that we could look upon favorably?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Not as yet. No, I can't, because we're not living in a compassionate society, whether we're talking in a secular or religious terms. You know, look at the way, sometimes, your elections are carried on. With real slanging matches and discrediting.

BILL MOYERS: That's politics.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Yeah. That's politics. And what is a lot of this religious slanging, but religious politics? Many of the so called religious leaders are in power not because they are sages of wisdom or contemplatives. They're not Dalai Lamas. They are religious politicians who are not known for their lack of ego.
But basically the human race has never embraced compassion. Why did we create this compassionate ideal at the time of the--when all the great world religions were created? Because their societies had reached a point of violence. And this--the religious people said, people like the Buddha, Confucius, the Sages of the Upanishads , the Prophets of Israel, Socrates, they all said this aggression, even in a good cause, is not the way to go. And people found that when they did it all day and every day, it worked. Because you get rid of ego, it does bring you a sense of enlightenment. But it's not just a question of holding hands in church. Or you know, embracing when you make the peace. Or allowing a charitable thought to rise to your mind in a sporadic moment. It is a discipline that you have to practice all day and every day. I used, you know, to be a really spiteful human being.

BILL MOYERS: No.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: I learned a vicious form of rhetoric from my religious superiors. and also, from my teachers at Oxford. You know? And people used to say to me, "I would really hate to be your enemy," because I have this very sharp tongue that I knew how to use it. And I get in first before someone put me down. That kind of thing.
I found that, in my studies I had to practice, what I found called in a footnote the "science of compassion." There was a phrase coined by great Islamist, Louis Massignon. Science, not in the sense of physics or chemistry but in the sense of knowledge, scientia, the Latin word for knowledge.
And Latin--the knowledge acquired by compassion. Feeling with the other. Putting yourself in the position of the other. And this footnote said that a religious historian, like myself, must not approach the spiritualities of the past from the vantage point of post enlightenment rationalism. You mustn't look on this in a superior way and look at the author of "The Cloud of Unknowing," a 14th century text as, poor soul. You know?
And you had to recreate in a scholarly fashion, all the circumstances which had resulted in this spirituality or this teaching and not leave it, or certainly not write about it, until you can imagine yourself putting yourself in that position. Imagine yourself feeling the same. So when I wrote about Muhammad, for example, I had to put myself in the position of a man living in the hell of seventh century Arabia, who sincerely believed he had been touched by God.
And unless I did that, I would miss Muhammad. I had to put clever Karen, edgy Oxford educated Karen on the back burner. And go out of myself and enter into the mind of the other. And I found, much to my astonishment, it started changing me. I couldn't any longer be quite as vicious as I was or dismissive as I was in the kind of clever conversations-

BILL MOYERS: Why? This is the first time I've heard of a born again experience beginning with a footnote. Was it your imagination that said, "I have to see this world the way Muhammad saw it and experienced it?"

KAREN ARMSTRONG: I said that this footnote is right. If I go on writing, as I had been doing up to this point for saying, "This is all rubbish." You know, I know it all. These poor benighted souls in the past didn't know what they were talking about. I was not fulfilling my job as a historian.
It was my job to go in and recreate it, enter into that spirit. Leave myself behind and enter into the mind and society and outlook of the other. It's a form of what the Greeks called ekstasis. Ecstasy. That doesn't mean you go into a trance or have a vision. It means-- ekstasis means standing outside yourself. Putting yourself behind. And it is self, it's ego that hold us back from what we call God.

BILL MOYERS: You speak of the change in you. You're talking about a personal transformation. But take the next step. What would bring about the kind of real change in society and in politics that would be an extrapolation of or a continuation in community of what you're talking about?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Okay. Not to treat other nations or other... in a way that we would not wish to be treated ourselves.

BILL MOYERS: Unless they've attacked you.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Even so, I mean, there was a chance after 9/11, you know, when something different would have been done. The religions have generally developed, as the Koran does, a theory of just war. You know? That you can fight only in self defense. But a lot of the policies that we created helped to, you know, first of all, let's leave America out of this. Look at the British, and their colonial policies.
Many of the problems we face in the Muslim world date back to that colonial period, to British behavior, and arrogance, and the abuse of democracy. For example, in Egypt, between 1922, when Egypt was granted a modicum of independence, and 1952, when you have the Nasser revolution. There were 17 general elections in the country.
All of them won hands down by the Wafd party, who wanted to see reduced British influence in Egypt. They were only allowed to rule five times. On every other occasion, the British made them stand down and put more congenial people in power. This made the whole idea of democracy a bad joke. Now, would we wish to be treated like that ourselves?
BILL MOYERS: Now, this is what some people call blow back, in the intelligence world. And some people say, "Are the chickens coming home to roost?" But I want to make sure that people don't misunderstand. After 9/11, we made a mistake of invading a country that had not attacked us.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Yes.

BILL MOYERS: But what about when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor or when the Germans, the Nazis wanted to come across the channel and destroy Britain? You're not saying they're to treat Germany or Japan the way we would like to be treated.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: No, but you fight in self-defense. And the trouble with war is it has a horrible dynamic of its own. So that, in the end, we all start doing dreadful things that-

BILL MOYERS: That's right.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: That violate all our own principles. Like the British bombing of Dresden, for example.

BILL MOYERS: The American bombing of Hiroshima.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Exactly.

BILL MOYERS: Nagasaki. The atrocities of both sides-

KAREN ARMSTRONG: That's what happens when in war. So that's why they say you-- the Koran, for example, says you must limit war and you must stop hostilities as soon as the enemy sues for peace. That kind of thing. But instead of seeing the other world as them, or instead of seeing our own fundamentalists as them and enemies, somehow learn to see, perhaps, the pain that lies at the root of a lot of this because they feel attacked by us. I was once in a - recently some years back -- in a conference in Portland where a man got up and started shrieking at us, saying that the Jews and the Christians and the Muslims on the stage who were agreed with each other were all going to hell.
And I could hear the pain in that man's voice. That, at some level, we had assaulted him. At some profound level. There was pain there. In a war situation, it takes a long time before you can even get people to sit around the table. In Northern Ireland, for example, before you could get people on all sides, the British and the Republicans and the IRA and the Ulsteristes to get them around the table was an immense achievement.
People said when they saw everybody coming up this drive of Stormont Castle and sitting around that table, the emotion in that room in itself was profound. We're not nearly there yet. One of the things that we can do on our side is to learn to decode fundamentalist rhetoric. As we learn to decipher a great poem or an op-ed article. To see the hidden agendas. To see what lies underneath this. Because they are expressive of a fear and rage that no society, as we've seen, can safely ignore.
BILL MOYERS: What is it--you've studied this--what is it fundamentalist Muslims fear about the world?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Basically they have experienced secularism as a profound assault. We had 300 years to develop our secular institutions. Modernization in Europe, and later the United States took a long time. And the new ideas had a chance to trickle down naturally to all different levels of society. They didn't have that chance. Modernization had to take place very quickly. So that, for example, when Ataturk modernized Turkey, he closed down all the Madrassas. He-

BILL MOYERS: The religious schools.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: The religious schools. He forced the Sufi orders, mystics, underground and forced all men and women to wear western clothes. In Iran, the Shahs used to make their soldiers go out with their bayonets, taking off the women's veils in the streets, and ripping them to pieces in front of them. In 1935, the Shah gave his soldiers orders to shoot at hundreds of unarmed demonstrators in one of the holiest shrines in Iran who were peacefully protesting against western dress.
And hundred of Iranians were killed that day. Now, in such a context, secularism doesn't seem the benign ideology that it has been for privileged people, like you and me. It feels like a dead, lethal assault. The most virulent forms of Sunni fundamentalism in Islam developed in the concentration camps, and to which President Nasser had interred thousands of members of the Muslim Brotherhood without trial.
Submitted them to mental and physical torture and execution. Some of them had done nothing more incriminating than handing out leaflets. And in these camps, they became radicalized. One of them was a man called Sayyid Qutb, who entered the camp as a moderate, a student of French and European literature. When he heard Nasser vowing to secularize Egypt and confine Islam to the private sphere on the western model, he looked around this prison. And secularism did not seem benign. It seemed lethal.
And there's something else. There's been a Gallup poll that asked Muslims what they liked most about the West. And what the biggest thing that they all liked was our freedom. They'd like to see more of it themselves. What do they fear most about the West? What do they dislike most about the West?
What worries them most? Their disrespect for our religion. And when they hear ill considered, uneducated remarks about their religion, this is a gift to the extremists who can use it to show that the West is making a crusade against Islam. And it's also endangering our own security.

BILL MOYERS: But the burden is not wholly on the West, is it?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: We have to do our part. And not exaggerate things. This survey also asked--in 35 Muslim countries, it asked them whether they thought the 9/11 attacks were justified. Only seven percent said they were justified. And the reasons they gave were entirely political. Palestine. You know, the Iraq--sanctions in Iraq, et cetera. The occupation of Muslim lands.
These 93, or 92, percent who said they were not justifiable may not have liked western foreign policy. But what they said was their rational for condemning these attacks was religious. They quoted those parts of their scripture which says that to take one life is to take an entire world. That to kill is not justified. We've got to see that. And we've got to see that reflected more in our own press and in our own dealings with this. Otherwise, we're going to build up a bogey, as we did with the Soviets.

BILL MOYERS: Your new book, "The Case for God," comes out in September.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: It does.

BILL MOYERS: Will you come back?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: I'd love to.

BILL MOYERS: In the meantime, we have Karen Armstrong's, "The Bible: A Biography." Thank you very much. It's been good to talk to you again.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Thank you, Bill.

Moomal Rano - Faquir Juman Shah; the faquirs of Bhitshah

2010-06-22T10:31:00.002+05:00

Jury is out on the Episode 2 of Coke Studion season III

Thought faquir Juman Shah performed brilliantly as he had had to squeeze the vaee to less than 7 minutes whereas their live performances can stretch for hours.

In the track, Moomal is pleading Rano for his forgiveness. The faquirs of BhitShah use feminine intonation & mimic heroines of Shah's risalo be it Noori, Moomal, Sasui, Marvi.

The female character, her pleading, her search is the key to Shah Latif's message of search for Truth/God, finding approval, solace in blessings of the Prophet. Please read about these stories & this type of music will start making sense.

it is a form of music that grows on you. i understand people may not be able to relate to the higher ptich but i can ask the listeners to remember that despite being a piece of music that speaks of love between Moomal and Rano, a story of our cultural heritage made immemorable by Shah Latif, all these verses are steeped in sufi interpretations that speak about the good Lord and His Prophet at a larger level.

The track is as follows

I had earlier uploaded the love story previously on this blog which is being reproduced

Love Stories of the Risalo of Shah Latif - Moomal Rano

Sur Mumal Rano has captured the imagination of readers & "Rano" has, more than being one character of this love story and a sur named after him, become a favorite musical piece which is this sur rendered in a semi-classical style, the experts of this genre being Ustaad Manzoor Ali Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, Abida Parveen & Ustaad Mohammad Juman to name a few

Moomal-Rano

The story begins with the description of the charms, clothes and perfume adorning Mumal and her sisters and attendants as they weave a web of magic in the Kak palace to attract rich suitors for the hand of Mumal, deprive them of their wealth and also finish them off in a maze of labyrinths, fake ponds and other illusions of the palace.

The reputation of this palace, and of Mumal’s dazzling beauty soon became legend. Hamir alias Umar, the last Soomro King of Umer Kot in Sindh, and his three ministers, all Sodhas by caste were attracted to the magical Kak.

One of the ministers was the young Rano alias Mendhro. Hamir attempted to reach the palace but failed. The other ministers, too, failed. Rano then ventured to try his luck. He was an extremely intelligent and courageous man which led him to succeed in reaching the palace, unharmed. Mumal was so impressed that she accepted her as her consort. He spent the night at the palace and returned to Umer Kot in the morning. He covered long distance from Umer Kot to Kak to spend time with Mumal.

One day, Rano reached Kak Mahal unusually late due to some business that he had to attend to. Mumal got so frustrated that she planned to play a trick on him. She dressed her Sumal in a man’s attire and made her sleep by her side. When Rano arrived, he mistook Sumal as a Mumal’s paramour.

Out of disgust he left his riding cane besides Mumal’s bed and returned to Umer Kot. Mumal pleaded Rano to forgive her but Rano ignored her requests.

Out of desperation, she set a fire and jumped in it. When Rano came to know of this, he rushed to the place where he saw that Mumal was already in flames, he joined her to be consumed by the fire along with Mumal.

