The ballad of the chronic nail-biter

Bye Blogger

2009-01-03T09:23:00.000-08:00

So I’ve moved to wordpress.

I’ll miss a lot of things though. My header, the warmth of the color scheme, the pop up window that would show all the comments…

But I’m a big girl now. I’m sure i can do this without crying. :P

You can find me here though. If I’m on your blogroll- please edit the url.

Sigh…I wish I could take you with me, header.

Jiwani

2009-01-02T10:42:00.000-08:00

The sun sets at Jiwani.

Basically, the sun sets pretty much at every spot on the planet, but it sets special in Jiwani. And we travelled an extra one and a half hour from Gwadar to see this miraculous sun set in all it's golden, and purple glory. And i chronicled it. Every ten minutes I'd take a picture of the sun's journey down the sky and after every click my brother would take the camera and check it's battery. Is trust dead in this world?

The police escort my dad's student provided us (he teaches CBR people how to bungle up the government's revenues) took us to the WWF (World Wide Fund- not the wrestling thing) branch at the top of a cliff and from there we walked to the edge overlooking the beach.

I have never felt closer to Allah.

Mushkilain itni pari mujh pe

2008-12-30T07:00:00.000-08:00

Just when life seems to be taking a turn for the better, BAM! you hit a metaphorical random motorcycle wala and get stuck in a huge mess.

My exams will finish tomorrow and another ordeal shall begin.

My nani has taken rishta searching to new, unbelievable levels, and my mother does not make things any easier for me. Guys fall in love with her, and send a rishta for me on the principle of 'like mother, like daughter'; and my mother(in full deceptive "khayye na-yeh-meri-beti-ne-banaya-he" mode) does NOT tell them that I am a carbon copy of my dad.
Oh the deceit!!

WHEN will this shadi season end???

and I thought I would never write one of these posts. Goes to show you Allah is the ultimate comic genius.

Bijli, Mehndi, aur main

2008-12-21T03:13:00.000-08:00

I am typing this in the drawing room, with no lights on and the door closed. My brother is in a catatonic state right now and I’m taking advantage of that by stealing his laptop, getting into wireless internet range and updating my blog without having to kick my sister off the pc downstairs. If everything goes according to plan Hani will never know of the evilness I have been up to.

How exactly is this evil, you might ask? Let me take you a few steps back in time to the day I put up this post about how I murder technological gadgets with a mere glance of the eye; and then remind you that my brother bought this laptop with his hard earned money working at Newburgh’s Dunkin Donuts as the-guy-at-the-cash-register (or whatever they’re called) and kisses it good night every night before going to sleep. I am putting 21 years of friendly relations between my brother and myself at risk.

By the way, while we’re on the subject, can someone please tell me how it’s possible that I can receive text messages but can’t send them? I go to cell phone-waale; they tell me it’s a problem with the service, and Telenor people say that their service is fine. Has anyone ever had this problem?

Oh crap. Something HAS happened. The laptop’s on charge yet the battery charging sign is stationery and the wireless has stopped working…oh shit.

And NO the battery is not full!

Ok no, it's all good. The broadband thing was just fluctuating and the battery level seems to be a bit higher than it was 20 minutes ago. *huge sigh of relief*. Everything in Karachi fluctuates except the crime rate and the number of people that stare at girls who enter the great outdoors (aka outside the chaar-diwari). Those are our happy constants and the way one can be sure they really are in this great cosmopolitan quagmire.

So anyway, reason for this post. Last night was my cousin's mehndi. Her family's settled in the US and they're getting the girl married to some guy here. Now silly us, we thought 'chalo, 20 saal se Amreeka main hain, in ke yaan waqt pe kaam ho ga' blah blah etc etc.

Obviously, we were wrong.

Actually, my mum and dad were wrong. I was right *obnoxiously smug smirk*

The minute we enter, electricity vanishes. These people were told to rent a generator for one night! What happened to the contingency planning Americans are supposed to be so good at? Are Germans the only efficient people on the planet?!

We were crazy early, got there around 8 30. Event starts around 11; from contemplating killing flies by aiming at them with rubber bands, I graduate to killing myself. Survive the night somehow and get home by 1. Joy.

Highlight of the night: aunt who's daughter is getting married says "tum log tau yahin pe rehte ho, tum kyun waqt pe aye?" then dashes off into the bathrooom to change.

Damn the predictable unpredictability of this city.

Dhewri

2008-12-19T06:40:00.000-08:00

It’s raining during the middle of shadi season; let’s hope it saves me from having to attend any.

I helped my mother make dhewri today. They’re laddus made of aata with nuts mixed in and taste like…well…like sweet aata with nuts mixed in. Not my favorite form of mithai but dhewris, it seems, are a necessary part of Gorukhpuri weddings. I don’t really understand why, considering it’s extremely hard trying to eat one; it crumbles into dust at the slightest touch and you can’t get more than a few powdery bits in your mouth at a try, the rest just dissolves into smoke on your sleeve, but I guess that’s the charm of traditions. They’re there because they’re there. No logical reason behind them.

Nobody in my family (other than my mum and an aunt) knows how to make dhewris anymore, but all their elders (well, the women at least) could. It’s funny the stuff we leave behind as we move forward. We shed traditions like snakes shed old skin- they no longer fit so off they go! None of this generation knows how to speak the old gorukhpuri that my eldest taya could. The avats and jaavats and dekh-yuns, and we understand next to nothing of the customs that they insist are part of our heritage. We absorb their stories in wide-eyed disbelief- but I doubt any of us can picture their life in India. I can’t even begin to comprehend how an entire wedding could be pulled off in 5 rupees- regardless what century it was.

It’s sad realizing that at some point in time even these dhewris will be a forgotten bit of my culture, like giving a ‘dhuuni’ to a bride is. Like making lapsi and puuri when it rains is, like the gathering of all the family women for the dupatta- takai is. I remember these from my childhood, they don’t happen anymore. After all, who has the time?

So rationally speaking, as one progresses one must discard the things one no longer has any use for. This includes superstitions, traditions, and clingy people who keep calling you in the middle of a nap to ask you whether you have someone’s address. Technically it’s the right thing to do.

But emotionally speaking, rationality should go hang.

Dissertation and Blogger Party

2008-12-16T08:19:00.000-08:00

Have you read those epic fantasy books that go on for 5-6 volumes and end in an epic (can’t find an alternate word) battle between right and wrong, good and evil, or light and dark? Liar, I know you have. Stop hiding your copy of the Belgariad under your bed.
Khaer, that’s how I feel right now with the end of semester drawing near. I feel life rushing towards this one point where the fate of my world will be decided, and all hope, or all fear shall be lost.
Final year is SO the drama.
I somehow managed to finish my dissertation last night, so what if it was 2699 words over the limit, 2 hours late and without references and literature review? I had one of those epic choices to make: finish my dissertation on time, or attend the blogger meet-up, and I obviously took the path of least resistance. I went to the party. And I don’t regret it. In your face, you evil forces of Evil.
Anyway, it was fun. Exponentially more fun than my dissertation.
*------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*
I hear a car pull up outside my house and Karachiwali asked the address from my kamwali’s husband who’s sitting on the lawn of that very house and the idiot had no clue what place she was talking about. Such morons have no right to marry and have children. People should take IQ tests before they’re allowed to reproduce.
*---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

So we reached Nandos. Finally. What I found out during the ride to Nandos: SAWJ will not ask for directions, and Karachiwali is as lost as I am. And Nandos is not inside the Naheeds wali gali.

*---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*
Ek tau everyone there was so science-y. Khiwali wants to do a Ph.D in AI, SAWJ and Safi are electrical and electronic engineers (don’t remember which one is which) and Mahw is a psychologist.
I felt like the most jahil person there, but shukar he Farooq bhi tha :D

I don’t think he likes me very much.

*--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*
I hope Purple fit in. I hope she feels better. And once again luv, you’re NOT fat. Not even in a hijaab.
*--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

I’m still trying to figure out HOW my cheesecake cost me Rs.500 :(

2008-12-15T23:59:00.000-08:00

First things first.
I've been tagged by SAWJ and Anas and if i didnt waste so much time hanging around other people's blogs i might never have known. Damn my loserpana.
So, here it is:
(Copy-paste starts here!)
Rules:
* IT’S HARDER THAN IT LOOKS!* TAG 10 PEOPLE INCLUDING THE ONE THAT SENT THIS TO YOU.* USE THE 1ST LETTER OF YOUR NAME TO ANSWER EACH OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS.* THEY HAVE TO BE REAL PLACES, NAMES,THINGS. NOTHING MADE UP!* TRY TO USE DIFFERENT ANSWERS IF THE PERSON WHO TAGGED YOU HAD THE SAME 1ST INITIAL.* YOU CAN’T USE YOUR NAME FOR THE BOY/GIRL NAME QUESTION.
(Copy-paste ends here!)

SCATTERGORIES:
1. What is your name: Hira
2. A 4 Letter word: Hair
3. A Boys Name: Haris
4. A Girls Name: Huda
5. An Occupation: Hairdresser
6. A Color: Hot Pink
7. Something you wear: hairbands? helmet while driving?
8. A Beverage: hot coffee?
9. A Food: Hungarian Goulash ( i googled that)
10. Something found in the bathroom: sigh...hairbrush.
11. A place: Hungary
12. A Reason for being late: HAD forgotten what time class was.
13. Something you shout: Haye! (no i dont. this was all i could think of)

And I won't tag anyone. Ha.

My first Interview!!!

2008-12-13T08:04:00.000-08:00

So yes, I've already planned the press conferences I will give once I'm PM of Pakistan but this interview shall always remain carved in lino in my mind as my first ever interaction with the 'papparazzi'.

I feel so Angelina Jolie right now.

Sprinkle topped Eid

2008-12-10T11:53:00.000-08:00

I don't like Eid much, but some moments are pretty sweet.

It's funny how a cupcake can make life so much happier.

The unbearable lightness of being lost

2008-12-09T05:10:00.000-08:00

(with apologies to Milan Kudera whose book I tried valiantly but unsuccessfully to read)

This book was torture. Most contemporary classics are. Modern day writers believe the more unbearable the characters, the more chances of winning a Pulitzer and being considered a literary phenomenon. Why, I ask you, why would I read about people I would hate if I met them in real life?

Actually, it’s funny, but hate requires a lot of effort. I really can’t find the time or reason to more than slightly dislike anyone and even then they have to be pretty Goddamn awful to me. Similarly I find it just as much of a nuisance loving anyone too. I sometimes (and this will shock a few people ) find it very hard to remember that I love my parents, and during these amnesiac fits I tend to imagine elaborate escape plans to New York City using my dad’s credit card, and sending them a “You’ve failed! I’m freeee!” phonecall from the JFK. Yes, I’m evil, but only during periods of memory loss.

This post has nothing to do with the title. I just thought it would sound cool.

Actually no, the title is relevant.

There’s a never ending war between faith and science, according to Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons. Scientists forever put down religion with theories like Evolution and Occam’s razor, and the clergy (whichever faith) constantly try to reconcile Science to God. If one has faith, he/she must learn to take certain scientific ‘truths’ in stride; if one is rational (in scientific terms), he/she must realize that religion might not provide ALL the answers and at some point one has to stop asking questions to keep one’s faith intact.

An acquaintance renounced Islam a few years ago and I didn’t do much to stop him. The minute I say “Dude, you’re going to hell” he whips up a “Technically you’ll be in a shittier spot than me, Hira, you’re a munafiq” type dialogue with a smirk and I clam up. Damn him. He’s read a lot more on Islam than I have. And even I know where I’m headed. I waver between Muslim and Agnostic to a horrifying degree. If I find it so hard to remember I love my parents, imagine how hard it must be to convince myself I love a God I can neither see, nor hear, nor touch. It’s logic that keeps me from renouncing Islam myself. There MUST be a God- this world could not possibly work on its own. And this is the only religion that makes any sense whatsoever; therefore it’s the best out of all the other choices. I am Muslim, but my faith is like nalkey ka pani- turned off and on at will. I wish I was stronger-willed. I wish I was less cold.

Wese, I may not be a Muslim in the true sense of the word, but I think maybe people like me understand Allah just as well as proper Mutaqqi people do.

Thing is, the more I read, the more I question and the more I realize why Allah left a lot of things unanswered. Love requires blind trust, and blind faith. Allah asks for love. Not fear as much, not worship. Those come AFTER love. And I think once I learn to love my God, after believing in Him absolutely, maybe, maybe then I could be able to call myself a Muslim? Maybe then my prayers, fasting and purdah might actually have significance. And maybe, just maybe, I might not end up in Hell.

PS: By the way, Eid Mubarak :D

Twilight

2008-12-04T09:48:00.000-08:00

So I come back home after a long tiring day running around the city in a rickshaw and find a thick book with a "Snow White in Goth land" type cover lounging on my bed, waiting for me and think, “It’s a gift from heaven, now all I need is some tea and privacy…”
Then I read the back cover

About three things I was absolute positive.
First, Edward was a vampire
Second, there was a part of him- and I don’t know how dominant that part might be- that thirsted for my blood.
And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

Ok up til now it doesn’t sound that bad. A bit ridiculous, but if I can read Miranda Keyes ‘The other side of the Story’ out of sheer boredom I can manage this as well. Plus maybe it’s the Buffy-Spike thing, and I loved that…Spike mostly, what with the accent and the coat and the attitude and wit and the accent and the coat *lost in wispy daydream, but wakes up abruptly*… Khaer I could share him with Buffy, after all she totally kicked ass and deserved an equal in every sense of the word, be it Angel or Spike though Spike is still the better vampire (He’d killed 2 slayers! How many did Angel kill huh?) yada yada

Then I read on:
With his porcelain skin, golden eyes, mesmerizing voice and supernatural gifts, Edward is both irresistible and impenetrable.

My sister tells me he’s inhumanly gorgeous. Every 4th line of the book stresses how beautiful he is. His eyes turn from jet black to gold, he has super strength, super speed, a freaky (her word, not mine) sense of humor which it seems is spent making catty comments about her to her [tip for you aspiring Romeos out there: girls adore intelligent jerks. You want her? Be one (some of you might not even have to try). Call it masochism, or stupidity- whatever.] Edward can read faces- but not Bella’s and he is forever asking her what she is thinking and how she’s feeling and whether she’s comfortable on top of that tree.
Oh, he saves her life too.
This Prince Charming-ish vampire unconditionally loves this clumsy, average looking, nerdy girl and it seems he’s not the only one. She has a gaggle of admirers and I really can’t see why…Bella is irritating. She’s no Buffy at least.

Please don’t tell me he can see her soul deep inside. He’s a frick’n vampire- she could be Jesus in female form and he shouldn’t care.

I can’t stop my sister from reading or watching anything. She’s 15, and 15 year olds deserve the Chase Crawford with the soul of John Mayer dreams. They need the belief that some really amazing person is out there for them because Heaven knows, those hormonal imbalances don’t make life easy. Romance is their drug. So what if it produces hallucinations along with the euphoria?

But it’s harsh when the dreams end. When you realize the geeky girls are still the brunt of jokes, and beautiful people rarely have the time to glance into people’s souls- they’re too busy glancing in glass windows at their own reflection.
It’s harsher when you find out love is never unconditional. It’s like the Pizza Hut deals…get a regular pizza FREE and the ‘free’ has an asterisk. Taxes apply. You’ll want things, He’ll want things. You’ll get clingy and he’ll get defensive. He’ll give you presents and time and will wonder how much of yourself you can give him in return…No, it’s rarely unconditional.

But harshest is when you also realize how necessary it is to find an equal. And how many people you hurt along the way because they are either too good for you, or I don’t know, not good enough? See how cruel that sounds?

You don’t tell that to a 15 year old. You let her dream about Edwards and Spikes.

Pearl grip and chrome plated

2008-12-03T02:22:00.000-08:00

I’ll kill for a gun right now.
Ok, that just sounded wrong.

Recreating bullet holes in cloth without a gun is hell. The best I can do is just rip holes in the fabric and blacken the edges with a marker. Spraying around the frayed edges with red ink helps make it look a little authentic, though my very logical mind keeps telling me dried blood is brown and NOT red and doesn’t look this ketchup-y. But you explain that to imagination-less management students (the potential buyers of anything I might make) who believe Tarantino is a 'kind of spider’. And a thesis advisor who can’t tell where the name begins and ends:

“Tumhari kiya theme thi? Arey haan…tintin tantarantinotosotoso…”

I live among philistines.

For some reason I thought I’d graduate without having to go through this shit. When I’d see Kaki and Siddo working their butts off for their thesis it never occurred to me I’d be doing the same thing a few years later.

I seriously thought I’d die before 4th year.

But obviously, I didn’t. I have much to be thankful for.

Khaer, conclusion: my thesis would be a lot simpler if I had a gun.
Second conclusion: My life would be a lot simpler if I had a gun.

An Auto Ordnance 1911A1 , to be exact:

This baby proves that evil things can be very very beautiful…

I wonder what I'm going to turn into by the end of my thesis.

Gotham

2008-12-01T08:34:00.001-08:00

I’m braver than a lot of people.
I use my name.
I don’t hide between pictures.
Or aliases.
But that’s a hindrance. It would be so much more safer to be personal under the bullet-proof vest of anonymity.
No. Wrong metaphor.
Wrong metaphor, wrong timing.
Wrong city.

Gotham is not Metropolis. Gotham deserves Batman- a man who will resort to anything to save a worm-infested city; while Metropolis has Superman- a boy scout with awful fashion sense who knows the world needs him more than Metropolis does.

Karachi is our Gotham, now all we need is Bruce Wayne.

Can you hold the phone baby, there’s another newsflash.

There are sprinkles on my brother’s birthday cake. I added them to keep it from looking anemic- Heaven knows why the only flavor of anything he eats is vanilla. There’s only so much white I can take, and only so much darkness. Though I am a chocolate fiend I’d still prefer an Angel food cake rather than the Devil’s.

And you can hear gunfire outside.

Screw Tarantino. Violence is NEVER aesthetic.

Mumbai

2008-11-28T07:06:00.000-08:00

They say the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks are young men between the ages 20 to 25.
My brother will turn 21 day after tomorrow.
Whose kid brothers are out there, taking people hostage? Killing indiscriminately?
I don’t know…everyone I’ve talked to is trying to turn this into a conspiracy theory; whereas I keep imagining Hani (my brother) in his ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ T shirt firing an AK 47 into a crowd. My little brother.
My brother’s a baby. He looks at least 25 but he still can’t mix his food properly- he has my mother do it for him. He watches anime 24/7 and can’t tell if it’s time to flip an omelet when one side is cooked. He laughs at slapstick; and thinks a parrot flying into a fan is hilarious, but gets blubbery when people are leaving at the airport- literally cries. He didn’t get over ‘The land before time’ for days, and he was in 5th grade! I remember making so much fun of him. Oh, and he won’t let me drive.

Wese, I’m sure he’s strong enough to pick up an AK 47.
Question is, is he the sort to fire it?
What sort of person do you have to be to kill somebody else?

Once again, I can’t help wondering, whose brothers and sons are out there?

I guess we’ll find out when this ends, and it will end. Like Beslan did. Like Lal masjid did. Blood and more mayhem.

What will happen when those bodies come back home?

How old do you think this boy looks?

PS- A year later Bollywood will turn this into a movie, and scoop up millions of rupees from people dying to see Jon Abraham in a skin tight t shirt, carrying a rifle and saying 'Allah u Akbar' while blasting off a gora's head, and Hrithik as the captain on the National Security Gaurds out to save India from anything from terrorist attacks to nuclear warfare. Priyanka Chopra will play the receptionist at the Oberoi that either, or both are in love with. And all of this, will mean nothing.

Maybe after five years, it might- just might- even become funny.

You have to give credit to mankind's ability to forget and move on.

The Riddle of Bob Dylan

2008-11-26T04:11:00.000-08:00

When you watch ‘I’m not there’, keep an open mind. If you are ‘all there’ you won’t be able to survive the first few minutes, so turn off the DVD player after reading the title and put on Grey’s Anatomy. This movie will kill you.
But if you aren’t, keep moving forward. Pay attention. To the camera tricks, the symbolism, the craziness, the haziness, the drug-taking narrative that disappears into stumbling words and fading images. You will realize what it is to turn a person into a film- not turn his life into one, don’t get me wrong here- turn a mind, soul and body into a two hour fifteen minute synopsis.
This is the film Picasso would have made for Bob Dylan. This is the film Dylan would have made for Dylan.
This is the film that should have won Cate Blanchett her second Oscar.

Don’t expect a narrative, don’t expect a plot. Don’t expect figuring out why the name Bob Dylan is never used throughout the movie. You can’t look up the people because all of them have aliases, so there is no Jack Rollins, Jude Quinn or Robbie Clarke. But then, what else do you expect from a movie called what it's called?

Watch ‘I’m not there’ if you love Film and film making, Dylan, or Cate Blanchett. This is one of the few reasons we should not give up on Hollywood.

What the-?? How did it DO that???

2008-11-24T09:04:00.000-08:00

SAWJ pointed out this neat test which tells you what kind of blogger you are. Thing is, you just write down your url and click once and voila, you get the answer immediately. No questions, no rorschach blots.

This is what i got:

ISFP - The Artists
The gentle and compassionate type. They are especially attuned their inner values and what other people need. They are not friends of many words and tend to take the worries of the world on their shoulders. They tend to follow the path of least resistance and have to look out not to be taken advantage of.

They often prefer working quietly, behind the scene as a part of a team. They tend to value their friends and family above what they do for a living.

Wtf?! How did they pull out that answer? From a digital top hat? How did this website know i'm an art freak in 2 seconds flat?
People, please try this out and tell me your results. It's creepy.

Husn e Bazaar-aan

2008-11-23T01:01:00.000-08:00

Saddar is the heart of Karachi. Whenever my father goes hazy over the days when he would walk from Manora cottage (ancestral home which by some weird family conspiracy was sold off and is now a block of flats) to Urdu bazaar and back before breakfast, he almost manages to convince me of a time when Bandar road and Empress Market might have been places worth living in or near to. With trams, and cinemas showing ‘The Guns of Navarone’, and sha’ers and artists on every corner, everybody knowing everybody over a cup of kehwa at one of the tea houses… seems surreal doesn’t it? Most of this must be fantasy tinged memory, but old black and white pictures do depict a Karachi that is safe, clean and (can you imagine this?) sparsely populated.

But khaer, times change, people move on and move in, and while moving in they get married and have 12 or so children who then have 7 or so children each (seven because the family planning ads finally get through their skulls); and if you continue this generation after generation it explains how this city is the quagmire of people that it is now. Khaer, we were talking of Saddar, and though it’s nothing like my father’s memory, it’s still a pretty fantasy tinged place.

For one, you can find everything in Saddar at insanely cheap prices, and amazingly large amounts. It’s unbelievable the amount of materiel they can fit in their 20 by 20 feet shops. Ask for anything: say yellow and green striped felt (no, I did not ask for anything that gaudy- it’s just an example) and the sales guy will squeeze between rolls and rolls of parachute, felt, Rexene and plastic, climb over 25 borian, jump onto a ledge and then disappear, returning 5 minutes later with eight or nine samples of green and yellow striped felt.
It’s un.be.lievable.
And two, it’s still Saddar, with its ancient looking, angrez ke zamaney ki buildings interspersed between ugly commercial blocks of cement. Because when you peer into a gali you can see life going on as it probably did 50 years ago, it all smells and looks like early independence years. I don’t know why; maybe the spirits of puraney muslim leegis still sit where all the old tea houses were and talk about the British Raj.

I love Saddar and all its creepy crawly streets filled with thousands of people not really doing anything at all but still pretending to be so busy, and the smells and the dhuan. Dumb things to love, but Karachi is like that. Like the guy who’s hopelessly flawed and unsuitable in every single way but you still can’t think of anyone better than him. You have to be insanely in love with Karachi to take some of the shit she spews out every day. Like the power outages, the icky people, the sewage problems and the traffic- oh my God- the traffic.
You may arrive in Saddar safe and sound, but you can never leave. It’s Hotel California without the pink champagne on ice. And when you try, they (as to who ‘they’ are, I can’t say) command every rickshaw, bus and motorcycle in the area to block your path. And then proceed to asphyxiate you.
And right about now is when your father starts cursing those manhoos immigrants from everywhere else in the country who control public transport but don’t feel the necessity of giving a driving exam or following any traffic law whatsoever; and banks who lease cars out to every Rashid, Ahmed and Saqlain without caring about the effect it’ll have on the already miserable traffic situation in the country. At this point, your mp 3 player or iPod is your best friend.

It’s funny how no matter how many times you go to Saddar (and not just M.A Jinnah road or Zaibunnnisa street) but inside the galian into the many markets that lie within the area (Sarafa bazaar and Khori Garden etc), you’ll find something new and- how else can I say it- nostalgic. Things that remind you of how old Saddar must have been; like the Jinnah cap house and the nameless breakfast café where we had the best Paratha in the city. If ever a place had atmosphere- it’s Saddar.

A la Tarantino.

2008-11-22T00:20:00.000-08:00

This is the director I’m doing my thesis on:

I am so screwed.

After watching every movie and reading each script about 12 times I didn’t think I’d find anything interesting on youtube. The montages are usually pathetic slideshow presentations with background music, stuff that even I can do and I’m unbelievably backwards when it comes to computers.
But this guy (barringer82) has managed to capture Tarantino’s entire feel within 4 minutes. And I’m impressed at his song selection. Across 110th Street and Chick habit are both from his lesser known movies, Jackie Brown and Death Proof.

The man might snip and copy from every movie on the planet, but his end products are unmistakably Tarantino.
Who else can make a Bruce Lee martial arts movie mixed with a spaghetti western in epic revenge fashion?
And who else can use the Bible and Christianity’s theme of sin and redemption in such a twisted way?
Oh, and name some other director who can make accidentally blowing off somebody’s skull a comic situation?