[Taken from Agha M. Yaqoob's 3 volume translation of the Risalo with minor editing]

As indicated above, Rano is now sung during mehfils and it is most frequently requested musical piece in a mehfil of kafi genre.

what better way to conclude, this story of eternal quest for love, to capture the essence of this sur by a verse that encapsulates Moomal's anguish, her waiting for her raano

vaithee nit-u nihaaray-aan, raana tohinjee raah
mota-aay maagan tay, aaranduoee Allah
rana togar saah, nat-a rana ghara-n raaj main

Urdu translation by Agha Saleem

taktee hoon din raat ay raana
main to tairee raah
aik din tukh jo layay ga
aangan main Allah

English translation by yours truly

lonesome I sit
eyes fixed on ever path
combing alleyways
that could lead you to me

my soul in a prayer, sweet prince
that the Lord blesses your safe return

love, there are many a prince in this land
but you are the one that rules my heart

Kh. Ghulam Farid & Pathanay Khan

2010-04-01T00:49:00.003+05:00

All time favorite Kh Ghulam Farid kafi by the legendary Pathanay khan; this link has the best translation i have seen in years. Pathanay khan's (PK) intro verse comes from a different kafi and this is why we do not see this kafi translated as it was covered by PK doing justice to the greatest most important piece of our sufi tradition.

Khamosh Tamashai has done complete justice & deserve our sincere thanks. Only part 1 has the translation & I have requested him/her to upload part 2 with translation; part 2 is still available on youtube but without translation.

before a storm

2010-03-29T01:08:00.002+05:00

a strange calm has descended; feel floating in air oblivious of the mess all around; somehow one dies a little every passing day ignoring the mess that keeps piling up

perhaps this desensitizing is good so as to focus on things that matter...

call of the swan

2010-02-19T19:06:00.005+05:00

i am completely hooked to this raga

i wonder if hansadhawani is a combination of hansa meaning swan and dhan which is sindhi for crying sound or complain/call hence call of the swan

in any case, semantics being irrelevant when faced with sheer beauty, i am presenting favorite samples of the raga; my favourite being ustaad amir khan and ustad rashid ali khan

now to my favorite pakistani band

and then ustad amir khan

i actually like this version a lot

Good Article on Pakistan and "realpolitik"

2009-11-25T13:50:00.003+05:00

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/03-Dear-Hillary-which-Pakistan-are-you-talking-about-ss-01

&

http://www.thesamosa.co.uk/

"Osama Bin Laden resides in Pakistan"

So goes the mantra of the US government. This is followed by the assertion that ‘Mullah Omar’ resides in Pakistan. Both might be true. My cousin, who lives in Sindh province, was given the first name ‘Osama’ and certainly in a country full of mullahs there must be a few hundred conjunctions of Mullah and Omar ... giving us many Mullah Omars in the Islamic Republic.

Another mantra – that of most mainstream western media outlets – is to present Pakistan as a country on the brink of failure and sunk in violence. This is aptly summed up in the Newsweek headline of Pakistan as ‘the most dangerous place in the world’. And there is, again, partial truth in this. Besides the occasional US drone attacks, the US-sponsored renditions, MI5/ISI torture nexuses and Taliban attacks, the gravest danger we face is in crossing the roads – road accidents in our country are among the highest in the world.

It simply is not a safe place to be, nor is Pakistan a state that we Pakistanis can run ... we are corrupt, violent, harbourers of terrorists (in the same way Saddam harboured nuclear bombs) and simply do not understand Islam (which, as the US State Department and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office via their spokespersons at the Quilliam Foundation will tell you, is a religion of peace and in harmony with Western foreign policy!) In fact, the Quran enjoins us to servitude to the US State Department. So goes the line of these sponsored Muslim spokespersons.

US governments and their aides in the Western media know realpolitik. The image systematically created of Pakistan by these sources has an operative function of furthering US and Nato intervention in this region. The logic is simple but all the premises are false and based on a distortion of facts, history and most conceptions of justice – Christian, Islamic, liberal and Marxist.

It runs thus: America has a right to pre-emptive action against those planning to attack it or its interests. Islamists are planning to attack America or its interests. Pakistan harbours Islamists. Therefore, America has a right to pre-emptive action against the Islamists harboured in Pakistan. I do not believe that the State Department or the FCO care much for Pakistan, its people, or its realities – the US has a long history of murdering the people of the Third World, from the Philippines and Vietnam to Iraq and Pakistan today - for them it’s a market they want for their companies and a region for their ‘war’ in Afghanistan. The image of Pakistan they manufacture, however, does not and can not correspond to the myriad of realities that exist there. It is not meant to.

What then are these realities? Here allow me to throw some of these realities at you by telling you of only a few of the people of this soil.

Let’s take Shah Inayat, a Sufi saint who in the early 1700s set up a commune on theological lines in defiance of the Mughal Empire. He held that the land belonged to God and that only those who worked to grow the crop were entitled to it. ‘Those who sow should eat’ was the commune’s motto. His thoughts convinced peasants far and wide not to pay crop shares as tax to either the Empire or local landlords. Oral history suggests that the commune grew to over 40,000 strong. As it acquired more members so too did it attract the wrath of the Empire. Emperor Farrukh Sayyar sent in troops; upon their arrival they besieged the commune, but it resisted for months. Having failed with force, the Empire turned to cunning. Offering peace terms and swearing on the Quran to guarantee Shah Inayat’s safety, they angled him out of the commune, arrested and then beheaded him. In Pakistan’s Sindh province, Shah Inayat’s name is well known and he continues to inspire calls for social justice.

Or take the poet Shaikh Ayaz, who, for those who know his work, is considered to be the foremost poet of the 20th century, comparable to Pablo Neruda or Nazim Hikmet. Ayaz was born in 1923 in the city of Shikarpur. A firebrand poet, he was imprisoned for his anti-establishment views and his first book was banned by the colonial government upon publication. In 1965 more of Ayaz’s books were seized and banned as his defiant poetry challenged the republic’s pro-war rhetoric against India. He lived and understood a Pakistan that was not confined to Jinnah and Iqbal, the military state’s two symbolic heirlooms, but one nourished by the soil’s deep connection with Hinduism, Buddhism, river gods, Sufi saints and the civilization-giving river ‘Sindhu’ (Indus). Connected to this 5000-year-old history Ayaz was able to defy mullah, general and invader. Listen to the confidence in his civilization in this short poem entitled The Conquering Ant:

After his attack and conquest
Alexander the Great
Took with him

Two philosophers from Sindh

And he asked them on the way,
What is the philosophy of Sindh?

One of them said,
‘An ant in its home in Sindh
has a grasp on matters philosophical
greater than that of Aristotle’.

The other said,
‘An ant going along its way
Is a conqueror greater than Alexander the Great’.

The Americans and their sponsors will not tell you about him – after all, he would not bow to any invader!

Again let’s take David Barkat. David, 55, lives with other Christians in the Kachi abadi (slum) in Lahore, where he migrated in 1991 to make a living. He sells oranges and peanuts from a small stall in the winter, and ice in the summer, working from 6am to 8pm. If he has a good day he makes around 130 rupees (about 94 British pence). From this income he has to support his family and keep up with bills, food and other necessities…to give you an idea of the difficulty involved, twelve bananas in the market were going for 60 rupees today. None of his three children got any formal education: ‘I cannot even dream of getting my children educated’. They had to work to help the family survive from a young age. David survives by his own ingenuity and his community’s. He relies on an informal support network for interest free loans and other help.

The state and NGOs have been absent. ‘I have been waiting 25 years for the government to provide us with help and work effectively… and I will continue to wait’. David knows that neither army commander General Kayani, nor President Zardari, opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, Hillary Clinton or American Viceroy for Pakistan Richard Holbrooke know or care of his needs or the Pakistani Christian community’s – and so he gets on with his life, as he should and as we all do – despite the US bombs and colonisation, despite the Taliban and the intrigues of the elite and intelligence agencies - with ingenuity, wit, and the wisdom of generations.

How ridiculous to us, then, seem the views of Newsweek magazine, CNN, BBC, the UK and US governments and Mrs Clinton’s imperial visits. They know how to cut political deals, but nothing of Pakistan’s realities. What we Pakistanis, home and abroad, must avoid is the internalisation of this propagandist image of Pakistan and Islam – no easy task given that most of our intellectuals, military brass, mullahs, and the political class have auctioned themselves off. We are part of the long chain of civilizations and in our daily lives we live a beat of our ancient soil and its history. It’s the beat, to remind you of Ayaz’s poem, of the self-conquering ant going about its daily routine. It is civilization.

This is an article by Qalandar Bux Memon, editor of Naked Punch, from the www.thesamosa.co.uk, a new UK-based politics, culture and arts journal, campaigning blog and website.

oh by the way

2009-11-24T19:21:00.003+05:00

have been inspired to blog again; don't know if it's the weather or the curiosity that is killing me to find the identity of that one "follower" of my blog

it better not be the usual suspect

maybe it is wanting to say something something that sounds like rambling to some but it is really thinking aloud, a premature middleage crisis

it is not as if as "himmat-e-iltija naheen baqi"

"i say ..... no surrender"

2009-11-24T19:09:00.002+05:00

i was in love with the band for which justin currie was the lead; they have split up but the guy goes on, brilliantly, unscathed by life in the fast lane

part 1

part 2

Big Macs for the fat, local wraps for the call centre battery hens, Japanese snacks for the choice-spoilt citizens, caviar kickbacks for the citadel denizens.

Airport shoeshines servicing the suits among the little silver stereos and hand-rolled cheroots, First class passengers file on last after the scum are packed in with their tax-free loot.

Checkout calamity, you're cheated out of loyalty points, ten more years at this joint you'd be home & dry, Beggars beat round the cash machines but you just slip between them with the usual lie.

Terrible tales of kidnapped kids keep you focused on the family and filling up the fridge, Neighbourhood watchers shop dole dodgers, stick their semis on the market & start racking up the bids.

Should you stand and fight, should you die for what you think is right
So your useless contribution will be remembered?
If you're asking me I say no, surrender.

Constant growth the cancerous cure, a swarming race of profiteers ensure
Cheap cars for the rich, cheap lives for the poor, cheap weeks in the sun, free drinks at the door.

Puerile propaganda plugs up the TV, keep folk following the money so they'll never be free Keep them swallowing the swill, the celebrities, the paedophiles, the immigrants invading from the
camp over the hill.

War talk, the big debate, footsoldiers in the capitol liberating new kinds of hate
Cum-shots of human dots caught in the spotlight's glare; he dies who dares.

Fatuous fast-trackers sneering at the shelf-stackers, little Middle-Englanders can't stand the backpackers, Fortress Freedom, come on in, take your chances-you might win.

Should you stand and fight, should you die for what you think is right
So your useless contribution will be remembered?
If you're asking me I say no, surrender.

Sunset beaches security patrolled, keep out the undesirables who don't accept the code Equal opportunity to live in total poverty, execute the ignorant incarcerate the slow

Car caressing managers choking up the avenues, brain dead patriots standing in salute, Paperwork raining again and again so that billionaires can claim there's an enemy to shoot

Pill pushers, doorsteppers, personal goal shoppers, lifestyle trendsetters, meditating mindbenders, Hare-brained share sellers pumping out stocks til you're choking on a chain-letter avalanche of dross.

God squads crawling through every country tracking down fools who are bullshit hungry Blinded by divinity followers fall into the man-traps set along the Wailing Wall.

Athletes compete in grand charades while tanks flatten streets and a nation laughs,
Visa holders gape at the changing guards while creeps bribe bums to take their photographs.

Film fans flock to the latest schlock, blockbusters block out even the vaguest thought Bankrupt schools grind out fool after fool then feed them to a system where idiots rule.

Polling booths, phone votes, bogus questionnaires, you get a say as if anybody cares
Joe Public doesn't want to play so liquidate his life as he looks the other way.

Don't get sick, don't get wise or they'll gut you with a *justice* where everything is lies March down Main Street, complain if you want but it's twenty years straight for the losers at the front.