I love Quentin Tarantino.

The answer to Easypie's question is here!

2008-11-18T07:41:00.000-08:00

I can drive now.

To emphasize the amazingness of this statement, let me illustrate the Turning Incident for you.

This is how the average person makes a turning:

This is how I made a turning last month.

But that's all history. Now I can drive.

Karachi's X-girl

2008-11-16T00:43:00.000-08:00

Computers hate me, cellphones blink out when I approach and microwaves self destruct the minute they see me enter the kitchen. I have a superpower; I kill machines.
For example, my brother’s got the ptcl wireless broadband service installed and it works great when he needs the pc. But the minute I press the power button, the service dies. The lights on the little boxie thing connected to all the wires go berserk, and every web page I open tells me they couldn’t connect to the server BUT- and here’s the rub- the internet is working perfectly on my brothers laptop, upstairs and about ten feet away, through the wireless whatever-it-is.
I’m a mutant. Call me…hmm…this one’s a toughie.
Anti-electro girl?
Uff. How do the X men come up with their names?
Ms. McMurphy’s law?
Lady Non-conductor?
Everything I learned in 12th grade physics has just flown out the window.

This hatred is mutual though. We’re just not compatible, machines and I, even though it is- in a way- a symbiotic relationship. I need my cell phone, and it needs me, nevertheless it takes infinite pleasure in killing itself whenever I require it the most (like during the middle of calls) while I try my hardest to give it as much physical pain as possible without causing permanent damage. This includes dropping it downstairs and forgetting it in public toilets. Don’t worry, it’s one of those ancient Nokias; nobody is going to steal it and it sure as hell won’t break.

The Amish, in Pennsylvania spurn technology.
Technology, atleast in Karachi, spurns me.
But then, as the only consolation I can find, technology in Karachi spurns pretty much everybody.

There’s barely any electricity so we buy generators and install UPS’s. Then when they break down we take out our emergency lights which give out a sickly white shine for about twenty minutes then flicker out with a gasp having run out of the little juice they have. Quickly we turn on our torches for a few seconds, before the batteries die because they’re cheap Chinese copies at high American prices, and finally finally, we revert to candles and laltains. We’re the non-complacent Amish.

Karachi gives you the benefit of being able to fit in any society at all, with or without electricity.

Aaj kal both my generator and UPS is dead. I’ve been dropped to ‘normal’ non- elitist, non burger level. Now it's my house in perpetual darkness while the entire street is aglow. And being a burger and an 'elite', I can't take that.

I have no qualms with the KESC. We use up more electricity then we produce, half the city steals, the other half fix the meters, and the few that pay the bill curse them so much they probably have booked seats in hell. What I can't stand is myself being so dependent on electricity that 5 minutes without a fan drives me insane. And nothing pisses me off more than seeing the barabar wala house radiating more light than uranium. It's all I can do to keep from putting sugar in their generator's engine. In my defense, they have their meter 'fixed' as well.

I miss the days before generators and UPS’s where everyone became equal whenever the KESCwale or WAPDA (let’s not limit this to Karachi) felt like giving society a sermon.

no, not really.

2008-11-09T08:51:00.000-08:00

Been tagged by Mahwash. And since I want to write about something else I'll just get this done with as soon as possible.

The tag is:

You have to write

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

Anyway, here I go:
1) Three things which you pride yourself upon.
a)my ability to love blindly, deafly, dumbly and stupidly.
b)My honesty; to myself and others.
c)and the subtle blend of creativity and insanity that creeps into everything i do, or say.

2)Three things you hate about yourself.
My nose, my need to feel guilty about anything and everything, regardless of whether it's my fault or not, and my ability to love blindly, deafly, dumbly and stupidly.

3)Three things that you can't let go of.
fear of dolls, heights and things that go bump in the night, my mum's apron strings,and the belief that my guy IS out there, somewhere

4)Three things that you love to eat.
chocolate, cheesecake, and anything deepfried, grilled, panfried with breadcrumbs or roasted and then afterwards filled with cheese

5)Three things you cannot possibly eat in a million years
my pride, coffee beans ( i tried, and to summarise the subsequent ten minutes- blech blech, aakh thu!), and onions.

6)Three songs you could sing to the rest of the world.
I started a joke (wallflowers), Ab ke sawan, and 'the song that never ends'

7)Three movies you would show if you had your way around Film Festivals.
Another cinderella story, I really hate my job, and Honey I blew up the kids.
Yes, the purpose is to make film critics cry.

Ok, now I forgot what I originally planned to write about so I guess that's it for today.

By the by, this tags open for anyone interested. I'm too pooped to name anybody.

Big Foot in an alternate universe

2008-11-08T08:32:00.000-08:00

Nothing makes me happier than watching the hot person die at the end of a movie, other than having her/him die in the beginning. Beautiful people scare me. If they talk to me I wonder what their hidden, stuck-up, pain-in-the-ass agenda is; if they ignore me I know it's because they're stuck-up-pains-in-the-ass anyway. Nothing is more frustrating than feeling flattered at an ounce of attention while letting my brain dissolve like limopani in coldwater when they smile; and I absolutely loathe the look of abject vapidity that comes to my face while I calculate how proportional their nose is with regard to the rest of their face. Deep down inside me a little Gertrude Stein-ish voice sings "A stud is a dud is a dud is a stud is a dud is a dud is a dud" but I’m just not listening. This rhyme will probably continue forever with blood and mud and flood and crud (I’m sure that's a word) but I’m too dumb to notice that none of these words are pleasant, and that good-looking men are the bane of civil society!!!!

So in the end we come to the conclusion that an asshole called by any other name will still remain an asshole. Hence proved.

Why this rant against all people Jude Law-esque and Brangeline? Simple. My nani's totkays for becoming 'fair and lovely' by slopping everything in the fridge on my face are driving me insane and I hate having to give up my daily cheese sandwich to avoid the mortification of fitting into a size medium t shirt when "according to my height" I should be a size small. Fat people are happy people. They're non conformists at heart; in fact they're society's true rebels. We should follow their lead rather than those famine stricken, size zero (zero's not even a number!) stick figures we call models.

Honestly, why should I strive for super human beauty when I know the average man is sub humanly ugly? And why is all the stress primarily on women? Is it because we're more accepting of the opposite gender's physical faults than they are of ours? or to be honest, of we are of ourselves. We women hate ourselves so much that we go through inconcievable self torture (bread and water is what Britons used to call jail, and we call a diet) to become something no man is asking for; a doll, or a porn star.

Finding a guy is the last reason I should look beautiful. I should look beautiful because I respect myself too much to look like yesterday's leftover meal. I should look beautiful because i sure as hell am, regardless of my wonky nose, dark circles that resemble war trenches, and ugly hands.

In fact from now on, I refuse to conform to society’s disgusting standards of beauty. I will not rub balai n honey on my face, it makes me sneeze. I will not stop myself from eating the last brownie; damn it, I made it so I’ll eat it! It's my brownie, mine! And I will not let people degrade me because I’m dark, or a size 6 and not 0, and a shrimpy 5’ 2". In some alternate universe Bigfoot might resemble George Clooney.

Another tag!!

2008-11-08T05:51:00.000-08:00

Another tag!!! And this time, it's Absar. Thanks yaar. At least today I won't feel guilty about adding another self-centered post to the list. So:

The Rules are:
~ Link to the Blogger who tagged you.(done that)
~ In your blog, post The Rules and…
~ Six quirky but unspectacular factoids about yourself (err yeah, i can manage that...i guess)
~ Tag six other bloggers by linking to them (oh crap)
~ Go to each person’s blog, and leave a comment that lets them know they’ve been tagged.
~ Let me know you’ve done this tagged post too!

right then, here goes.

1) I'm not a tea addict. It's just the only thing in the cafeteria I can afford to have 4 times a day.
2) I'm usually very very happy when I run out of credit.
3) My brain is extremely rude. It constantly generates sarky comments that my tongue is too cowardly to speak out loud.
4) I despise Tom Cruise. Truly, madly, deeply loathe him.
5) Days have no meaning for me. You can tell me to show up on the 11th of June, but I will arrive sometime mid-July. Unless it's my birthday. I always remember my birthday.
6) Onions make me choke.

Now comes the very very tough part.

Mahwash, obviously. Though poor girl seems to be really busy aaj kal. And wat the heck, i'll tag Sajjad again. And...err...hmm...

How about Noor, Aamir, Esfand, and now I just need one more person...

Ok. Shiza, you're tagged.

So ab I guess I just have to tell all of you about it.

This is hard work Absar.

Autumn cleaning

2008-11-06T09:14:00.000-08:00

She threw away my gajrey.

She had cleaned out my room, and thrown out all the 'junk'.

And among the trash, were my gajrey. My year old gajrey. with the rusted brown marigolds and the rose that had turned black, but still smelled like an October night that someone spent Rs. 150 to buy me a gajra.

Just the wrong someone, sadly.

The right one had not bothered to come.

Three gajrey. Three. And i don't even remember the people who gave them to me.

It's sad how i kept the flowers for memory's sake, and forgot the faces.

People like me deserve to be hurt.

Tag anyone?

2008-11-05T07:22:00.000-08:00

I’ve been tagged! Glory Hallelujah, I’ve actually been tagged.

I’m getting somewhere in the blogging world…so what if the tagger is Majaz, who’s always been my only fan anyway?

Baby, I got tagged!!!

Khaer, this is how it goes:

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

I’ll get to the actual answer once I figure out who to tag next.

This is silly. I have to know at least 8 people in the blogosphere who haven’t done this before me.

No, really.

….

Screw this, yaar.

I just realized being tagged is only fun when you have someone to tag ahead. Like being in love is only fun when that person loves you back. SIGH.

Anyway, on to my answers:

1) Karachi, and in particular, PECHS: Ok, so the roads are a mess, the houses always dark and you’ll never know who lives next door, but it’s quiet, peaceful and on my side of the bridge (huge grin).

2) Naaran valley: Mountains, streams and two beautiful lakes only a few hours away. Heaters when it’s snowing and blankets even in summers…chilghozay and garam tea, a street with shops and restaurants and those crazy foreign tourists on bicycles…I’d like to be able to touch a glacier in the middle of June.

3) Quetta: Because memories make a place a home. And because I never found out whether there were werewolves in Quetta.

4) Hunza: The two nights I spent there, on the first I actually SAW galaxies in the sky; and on the second I had the best Aaloo qeema ever.

5) Larkana: My taya never let me go to the amrood ke baaghat. It wasn’t fair that I and Zehra had to stay at home while my brothers and cousins went and probably gorged themselves silly. Not only will I own a house in Larkana, I’ll have my own amrood, saib, and aam ke baagh too. Then I’ll see who stops me from going anywhere I want.

6) Lahore: Because the best plays are in Lahore, the fashion season starts there first, it has more art galleries than anywhere in Pakistan and is supposed to be the cultural hub. But it STILL doesn’t have the sea.

7) The Arabian sea: A yacht classifies as a home, doesn’t it?

8) Islamabad: Because no where else in Pakistan did I see lightening strike so near the ground.

Well. I’m done. Whoever wants to be tagged,umm..i guess you’re it. Beknighted, are you listening?

Rambling.

2008-11-04T03:05:00.000-08:00

My blog is unbelievably self-centered. Nothing screams “Look at me! Look at me!” than a header with your own picture adorning it, and a url like www.hiragoeson.blogspot.com. But in my defence, I don’t ask people to come here and read anything. There are wonderful, earth-changing blogs in the web world featuring authors who strive to make this planet happier, safer and greener [you might find one or two on the right], but this is, in a very self satisfied way, not one of them. Never have I claimed to want to make a difference. I like chaos and disruption, which is why I’m still here. Pakistan is exciting and Pakistanis amuse me. In fact, we amuse the rest of the world too- which is why Americans probably performed a Washington luddi when Zardari was elected. Finally someone has a president dumber than theirs.

However, things change. Be it Obama or McCain, the next US president will be Einstein compared to George W; and the United States will no longer hang her head in shame. We might have Biden gaffes and Palin-isms [primarily Palin-isms, I assume] but for every mispronunciation and political lunacy, there’ll be an Obama speech or McCain joke to balance it out. Sadly though, Zardari is neither witty, nor thought provoking; nor Gillani a hockey mom with lipstick, or a politician with 35 years experience. So I guess we’ll finally have the dubious honour of winning Earth’s most idiotic and incompetent political regime award. Our special talent: A cabinet which asexually reproduces itself so that the blame can be divided into millions of parts once it officially begins to rain down (blame, I mean, not cabinets).

Sigh

22 new federal ministers added today. So taxpayers, now there’ll be a few other children you’ll be sending to Europe for higher education, and a few more houses you’ll be paying to have refurbished and some more world tours that you’ll be funding with your hard earned income. Allah ajar de ga; deney wala haath hona chahiye lene wala nahi.

See? Don’t you miss my happy-go-lucky self involvement?

My world is screwed up enough without outside help, thank you. I’d rather not worry about Zardari’s houses or Sara Palin’s $150,000 wardrobe because neither of them will ever read my blog, or receive my phone calls; and they sure as hell won’t lend me money. My bad-duas will probably bounce off them and hit Jon Stewart, and I don’t want to live with the guilt of giving Mr. Stewart small pox.

So. Who wants to hear about my day?

Wah bhaee! Maza aa gaya!

2008-11-02T07:06:00.000-08:00

And just when you thought Bollywood could not get more retarded, they come up with this song:

Get up..
Thats right
Stand up
Clap ur hands man
Ill make u wanna dance
I ll make u wanna move
Aa jaa tu soniya

[Move your body now,
Shake your body now,
Balkha ke lehra ke,
Hit your body now (Hain?????!!!!!!),
Tujhe seene se mein apne laga lu,
Tujhe bahon mein chupa lu,
Come on closer to my body now..]

Ho Dhadkan badh gayi, badh gayi,
Ho saasen chadh gayi, chadh gayi,
Hassen ek ladki se,
Meri aaj nazar jo lad gayi..
[Sade naal kar le party,
Kudiye te lagdi hai naughty,
Feeki feeki raat ho gayi]-2

[Girls can go crazy,
Boys can go crazy,
Tu bhi nachle baby,
Lets get now]-2

Bina dekhe kabhi mujhko pukare,
Karta hai mujhe chup chup ke ishare,
Arey dekhe kabhi kisi ke bahane se,
Koshisein bhi maine kar dekhi saari,
Is ladke se aaj haari mein to haari,
Isne to naa sikha darna zamane se,

Tu kis uljhan mein pad gayi,
Yeh kaisi baatein kar gayi tu,
Mohabbat kya wo mohabbat,
Jo duniya se dar gayi..
Sade naal kar le party,
Kudiye te lagdi hai naughty,
Feeki feeki raat ho gayi
Common sing along with me now,
Sade naal kar le party,
Kudiye te lagdi hai naughty,
Feeki feeki raat ho gayi

N tell my love story
Wud you do anything for me
Lagta hai mujhko tu chore
Because u stole my heart from me
Jaba jaba touch me slowly
Jaba jaba, put your hands on me
Jaba jaba just get closer
Jaba jaba chori chori

(a relevant question: are they speaking of jabba the hud?)

Khud se hi baaten karne lagi hu,
Teri hi khayalon se mein badhne lagi hu,
Anjaana ek dard hai seene mein,
Hoo hoo..
Jaane kaise kaise khwaab sajaun,
Jab jab kabhi tere paas mein aau,
Ab kuch naya khaas hai jeene mein,
Oh yeah…

Mohabbat mein tu pad gayi,
Tu ishq ki suli chad gayi,
Tere iqraar ko sun ke,
Khushi se aankhen bhar gayi..
Sade naal kar le party,
Kudiye te lagdi hai naughty,
Feeki feeki raat ho gayi
Common sing along with me now,
Sade naal kar le party,
Kudiye te lagdi hai naughty,
Feeki feeki raat ho gayi

ki Dhadkan badh gayi, badh gayi,
ki saasen chadh gayi, chadh gayi,
Hassen ek ladki se,
Meri aaj nazar jo lad gayi..

World inside my cubicle

2008-10-29T03:23:00.000-07:00

This is my world. My ten foot square universe. The country of Hira-nia.

All a person needs to be truly happy is a 10 foot square cubicle to call one’s own, a cup of hot tea and an mp 3 player. And privacy.

Where politician’s names are printed on lotay, and a yellow man literally eats the economy. Where Parvez Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif, Altaf Hussain, Imran Khan and Chaudhry Iftikhar smoke cigars in a half lit room and the Taliban enter with hand grenades.

Where Andy Warhol meets Akbar Bugti, and the Constitution is actually suspended by yellow thread.

And Zardari stands on a lonely cliff with his side kicks and thanks his wife (Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Shaheed) for helping him become Super-Hero in chief.

Yup. I like my figuratively colorful world.

Wanted: Escort for Halloween party

2008-10-25T09:09:00.000-07:00

Rotaract Cosmopolitan is throwing a Halloween party for couples only at Carlton hotel on Friday night. Tickets are Rs 2000 per pair, and anyone interested can please contact Shehzad Sabir or just leave me a line on this blog and I’ll tell you where you can get tickets. By the by, it seems as president of Rotaract TIP I should make some sort of appearance. For that I would require someone to pay my end of the ticket, drop me to the venue, and willingly be ignored for the rest of the night because I sure as hell won’t be seen around a boyfriend-for-hire. I would also prefer to sit at the back seat and not talk at all during the ride to Carlton hotel; this includes small talk, chit chat and “lovely weather aint it?”s. Anyone able to keep his end of the bargain can have the pleasure of my non-company for all of the 30 minute drive from north nazimabad to Defence Phase 8. Oh, and what’s the incentive? Let see, I’ll be more than happy to not bore him with my incessant whining about how I SUCK AS PRESIDENT of a social club and might (imagine!) even consent to introduce him as my second cousin twice removed who’s just come back from Gujranwala. Heavens, this is one heck of an offer. My mailbox will probably be flooded by tomorrow.

I’ve pointed out quite a few times that not all of Karachi lives in Defence and Clifton, so planning every event on the other side of the bridge is inadvertently alienating a significant fraction of the club membership but it seems nobody listens to a girl who hails from ‘the other side of the bridge’. And now I’m beginning to believe the alienation is done on purpose. “We don’t want those icky nazimabadis!” screams streaky hawt girl in halter top. “Down with Gulshan!” cries out Yaar- I-bought- these-rad-Armani-socks- boy and the Phaser Brother looks on with benevolently evil (or vice versa) eyes at us bichare refugees from across the great divide. Tell them to have a small party somewhere in the middle of the city and they scream about security issues. Arena is not safe- so what if it’s right next to a navy school. And my GOD! Have you seen the scary people that live around PECHS? I don’t mention North Nazimabad because their eyes glaze over and they look thunderstruck. “Nobody lives there. Like nobody.” “ Is that even in Karachi?” “Yaar it’s too frickn far away.”

Yes bozo, and Defence is just as far away for me. So if I boycott your elitist event I’m actually saving up on 3 days worth of petrol. I’m protecting the environment and the economy. I’m keeping us from begging Saudi Arabia for oil. I rock. You suck.

And THIS event has hit me where it really hurts. Ok, so I don’t live in any of the phases, I’m proudly single and planning to stay so as long as physical force is not applied, and my month’s pocket money is exactly half of the ticket. And yes, I don’t get permission to stay out after 11 pm. And you know what? A lot of girls I know share my problem. Heck, why just restrict myself to girls? A lot of guys have this problem too. So thank you for the invitation, I’ll gladly pass it on to my committed Clifton dwelling friends with uber cool, uber rich parents and tell them that it’s all for a good cause.

Full Metal Panic- Fumoffu

2008-10-23T10:47:00.000-07:00

My brother is an anime addict, and like other addicts he likes to spread the dope around. Now ever since he’s bought a terra-byte memory hard drive he’s been downloading anime like a manga-iac (haw haw, I made a funny!). Khaer, lame humour aside, his latest love is ‘Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu’, a manga tv series focusing on two teenagers Sagara Sasouke and Kaname Chidori who inhabit a typically anime-ish world of exaggerated insanity and hyperbolic stereotypes- in other words, high school. He forced me to watch the first two episodes and from then I was hooked.

Sasouke’s 17, is a sergeant in the secret organization MITHRAL (heaven knows what that’s an abbreviation of) and has spent his entire life on a battlefield. Lebanon, Vietnam, Ireland, the Holy City- anyplace there’s ever been fighting, he’s been there; he was the first diaper-wearing kid to master the art of grenade launching… and he has no clue how civilized Japanese society works- much less civilized Japanese high schools. And it’s student council president Chidori’s job to help him learn to adapt to normal people and situations, and keep from gunning down the school whenever anyone makes sudden movements.

It’s an adorable premise, though done to death if you think about it in purely Hollywood terms- The Terminator being humanized by young John What’s-is-face; Michael Douglas thawing under Kathleen Turner’s spell in Romancing the Stone, icy Joan Crawford falling for blind piano dude in Torch Song- yet for some reason we still haven’t gotten tired of it. Attaining the unattainable, unstoppable force colliding with immovable object, Schwarzenegger meeting spunky 12 year old…

Hasn’t everyone yearned for the one person they couldn’t get? Johnny Depp in my case, but there’s probably someone closer to home in yours.

And doesn’t every girl wish for a guy who’d beat the hell out of any UkP who looked at her wrong? Who’d take a stand for her, even if he thought she was being a complete idiot. The closest I came to falling in love with an anime character was when Sasouke- in Secret Service uniform- dons a teddy bear costume and attacks gangsters who’re bugging Chidori when she’s on a date. “It doesn’t matter who she’s friendly with, I will protect her.” Sigh, I became a puddle in the middle of the TV lounge.

For all our silk, make up and perfume, we women are barbarians at heart.

The Passion of the Ceiling Fan

2008-10-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

Rotaract's Gilani- there but pointless

2008-10-16T10:41:00.000-07:00

The last thing you do is take the world’s most antisocial person, and make her president of a social club. Then expect her to attend meetings and events. Then also expect her to enjoy them. Soon you will probably expect her to sing karaoke (“…and I will love you…baybeh…AAALLLLWAAAYS…!) in one of those fellowship events and ick…even make friends.

Seriously. What were you thinking?

I’m president of the Rotaract club of TIP. Never in my surrealist of dreams did I imagine I would end up being president of a club I spent 3 years hiding in dark spaces to avoid membership of. The minute I got elected unanimously by the graduating Rotaract committee I realized that a) there truly is such a thing as fate and he’s a psychopath on steroids and b) democracy is for the birds.

Ok, fine I’ll admit it. There’s a c) as well. Here it is:

C) I’m a pushover for semi nice-looking, semi literate guys asking me to do them a favor. My brain just fizzles out and dies. It’s a disgusting weakness, I know, but as before I’ll put it down to aesthetics. Had the last Rotaract president been Quasimodo’s long lost twin brother I might have been free as a gypsy right now, driving myself insane with just this thesis and random chichorpana of my class, rather than the thesis, the chichorpana AND rotaract.But he wasn't, it was flattering he thought i was capable of running a club and I actually thought it might be fun to head something once in my life, rather than stay in the background and do most of the work. But sadly,I do zilch for the club, and that doesn’t stop me from worrying about how I do zilch and deserve to be impeached.

I’m really quite wonderful at doing zilch.

Which makes me pretty sure I’d make a great prime minister of Pakistan, once I put this goddamn conscience to sleep.

Dolls and scary babies in diapers

2008-10-15T10:17:00.000-07:00

Am i the only one who finds this commercial scary as hell?

Babies in diapers walking like men remind me of blue eyed blonde kids wanting to take over the world.

Also remind me of those 4 foot tall pollyanna dolls that were all the rage in the 90's. My cousin had one and whenever i spent the night i imagined that it was staring at me from her stool by the bed...waiting for the right moment...waiting...and the minute sleep took over, it would creep onto the bed and strangle me. and so i barely slept, and whenever i popped off, her eyes would hijack my subconscious in a tim burtonesque nightmare (growing larger, smaller, multiplying into millions of tiny tiny little eyes that DON'T blink, and DON'T move and just keep staring like pakistani bus drivers in rear view mirrors). Ruined my childhood, that doll did.

Remember the broken doll sequence in Ali Azmat's video 'Naa re na'? (shudders and tries to forget)

My sister on the other hand, loves dolls. This is one of the few traits she inherited from my mother. My father (who it seems decided to clone 75% of his soul and pass it on to me) used to hang his sister's dolls from the ceiling fan. My brother went a step further, and to save me from being strangled by the scary barbies that aunties insisted on gifting me on my birthday, would chop off their hands.

Yes, i know. we're a disturbing family.

But not- and i do not need to emphasize this more, though i still will- NOT as disturbing as this

Will anyone please give me chocolate and a hug?

2008-10-14T08:39:00.000-07:00

Guilt can’t be washed off with a shower, can it?

‘Not in this world’, says Majaz.

So I’ll have to live with it, stuck on my skin like tar til it finally decides to rub itself off, if ever. Unbelievable cruelty with what I believe were the best of intentions, I can be thoughtless in my need to be thoughtful towards everyone. But why did I put the dead over the living today? Why did I forget that the dead don’t cry?

Only the world’s greatest sadist would have someone write the obituary of their own best friend. And I’m worse, I had Komal write the last words for a boy she considered her little brother, all because I wanted to do ‘justice’ to Mairaj. Because he deserves better than empty words written by someone who never knew him. But I forgot that Mairaj probably doesn’t want my justice, he probably just wants his sister to stop crying for him. And today. I can’t wash off today with tears. I can’t wash off today with an apology. But I’ll still try, in one stupidly selfish effort to be clean again.

I’m sorry Mairaj, and I’m so sorry Komal. If possible, please forgive me, if only out of pity, because I know I can never really forgive myself.