If you're asking me I say no, surrender

fun stuff

2009-06-30T17:38:00.002+06:00

would love to know more about these guys but for now time to enjoy the clip

winners' parade

2009-06-27T20:18:00.003+06:00

in continuation of my earlier entry on the demeanor of our T20 team, cable channels have thronged to the homes of cricketers

shahzaib hails from inner city in Karachi; humble beginnings from the lines area; neighbors estatic and dressing up the streets and getting ready for a party

just watching interview of the 17-year old Mohammad Aamir (Raja Mohammad Aamir Fayyaz is the full name we are told) is being interviewed from his village in potohar valley

the song remains the same, grew up bowling with tape-ball cricket emulating wasim akram and the rest as well know is history

he repeatedly mentions wasim akram and credits him for the success he has had but i see a little bit of Imran Khan in him in terms of the way he looks and speaks

he is already a star as far as i am concerned; this kid is going to go places. i hope he remembers, as do all pakistanis, how it all started for them

good luck kid

Amazing effort

2009-06-17T19:51:00.002+06:00

being a sucker for pakistani popular music, this recent effort under the sponsorship of coke studios is something of great interest to me.

i am sharing some of the tracks that i liked the best

Ali Noor and Ali Hamza team up with Saeen Zahoor for a refreshing rendition of Bullay Shah

I like the part where Ali Noor, nearly at the end of a note, shows vulnerability that is part of nee mai janaa jogee day naal.

for one moment, the anguish of this moment, when the damsel in distress, utters her heartfelt anguish to be with the jogee (the lover); is captured beautifully

what to say of saeen zahoor; aren't we glad that he has been discovered. i find him at his best when he hits the high notes; take me to rohi and have me sit in stifling heat and i am willing to listen to him shout at the top of his voice

this track by zeb and haniya has grown on me since i caught it on cable a few days ago; their debut album was good but this is brilliant. to have revived the sound of the rubab and to bring to the fore these ladies from NWFP as consummate artists; an intro to pushto/dari/persian music for the rest of us

hats off to these ladies

it has almost become fashionable for the very young crowd to be an Atif Aslam fan but i posted on him just at the time of his debut album 5 years ago. he fuses Jal Pari with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and gives it a totally new sound

he should really shed his image in the media and that he has talent is reflected in this recording

finally, it is all Rohail Hayat whose stamp is visible on all aspects of this production; this is the best way a global brand such as Coke can contribute to revival of fusion music in Pakistan

losers' parade

2009-06-15T23:57:00.002+06:00

t20 world cup
india - though it comes naturally for us to gloat when the indians lose, it is a fantastic team that should get all the support from the fans back home as it makes an early exit losing its title; one bad game does not mean that MS Dhoni deserves the sort of comments that are being showered upon him

perhaps we pakistanis are so used to losing that we have become good at forgiving the team when it performs badly

there are somethings that are very indian in character; these are not found in the pakistani team; no pakistani player looks like a rock-star, you would not find any sun glasses on the field, no funky jewelry, tattoes, no lucrative contracts from big brand companies; heck i do not even think i have seen any sun-screen

be that as it may, the indian team, with all its colorful characters, is a fighting team that is bound to bounce back. if dhoni was apologetic during his post-match press conference, then it should be accepted by the fans; that is a true test of character to be gracious in defeat; perhaps it is time to break this tradition of threatening the losing team members with dire consequences

new zealand: danial vettori was and remains a respected cricket captain; but questioning umar gul on his world-record feat is not in the spirit of the game; he could ask his bowlers to get some advice from wasim akram or even umar gul on how to reverse-swing. he said during the post-match interview that he could not understand how umar gul could reverse swing after 12 overs in a t20 match; that my dear mr. vettori is called talent; your bowlers obviously do not have it

dancing for love

2009-05-30T18:23:00.011+06:00

had been trying to find a way to upload link to a youtube clip but could not figure it out earlier and shared with you the link in a primitive way by hardcoding the link.

Just managed to find the way to do this. Life is a lot simpler this way. You can teach this old dog new tricks afterall

[this is part of fantastic list of uploads on youtube by ssaqi; a messiah in more ways than one]

this is Abida at her very best; this is a remarkable remake of a kafi attributed to Bhagat Kanwar Ram, most revered bhagtee of Sindh, killed by extremists in the pre-partition days

as is common with remakes, abida has improvised by adding two verses of Shah Latif that is the most moving description of the Lord's compassion

these two verses are given below with a poor attempt at translation

sahib tuhinjee sahibee
ajab dithee soo-n
pan-a boreen pataar main
pahan tareen toon
jay razee thee toon
ta mairyaee man-a lahaan

lord, your splendor is unfathomable
mesmerized in sheer wonder
I see that when you so desire
leaves sink deep
and when you wish
pebbles stay afloat
with your majesty so grand
if i am blessed with your acceptance
a soul as sinful as i,
earns your forgiveness

jayseen jyaraeen tayseen
hadee rakh-j hifz main
mohtajee makhlooqa jee
qadir maan karee
arabee, abdul lateef khay,
hik vayl ma visareen
pur-kash pyareen
bharay jaam janat ma-on

lord, so long as you permit me to live
keep my wellbeing into consideration
your creation,
ows it salvation to to you,
not even for one moment,
praise the Prophet,
must you forget to bless Abdul Latif
& bless him with goblets drawn from heaven

(at this stage, the 2 verses of Shah Latif end and the actual kafi by Suleman Faquir which is what was made popular by Kanwar Bhagat Ram begins; Qasim Maka has made a video homage to Kanwar Bhagat Ram that can be found at the following

kafi starts at 4:11 in the above track after an intro to Kanwar Bhagat Ram. I suggest you first listen to the Abida remake and then the original)

keyayain reejhayan
kafi by sulemaan faquir
originally sung by Bhagat Kanwar Ram

keyayain reejhayan tokhay
keyain parchayan
das ko daa-n

how do I gain your favor
In what manner do I plead with you
show me the way
the way to your love

ya the-yan momin paak nimaazee
jehn main, janib-a,toon theen raazee
jamee jora-yan kina siraro nimayaan
das ko daa-n

I could become a momin,
purity personified
Which ever way, love,
I can earn your favor
i could be in constant prayer
build a place of worship
to bow my head to you
how do I gain your favor
in what manner do I plead with you,
show me the waythe way to your love

ya the-yan hindu
ya the-yan hindu maan
pojaan but-khanay
kashee dyaray
ganga ashnan-ay
jareeyon payan
kina tilak lagayaan
das ko daa-n

I could become a hindu
head towards a mandir
amidst holy statues in varanasee,
i could bathe in the holy ganges
to rid myself of sins
put a tilak on my forehead
and proclaim my devotion to you
how do I gain your favor

in what manner do I plead with you
show me the way
The way to your love

ya the-yan naachoo
payaan peshwazee
dhukhar, dhamchaar
sazee avaazee
phair-ree payaan
kina chair chimkayan
das ko daa-n

Or I could become a dancer
Put on peshwaz for you
whirling to the beat of music
dancing round in esctasy
to the tune of drums
how do I gain your favor
in what manner do I plead with you
show me the way
the way to your love

Ach-u ta pyar-ala
karyoon parchaoo
sarn-a Suleman-a jay
karyoon sarchayoo
laiq nayhaan poay bi
toon jaree ahyaan
das ko daa-n

come Love
help me seek the way
the way to your Love
i am full of sins and blemishes
but it is only to you, that I belong

show me the way
the way to your love

this is one track that you will find the sindhi diaspora plus local Sindhis totally captivated in remembrance of this great artist. if you want to see a grown man cry, this is the one to amuse yourself with

The track that I have referred to above has a loree in Seraiki on 2:33 of the track.

this loree originally covered by Bhagat Kanwar Ram, was replayed a couple of years ago on Rohi TV during its test transmission; the artist was introduced as Mohan Bhagat, a young lad sitting in the desert with his yak-tara and singing this song of the desert dwellers.

If anyone is familiar with the work of Mohan Bhagat, let me know.

There is a Mohan Bhagat of Tharparkar that I am familiar with but it performs as a group & comprises of senior thari artists. I need a link or any information about the younger Mohan Bhagat]

with friends like these...

2009-05-16T16:18:00.002+06:00

Joke shared by a friend

----------------------------------------------

Woman in bed with husband's best friend

The phone rings

Woman : "Yes? Ok. Fine. Bye"

Woman laughingly to her lover : "My husband is saying that he is out playing golf with you"

News-worthy?

2009-05-05T02:47:00.002+06:00

AAJ TV breaking news (May 03, 2009)
"Akshay Kumar to grow a beard for a role of a sikh in an upcoming movie"

way to go AAJ TV

halos for sale

2009-05-04T23:16:00.002+06:00

Another one shared by an ex-colleague

The angel Gabriel came to the Lord and said 'I have to talk to you. We have some Pakistanis up here in heaven and they are causing problems. They're swinging on the pearly gates, my horn is missing, they are wearing Dolce and Gabana saris instead of their white robes, they are riding Mercedes and BMW's instead of the chariots, and they're selling their halos to people for discount prices. They refuse to keep the stairway to Heaven clear, since they keep crouching down midway eating samosas and drinking chai. Some of them are even walking around with just one wing!'

The Lord said, 'Pakistanis are Pakistanis. Heaven is home to all my children. If you want to know about real problems, give Satan a call, in Hell.

Satan answered the phone, 'Hello? Damn, hold on a minute.'

Satan returned to the phone, 'OK I'm back. What can I do for you?'

Gabriel replied, 'I just wanted to know what kind of problems you're having down there.'

Satan says, 'Hold on again. I need to check on something.' After about 5 minutes Satan returns to the phone and said, 'I'm back. Now what was the question?'

Gabriel said, 'What kind of problems are you having down there?' Satan says, 'Man I don't believe this.......Hold on.'

This time Satan was gone at least 15 minutes. He returned and said, 'I'm sorry Gabriel, I can't talk right now. These Pakistanis have put out the fire and are trying to install air conditioning!!

problem resolution

2009-05-04T23:13:00.001+06:00

This is a beautiful story shared by a colleague...

A Father was reading a magazine and his little daughter every now and then distracted him. To keep her busy, he tore one page on which was printed the map of the world. He tore it into pieces and asked her to go to her room and put them together to make the map again.

He was sure she would take the whole day to get it done. But the little one came back within minutes with perfect map... When he asked how she could do it so quickly, she said, “Oh... Dad, there is a man’s face on the other side of the paper... I made the face perfect to get the map right." she ran outside to play leaving the father surprised.

Moral of the story:
There is always the other side to whatever you experience in this world. This story indirectly teaches a lesson. That is, whenever we come across a challenge or a puzzling situation, look at the other side.... You will be surprised to see an easy way to tackle the problem...

Employee of the year.....the award goes to:

2009-04-05T18:44:00.001+05:00

music worth checking out

2009-03-15T23:48:00.003+05:00

Laal

Laal's debut album features the track (Main nay us say yeh kaha) that I repeatedly promoted last year on this site

following the imposition of emergency in november '07, this track kept disappearing from youtube

thanks to the album release, it is now available in the public domain; the album starts off with this track and it is followed by umeed-e-sahar by Faiz.

for me, the rule of thumb for any desi album to be regarded as a success is if it has atleast 3 well-written songs, it is money well spent.

alternately if it features a nazam or ghazal by Faiz and is executed with care and commitment, the album would do justice

Laal passes both the tests with flying colors

Laal's debut album more than exceeded my expectation and i was pleasantly surprised that despite the politics of their music, they were not loud; a subtle approach is always effective

I am encouraged that after having the first three tracks by Habib Jalib, Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Aitezaz Ahsan, the tracks written by the band hold their ground and the lyrics show maturity of thought

the melody is consistently pure with lilt of revolutionary anthems that will make this album popular among listeners

Laal is, in my opinion, destined for greatness; i just hope they do not compromise quality for commercial success

Thursday Funnies Part II

2009-02-19T15:29:00.003+05:00

Due apologies, ladies!!

Thursday Funnies

2009-02-12T13:05:00.002+05:00

Scientific Explanation of Hell

HELL EXPLAINED BY CHEMISTRY STUDENT

The following is an actual question given on University of Washington chemistry mid term.

The answer by one student was so 'profound' that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well:

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than on religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, 'It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,' and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.

The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct......leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting 'Oh my God.'

>> THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+ <<

Lahore - Food Street Dec-2008

2009-01-29T16:11:00.001+05:00

Gwader - Let there be light - Part II

2009-01-29T15:58:00.001+05:00

And the magic continued

Gwader - Let there be light - Part I

2009-01-29T15:51:00.002+05:00

Woke up and saw the clouds doing their magic

freedom

2009-01-05T14:41:00.002+05:00

so this is what it feels to be free

i am cloud nine and loving it

Read "Three cups of tea" over the past holiday season which made this newly earned freedom even more enjoyable

hope this dose of inspiration will also help in the change in direction

here comes the sun

2009-01-01T19:57:00.001+05:00

a new life begins and cannot wait for the moment to arrive, a new life a new day and perhaps better prospects of getting to blogging again

limping back to life

2008-10-15T00:13:00.003+06:00

after a very long time, spent a night at the theatre and what a treat was in store for us; ajoka playing bulla at the arts council

i am not sure what has happened to the karachi public; perhaps due to free passes, there were people in the auditorium that had no manners and were constantly taking calls on their mobiles; paying visitors would perhaps keep their cell phones off

i was encouraged that every cell ring was getting boos from the audience

and the crowd gave the cast a standing ovation more than once at the end

what can i say about the play; the guy who played bullay shah deserves a lot of praise; he had me in tears; once when he sang 'dokhaan dee rotee soolan daa saalan" or should i say that he did so every time he sang

watching bulla was a dream come true; i had always heard of this play staged in lahore and outside pakistan especially india; i do hope that they come back to karacih for more plays

Ahmed Faraz _ a life to cherish

2008-08-27T15:33:00.005+06:00

ahmed faraz’s passing away yesterday though expected on account of ill health, his well wishers were praying that he recovered from the complications following his return from the the US

the stature of the man can be guaged from the fact that his passing away made headlines

his poetry defines the terrain of urdu romantic poetry and more than this laid the framework of arts and aesthetics; I wondered, after i heard this sad news, when was it that I read Faraz the first time

surely must've been early 80s which was not particularly a good time to be a teenager in pakistan

teenage angst overloaded with peer pressure, enter Ahmed Faraz by way of elder siblings’ "trash" dumped in my room

God bless them for getting bored with books quickly & the "trash" found its way to my room and multiplied in a predicable fashion as older boys in the family turned into men; independent,cocky 80s frustrations personified

“Dard Ashoob” was the book whose sleeve big brother hand-marked "Nov'83" & his intials, for posterity & to deter book-thieves who were plenty, myself included.

Books I purchased from pocket money were Tanha Tanha and Jana Jana,

my room was a scene from a disaster movie on account of above “trash” (manna from heaven as far as I was concerned) that littered the room

mum dearest heaping scorn, known-flying-objects hurled with unusual accuracy at me; I had to listen to her constantly nagging that i cleaned up

once she coaxed dad to join in and one “stare” on his part was enough for anyone to lose bladder control & he put it to great use.

the big guy added a few words of advice, veiled threat of unfathomable consequences if condition in my roomdid not improve, I acquiesced

it was the last time my mum ever complained

for her it was enough that I made no effort to clean up, or to borrow from her choicest sindhi saying “those who did not look after themselves can hardly be trusted with any other responsibility”

but I digress

coming to Faraz, AM radio had taken firm place in the corner on top of a bookshelf that played urdu ghazal by a groggy radio pakistan

mehdi hasan singing “to khuda hai na maira ishq farishtoon jaisa; dono insaan hain to kyon itnay hijaboon say milain”

or amanat ali khan singing
“tairay hotay hoyay mehfil main jalatay hain charagh, log kya saada hain, sooraj do dikhaatay hain chiragh”

Simple serene the lower sur of amanat ali khan, there has not been a better ghazal singer than him ever

the tone & thunder of Faraz’s free/blank verse of an eye-opener

there was one nazm that was confrontation with the divine

started with “ay khudayay buzurg o barter” and went on to compare the manifestation of divine love with the one that is associated, generally, with the opposite sex;

being a teenager, I immaturely thought that the nazm alluded to confrontation with the divine & was tantamount to blasphemy (we were afterall under zia’s rule so commonsense was jaundiced by sheer stupidity) but as I read more of faraz, I was convinced that in this defiance was an acknowledgement of divine supremacy and admission of a larger human condition of abject helplessness especially in matters of the heart

on one thing, I agree with some of the people who have offered condolences to the bereaved family that his life needs to be celebrated and I treat myself fortunate that I was able to live in the age of Faraz

city of God

2008-08-03T00:19:00.002+06:00

on my way to saturday afternoon chores, i see a jeep in the rearview mirror with a maniac at the wheel....i make way for him to save myself...there is sort of a home made sign pasted at the back of the jeep that i could not read, so fast was this asshole driving

i park at the aghas parking lot and the asshole in question is parked in the lot and i finally catch a glimpse of the sign, it says

IT IS A JEEP THING
YOU WOULD NOT UNDERSTAND

i swear to you, i do not have the time to understand this...i have a simple rule... people in love with their automobiles especially jeeps and 4x4s are invariable predisposed to have their heads stuck up their ass and the way they drive indicative of family trees that do not fork

i do not blame minibus drivers and others associated with public transport as they come from humble backgrounds and most hail from NWFP; what pisses me off are these well-off folks whose civic sense is reflective of nouveau riche upbringing

sadly such roudy behavior is in greater supply and seen more often when we have democratic governments when cars adorning party flags are unleashed on the city roads with hapless civilians running for cover

sun is shining

2008-08-01T15:48:00.002+06:00

not quite true for karachi, but an year long agonizing experience seems to be coming to an end so perhaps the subject line more a reflection of my state of mind

May nay us say phir kaha - part iii

2008-08-01T15:46:00.001+06:00

got another link on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPsr1RnEfWo

In memory of Love & dedicated to RR

2008-06-17T17:43:00.001+06:00

Shah Latif - His message in the 21st century

2008-06-12T18:05:00.003+06:00

The Risalo of Shah Latif has articulated with eloquence the cultural ethos of the landscape by capturing the Sindhi experience with breathtaking clarity. The essence of Shah Latif’s monumental work has been an inspiration for a wealth of research work credited to noteworthy translators like Elsa Kazi, Kalyan Advani, H.T Sorley, Mohammad Yaqoob Aga, Sheikh Ayaz, Agha Saleem catering to a growing need for information on Shah by non-Sindhi speakers. Dr. Nabi Bux Khan Baloch, Mr. Ibrahim Joyo, the department of Sindhi at the University of Karachi & Sindh, & other organization have institutionalized research work & the body of their work forms as a crucial reference point

The responsibility of translating Shah Latif in the modern English idiom is the need of the hour. This is to ensure that Shah Latif's message is relevant for the young generation. As we see unprecedented level of terror unleashing on our streets, Shah’s message has acquired greater importance with its all-embracing message of peace & understanding for the post 9-11 world obsessed with fear. This is a new world in which thought process as well as policy making is jaundiced by malice and prejudice against a specific groups, ideologies and there are fissures in society based on difference of belief, language, race and creed

Closer to home, we feel overwhelmed by a mini-crisis on the cultural landscape in Sindh. Our values have been hijacked by an invasion of satellite communication and cable entertainment. Tainted images of our values and caricatures of Sindhi culture in the media have made it synonymous with feudalism and jirga justice.

Can we fault the younger generation if it finds comfort in western values alien to their own for being unable to relate to them for either lack of understanding or historical perspective that ought to have been nurtured by their parents?

Can they be blamed if their spoken Sindhi is replete with errors of grammar and gender? Parents associate upward social mobility with English and exposure to Sindhi comes by way of domestic help, nannies & cooks. Thus learning Sindhi does not figure in the scheme of larger plans of cultural programming of the new generation

Is it any wonder then that we have a new generation of successful entrepreneurs, doctors, engineers and business executives with rudimentary knowledge of their language, aligning themselves with western values to fill the inner void of identity with icons of popular culture?

It is my sincere hope that new efforts to bring a new voice to Shah Latif by research work being done by the universities in Sindh and elsewhere will meet success and the younger generation and students will find Shah’s message easier to relate to, in a language they find used commonly in the media as well as commerce.

Shah’s message of peace on earth, reverence to the Creator and His Prophet, devotion to mother-earth is as relevant today as it was during the times of the greatest poet of the Sindhi language.

fork in the road

2008-06-12T14:40:00.002+06:00

a friend takes a road less travelled and i watch helplessly; we had been sailing against winds that wrecked havoc whole of last year

dickens would call these the worst of times

this too shall pass but the time spent riding the storm is full of heartache

May nay us say phir kaha

2008-05-26T22:11:00.002+05:00

manpreet, here you go

main ne us se ye kaha
ye jo das crore hain
jehl ka nichor hain
inki fikr so gaee
har umeed ki kiran
zulmaton me kho gaee
ye khabar darust hai
inki mot ho gai

bay shaoor log hain
zindagi ka rog hain
aur tere paas hai inke dard ki dawa
me ne us se ye kaha

tu khuda ka noor hai
akl hai, shaoor hai
qaum tere saath hai
tere hi wajood se
mulk ki nijaat hai
tu hai mehr-e-subh-e-nau
tere baad raat hai
bolte jo chand hain
sab ye shar pasand hain
inki khainch le zabaan
inka ghoont de gala
me ne us se ye kaha
me ne us se ye kaha

jin ko tha zaban pe naaz
chup hain wo zaban daraaz
chain hai samaaj me
bemisaal fark hai
kal me aur aaj me
apne kharch par hain log
kaid tere raaj me
me ne us se ye kaha
me ne us se ye kaha

cheen apna yar hai
us pe jan nisar hai
par wahan jo hai nizaam
us taraf na jaayio
us ko door se salaam
das crore ye gadhe
jin ka naam hai awaam
kia banain ge hukmaran
tu!, tu!, tu! yaqeen hai ye gumaan
apni to dua hai ye
sadr tu rahe sada
me ne us se ye kaha
me ne us se ye kaha

Another link worth checking out it

http://www.pakstop.com/pmforums/showthread.php?t=72990
http://sonyarehman.wordpress.com/

Love Stories of the Risalo of Shah Latif - Umar Marui

2008-05-18T19:51:00.003+05:00

The Risalo of Shah Latif is divided into chapters called Surs which are composed on the lines of musical notes. Each sur is based on symbols taken from stories which are part of Sindhi folkloreur

Sur Marvi

Umar Soomro was the last Soomro King of Sourthern Sindh and had a notorious weakness for the fairer sex. Marvi was a resident of Malir in the desert and belonged to the fraternity of ordinary folks that relied on rainfall cultivation, cattle bleeding and simple life of living off the land. Marvi was a lady with extraordinary beauty and there were many suitors including Phog, a peasant but her proposal for marriage was not accepted and she was married off to Khetsin whom she came to love.

Phog chose to avenge his indignation and knowing King Umer’s character and reputation, he went to him and informed him of Marvi legendary beauty. Phog and King Umer schemed, planned the abduction of Marvi and took her to Umer Kot. She was kept in the palace where every night Umer made overtures towards her which she duly rejected. Eventually, impressed with her chastity and her devotion towards her people, Umer returned Marvi to them with respected bestowed upon her as a royal sister.

Marvi is admired as a symbol of devotion and nationalism as she became a symbol of resistance against oppression.

[Taken from Agha M. Yaqoob's 3 volume translation of the Risalo with minor editing]

Main Nay Kaha (cont.)

2008-05-16T19:23:00.002+05:00

Manpreet, the link that I gave previously has disappeared. Sorry but it contained the lyrics as well albiet in roman

I have found this courtesy http://reddiarypk.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/celebrating-jalib-main-nay-kaha/

“Main Nay Kaha” is a satirical poem by the famous leftist poet Habib Jalib called “Musheer” (Advisor). Jalib wrote it in response to a conversation he had with Hafiz Jalandari during the time of Ayub Khan’s dictatorship.

It remains just as fresh and valid today.
This poem has been put to music by Laal (Shahram Azhar & Taimur Rahman) a new Pakistani music group dedicated to resistance music and poetry. Shahram Azhar and Taimur Rahman are also political activists of the Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party and their poetry, music, and activism constitute an integrated whole the essence of which is always revolutionary. The CMKP has been an integral part of the lawyers movement and the movement for democracy in Pakistan.

The music video contains real images of events in Karachi, London, and Lahore during the tumultuous period between December 27th and February 18th. The song and video were recorded on a shoe-string budget of one session each.

This video and song are connected to a documentary on a journey through a life-changing period in the history of Pakistan. The journey begins in Pakistan on the eve of the assassination of Benazir and the ensuing grief, violence, and carnage. The film maker travels to London to discover a group of young activists organizing protests against Emergency rule. Following these activists full circle to Pakistan, the documentary captures the events around the 2008 elections. The film thus captures a moment in the life of Pakistan, from Benazir’s assassination to the elections, through the lens of young activists. The documentary by Widei Films will also be released shortly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPsr1RnEfWo
Credits:Habib Jalib - Mainay Uss Say Yeh KahaShahram Azhar - VocalsTaimur Rahman - MusicMahvash Waqar - Backing VocalsTaimur Khan - Director ProducerDita Peskova - Assistant DirectorJamie Mill - Recording DirectorLaal & Taimur Khan - Music ProducerWIDEi Films - Production Company

"I said this to him"

2008-05-13T00:16:00.002+05:00

http://youtube.com/watch?v=XPsr1RnEfWo

fantastic entry at http://iaoj.wordpress.com/2008/05/11/main-nay-kaha-by-laal/

Love Stories of the Risalo of Shah Latif - Moomal Rano

2008-05-01T20:24:00.004+05:00

The Risalo of Shah Latif is divided into chapters called Surs which are composed on the lines of musical notes. Each sur is based on symbols taken from stories which are part of Sindhi folklore
ur.