Ode to a great, but extremely stupid day

2008-10-09T10:12:00.000-07:00

Some days just belong moment by moment inside a journal.

Today was one of them.

I’ll remember every laugh, every insane idea, every single minute we launched into spontaneous bhangras; I’ll even try to remember how idiotic I felt when I found out that everything was a joke from start to finish.

But I guess that just added to the fun of it.

Maybe suspension would have been an anticlimax.

Story just gets longer

2008-10-03T12:06:00.000-07:00

So there you are, sitting in the departure lounge at Jinnah International waiting for the drone-lady to announce the boarding of your flight. It’s early, so early in fact that it can’t even be called morning. People around you are in various stages of nervous excitement, or nervous boredom, or nervous fear whereas you, you’re fluctuating between all three. This is the point where your life changes and though it sounds clichéd, the feeling is the most original you’ll ever experience.
From this very date, day after tomorrow, you’ll be the same person in a completely different place.
And that thought scares you. Because all your life has been a small box, with very strong cardboard walls out of which you poked metal skewers when people tried to approach. And now, the box, the sanctuary is still there but you’ve decided to step outside and take a look around, and for some reason, all the people you expected to see, the ones you had routinely skewered in the chest and legs, have disappeared like they never existed. Maybe they just got tired of waiting, trying, and getting hurt in the bargain; but you don’t realize that until you’re 85 years old and dying. Right now all you feel is insulted.
And then you get tired of the book you’re reading and decide to look around, hoping beyond hope that you’ll find anybody remotely nice-looking who seems to be headed where you are, only to let the utter hopelessness of your situation hit you smack in the face with a trout. You’re 24, you’re single, and you’re likely to stay so for the rest of your life; emotionally if not physically. And in a way, you’re glad. The lady with the bald husband and 4 children crawling on the floor will never be you; ok, the bald husband was possible, maybe. But that can’t be helped, can it?
And neither can the frumpy looking aunty with the grey goatee. You’ll never let yourself go like that. No, you respect yourself too much.
So then you decide to get up and walk around a bit; find a bookstore, maybe get yourself some coffee and a muffin…even pray because heaven knows the thought of the flight gives you ostrich rather than goose bumps. Nothing terrifies you more than the idea of the plane running out of fuel mid flight. You remember the time your car broke down on you in the middle of the Super Highway, and that was on LAND. Frick’n plane is in the sky. Last night you checked the atlas to see how many mountain ranges you’d be crossing, how many seas you’d be flying over and came to the conclusion that it didn’t matter because wherever the plane lost fuel and crashed, you’d die anyway; even if, and especially if, ironically, it crashed into a petrol pump.
The airport is full of people walking around, sleeping, shopping, or just standing in line. A lot of them are probably frequent fliers, and the rest would be like you, taking the first flight of your entire life, away from your entire life. You want to throw up now. This all seems such a huge mistake. What were you thinking? What are you running away from, and where do you think you’re going?
But you realize you can’t turn around since there’s no one waiting for you back at home. Maybe they’ll want you to return a few years hence but right now they’re just relieved you’re actually going. One less mouth to feed, and especially a mouth that craves caviar, rather than the daal roti that’s become hard enough to afford anyway.
Yuck. You’d rather not think about that.
In front of you a semi-decent looking man is flipping through a ginormous book on world politics. For all of one entire minute you pray to whatever God you believe in that he’s on the same flight as yours. And for all of that minute you let your ego sit on the bench and reach for the book right next to him in hope of catching his attention. It’s not your fault, you’re companionship starved. ‘No man’s an island, and it’s not like I’m planning to sleep with him. I haven’t discussed politics with anyone for a long time. And I’ll probably never see him again.’ Your mind makes a hundred different excuses whereas your heart just says ‘What bullshit.’ You tell your heart to shut up.
You’ve pulled the book out, you’re standing right next to him, and he still hasn’t turned around. That’s the extent of your out-reaching and you write him off as a lost cause. The book seems a lot more interesting than this guy’s back and so you start flipping through it, letting the pictures take your mind off his indifference, your sense of rejection, and the plane’s impending crash into the Andes for lack of fuel.
Drone lady’s voice fills the airport all of a sudden.
“Flight PK375 keliye Gateway 26 se boarding shuru ho rahi he.”
“Will the passengers of Flight PK375 start boarding from gateway 26”
You look to the man one final time, hoping he betrays some intention of boarding this flight. None whatsoever. He’s still flipping through the goddamn book. So be it.
The line’s gotten pretty long by the time you reach gateway 26. Separate queue for business class travelers… you look at them jealously while standing behind the frumpy aunty with a goatee. One by one the travelers disappear through the tunnel of tomorrowland til finally it’s your turn. The stewardess looks at you and smiles, and you try, albeit unsuccessfully to grin back though in your head you can already hear cries of terror when the passengers find out the fuel tanks have fallen off the plane.
Your steps feel hollower than your heart when you walk through the make-shift corridor that leads to the plane. It’s begun. You’re finally leaving everything behind, everything and every one. And you’ve just realized that you’re not as ecstatically happy as you thought you’d be. In fact, you’re so far from happy you want to point and laugh at your past self, then cry at your present, and give a sympathetic hug to your future.
“Assalam u Alaikum!” you pop out of your reverie to notice that another matronly stewardess is smiling at you. This time you don’t even bother and hand over your ticket. She looks at the number and points to her left. “That way ma’am”
Your carry-on has become a hundred pounds heavier all of a sudden and your right arm is paralyzed. Dragging it behind you, you manage to find your seat in the middle aisle. Sigh of relief. The farther away you are from the window the better. You deposit the bag in the cabinet above your head and take a seat. There are three empty seats next to you which infuse you with some hope. Maybe, just maybe. But instead of seeming too enthusiastically gawky, you take out your ignored book and open it, pretending to be oblivious to everything. Slowly the plane fills up with people. Fat women carrying dozens of children, fat men carrying their paunches, children running to and fro the aisles, old people trying to make it to their seats without falling on the children, and young people trying hard to look too cool for this flight.
Finally everyone settled down. You look at the three seats next to you. There sit the bald guy’s wife with two of her children. Her husband lounges in the window seats to your right.
You sigh and plug on your headphones. Something tells you that no matter how hard you try, your life will not be changing.

2008-09-30T09:29:00.000-07:00

This Eid i shall have no nails at all- not that i mind, since i use nail polish to decorate my mp3 player and nail polish remover as print transfering liquid.I wouldn't miss my nails so much if i didn't feel this recurring desire to scratch someone's eyes out. Anybody's at all actually- I'm not picky. It's just one of my aims in life; to have fingernails long enough to be a potential threat to some random asshole.
Wese this just goes to show you that bad habits do have their positive points. Smoking, for example, makes people look extremely hot, and kills them off fast enough for you to not get over your crush on them. Thus the aura of mystery remains for all eternity.

Khaer, these are the reasons i bit off my nails : i have mounds of work, a horrible thesis art work display on monday which i am absolutely positive i shall fail, and a brain that refuses to be creative. Wake up left side of my cerebrum! What are you on, morphine?

For people who don't know me at all (and that would be about 99.9 raised to the power of 12% of the world)i'm a future textile designer. Actually, i'll just be a textile graduate because to be a designer you require a certain measure of social skills, charm, money, family background... as well as the ability to drive...sigh, lots of things contribute to becoming a good designer and creativity plays a very small role. And in my case creativity played such a small role that it decided to overdose on morphine and kill itself off forever. Haye re naqadri!

Submission next monday, eid in between and here i am wasting time.

My thesis advisors will get medieval on my ass* this monday.

* line from Pulp Fiction. Got the movie memorised babbee!

I know Jack

2008-09-26T03:19:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I decided to quit reading newspapers.

But this morning I couldn’t help myself and opened Dawn again.

Then closed it.

Sigh, opened it again, turned to letters to the Editor and looked around for something slightly derogatory about Zardari.

I know, I know. If I want to read something insulting towards him all I have to do is click on any of the blogs on the right hand side of this page and indulge myself to the vitriolic witticisms of the younger (and smarter) generation of Pakistan’s intelligentsia, but there’s something deeply satisfying of reading one’s thoughts expressed by a complete stranger in print.

Khaer, needless to say I didn’t find anything. Not that I expected to.
But then it hasn’t been that long. I guess I’ll give people time.

End of part 1.

Anyway, this is all beside the point. The point here is: Man, I better start
visiting art galleries more frequently or I’ll lose any bit of artistic-pana I ever had.

I went to the VM Rangoonwala gallery recently for a small exhibition held there by some of the most noteworthy artists of Pakistan and I felt like an idiot. What use are 3 years of art history and art appreciation courses if all I could appreciate were the prices?? THIS is the drawback of being the daughter of a CPA- you know the price of everything and the value of Jack. And even Jack seems a tad bit too expensive for his worth.

So there I stood, staring at a wooden board with needles embedded in it and wondered.

And then I decided to move on. Fat curator lady was on the round and she might ask me what I think.

Truth is, I actually DID try thinking. I thought and thought in front of the Aluminum blobs fixed onto the black surface and came up with nothing. Then I decided to think in front of Mohammad Ali Talpur’s ‘Machine Art’. This is a pretty complex painting composed of lines, and more straight lines forming a sort of Union Jack (and there he is again) cross in the middle and then I realized that this is probably how a South Dakotan farmer would feel looking inside the Large Hadron Collider, except that unlike myself (as of today), famers actually read newspapers and usually know what a Hadron collider does, whereas i…was lost.

Then it dawned on me to look around the painting in case there might be a small abstract describing what it was about or what it was hoping to signify. Once again, I found Jack, grinning at me like the blooming ass he is.

And what’s worse is that people in my class actually expected me to understand some of this. To be honest, even I expected myself to understand some of this. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it somewhere- dunno kidhar- but I’ve taken 3 years of art history and art appreciation courses and actually gotten A’s in all of them, thus I should sure as HELL understand what an average artist wants to depict in his painting, sculpture etc. So why oh WHY am I staring at this canson sheet showing a half-open, lipstick-smothered-mouth and two horses’ backsides, like Britney Spears would stare at a carburetor?

PS: By the way, there’s one good thing about studying history in any form; you can spot where it’s trying to be repeated, or in this case, replicated. One of the pieces featured in the show was ‘True Lies’ by Mirza Abbas Qamar- or some such name, my memory’s fuzzy on this point- and it was a wooden tile with “This is not by Mirza Abbas Qamar- or some such name” carved on it. Now us Art History freaks know that Magritte’s very famous painting of a pipe titled “This is not a pipe” was…how shall we say this? Ah yes, Famous. In other words, well known, or to make it even simpler; can be found in art history books if you bother looking.

PPS: Khaer, who am I to judge anything? I don’t even know what that mouth is doing between two horse’s behinds anyway. In fact, all I know is Jack.

Summary of the tale of the windshield cleaning child and the grey cultus driver

2008-09-19T10:27:00.003-07:00

I dread only one thing more than death, and that’s poverty.

Poverty, which kills your dreams, talent and self respect.

Which makes you stand still while your ego is trampled on.

Which keeps you from striking back.

Poverty kept the windshield-sweeping child from lashing out at the car driver who slapped him.

And pride kept him from crying.

Sigh. And cowardice kept me from crashing my car into the grey cultus the creep was driving.

Allah apni zameen pe itni ra’unat bardasht kyun karta he?

2008-09-19T10:27:00.001-07:00

ALWAYS ALWAYS THE ASSHOLES!!!!

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH US WOMEN????

wow. there went today's roza.

And i just completely contradicted my last blog entry.

But honestly, when every single girl you know (including yourself) makes the same mistake, it's not funny anymore. This isn't a sit com...this is right out of the Twilight Zone.

It's an epidemic. Like the Plague.

Oh hell, where did i put my gas mask?

When the fury dies, all's left is ice.

2008-09-19T10:27:00.000-07:00

Had I ever stopped believing true love existed somewhere I might not have spent my entire life single. But deep down inside every cast iron cynic is a jasmine-sniffing, daffodil-admiring romantic trying to break lose from her straightjacket and punch the cynic on the nose. Mercifully, I’m smart enough to keep my romantic on drugs. It’s those few moments when the opium starts wearing off that I actually wish that I could enjoy reading Jude Deverouxs’ and Judith McNoughts’ like other girls and not snort at the back covers before returning them to the shelf (Haw! Same story- just different people and settings!). It’s a silly thing to wish for, but most of the time the stuff you regret not doing is silly and insipid. And had you actually attempted them, they might have made your life worse rather than better.

There’s so much one should be thankful for that it’s almost scary. At the moment I’m grateful to God for foiling something I had wanted very very badly, wanted so much in fact that just surviving day by day was painful. However, now all I can think of is “Good Lord, what the hell would we have talked about?” which, being who I am, actually made me imagine our conversations and they consisted of clichés and taunts and utter misery on both sides. Also, to be honest, if I didn’t like him so much I’d have taken a knife to him anyway. My belief in Allah has strengthened, He truly does love me.