Sur Mumal Rano has captured the imagination of readers & "Rano" has, more than being one character of this love story and a sur named after him, become a favorite musical piece which is this sur rendered in a semi-classical style, the experts of this genre being Ustaad Manzoor Ali Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, Abida Parveen & Ustaad Mohammad Juman to name a few

Moomal-Rano

The story begins with the description of the charms, clothes and perfume adorning Mumal and her sisters and attendants as they weave a web of magic in the Kak palace to attract rich suitors for the hand of Mumal, deprive them of their wealth and also finish them off in a maze of labyrinths, fake ponds and other illusions of the palace.

The reputation of this palace, and of Mumal’s dazzling beauty soon became legend. Hamir alias Umar, the last Soomro King of Umer Kot in Sindh, and his three ministers, all Sodhas by caste were attracted to the magical Kak.

One of the ministers was the young Rano alias Mendhro. Hamir attempted to reach the palace but failed. The other ministers, too, failed. Rano then ventured to try his luck. He was an extremely intelligent and courageous man which led him to succeed in reaching the palace, unharmed. Mumal was so impressed that she accepted her as her consort. He spent the night at the palace and returned to Umer Kot in the morning. He covered long distance from Umer Kot to Kak to spend time with Mumal.

One day, Rano reached Kak Mahal unusually late due to some business that he had to attend to. Mumal got so frustrated that she planned to play a trick on him. She dressed her Sumal in a man’s attire and made her sleep by her side. When Rano arrived, he mistook Sumal as a Mumal’s paramour.

Out of disgust he left his riding cane besides Mumal’s bed and returned to Umer Kot. Mumal pleaded Rano to forgive her but Rano ignored her requests.

Out of desperation, she set a fire and jumped in it. When Rano came to know of this, he rushed to the place where he saw that Mumal was already in flames, he joined her to be consumed by the fire along with Mumal.

[Taken from Agha M. Yaqoob's 3 volume translation of the Risalo with minor editing]

As indicated above, Rano is now sung during mehfils and it is most frequently requested musical piece in a mehfil of kafi genre.

what better way to conclude, this story of eternal quest for love, to capture the essence of this sur by a verse that encapsulates Moomal's anguish, her waiting for her raano

vaithee nit-u nihaaray-aan, raana tohinjee raah
mota-aay maagan tay, aaranduoee Allah
rana togar saah, nat-a rana ghara-n raaj main

Urdu translation by Agha Saleem

taktee hoon din raat ay raana
main to tairee raah
aik din tukh jo layay ga
aangan main Allah

English translation by yours truly

lonesome I sit
eyes fixed on ever path
combing alleyways
that could lead you to me

my soul in a prayer, sweet prince
that the Lord blesses your safe return

love, there are many a prince in this land
but you are the one that rules my heart

tgif

2008-04-18T20:21:00.003+05:00

"freedom is another word for nothing left to lose" captures the mood so well. thank you janis joplin

the breeze giving me the buzz i'd been craving for a while

it's been one of those weeks.

Searching for God

2008-03-22T01:56:00.005+05:00

Thanks to some websearch, I have chanced upon a Punjabi poem by Faiz on Youtube (performed & improvised by Atif Aslam) and on Mr Kidvai’s blog (performed by Tina Sani). It is called Rabba Sacheya (My True God)

Naqsh-e-fareeyaadi includes Faiz’s Punjabi poems & the chronological order is right in line with the comment on apna.org that Faiz only wrote in Punjabi after 1971.

Previous to Rabba Sacheya, I was only aware of “kidray na paindeeyan dasan, vay pardaysee-ya tarayee-aan” thanks to Arshad Mehmood & Nayyara Noor’s collaboration in the 70s. Also a bit of “Punjabi Kisaan kay Leeyay” [Uth utaan noon jatta, marda kyon jaeen] a theme common in Rabba Sacheya

Despite the fact that this book has not left my bed side bookshelf for last 20 years, I missed to recognize the beauty of Rabba. Perhaps my handicap that Punjabi is not my mother tongue and that I belong to a generation that has come to appreciate poetry only after it is sung & recorded by an artist of repute

Why Faiz did not produce more poems in Punjabi beats me. There is a earthy texture that can only be felt when the poet articulates the feelings in his native language

Rabba Sachiya too tay Akhiya si
Ja Oye Bandiya Jug Da Shah hai.n Too.n
Sadia.n Naimta.n teria.n Dolta.n Nai.n
Sada Naib tay Alijah hai.n Too.nm

Aes Larey Tay Tor Kud Puchiya Iy
Kee Iss Nimanay tey bitiya.n nay.n
Kadi Sarwi layi O Rab Sayi.n
Teray Shah Nal Jag ki Kitiya.n na.in
Kithay Dhons Polis Sarkar di
Kithay Dhandli Patwar Di
Enwai.n Hudda.n ich Kalpay Ja.n meri
Jeewa.n Phahi ich Koonj Kurlaondi Ay
Changa Shah Bnaya ei Rab Sayia.n
Polay khandiya.n War na Ayo.ndi ay

Mai.nu Shahi nai Chah-e-di Rab meray
Mai.n tay Izzat da tukkar mangna ha.n
Menu Tahng nai, mehla.n maria.n di
Mai.n tay Jeewa.n di Nukkar Mangna ha.n

Meri Mannai.n tay tairia.n mai.n manna.n
Teri Soh.n Jay ik wi gal mora.n
Jey Ayeh nai Pujdi ta.n Rabba
Fair mai.n Jawa.n Rab koi Hor Lorra.n

For a larger view of the poem in arabic script, readers can refer to http://www.apnaorg.com/poetry/faiz/poem-4.html

Thanks to the brilliant people at apna.org who would have us know that

QUOTE
“of all his Punjabi poems, Rabba sachya is the best example of poetry with a purpose. It is a complaint quite different from the one Allama Iqbal made to God. The poem evokes a strange feeling and passion wherever it is recited:
Rabba sachya toon tay akhya si
Ja oay bandya jug da shah ain toon
Sadian naimtaan tairian daultan nay
Sada naib tay alijah ain toon Ais laaray tay tore kad puchhyai
Keeh ais namaanay tay beetian nay

(O God the Truthful you had said
Go O Man, you have been made king of the world
My bounties are your treasures
You are my deputy and viceroy
After sending me with this promise have you ever asked
What has transpired with this poor thing?)

Then he enumerated in the poem the problems of immediate concern to a Punjabi peasant:

Kithay dhauns police sarkar di ay
Kithay dhaandli maal patwaar di ay
Anvain haddan wich kalpay jaan mairi
Jeeven phahi wich koonj kurlandi ay
Changa shah banayai rab saiyaan
paulay khandyan vaar na aundi ay

(Somewhere there is the terror of police people
Somewhere there is fraud in the revenue department
My soul is shackled in my bones
like a squeaking lark caught in a net.
Dear God what a king you made out of me
I can't count the number of beatings that are given to me)
Then in a fit of frustration he concluded that "if You can't look after me then I should search for another God for myself."
UNQUOTE

http://www.kidvai.com/windmills/2007/06/pervez-hoodbhoy-superstar.html

Tina Sani’s version is brilliant as she performs without instruments and it must have been recorded by Mr. Kidvai at The Second Floor in Karachi. This is Tina at her very best

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmnNeaJH4Ug

What can I say about Atif Aslam. Any popular artist who covers Faiz’s Rabba Sacheya and Shah Hussain’s Maee Nee Main Kinoon Aakhan deserves credit for courage

Atif’s version takes a departure from the original. I wonder if the lines that he has added are his own or some other poet

Love Stories of the Risalo of Shah Latif - Noori Jam-Tamachee

2008-03-15T14:56:00.004+05:00

Love Stories of the Risalo of Shah Latif - Sasui & Punhu

2008-03-11T22:50:00.004+05:00

Five Surs in the Risalo of the Shah Latif are based on the love story of Sasui and Punhu. These are Sur Sasui Abri, Sur Desi, Sur Mazoori, Sur Kohyari and Sur Hussaini

Sasui and Punhu

The love story of Sasui and Punhu is the most popular of all tales in Sindh. Pangs of separation, Sasui’s suffering in search of Punhu, her bare-foot wandering in the mountains under the burning sun, her sorrowful appeals to the desert beasts to sympathize with the suffering, her prayers to the elements of nature to show her kindness and help her trace her lost Punhu and finally her tragic death and ultimate union with her beloved are part of Sindhi folklore.

Sasui was the daughter of a Brahmin named Naoon. At her birth, astrologers prophesied that she was destined to wed a musalman. The unhappy parents, placed the baby in a box and threw it in a river to avert the disgrace that was in store for them. This box was picked up by a Muslim washer-man named Muhammad, who, having no child of his own, brought up the girl, as his own daughter.

Time passed and Sasui grew into a beautiful young woman. About this time, there was a famine in the neighbouring country of Kaich-Makran. The chief of this hilly tract, a Baloch Sardar, prepared a caravan, and placing his son Punhi as its head, sent it to Sindh for grain.

The caravan arrived at Bhambor, home to Muhammad and his adopted daughter Sasui. There it was that Sasui and Punhu saw each other and fell madly in love at first sight. The result was that when the caravan of Kaitch was returning, Punhi, their leader, declined to join them & stayed in Bhambor with Sasui.

The Baloch Sardar, upon learning of Punhu’s decision, sent his other sons to Sindh and bring Punhu back. When they arrived at Bhambor, Sasui, considering them as her brothers-in-law, gave them a cordial welcome and accorded hospitality befitting their position. The guests stayed for some days, and one night, finding Sasui fast asleep, placed Punhu on a camel and returned to Kaich.

Sasui was devastated. She pursued the tracks of the caravan but Punhu was nowhere to be found. The caravan had crossed the borders of Sindh but there was no turning back for Sasui. She wandered in the hills, crying to the trees, the sand dunes and the desert beasts.

Then she met a goat-herder who, fascinated by her youth and beauty attempted to assail her virtue. She fled and cried for help, when mother-earth opened her bosom and received her chaste daughter in a fond embrace. The goat-herder, seeing this miracle, and feeling ashamed, collected a heap of stones and piled them together to mark her grace. Some days passed and Punhu disconsolate in grief, contrived to escape from his parents and flee to Bhambhor.

As chance would have it, he passed by Sasui’s grave, and thinking it to be the shrine of a saint, he bowed down before it, and begged for blessings. A voice came from the grace and a call to Punhu, and then two arms were extended and received Punhu inside. Thus the earth, kinder than man, united the lovers in death. The prophecy of the astrologers had come true.

Other Surs based on the above love story are as explained below

Sur Mazoori

The word Mazoor in the context of this Sur means physically weak and helpless.

This Sur is one of the series that tells the story of Sasui Punhu. It describes Sasui’s march in pursuit of Punhu and her sad experiences, her bereavement and her helplessness.

In this Sur, the exquisite beauty and purity of diction are quite obvious and is replete with wealth of delightful and impassioned poetry evoking images of Sasui appealing to the mountains not to rise higher to add to her travails, to the eyes not to shed its tears for fear of losing the beloved’s footprints in desert sand.

Sur Desi

The Sur relates to the abduction of Punhu by his brothers. In it, Sasui blames the men in the caravan and voices her grievience against the wind, the sun and the moon. But she braces herself against their machinations; as she prepares to sacrifice her life in search of her Love

Sur Kohyari

The poet opens the sur with the note of self-reproach from Sasui; that she failed to observe vigil in the night and offer attendance to Punhu, and inadvertently gave an opportunity to her enemies, to deceive her and cause her great bereavement.

She blames herself and her sleep as reason for Punho’s abduction, expresses her grievance with the mountain for the tortuous hardiships, reproaches the rocks for her hardness and cruelty, laments the fact that due to the pain and anguish of her journey, she finds herself physical unfit to carry searching for Punhu.

Sur Hussaini

In Sur Hussaini, Sasui describes her predicament of having lost Punhu and calls out to him and appeals to him for help. It tells the pathos of her devotion, her endless effort and patience.