And now when I see others around me going through the same shit that I went through, these kameeni little disco lights in my heart start blinking like mad and it’s all I can do to keep from pointing and laughing and saying “In your face people!!” I’m really not the sort who enjoys the rest of humanity’s wretchedness (I only watch with indifference) but in the case of love’s labor lost it becomes my favorite show.

So here I am, with popcorn in one hand, chocolate the other, watching people break up and make up, throw tantrums and cry in the bathroom, inject themselves with the heroin of hope and spiritually OD on it. And I can’t help wondering how much fun my friends must have had watching me make an utter mess of myself. Which, by the way, adds another item in my list of things-to-thank-God-for; this intoxicating rush of superiority one gets when one’s soul mocks another’s with a silent gloat of “Been there, done that, way before you did.”

A Masi in Manhattan

2008-09-01T07:32:00.000-07:00

The Tube

Two cats sit side by side by the potted plant but seem oblivious to each other's presence. For some reason they remind me of women sitting in the subway. I've only been on the subway once in my life, and that was when we were headed towards the statue of Liberty. An African American woman sat in front of me, looking outside the window; a second generation Chinese or Korean young man was sleeping in quite an uncomfortable position opposite, and two seats away from the black woman sat a good looking blonde in a black dress. She looked at me and smiled, and I felt too sheepishly ugly to smile back.

Enter the New York Subway...

When the subway train moves, images of Han Solo's Millennium Falcon run through my mind interspersed with the monsters in tremors. I feel like I’m sitting in the Falcon which has just been swallowed by a giant worm moving through the desert. There's something depressing about the tube. People's lives in transit. Half of one's existence spent going from one place to another. The other half spent going back.

The train stops like an interval of an Indian soap; with a bang. The doors open and two men jump in. I expect them to sit and go to sleep like the Chinese guy is still doing but they stand in the middle of the compartment and start singing.

".... I just want someone...to have and to hold...” croons the short fat one.

“Like her!" the other dude points at the pretty blonde. She completely ignores him.

I've seen this scene before, a lot of times in fact. In sitcoms and movies. This is the Amreeki way of begging, and to be honest I find it much more enjoyable and persuasive than the whiny droning our beggars at home are so good at. The two men realize that Pakistanis, Chinese, and African Americans are the last people on earth willing to part with a dollar, and the blonde is probably deaf and blind; so when the train slows down they jump the compartment and go on to the next one. The minute they're out though, the blonde one turns to me and goes “YES!" with a small victory punch in the air. This time I can't help laughing, after al beggars or not, l would have been flattered too if they had pointed to me. Ammi gives me one of her nasty glares but now it's my turn to act blind.

Pretty blonde's stop is the next one and she leaves, but not without waving goodbye. The train goes back to normal. Her place is now occupied by a very professional looking woman in her mid 30's who probably turns her coworkers to stone with a small glance and there's a fat Italian-looking guy in the far corner. Stereotype-believing me would put him as a restaurateur or a bartender, but he's probably a banker or law consultant. Anybody can be anything in New York. The African American's still there, as is the comatose Chinese guy when we walk out of the compartment. Our stop's here.

Manhattan nights

You can't kill yourself by jumping off the Empire State; they've got iron rods all around the roof. But what you can do though is get an inkling of what God probably feels like up in heaven. Taxis look like ants and people are full stops at the end of sentences. But it's beautiful. Oh Lord, is it beautiful.

look closely!! in fact, maximise the picture! dekho, can you see the tiny cars?

The Empire State Building has 102 floors but most people only go up to the 86th. If you want to go to the top you have to pay 15 dollars extra and considering you see the same city on the 86th as well as the 102nd it seems 15 dollars too much. Added to the fact that by the time you actually do get to 86th floor you're a few months older and it all seems an unnecessary hassle. America is all about queues. Everywhere you go during the summer you’ll find queues. At Disneyworld, the movie theatre, the ice cream stall, the water fountain, the counter at H&M... however, the line at the ESB beat all the rest. First a line to the ticket counter, then a line to the elevator, then a line from the elevator to the stairs, then to another elevator, then to the roof. The good thing about queues in America though is the diverse elements that they consist of. A dozen people ahead of us we could see an Arab family; the women's heads covered in colorful hijaabs. One thing about Arab women, they can carry off muslimised Western fashion with wonderful grace. Pakistani and Indian women screw up badly when it comes to style. They either go overboard and forget religion completely, or end up looking like they fashioned their clothes out of last season's potato sacks.

Zehra thought i was taking a picture of her...ha ha!

BUT the undisputed leaders in fashion are the Japanese. New York was swamped with the Japanese and all of them were breathtakingly beautiful (think Zhang Ziye) and wonderfully dressed. You will NEVER find a fat Japanese person. They don't exist, and if they do they're probably sent off to Sumo wrestling camp when they're 12.

New York City is bathed in yellow light at night. Yellow. Soft, dreamy, romantic. Now I can understand why Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr wanted to meet on top of the Empire State...in fact, now I can almost forgive Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. Almost.

On Broadway

New York City has rickshaws, and gorgeous rickshaw drivers. Yellow, pink, blue and red with even more colorful people inside. It’s the favorite form of transport of rich party girls, other than their dad's limos. If I ever get the chance to go to Manhattan again I will take a rickshaw ride around the city and flirt outrageously with the driver if he'll let me. I'll learn to ride a bike in Central Park, and sashay on 5th Avenue with a Macy's shopping bag filled with newspapers, buy a ColdStone mix in and eat all of it without throwing up. I'll take another picture with Johnny Depp's wax statue and this time actually look at the camera....

This can be Karachi, if we really want it to be...

But you know what? This time I want to go to Manhattan with someone special.

Bila Unwaan

2008-08-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

Charming did not look charming at all as he stood by the bed of the princess. His shoulder bled, a side of his face and much of his hair had been burnt off, and his clothes smelt of three days hard riding and dragon blood. ‘No,’ he thought, ‘charming would be the last word they'd use to describe me right now.’

He turned his attention from himself to the girl lying peacefully in front of him. How old was she? 16? If the stories were true, she'd be 116. He winced. The pain that curiosity had numbed for a while came surging back. Well, the forest of thorns had been pretty spot on… as had the dragon, he winced again. Thus, he figured that according to the theory of probability, it meant the story of her being 88 years older than he must also true. Charming thought of the old man who had recounted the tale to him. Funny, he had seemed at least 150 years old himself. He wouldn’t be surprised to find out the relic had been alive at the time of the great enchantments.

"There was a time, many years ago, when there were people who could make wondrous things happen," he had told Charming. They could make water emerge from within rocks...they could make the wind change direction and could grant you the deepest wishes in your soul before you knew of them yourself. But they were kind folks; honest and principled."

The prince sniffed disdainfully. Kind and honest. That had been the least believable part of the legend. He recalled the fate of his poor horse, Bartleby. His previous owner had sold him to Charming as a prize Stallion that, he claimed, could leap over 8 foot fences with ease; but what the man had assured the prince, he hadn't bothered informing the horse about. So when the royal had urged Bartleby to dodge the dragon's spurt of flame by jumping over a 5 foot thorn patch, the horse made a valiant attempt but couldn't muster more than a four foot parabola into the middle of the hedge. It was to his credit though that he managed to throw his rider off in the nick of time. He had saved his master's life but lost his own. Charming mourned his brave and loyal companion, and held his previous master responsible for his death. Yes, that crook would suffer when he returned. All of those damned crooks would; the inn keeper who had stolen his purse the night he stayed at the tavern, the other who had mixed water in his champagne, and especially that dastardly cretin who had given him faulty directions just for the heck of it. Sharper than the sting of a dragon-bit shoulder was the pain of realizing the animals of his kingdom were more to be trusted than the men

He stood uncertainly in the brightly sunlit chamber. Should he wake her up now? How did the legend go- oh right, with a kiss. After all, this was what he had ridden so far for, fought and killed a dragon for, lost his horse and looks for. This. For some reason all of this seemed an anticlimax to all of that.

He looked out the window- the carcass of the dragon still lay there. Guilt ran rampant through his soul. The dragon had only done what it had been created to do, as he had only followed what supposedly his destiny was. Had he truly thought about it, there might have been another, better way to enter this wreak of a palace; some trapdoor, some hidden vault. After all, if the dragon had succeeded in chewing off his torso like it wanted to, who would have woken up this sleeping child? It was a pretty big risk for destiny to take. In fact, he felt that fate or destiny had acted in an extremely irresponsible manner.

"Why am I taking so much time? Kiss her and get it over with. By God, I smell."

He had expected the room to be smaller and darker, dank in fact, with no windows- like the dungeons that he had so often read about. He had also imagined this princess to be older, for some reason. What he had not expected was a little girl, sleeping like a bear in hibernation, draped in a pink and blue quilt in a room that made his own Great Hall look like the one-room house of a shepherd, his wife and 12 children.

"Those were wonderful, magical times" the old man's voice echoed through his head again."When there was a balance between good and evil. Kindness was always rewarded and wickedness always punished. People believed in happy endings, for they were the only endings possible."

If that was true as well, then what had happened these hundred years? How had the world changed so? These were questions the old man had no answers for. He had just said that time kills off things it has no use for. People did not want enchantments, they did not need them. They had begun to fear and distrust those with special abilities. A sentiment the old man couldn't blame them for, since after all, nothing is more terrifying than diversity. Slowly fear, prejudice and hatred took over everything. Children born with abilities were ordered to smother their power til it died inside. The most well known of the enchanters were tried with charges of 'defiance against the laws of nature'. But nobody could ask the inquisitors that if Nature had made someone special, how was it defiance to act so? The enchanters were few, the similars legion and growing more daily. Soon only a handful survived and they too left, believing that there was a better, more accepting world on the other side of the ocean.

Outside the window, the prince could see his kingdom as it was now. In his mind he pictured the hundreds of faces he looked at everyday. That had surrounded him all his life. Dark haired, dark eyed, fair skinned, all of them. He had made speeches standing from the parapet, talking of better days, brighter days and had not seen a single face that could catch his eye. All of them; the rich, the poor, the scholars and the slaves were brothers and sisters in a spiritually incestuous way and their children were the sad products of such relationships; crippled, emotionally, mentally and physically. In their extreme desire to stay equal, they had become replicas of each other’s mediocrity. They did not try to be better, for better would make them different. This was the world he was going to awaken this very unusual child into.

Maybe, he thought, breaking her enchantment was not my destiny. Could it not be possible that my destiny was just to find her, and to realize that before waking her, I had to create a world worth waking her into? A world where she would not be afraid to be different; where she would be proud to stand out like a tulip among dandelions. He had dreamt of such a world himself when he was young.

Charming took a step away from the window and looked down at the sleeping figure. He was leaving her unprotected, but he knew that none of his people would have the temerity or the curiosity to enter the palace on their own. And he would seal the door to her chamber, for caution's sake, and hide the key- maybe, he hoped, for his son or grandson to find.

SUV Chronicles: From New York to Florida chap.2

2008-08-24T03:41:00.000-07:00

Driving is unbelievably easy in the United States, once you memorize the million or so basic rules, as well as the thousand or so state rules. If you have them down pat, it's a piece of cake. And assuming you do forget, your friendly neighbourhood highway policeman will be happy to correct you (though he will charge you heavily for the service)

I've never seen people as scared of death as American's are scared of their highway police. They'll be happily going at 75 mph but the minute they see a police car, not only will they lower their speed to 40, they'll also put out their cigarettes, tell their children to shut up and muzzle the dog. While we were traveling merrily along we happened to notice the headlights of cars on the opposite freeway blinking like flirty debutantes...going further we realized they were warning us (us as in people traveling south) that there were patrol cars ahead. Now THAT is fear.

It's kind of impossible taking pictures from a car moving 60 mph. By the time I'd have focused on my subject it would already be a hundred meters behind me. These are the few that came out right.

The topography changes drastically travelling north to south. Where the North Eastern coast is primarily temperate forest, with small towns interspersed between the trees, the South is agriculture land. You'll see vast fields, hundreds of acres of crops, and one house in the middle. The farmer's house may be very nicely structured, but honestly if i had to live there i'd die of loneliness and boredom.

But when you keep going south you reach Georgia and Florida. Savannahs and Swamplands. On either side of the road, you'll see strange wanna-be land. It's not solid, but it's not liquid either. It's just marsh. If you've seen Wild Things you'll know what i'm talking about (sleazy grin)

But one thing stays the same all over the United States. The sky. And when you look up you'll see layers upon layers of clouds. Their country may be killing the ozone layer over the North Pole, but they sure as hell kept their own sky clean, clear and beautiful.

And you see, that's what the United States problem is. They'll play havoc with the rest of the world, but by keeping their own land and society in perfect shape their people will never care about anyone or anyplace else.

Laws of Combat

2008-08-24T01:46:00.000-07:00

I enjoy arguments. I'm opinionated and self-righteous to a certain degree, thus I'd make an ideal debater. But nothing scares me more than starting a debate on Quack.
Sadly though, if you want to keep an online newsletter alive during vacations you either have to write something controversial, or wait til a politician is murdered and the university is torched. Needless to say the first option is a lot easier to follow.
What really hurts though is that open debate rarely ever remains civil, and unless you don't want your entire character bullet riddled and bleeding you shouldn't jump into one, regardless of how sound your arguments are. Because people won't and can't stay impersonal- and the easiest thing to do is fall back on the old combat staple, insult.