[Taken from Agha M. Yaqoob's 3 volume translation of the Risalo with minor editing - Naveed]

i am alive

2008-03-08T00:42:00.003+05:00

the gun pointed at your head and other two poking your sides makes everything around you black out

you see things but the brain does not register

from the dreadful to the comic, the car jackers did not approve of indian classical number playing at the time; kishori amonkar if i am not mistaken, kaahay gayoo gavan ma;

they decided then not to prolong the hijacking or perhaps their agony of listening to her & wasting their time on a moron like me

was it kishori amonkar that saved me; i wonder

there is a pakistan tele-film made by hasan zaidi (raat chalee hay jhoom kay) that is the perfect example of art immitating life as it captures my predicament as it transpired 4 years ago;

next to impossible that hasan zaidi would read this but if he does, he owes me some credit for the film; all i am asking is information where I can buy this on dvd

Love Stories of the Risalo of Shah Latif - Suhni Mehaar

2008-03-08T00:30:00.005+05:00

The Risalo of Shah Latif is divided into chapters called Surs which are composed on the lines of musical notes. Each sur is based on symbols taken from stories which are part of Sindhi folklore.

Sur Suhni

This story dates back to the time when the Moghul Emperor, Shah Jahan ruled over Delhi. There was a wealthy potter named Tala, in Gujarat (a village in the Punjab), who had a beautiful daughter named Mahi (Suhni – the beautiful). About that time a handsome youth named Izzat Beg (Mehaar), son of a merchant of Bukhara, had started on his Indian tour, and visited Lahore and Delhi, buying and selling merchandise. He chanced to pass through the village of Gujarat and fell madly in love with the potter’s daughter. So he stayed back indefinitely and forgot his home and profession.

He used to visit the potter’s house constantly on the pretext of buying the pots, and so oblivious was he of his financial state that in a short time he converted all his wealth into pottery. His home was now full of pots of all sized and shapes. Very soon he was obliged to open a shop and turn potseller to support himself.

But his heart being with Suhni, he could not attend to retailing earthenware and shop was closed and Izzat Beg came under the employment of Tala, whose daughter he loved. First they put him to knead the clay.

Then they gave him a herd of buffaloes to graze, which he did as a labour of love. At last one evening chance brought him face to face with the beloved, to whom he then confessed his feelings. Suhni was struck with his devotion towards her, and she gave her heart to her father’s servant. They met secretly thereafter but not for long.

The girl’s parents suspected the attachment and summarily dismissed the cattle grazer who dared to love their daughter.

As for the daughter, she was speedily married to a neighbour’s son. Unhappy Suhni spurned her hateful husband’s advances and refused all food and drink. She lived in perpetual mourning so that even her husband soon grew tired of her. Meanwhile Suhni communicated with her lover through a friend.

Unhappy Izzat Beg wandered about for some time and established himself in a cottage on the other side of the river Chenab. Even when oceans divide, love can stem the tide and so every night the Bukhara youth would swim across the river and meet his beloved. After a time, however, he received a wound in the side, and so could not move out of bed. Thus Suhni left her house at night to swim across the river on an earthen jar, and meet her sick lover.

This continued for some time, but it was not to be. Suhni’s sister-in-law discovered these secret meetings and also observed that Suhni after returning from her lover, always hid her jar under a heap of grass. So one night, she treacherously removed her jar and substituted in its place, another one of sun-baked clay. The next night Suhni as usual, took her jar, and entered the stream. Soon after, as the kacha (unbaked) jar could not stand water, it broke and poor Suhni was cast upon the waves. Bitter was her wailing and loud her cries. She called to her Mehaar to come to her rescue but all in vain. A short while after, as Suhni was grappling with the waves, Mehaar learnt of her danger and went to her aid, but the poot potter-girl was already buried in her watery grave.

Thereupon Mehaar, too, jumped into the river and the two were thus united in death

[Taken from Agha M. Yaqoob's 3 volume translation of the Risalo with minor editing - Naveed]

thin ice

2008-01-30T20:13:00.000+05:00

skating on thin ice; is it ia metaphor for a mid-life crisis

well if so, then i am skating for sure

my mind has not been so clear as it is now; as to what needs to be done, prioritize and prefer things & execute plans that are most important

the career is in limbo but i have a feeling that from these ashes will emerge a reinvigorated individual full of zeal and vigor that have become second nature like part of dna

feel like i am ready for a take off and there is no wind beneath these wings; time to flap these wings extra hard

why has music disappeared from this mundane life

the lord shining His light

2008-01-26T18:34:00.000+05:00

there is just a little glimmer of the cold wave easing up; has been a most unusual winter; what to say of events that have unfolded recently

the trees outside our window sil are home to cuckoos, parrots & there was an eagle bathing in the sunlight earlier

if the birds and the trees are just the same then would things be coming back to their own self anytime soon

living breathing dying

2008-01-19T21:56:00.000+05:00

the city around seems to be hanging midair in a vacuum or worse a morbid abyss

it will take time for wounds to heal, the air to have the same familiar fragrance

it will take time

cry baby

2007-09-28T16:24:00.000+05:00

i find myself emotional to the brink of tears when i hear some popular songs

signs of middle age setting in

checking if blogger still works

2007-09-01T14:00:00.000+05:00

this is a test of blogger. have been blocked so many times and there is something about wordpress that keeps me coming back to blogspot....so before normal programming resumes just testing this space

o captain my captain

2007-03-22T00:08:00.000+05:00

his demeanour is that of some long lost soul on the mall in lahore or more appropriately any back-alley in multan; not quite your average hero that craves public attention and revels in his celebrity status; his was a demeanour of the common man on the street; his desire was that of excellence with complete faith in his lord for which he got ridiculed when pakistan got beat by ireland

inzimam has been the most beloved cricketer of our generation; i have always felt great love for this great hero

what a great gesture by the zimbabweans to bid him farewell & congratulating him and the west indian spectators giving him a standing ovation and inzimam, the greatest of our captains unable to hold back tears leaving all of us sharing this moment of grief with him

Bulleh Shah

2006-08-27T00:16:00.000+05:00

From "Another Voice"
Muzaffar A. Ghaffar
Ferozsons

All that is two-faced must die;
like the universe and black holes
like good and its evil ride
like beauty entwined with dross
all that stands stalwart at the edge of the abyss
all is half-poised
on the ever crumbling divide

So where is the still point
where singularity abides?
Where is the first alphabet
truth's sanctuary
from which was crafted
the calligrapher's art
the imagist's paint, stone and metal,
the philosopher's raven-hearted thought
the climber's mountain, and
the labours of the scribe?

Take me via the second alphabet,
through swooning forests
and earths that bite;
through light that pierces
where tyrant digressions, sword in hand
behead consciousness

Take me over the bridge on the torrent
across the corpus of beehives
beyond the race thing which caps my knees
and the alluring gender divide

Take me into the cauldron of faith
show me the umbilical chord that binds
the earth-mother with my naval, my mind;
show me fires that are heaven-bound
like never-ending ladders,
like the genie Himalayas sun-spiked

If you cannot do this
then let me be;
for this time in space
to the hushed rhythm of the pulsating, breathing, universe.
Let me re-enter baby's first smile

maa-ae nee kinoohn aakhaahn - part ii

2006-08-11T22:13:00.000+05:00

as committed earlier, an excerpt from "Masterworks of Punjabi Sufi Poetry - Shah Hussain Within Reach" by Muzaffar A. Ghaffar. brief edited commentary that might be helpful to the readers

maa-ae nee kinoohn aakhaahn
dard vichoray da haal

dukhan dhu-ain shaahaan waalae,
jaahn phoolaan taan laal

maa'ae nee kinoohn aakhaahn
dard vichoray da haal

soolaahn maar deevaani keetee
birhoohn pya khyaal

maa'ae nee kinoohn aakhaahn
dard vichoray da haal

dukhaahn dee rootee, soolaahn da laavaan,
haddaan da baalarn baal

maa'ae nee kinoohn aakhaahn
dard vichoray da haal

jungle bayla phiray dhoondaydee,
na mileya maheehnval

maa'ae nee kinoohn aakhaahn
dard vichoray da haal

kahay hussain faqeer nimarna,
milay taahn thayvaahn nayhaal

maa'ae nee kinoohn aakhaahn
dard vichoray da haal

(*)

translation

o mamma ! who can i tell, this state of separation-pain
fires of faqueers smoulder, wherever i rummage ruby-red gain

o mamma ! who can i tell, this state of separation-pain
thorns pierce, make me mad, separation my mind's refrain

o mamma ! who can i tell, this state of separation-pain
bread of pain, curry of thorns, from burning bones fire obtain

o mamma ! who can i tell, this state of separation-pain
jungles, moors she roams in search, yet not found the swain

o mamma ! who can i tell, this state of separation-pain
says hussain the destitute devotee, if he's found, joy i'd attain

o mamma ! who can i tell, this state of separation-pain

commentary

the kaafi comes to us with some alternates in several lines. The first line begins with a desperate situation which every one of us experiences periodically – where there is no one to open your hearts to.

the use of the word maa’ae (o mamma) is an invocation expressing anguish, at the same time addressing the mother with intimacy. The sense of loneliness and being isolated

And sometimes, as here, when what is so very important to us would not be understood, or be mocked at, or related to unimportance. Often this may happen because the other person does not know how to deal with such a revelation.

what is the preoccupation of our poet with pain-separation? Most punjabi tales are spun around this feeling. This is central in Heer, Sohni-Mahinwal, Sassi-Punno.

The word "haal" has two other major meanings other than "state or condition". A common meaning of haal is "the present". This is also the workd for the present tense in Punjabi. Perhaps the poet is referring to an intense episode in a perennial feeling. And there seeems to be no one to relate it to. So "mamma" is invoked.

The other meaning of haal is frenzy. Or physical and spiritual ecstacy. The thought that ecstacy is also present in pain-separation seems to be inherent in the line. And that can certainly not be related to another. This reasing makes the lines ecsstatis rather than despondent. Indeed the word "keehnuun" now does not read as the non-availability of someone to tell, but as "who all to tell". Now the line also becomes a communication with the beloved mamma.

(*) post-script (naveed) - arabic/shahmukhi script that i have pasted without permission from apnaorg has verses that differ slightly from the book from which i have taken the above excerpts (that too, sadly without permission) :)

...the apnaorg version has more verses; however the basic essence is given above should someone want to delve into it a little deeper

i am alive

2006-07-31T18:18:00.000+05:00

just figured out how pkblog can help me to access my blog... is anyone else having the same problems... did not want to be behind a vpn that was the only way to get to my blog.... several blogspot sites are down.... where has everyone gone

ps - thank you pkblogs

Sorry for my earlier typo

2006-07-18T13:40:00.000+05:00

the few readers of my blog are kindly requested to revisit my earlier blog on bulleh shah in which i have made a vital error in the first line. the translation has been reposted...the first line should read as

"bullah who am i, what do i know"

bullah revisited

2006-07-09T18:16:00.000+05:00

translation in a bit of kafiana style (bullah kee jaana main koon)

Bullah who am I, what do I know?

Neither in mosques an orthodox acolyte
Nor in any blaspheming rite
Nor pure amongst the defiled, recondite
Neither Moses am I, nor Pharoah

Bullah who am I, what do I know?

I am not in any vedic tome
Nor in heady drinks afoam
Nor in tipplers who legless roam
Neither in wakefulness, nor in slumber aglow

Bullah who am I, what do I know?

Neither in conjugal joy, nor in the sad
Neither in purity, nor in defilement clad
Neither of water, nor of dust begad
Neither fire am I, nor windflow

Bullah who am i, what do i know?

I'm neither arab, nor from Lahor
Nor from the Indian town Nagor
Neither Hindu, nor turk from Peshaur
Nor in Nadaon do I stow

Bullah who am i, what do I know?

The essence of religion I haven't got
Neither by Adam, Eve was I begot
Nor my name know or sought
Neither settled, nor on the go

Bullah who am i, what do I know?

First and last, only know I
Knowing every other I deny
To greater wisdom none qualify
Bullah, who's the inner one on show

Bullah who am I, what do I know?

copied without permission
"Masterworkds of Punjaabi Sufi Poetry"
"Bulleh Shah Within Reach"
"Volume 1"
Muzaffar A. Ghaffar
Ferozsons (Private) Limited

http://www.ferozsons.com.pk/

each kafi has detailed commentry and both the books (Bulleh Shah & Shah Hussain) have been purchased by yours truly last month

there maybe a proofing error in the following...I have added in brackets & hope i am right & this was not intention on the past of the translator

The essence of religion I haven't got
Neither by Adam, Eve was I begot
Nor my name know(n) or sought
Neither settled, nor on the go

hope springs eternal

2006-07-06T20:11:00.000+05:00

ptv features sitar virtuoso ustad raees khan ably accompanied by his son Farhan Khan

ustad jee has unique body language & the pair played raga malhar & haunting rendition of raga bhairveen.

in the early 80s, I heard ustad raess khan recording on bbc tv & sang the following

mohay ayee na jag say laj
main itnee zor say nachee aaj
kay ghungroo toot gayay

a BBC 4 recording.