I guess you're right Sajjad. I really can't find the kameengi inside myself to go into politics.

Oh, by the way, this is Powell Avenue

2008-08-15T05:30:00.000-07:00

One of the first things Hani bought with his salary was a digital camera, and tried it out by taking pictures of my phuppa's store and his friend's graduation. Needless to say, I felt that the camera deserved to be used more artistically... so I took it for a walk the first day I was there.

Problem is, I'm not all that good at photography.

But anyway. Here they are.

I wish I could take the yellow fire hydrant home.

From New York to Florida- The SUV chronicles

2008-08-11T02:19:00.000-07:00

Day 1: Airport, Atif, and the bitch next door

I thought I’d give daily account of our Amreeki adventure as it went along, but like all my plans, it flopped the first day we reached the US. However, I did manage to keep a sort-of journal which I’m using as Cliff notes of my trip. Anyway, like every multi continental journey, mine starts with an airport.

The airport would have been boring had I not SURPRISE! met Atif there. He was headed to Dubai to meet his brother who has gotten him a job. Good for you yaar! Hope you're minting money there. If possible, do kick a shaikh and see what happens. Khaer, Zehra and I hung around with Atif for a while, then I got cheated by Costa Coffee; they gave me Ovaltine when I asked for hot chocolate and thus unwittingly started a defamation campaign against themselves. Costa Coffee is going down!!

Anyway, if you're going for an International flight, security is tough. Other than checking your hand-carry luggage for fluid of any type (*including toothpaste and shaving cream) security personnel pass your shoes through X ray machines too. It seems that a few years ago some immensely bright fundo had snuck in explosives in the soles of his shoes. If only they worked so hard on their physics...

Finally they let us on the plane. Since I opted to sit away from my parents (what they can't see me do, they can't disapprove of), the two seats next to me were empty. Now if God had paid attention to romantic comedies He'd have realized that this was an opportune moment to send along a semi decent looking young guy with a semi-functioning brain (Heaven knows i'm not picky) but no...God watches Real-life inspired dramas, and instead of a future Harvard law school grad I got to spend 18 continuous hours next to the world's most obnoxious woman and her husband. Woe woe woe.

And to make matters worse check out the list of movies available on the in-flight “entertainment” list:

1. Atonement

2. The Mist (The ending robbed me of whatever was left of my childhood)

3. Michael Clayton

4. Lions for Lambs

5. In the Valley of Elah

6. PS I love you (ten minutes into this movie and I wanted to kill the screenwriter. what crap.)

7. Alvin and the chipmunks. Puh-leeeaasssseee....

So I watched ‘Atonement’, followed by ‘the Mist’, then Michael Clayton. By the end of the first ten hours, I was in tears.

Stopping at Manchester

The English may have spent 300 years in the subcontinent but they didn't return to their country with any respect for the 'hindustanis'. We got off at Manchester and went through an extremely humiliating ritual called security checking in which they turned our bags upside down and sniffed our deodorant and confiscated our water bottles. After 45 minutes, they released us into the Manchester airport and we roamed uselessly among snobby goray log.

British people are strangely colorless. Their airport was surreally clean, and noiseless and though there were many people around, they sat like wax sculptures, either solving sudoku puzzles or reading popular fiction or newspapers. Very silent, very boring. I didn't expect it to be as noisy and insane as Jinnah International, but this dead?

No wonder the British worshipped Diana. She must have been their Madonna.

Arriving at JFK on the 4th of July

We arrived on the 4th of July and it was slightly raining. And I realized the difference between the British and the Americans. Americans live. The corridors of JFK are as artsy-fartsy as Manchester’s are dull. Fake plaster of Paris curtains are supposedly hung on the walls, there are mosaics depicting famous New York City landmarks like central park, statue of liberty and the Empire state building. And there's graffiti! It’s colorful and felt friendly. And that's a characteristic you'll find in 99% of the US population. They're almost unbelievably nice. For example, imagine meeting someone on an Immigrations counter who doesn't act like it's a crime entering their country...seems unlikely no? Well, we did. And it was shocking. I mean, wait, you're glad we're here and want us to have a great stay? Really?! Call Ripleys!!

Ok, now imagine walking out into New York City. Step outside and right in front are the world renowned yellow taxi cabs standing in line, and just then a monorail flies past your eyes and you learn that it circles all round the airport continuously. and then you walk to the 4 story parking lot and onto the hydraulic powered lift and realize that the country you love so much and have left only 18 hours ago may not be able to reach this level of sophistication in a thousand years if ever.

Then imagine driving on roads where every car follows the lines painted on the tarmac, and people give indicators before switching from one lane to another. And you're driving through a freeway and there are trees on both sides, and sometimes you see a sign warning you that deer might cross your path. If you look closely you can see their eyes shining among the tree trunks. and while you're driving it's drizzling, and you pass small towns and bridges and everything is straight out of- no it's not like anything you can imagine. Not if you've lived in Pakistan for 12 years and only remember your childhood in patches.

It's unreal. I'll never forget the ride from JFK to Newburgh. If that was even 1/10th of Heaven, I’m a born again Muslim.

Future Dictator speaking

2008-08-11T01:24:00.000-07:00

So I’m back. My system hasn't adjusted to the night-day schedule and thus I’ve become a platelet-intolerant vampire. And in addition to this time confusion, my body is being extremely lazy in conditioning itself to the heat. I melt. Literally. Like the wicked witch of the west. Dorothy was a monster... melting is an awful way to kill someone.

Now, I’ve lived here for 10 years…you would think melting is something I”d get used to. But no, my body is an idiot.

When you stay in one country and especially one city for a long time, you lose all sense of perspective. I used to think Pakistan is on its way forward, it's getting better and one day it'll pull itself out of the perpetual bog it prefers to live in. But I don't believe that anymore. Optimism is fine; it beats cynicism by a mile anyhow. However at some point we should start questioning ourselves. What's progress? Are we heading towards progress or at another tangent? And if we know we're going in the wrong direction, why can't we just stop, look around and head the right way?

One of the drawbacks of globalization, and an open media is we can't make original mistakes. everything's been done before by some country or the other and the media's already covered it so extensively you can find crappily irrelevant details like what Dictator X had for breakfast the day of the coup. One can find newspapers from the 1920’s on internet archives, there are documents detailing the secret actions of governments, books which can teach you the political history of Antigua; the entire world, and it’s past is open to us…and yet we persist in repeating our idiocies.

So this is my idea: instead of Pakistan Studies, World History and Political Science should be made compulsory from 6th grade to Intermediate.

And idea 2 is even simpler. Benevolent fascism.

I’ll take over this country on my 35th birthday and install only truly competent people as cabinet members. Yes I k now, competent people are hard to find, but there are plenty of rocks in Pakistan. I’ll just turn over a few of the bigger ones.

First step: The police will be part of the city government, not provincial or federal. Strict cleaning up of the force will ensue; physical as well as moral; increasing salaries, giving health benefits might help create a more capable group of men. They have complete right to enforce laws violently if necessary. I’m thinking breaking motorcyclists’ headlights if they don't stop at the zebra crossings and remain there til the light turns green again. Fascism, remember? Beat up one asshole, or lock him up for a week or two and the rest will follow. Giuliani did the same and look at Manhattan now.

Second step: Take the public transport out of the hands of Pathans. Or if they wish to keep it, enforce strict limitations. Stick to the bus stops. No loading unloading of passengers on the roads. No passengers allowed sitting on the roof and the speed limit 65 km per hour. Bus driver should have at least completed high school. And no bus more than 4 years old.

Third step: If you've become prime minister once, you CANNOT run again. And you have to have spent at least 20 years of your life in the country before you can run for Assembly.

Fourth step: Privatize everything. And I mean everything. Telephone services, mills, food, transport. The less things given in the hands of civilians after I step down from the seat of benevolent dictator, the better. I’m sorry; I don't trust my fellow Pakistanis to not do something stupid.

Fifth step: Repeal the constitution. It has no respect anyway. And what with the amount of amendments it’s gone through, we don't even know what’s what anymore.

Sixth step: in a one night raid, collect all mullahs and send them on an educational trip to Saudi Arabia (if they can keep the Sharif family they can keep these pests as well.)

Seventh step: electric fence FATA. Let’s be honest, we don't need them. They keep up their craziness during my tenure and I might nuke the lot.

Eighth step: NAB was a great idea run by the wrong people. Hire men and women with integrity this time. Keyword: hire.

Ninth step: Have young people in my cabinet. Sometimes experience isn't the answer. The older we get, the less likely we are to take action.

Tenth step: Exchange Students policy. Twenty best Political Science students will be given scholarships to study at prestigious universities of the West (signing a pact that they WILL return to Pakistan). Similarly students from abroad can study the political system or non system here and give suggestions. This might help train future generations in law making and administration.

Anywho. That’s what I’d do first two months of dictatorship. Democracy is fine if voters use more than 0.99% of their brains and the candidates aren't drunk on their own incompetence, but for Pakistan; where the law of the jungle looks tame, one needs a system tougher than empty promises and Zardari.

Random thoughts jotted down at 4 a.m on the back of an old newspaper

2008-06-21T09:54:00.000-07:00

When you reach 22 things start becoming real. You realize that you’re not a child anymore…but then also realize you spent so much time trying to be an adult you forgot to be a kid

So now it’s all about making up for lost time, as well as trying to make as much of the time we’ve got.

Now, at 22, I know that life isn’t fair. If God was just, we would all be equally beautiful, equally intelligent, and equally talented. But we’re not.

You see God is an artist, not a scientist. He makes a masterpiece with every human, frog, or amoeba. If God was a scientist we’d all be clones of Adam and Eve, (or the first frog, amoeba etc)

We write for two reasons: to tell the truth, or hide from the truth. Isn’t that funny? Nobody ever mentions that the knight in shining armor is balding and has bad breath…or that the evil witch might live happily ever after, rather than paying for her sins

One day, I’ll wake up and realize that I haven’t seen Europe, I haven’t learned to ride a bike (or swim), my kids think I’m backward and my husband prefers golf to me. And I have no money to run away with. I should start saving up for the cruise today…

Being happy doesn’t require much effort. The more you try to be happy, the less likely it will be.

Happiness comes when you have someone to blame. Nothing makes one sadder than knowing that everything is one’s own fault.

Happiness is realizing that no matter how ugly your nose is, you’d look worse if you didn’t have one.

It comes when the people you love seem to love you back

When the lasagna you baked turns out perfect

It’s finding a hundred rupee note in the pocket of newly laundered jeans

It’s waking up at 6 and realizing its Saturday…

Happiness isn’t the perfect life. It’s believing our life to be perfect.

It’s about forgetting the bads (though that seems impossible) and remembering the goods (though they seem insignificant)

Happiness is the hundred million things that go right, as opposed to the thousand that go wrong.

Happiness is waking up in this world and hoping that everything will be as wonderful as we had dreamed it to be.

And even if it’s not, it’s knowing that there’s still a lot more left to dream about.

Hold me, thrill me, kiss me, kill me.

2008-06-16T09:35:00.000-07:00

This song is one of the reasons (and there are a million) that i love U2 Hold me, thrill me, Kiss me, Kill me is a case of too great a song being featured in too crappy a movie.

If only the director and screenwriter had worked as hard as the guy who chose the music.

Watch the video, and read the lyrics (i've highlighted the part where Bono's genius shines).

Hold me, Thrill me, Kiss me, Kill me
You don't know how you took it
You just know what you got
Oh Lordy you've been stealing
From the theives and you got caught
In the headlights
Of a stretch car
You're a star

Dressing like your sister
Living like a tart
They don't know what you're doing
Babe, it must be art
You're a headache
In a suitcase
You're a star

Oh no, don't be shy
You don't have to go blind
Hold me, thrill me, kiss me, kill me

You don't know how you got here
You just know you want out
Believing in yourself
Almost as much as you doubt
You're a big smash
You wear it like a rash
Star

Oh no, don't be shy
There's a crowd to cry
Hold me, thrill me, kiss me, kill me

They want you to be Jesus
They'll go down on one knee
But they'll want their money back
If you're alive at thirty-three
And you're turning tricks
With your crucifix
You're a star

(Oh child)

Of course you're not shy
You don't have to deny love
Hold me, thrill me, kiss me, kill me

Angry rant against Ayeshah Alam

2008-06-08T06:12:00.000-07:00

I don’t care about Shobha’s day.

And I care even less about Ayesha Alam.

I don’t think either of these individuals is particularly brilliant, or that they have some wonderfully earth-shaking insights to impart on us lesser-mortal/women (since I doubt any self respecting guy would admit to reading Shobha’s Day) and I especially do not think they should be foisted down our throats as much as they are.