I am not aware of raees sb having too many vocal recordings to his credit but an awesome voice nonetheless and the defiant tone given to “ghungroo toot gayay”

sitar, sarangee always have a special impact on me... i am intrigued by the concept encapsulated by Shah Lateef in his Sur (Beejal-) Rai Dyaach – the story of supreme sacrifice hy Rai Dyaach, the ruler of Jhunagarh.

the ruler of the adjoining kingdom, unable to defeat Rai Dyaach militarily, hires the services of Beejal a musician par excellence knowing Rai Dyaach’s penchant for music….

beejal plays his instrument to his desired outcome…..in the wee hours of the morning, held in complete rapture by Beejal’s instrument, Rai Dyaach asks Beejal for anything that he desired as folk tales usually go

beejal jumps at the opportunity & asks the king for his head & reveals the real purpose of his visiting Jhunagarh.

true to his word, the king fulfills his promise & loses his life & his kingdom gives way to marauding enemy forces…

talk about primitive operation desert storm…(that beejal regrets his actions comes only after Jhunagarh capitulates & this aspect of the tale of lesser importance)

secular interpretation/perspective of such folklore is that of devotion to music and for a right note of a surinhdo a proto-type of saarangee, being moved to the point of complete surrender no matter what price you must pay …

the sufistic interpretation is achieving closeness to God through a vehicle, ironically in this case, music. That the modern day guardians of faith, the detestable mullahs consider music as haram goes to prove the harm done to faith than any external force

as nusrat fateh ali khan has demonstrated, music can hold the unbelievers in a trance and make converts out of them by the sheer force of genius

my latest discovery is sm shahid’s book on tufail niazi that comes with a 2-cd set that had me in tears but more on that later

in the meanwhile raga malhar has had a desired impact and Karachi has seen the first sign of the monsoon….

importance of being lustful

2006-07-05T23:19:00.002+05:00

my scores

Greed: Low
Gluttony: Medium
Wrath: Medium
Sloth: Medium
Envy: Very Low
Lust: Medium
Pride: Medium

http://www.4degreez.com/misc/seven_deadly_sins.html

blog spotting

2006-06-28T22:48:00.000+05:00

is it sickening on my part to read someone's blog and i wonder if this person is me 15 years ago....and that the blog remains on my mind the whole evening....

its only the giving that makes you what you are

2006-06-26T23:42:00.000+05:00

after the october earthquake i wished i could give it all up and go into volunteering work.. as a parent with two young kids & things at work on a shaky ground, this wish remained what it was; a wish resigned to a later time in life when the kids were independent & life could break free of inner cowardice & did not need crutches of compromise

i really do feel like a coward these days unwilling to take up new challenges, same shit every single day; anal retentive boss thrown in for good measure

i have nothing but my utmost respect for warren buffet who has gifted 85% of his personal wealth to the Gates Foundation. amounting to USD35B & raising the Gates Foundation financial to over USD40B

if anyone has a chance to see a re-run of the Gates & Warren press conference held on Monday, please do so... it was great listening to these two gentlemen

be nice

2006-06-21T19:47:00.000+05:00

some dude on the idiot box was rambling about being nice to people & starting your day with a smile... this is pretty unknown in pakistan.... smiling at complete strangers. you are mistaken for a fool or a retard with a twitch

but i tell you especially with the ordinary working man on the street, the laborers, the newspaper boys, it is fun if you are polite to them...

woke up to a saddest of news items .... someone in lahore, out of poverty and the frustration of the daily battles kills his 3 young daughters.... have had a lump in my my throat all day....find myself getting emotional at these things.... this guy confessed to the police of this slaughter and the security guard at the jail shots this man dead

the guard justifies his act by saying that a person who kills three young girls does not deserve to live.... justice denied but being a father i wonder if i had acted any differently.... makes my blood boil....

justice would serve if this guy (the father) gets institutionalized and the girls are put up at the edhi home.... what wrong had these innocent girls done....

why complain

2006-06-20T18:05:00.000+05:00

there was a friend P and we spent a lot of time together, right through school and college. some ten years ago he moved to the US.. everytime i pass by our regular hang out, the place reminds me of the time spent at the beach front talking about "hotel california" and syd barret

a mutual friend informed me a couple of years ago that P had been to karachi, had got married & took his lovely bride with him.

when i am feeling down, i am reminded of P & the fact that he did not contact me is another nail in the coffin of my self confidence

well P, God bless you where-ever you are...

Useful links

2006-06-16T13:48:00.000+05:00

Some useful links

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_11-6-2003_pg3_7

comes as a surprise that Taufiq Rafat has translated Bulleh Shah so this is what i will be searching over the weekend

http://www.apnaorg.com/articles/najam/Husain.html

is excellent as this is from the same book from which i extracted a passage. There are other articles by the same author.

mayay nee main kino aakhan

2006-06-14T00:07:00.000+05:00

inherently the pleading for repreive, from suffering, the mere expression of longing for love and then the character of a "mother" as a comrade in arms a confidante runs deep in the poetic tradition in the punjab and sindh.

there are multiple words like "ama", "amar", "ayal" and some others just to describe "mother" in the Risalo of the Shah

In any case, reading "Recurrent patterns in Punjabi Poetry" and relishing the parallel between Shah Latif and Shah Hussain/Bullay Shah etc. and while "mother" would be character the lady (Heer) would turn to, the first chapter on Shah Hussain draws interesting inferences from this maternal character.

So this is where i take up an excerpt

"nee maayay mainoon khaireyaan dee gaal na aakh"
(kafi follows)

quote
the kafi suggests the underlying folk-song pattern. the usual figures in the marriage songs - the girl, the mother, the prospective husband and in-lws are all there. And the refrain calls the plaintive marriage song address of the girl to her mother on the eve of her departure from the parents' house.

But the folk pattern remains at the level of an underlying suggestion. The mother and daughter in the folk-song were both helpless votaries of an accepted convention, bowing before the acknowledged power of an unchanging order.

Here in the "kafi" the daughter assumes the power of choice and rejection. She stands outside the cycles of time and society. The mother continues to represent the social order and the accepted attitudes.

According to her convictions, the Kheras offer the best possible future to her daughter because they assure mundane security and presitge within a decaying order. But the daughter is now determined to go beyond this order and seek further inner development.

To her the Kheras, her unacceptable in-laws represent the tyranny forced on the individual. To her, Ranjha the socially condemned cowherder represents the consummation of her revold, promising a union which is the real inner fulfillment.

The accepted attitudes are based on a superficial vision which takes appearance to be the only reality. Ranjha who always hides his real self behind the shabby garb of a 'jogi' or a cowhereder can never be preferred to the wealthy Kheras.

His real entity is a mystery that can be realised only in Heer's individual emotions. And for such a realisation a conscious break with the order of appearances is a pre-requisite.

(Shah) Hussain's truimph is achieved, not by evading the bondages but by suffering them and finally transforming them. The mother remains a part of the daughter consciousness - in addressing her she addresses herself. But this part of her consciousness is now subjected to the more vital individual self. In this refrain (the first line of the kafi), a mixture of earnest protestation and assured abandon.
unquote

(to be continued)

being transported

2006-05-24T18:29:00.000+05:00

music keeps me going

after a lot of searching have managed to get many hands on a shahnaz begum cd and having loads of fun with it

aas bandhay ghar ayay badara
savan kee rut
lay kar ayay
khuseeoon ka baaraat

i once mentioned a song from the 70s and a blogger confirmed that he too was transported to a time when he was young

the blogger could picture his younger sibling was playing around the house while this song played and the whole family watched the tele

blogger on

2006-05-23T12:42:00.000+05:00

is this for real

accessing blogger after ages

reading this these days

2006-04-11T16:32:00.000+05:00

reading these days

"recurrent patterns in punjabi poetry" by najm hosain syed
gambled with this one but it was enticing me to get my hands on it
luck would have it that i always wanted to read articles from the Pakistan Times, back from the 50's & 60's as Faiz was associated with it; something tells me some of the notes could very well be from him

managed to get "poems by faiz" by v g kiernan
excellent read
reading it to my son these days to get him exposed to urdu
surprising found him interested in this

there is hope after all !

this was from liberty stores & their staff is always very helpful

need to go to ferozsons soon
i wonder if there is a vanguard outlet in karachi

there used to be on zamzama ages ago

No words to say

2006-03-10T18:58:00.000+05:00

no words to say, nothing to convey
just sitting idly infront of the PC completely drained to think and write anything that makes sense...onset of a mid life crisis or being too self-critical

having a major issue with the boss's behavior but saying nothing. this too shall pass. keeping low but keeping alert with the business, cannot drop the ball...the boss is a cunt that knows jackshit, i'll do the numbers and he can claim the credit for all i care

have to be smart and lay low for a while...he is sensing the silent treatment from me and when i share a good news with him he writes his typical "please get this done" which proves that he probably has his stuck up his ass when he writes

the thing is that he does not know me and not having worked in a number crunching game expects that business happens in a structured disciplined manner in this country whereas it is all relationship. you talk to your business partners and the bhai mian rapport get things done nothing else...no one from outside the country commands the respect anymore...customers have seen the foreigners come and go and make promises they know they cannot keep

not that the lazy fuckers who cannot add any value to the transaction would know what it is all about

if you are an ugly son of a bitch, you must not insist to meet customers thinking that you are the panacea for their pain or that it is a privilege on the customers' part that you have made the appointment to find out about their business whereas i know each and every detail on the account, ask me and spare me and the customer these questions about "how else can we grow the business"

this is the thing about MNC companies..people having their heads stuck up their ass

cannot complain though...the local companies, the boss is all ass and no head or brain born with a silver foot in the mouth

Anyone home

2006-02-24T18:19:00.000+05:00

is there anybody out there?

international moment of zen

2006-01-27T09:00:00.000+05:00

klc (chinese colleague)
me (that would be me)

klc : so naveed, how are things are in Pakistan these days.
me : ok. not bad

klc : that is good. so no political problem, assassination (sniggers)
me : not really, things are calm

klc : so after the earthquake how? (singaporean way of asking how are things after the earthquake....i just hate the dangling "how" & "what")
me : people have really come out in support of survivors. local donations are more than international

klc has a blank look

klc : so how is business?
me : well unfortunately or fortunately, the earthquake presents an opportunity for construction, infrastructure, even IT. 1000 schools went down, more than 20000 kids lost their lives. But when the schools are re-built, they would go for IT products. sad though it may seem but life goes on

klc he never knew the extent of the damage, he tries to grapple with the revelation

klc : naveed, you know, we had a favorite cat. it died last year. for whole one week, my wife cried and cried. so yes, loss of life and dear-ones can really be painful

music and good music

2005-12-30T20:28:00.000+05:00

you know how it is that you get this irresistable urge to go for music that you hate yourself for liking...

this is what i meant in my last blog, that i want to go back to the old habit of listening to music just any kind of music and yes maybe fall prey to the guilty pleasures

knowing that i am spending the last days here had a ball at HMV and looking for the strangest things like ACDC their debut album and some other soft and shameful stuff that i am too embarrased to mention....no not kenny rogers not that soft or country

like my last trip i relived the 80s and bought The Cure and some other stuff that i know that the lady of the house and i could enjoy together

so i guess "dancing days are here again"

i can see clearly now

2005-12-29T12:02:00.000+05:00

well a sucker for a catchy subject line, i could not rest. otherwise it is raining like noah's flood but this too shall pass

picturing myself plucked out of the doldrums looking in and this is not would should bother me

my good friend back home said it best to console bus sab chor kar aa jaa we need you and you do not deserve this

this sense of comraderie is so valuable

need to reboot on life and appreciate the good things all around, friends family kids music

i have not lived whole of last year, got so caught up in the rat race

self doubt and self discovery

2005-12-26T14:53:00.000+05:00

this past month has been a roller coaster ride

things at work have disabled my ability to see things in the larger context

pride has been hurt so bad

a bit of self doubt has kicked in and i am getting to know the weaker side the insecure place that one does not visit too often

what am i doing and where am i going

what one accumulates in a career is not only experience it is good will and respect
and there is plenty of it
and noone can take that away from me
time to show what i am made off
time to get to know me all over again
stripped of all illusions of security

neighbour burns my hide

2005-11-13T13:02:00.000+05:00

new year business plan is being discussed in a local hotel

..during the break i break bread with a guy from the neigbbouring country....i know you have the good with the bad and some indians such as my boss are exceptionally brilliant but the audacity of this guy leaves me speechless....

"so naveed, do you live anywhere close to dawood"

for a second i thought i misheard him only my subconscious defensive instinct kicking in and i tell the gentlemen that dawood ibrahim lives in dubai...the silence that followed only left me with one choice & i had had to abruptly leave the dinner out of disgust excusing myself for having prior commitments for the evening

icing on the cake, after the delhi blasts, the india media reports that the calls have been traced to muzaffarabad. my brother having done his bit as a volunteer surgeon after the earthquake speaks of complete devastation of the city.... all telco services are down & i doubt very much that bombers would be getting instructions from some one trapped under the rubble

you open the borders and have your share of confidence building measures, this deep suspicion & contempt for us that our neighbours have for us will not go away

she's gone

2005-11-12T17:59:00.000+05:00

came back to an empty apartment

the cats have not returned, i hope they are ok

it is only the giving that makes you, what you are

2005-10-12T17:48:00.000+05:00

have always had fights with the lady of the house on old clothes that i cling onto

but never had a moments hesitation on getting rid of my favorite jacket - this is the type of clothing needed in azad kashmir

the outpouring of generosity is mind boggling, did not know there all this "good" bottled up inside in the city.

my brother tells me that the medical stores have given him medicine worth 700,000rs and "jab paisay hoon day deejeyay ga" that blew him away

he tells me that in the city of karachi there are no drips available, stores have been bought over by charities for onward shipment to islamabad

spent the night under the stars due to a mild tremor

and spending the day with a lump in the throat that will not go away

down memory lane

2005-10-04T21:02:00.000+05:00

a magical voice, fantastic movie (mausam), quite watchable despite being indian :) and gulzar's stamp all over the place taking inspiration from ghalib making it worth your while - and a track that has followed me constantly over the last several years

dil dhonta hai
phir vohee
fursat kay raat din

baythay rahain tasawar-e-janaan keeyay hoyay

aur jaroon kee
narm dhoop aur
aangan main lait kar

aankhoon par khainch kar tairay
aanchal kay sayaay ko
oondhay paray rahain kabhee
karvat leeyay hoyay

ya garmee-oon kee raat jo
purva-ee-aan chalain
thandee sufaid chadaroon peh
jagain dayr tak
taroon ko daikhtay rain
chat par paray hoyay

barfeelee
sardeeyoon main
kissee bhee paha par
vadee main
goonjtee hoee
khamooshee-aan sunain
aankhoon main
bheegay bheegay say
lamhay leeyay hoyay

the magnificent bhupinder at his best

one song done is two different styles in the movie, the slower version my favorite

a bad week

2005-10-04T17:35:00.000+05:00

i have been through really bad days lately

lot of firefighting that at times seems uncontrollable, have been having nightmares with some office situations being played out in my brain and have been waking up sweating at 5am every day

things were never this impossible

today finally some good news, the difference a day makes

what i feel to do right now is pour myself a stiff one and listen to roger waters sing to me "if you are alone i'll come home"

As I reach for a peach
Slide a rind down behind
The sofa in San Tropez.
Breakin' a stick
with a brick on the sand.
Ridin' a wave
In the wake of an old sedan.

Sleepin' alone in the
Drone of the darkness,
Scratched by the sand that
Fell from my love,
Deep in my dreams and I
Still hear her callin'
"If you're alone,
I'll come home."

Backward and homebound,
The pigeon, the dove,
Gone with the wind
And the rain, on an airplane.
Owning a home
With no silver spoon,
I'm drinking champagne
Like a good tycoon.

Sooner than wait for
A break in the weather,
I'll gather my far-flung
Thoughts together.
Speeding away
On the wind to a new day.
And if you're alone
I'll come home.

And I pause for a while
By a country style
And listen to the things they say.
Diggin' for gold
With a hoe in my hand.
Open a book
Take a look at the way things stand.

And you're leading me down
To the place by the sea.
I hear your soft voice
Calling to me.
Making a date for
Later by phone
And if you're alone
I'll come home.

from the album "meddle" track "san tropez"

how i wish to be on a white sandy beach right now

the voice

2005-09-28T15:29:00.000+05:00

boarding the plane and settling in, the PIA steward with his oligatory beard, pan-stained teeth and sweaty armpits welcomes me

if you have stayed away from home for some time, for the strangest reason which i could not comprehend, his face gives me a sense of reassurance

deep down thre is a realization of the level to which PIA hiring (or firing) policy has stooped

the steward gives me a pakistani newspaper a sight for my sore eyes

i read that the ghazal maestro pervez mehdi had passed away. sad to read this & though i had not followed up on his career there was one album that i loved

maybe a blog on pervez mehdi album in the coming days

Its Alive - Part ii

2005-09-26T22:29:00.000+05:00

the billa and mom are ok too, they look terrible though

cats in pakistan never go hungry thanks to tons of garbage

one could hear meows at night and these are not from pangs of hunger for sure

just singlemindedly crying for a mate, just plain horny...the male specie is so disgusting.

so predictable

Its Alive

2005-09-25T16:04:00.000+05:00

the little kitten is alive

mom is not in sight. the billa has been looking... i do not think i endorse mommy's choice in billaz

importance of being desi part iv

2005-09-21T16:15:00.000+05:00

this only a pakistani could do

this guy has posted this query on the US website of our company

quote
i am in Pakistan. brand is popular in Pakistan but you not open your official office in Pakistan. Pakistan is worlds sixth largest nation.
when we select your website, we don't have option to choose our country page. if u want to business in Pakistan then open office here and make our country page. otherwise leave our country
unquote

writing to us from the grand city of Lahore. :)

dead again

2005-09-21T14:45:00.000+05:00

the plane lands at singapore & the familiar hum of the traffic registers only after i am done with some firefighting calls, imagine not being able to be left alone even in transit

this city is so fantastically dead

probably the best flight yet but not in terms of people, hoards of malaysia-bound zinaanee ogling people :)

encounters part v

2005-08-29T23:01:00.000+05:00

pia has started its service to singapore, every three days is a flight direct or transit via KL. during the last trip when the group of pakistan workers disembarked, i decided to remain on the plane as the crew changed and the cleaning staff went about their job

having been up all night thought this would give me a good chance to catch some sleep. the cleaning staff work with meticulous efficiency to do the cleaning

taking a nap is hopeless and soon enough passengers from KL get on for Karachi via singapore where i was to get off..

the gent seated next to me, bearded generally unkempt appearance who settles in mumbling a prayer...first time in the last 5 hours i feel that my body is giving up and i space out to be shaken up by this old man

"yeh jheenga hai?" he shouts into my ear

i am bewildered as to what the old man was pointing to, i did not see a meal tray infront of him...my heart beats fast from being woken up from what was a very peaceful few seconds

i tried to place that question as it had a familiar tone to it

yes, the shikaree guy part of shoaib hashmi's stage repertoire "do gainday thay" guy

the old man points to the TV screen and sir richard attenborough is explaining the mating habits of marine wild life.

"jee uncle mujhay janwaroon kay baaray main zyada ilm naheen hai", i tell a meekish lie that met his disapproval

i turn away from him and space out again

kittie and i part ii

2005-08-29T22:51:00.000+05:00

packing for my trip and i hear rain drops

the kitten comes running into the patio shade for cover.

seems very hungry

before i head to the fridge, i see daddy dearest for the first time, a huge billa in pitiful condition, it's got a limp that is painful to watch

i am emptying the milk carton for them, i really do not know what will happen to them while i am gone

i am wondering why stray cats are in such miserable state here, atleast back home thanks to tons of garbage keeps them well-fed

kittie and i

2005-08-28T15:26:00.000+05:00

since moving into this apartment, a cat and a kitten have been keeping me company

i remember seeing more kittens when i moved in 5 months ago but this one is the only one that has survived

feeding the cats is something that i have come to enjoy or may be i am just lonely

mommie and kitten are not well..i think they are partially blind and thus extremely weak.

the kitten has grown in the last few months and comes to my patio when ever it is hungry

aik dafa ka zikr hai

2005-08-19T09:29:00.000+05:00

there is a lady in the department whose voice gives me the creeps

she gets a call & i make a dash to my headphones and she can be on a call for more than ten minutes even if it was a wrong number :)

my real player has found all the oldies on my drive & i get transported to the good old days listening to kishore sitting up on a mango tree & eating kayreez with sugar

encounters part iv

2005-08-18T15:05:00.000+05:00

entourage of workers heading to the far east countries seems to be a good omen.

this group is clad in t-shirt & slacks bearing the name of the workforce agencies displaying their license numbers and claiming "total workforce solutions" which i thought was refreshing

far cry from people flushing passports down the toilet the moment they reached foreign land.

most of these young hail from remote areas of pakistan. there are some goree 'zinanian' in the departure lounge in karachi that the gentlemen find particularly interesting, especially the one that is centre of attention as she has the audacity of wearing shorts and a t-shirt:)

a facially challenged version of pam anderson so while i am thinking wet t-shirt contest these guys start sitting with their legs crossed if you know what i mean

this is the thing about goreez. no matter how ordinary looking they might be, throw in a t-shirt and shorts and yes they would do nicely thank you very much :)

encounters part iii

2005-08-17T19:11:00.000+05:00

recent attempts to get a decent seat have failed. it is actually getting worse as time goes by and if it was not for my penchant for pain i would go raving mad

the worst one was last month & my resigned sense of relief that i am flying emirates evaporates into thin air as it had slipped my mind that this flight originated in auckland. so passengers boarding from NZ have by this time lost their will to live - such are the expressions on their faces.

the lady in front is travelling with two kids, one a two year old boy who, mommy dearest slaps for spilling something. what follows is sheer nightmare, this kid keeps shouting at the top of his voice all the way from singapore to dubai

encounters part i (now punctuated)

2005-08-14T13:06:00.000+05:00

After procastinating for the past few months when i first started thinking of posting my travel encounters and with my brain about to burst with amount of material piling up, i am posting as briefly as i can, some of the recent ones

There might be some abusive language so a warning for the faint hearted, atleast one character I met, who happens to be my favorite, made sure that i had ball of a time.

Not only because of his language but also because our flight from colombo to karachi was delayed for 2 hours

encounters part ii

2005-08-13T19:59:00.000+05:00

3am Dubai airport.

The kids were with me during this trip earlier this summer & were getting impatient by the minute, our flight to singapore not scheduled to fly for another 3 hours

Next to where we were sitting, we were surrounded by groups of mostly desi men sleeping on the floor

One guy who had been oogling at us, my "zinanee" being the object of his fancy,
comes to me & shows me his ticket and asks me for the gate number

Without even looking at it i tell him that gate appears only an hour before the flight. My response gets a blank look from him

I look at his boarding pass and am surprised to find that his flight was 18 hours later.....i tell him about this and he says he was helpless, the "agent" had booked the flight for him and his group

"So you guys will reach home in jeddah late evening tomorrow?" I asked, surprised at their predicament

"we are not going to Jeddah", he goes & gives me another ticket showing onward flight to Cairo.

His Jeddah-Cairo flight booked on the cheapest fare airline had another 20 hours transit time in store for them at Jeddah airport

encounters...part i

2005-08-13T13:51:00.000+05:00

after procastinating and my brain about to burst with the material piling up i am posting as briefly as i can some of the recent travelencounters...there might be some abusive language so a warning for the faint hearted...atleast one character, who happens to be my favorite, made sure that i had ball of a time not only because of his language but also because our flight from colombo to karachi was delayed for 2 hours

Rain drops ..... Part II

2005-08-13T13:32:00.000+05:00

for those who are new to my "dormant" blog, i travel beteen karachi, singapore and colombo every month and my reference to rain have nothing to do with karachi where i just spent the last ten days. the next time i am in karachi it would be september and the monsoon clouds would have lessened in intensity...looking at the sky in karachi yearning of rain is symbolic , hope for better days and an ever elusive goal of stablility in the country

rain drops keep falling on my head

2005-07-26T08:13:00.000+05:00

i am the only idiot in the building watching the rain...the rain is so heavy that there is no visibility at all...people are sick of rain here since the showers are so heavy but i love being the mad man having a smile on my face just because of the downpour...

Bad music hell

2005-07-05T16:14:00.000+05:00

its 7pm
catching up on emails of the day
my colleague playing "nothings gona change my love for you"...
here comes billy ocean "carribean queen" oh gawd
another day in a bad music hell i suppose