Today for instance, half of the last page in Dawn’s Magazine was- shall we call it dedicated?- to a pin up of Ayesha with her answers to such wonderfully thought-provoking questions like (drumroll please!)

Dadadadadadadd um

Dadadadadadadadadadadum

Dadadadadadadadaddadum

And here it is!

What qualities should Condoleeza Rice look for in her would-be-husband?

Ayesha’s answer: If she was in the market for a husband…patience…a lot of patience.

Sigh.

I’m sorry, but I think she’s overrated, fake and irritating. I’ve tried listening to her show on FM 89, a radio channel I consider as overrated, fake and irritating as she is, and though I’m sure she couldn’t give less of a shit about what I think of her, I’ll still say it:

Ayeshah Alam, you are not witty.

And Shobha De, you need to get a life.

As do I. It’s ridiculous that I’m wasting time and space on my blog writing about them.

No actually, it’s not. It’s ridiculous that mundane replies to idiotic questions are given so much print space just because a media fed socialite was the one to give them. It’s equally ridiculous that her introduction makes her out to be George Bernard Shaw’s reincarnation in a sleeveless shalwar kameez, making me actually WANT to read anything she has to say, only to find questions like “Which one of these is more likely to join a monastery and why: Demi Moore or Malika Sherawat?”

WTF?????

Anyway, to this Ayeshah Alam replies (another drumroll please): Demi Moore…why? Given the choices…I mean…come on!”

SSSSIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH……………

Like Poirot would utter, softly under his breath, “Nom du un nom du un nom du un nom…”

But then of course Ayesha Alam must seem horribly witty to people who think Amna Haq and Anoushey are perfectly capable of hosting their own talk shows

“I love your chappals dahlink! Where did you get them?”

“Uff meri jaan, we went to the Prada launching show, you know, the one near that city near the Eiffel tower, uff what was it called again dahlink, you know, that one?”

Etc. etc.

Remember that extremely crappy but hilariously funny Rupert Everett movie, St. Trinians?

Remember those beautifully brainless doll-like creatures named Peaches, Chloe and Chelsea?

Remember how they learned, albeit a bit late in the movie, that smart really is sexy?

I wonder when our media learns that.

Once again, Ayeshah Alam, you’re not witty.

Why I'm still Single

2008-06-07T10:15:00.000-07:00

I know why I’m still single.

I listen to Frank Sinatra.

And my respect for my brother has increased. Very clever to download songs like “I’ve got you under my skin” and “when a man loves a woman” and burn a cd for his girlfriend. It’s been done to death but still never fails to work. I had no clue Hani was so astute. I’d expect him to get her a book of Parkour and Kung fu, since those seem to be the only subjects he takes an interest in aaj kal.

Ha! There it is! He’s downloaded “you’re so vain”. I knew he’d find something to screw it up!

What a dork.

But he’s a sweet dork. Mash is lucky.

Women who listen to Frank Sinatra rarely find any man worthy to start a relationship with. On this side there’s Ol’ Blue Eyes promising to fly you to the moon, and in that corner is a butt ugly moron who thinks “Wassup?” is a good conversation starter. It isn’t. Be creative once in a while. It won’t kill you but might surprise us to death.

A long time ago, when this blog was a thumb-sucking infant, I mentioned a very crappy book about a 40 year old Spanish lord (Gadzooks, the amount of lords that exist in the world of Mills & Boons) called Don Diablo and his very lovely 19 year old bride named something or the other. The gist of the book lies in the fact that even if you abduct a 19 year old, marry her forcefully and commit pedophilia; you can get away with it if you’re rich and handsome in a distinguished way. It also helps if you have a sympathy ticket- like a mum that hated you so much she named you Don Diablo.

Believable?

Completely, if you live in Demented Romanceland. Or Lovish Disturbia

And many of us do. The girl who lent me this book does.

I stopped believing in fairy tale romances a long time ago. I watch rom coms knowing that this is the flip side of the escapism that forces people to watch horror porn like “Hostel” and “Saw”. Porn fills a physical need, but romantic movies fill a spiritual need. We know there’s barely any chance True Love exists, even if it does there’s little probability that True Love has a happy ending (aka riding off in the sunset aka getting happily married) and even by some wonderful twist of fate both things happen as planned, there’s always the fear that 15 years down the road both of you will get so tired of seeing each other you’ll wonder why you fell in love and got married in the first place. True Love is a fraud, as is that creature you married, damn him, who on your wedding night tried to serenade you with “Sexyback”. Deep down all of us know there’s barely any guarantee that we’ll find the One. We’ll probably settle down (contentedly, lets hope) with #143, and our One will be sailing merrily merrily down the Amazon River on the honeymoon he was supposed to go with us, but ended up taking with his #267.

And since we know this, we gorge our impoverished romantic soul with junk food, turn it into an obese, clogged-artery filled mess, and then wait for it to have a heart attack and die off forever. Cruel cruel cruel!

Thus, I feed my poverty stricken, khaali slate of a heart very little, but always with quality fare. For what it’s worth, my romantic soul has good taste, and might live to be a hundred.

Note: “When a man loves a woman” is extremely overrated. For simple, dignified and pure feeling listen to “Darling Pretty” by Mark Knopfler , “Strange and Beautiful” by Aqualung, or “Please forgive me” by David Gray.

Blah. Whatever.

2008-06-06T07:47:00.000-07:00

Oh screw the world, I’m sick of life already.

All right. This is my world at the moment

I am obsessing over having nothing to obsess about. This is not how I used to be. 3 years ago there used to be the Mangrove forest… you see, I was going to save it. I had a mission in life: saving the mangroves. True it never got any further than the mission statement which consisted of three words “Save the mangroves!” but at least it was something to live for. The great cause for which young people live and die and go to Woodstock for, but then, like everything, the movement died out. BUT today, Dawn reports that the Karachi government is launching a Mangroves Protection drive. Cheats. I started the whole thing before you. You fucking bureaucratic copycats.

But before the Mangroves there was Russian Literature. There were the Brothers Karamazov (who were all psycho or sociopaths in their own rights), and Fathers and Sons (a wonderful piece of work, Turgenev was brilliant) and the Idiot (the only person in the book who wasn’t an idiot was the idiot) and Gogol’s the Overcoat and Diary of a Madman and Lost souls and yes, I read all of them, every single convoluted-sentence-within-sentence filled page and it made me a bit of who I was. I was the Girl Who Read Russian Literature. And now I can’t complete Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Management. I’ve issued it twice and haven’t crossed the 50 page mark. You would think I’d have progressed mentally with age, rather than regressing to near- jahil status.

I blame this on Professional Education (!)

And like always, on myself. Sigh.

And now life is all about waiting for things to happen. At least that’s how it’s been for the past two days. Two days. My god. This is what would be politely referred to as a complete-lack-of-perspective.

Sympathy for the chicken

2008-06-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

So this is how chickens feel on Christmas Eve.

And turkeys on Thanksgiving.

Except that instead of 6 fussy old women doing the decorations, the chicken has the attention of only one. Lucky duck.

Chicken, I mean.

And it’s already dead.

So there is none of the humiliation, helplessness and anger that it might have felt had it still been breathing. No self respecting, living chicken could endure the hours of stuffing, garnishing, and basting. That’s why they kill it. I wonder why they don’t kill me.

But I’m not a chicken. I’m their daughter.

And the people sitting by the table, they don’t want to eat me. Or so they say.

You would think of course, that the hours they take preparing the meal, it isn’t really worth it in the end. A knife flicks twice, and it’s all undone. The hours of making everything “just right”.

“Tie the legs together, like this…”

“alright, now lets get to the stuffing…:

“Sprinkle salt and pepper…then baste the chicken with oil, then rub it with sage, rosemary and thyme…”

“The temperature at which you bake the chicken should be…”

Perfect. Just perfect.

Hair, makeup, clothes, shoes, expression.

No rebellion, no anger. No anything.

Just like a dead chicken.

This was us

2008-06-05T06:57:00.000-07:00

before half of them graduated, at least.

Just because

2008-05-29T06:12:00.000-07:00

This is my space. And for some reason it seems more me than my room. My room is completely devoid of personality, well it's devoid of mine at least. But then, i often wonder whether i have a personality; and if i do, how much of it is original and how much is made up of different traits that I've stolen from people, or inherited from my dad and mum.

So here's my theory (which has probably already been stated by someone or the other): that there's no such thing as originality. We're all a mishmash of thing's we've inherited, or stolen. Maybe stolen is too harsh a word...let's say taken inspiration from. As long as we're sane, we'll always be unoriginal.

And this thread ends here.

I was flipping through one of my diaries (this was before i knew how to blog :D) and i found this:

I do believe in miracles
And dreams
And maybe love
It's hard to be so cynical
So morose and so clinical
When every little cell within
Is screaming out so high
"You know you don't believe you,
Why do you even try?"

It's funny that I haven't changed since i was 12.

Meatloaf ke jhoote waade

2008-05-24T10:49:00.000-07:00

2 blogs in one day. i either overdo or underdo. i never just do.

I'd do anything for love (12 minute version)

And I would do anything for love
I'd run right into hell and back
I would do anything for love
I'd never lie to you and that's a fact
But I'll never forget the way you feel right now,
Oh no, no way
And I would do anything for love, but I won't do that
No, I won't do that

Anything for love
Oh, I would do anything for love
I would do anything for love, but I won't do that
No, I won't do that

Some days it don't come easy
Some days it don't come hard
Some days it don't come at all, and these are the days that never end
Some nights you're breathing fire
Some nights you're carved in ice
Some nights you're like nothing I've ever seen before or will again

Maybe I'm crazy, but it's crazy and it's true
I know you can save me, no-one else can save me now but you

As long as the planets are turning
As long as the stars are burning
As long dreams are coming true
You'd better believe it, that I would do

Anything for love
And I'l be there until the final act
I would do anything for love, and I'll take a vow and seal a pact
But I'll never forgive myself if we don't go all the way, tonight
I would do anything for love
Oh, I would do anything for love
Oh, I would do anything for love, but I won't do that
No, I won't do that

Some days I pray for silence
Some days I pray for soul
Some days I just pray to the god of sex and drums and rock 'n' roll
Some nights I lose the feeling
Some nights I lose control
Some nights I just lose it all when I watch you dance and the thunder rolls

Maybe I'm lonely, that's all I'm qualified to be
That's just one and only, the one and only promise I can keep

As long as the wheels are turning
As long as the fires are burning
As long as your prayers are coming true
You'd better believe it, that I would do

Anything for love
And you know it's true and that's a fact
I would do anything for love, and there'll never be no turning back
But I'll never do it better than I do it with you. So long, so long
I would do anything for love
Oh, I would do anything for love
Oh, I would do anything for love, but I won't do that
No, I won't do that
No, no, no, I won't do...

But I'll never stop dreaming of you ev'ry night of my life, no way
I would do anything for love
Oh, I would do anything for love
I would do anything for love, but I won't do that
No, I won't do that

Ok here's my favourite part
[Girl:]
Will you raise me up? will you help me down?
Will you get me right out of this godforsaken town?
Will you make it all a little less cold?

[Boy:]
I can do that
I can do that

[Girl:]
Will you hold me sacred? Will you hold me tight?
Can you colourise my life, I'm so sick of black and white?
Can you make it all a little less old?

[Boy:]
I can do that
Oh no, I can do that

[Girl:]
Will you make me some magic with your own two hands?
Will you build an emerald city with these grains of sand?
Can you give me something I can take home?

[Boy:]
I can do that
I can do that

[Girl:]
Will you cater to every fantasy I got?
Will you hose me down with holy water, if I get too hot?
Will you take me places I've never known?

[Boy:]
I can do that
Oh no, I can do that

[Girl:]
After a while you'll forget everything
It was a brief interlude and a midsummer night's fling
And you'll see that it's time to move on

[Boy:]
I won't do that
I won't do that

[Girl:]
I know the territory, I've been around
It'll all turn to dust and we'll all fall down
Sooner or later you'll be screwing around

[Boy:]
I won't do that
No, I won't do that

Anything for love
Oh, I would do anything for love
I would do anything for love, but I won't do that
No, I won't do that what a lier

Sigh. The girl wins with every line.

Men are such jackasses. Like hell, can he make an emerald city. Jhoote waade karte hain phir mukarte hain, saale. Hmmph.

Epiphany

2008-05-24T10:20:00.000-07:00

I am not the girl who killed Ironman

Nor Evil Hir-eivel on her yellow scooter

I'm not the Phattu Queen

And I'm not Johnny's May

I am

Monica Geller

And that

Is truly terrifying.

2008-05-22T06:53:00.000-07:00

Sleepless in Seattle is an awful movie. Meg Ryan’s a stalker, the kid is obsessive and psychotic and Tom Hanks is a dork. The only good line in the movie is when Hanks screams at Jonah about how Fatal Attraction scared the hell out of him; in fact it scared the hell out of every man in America. BUT (and here’s the catch) he’s not a bit freaked when he sees Meg Ryan everywhere; and when he realizes she flew all the way from Seattle to New York (and flew to Boston before) to see him. If I was in his place, I’d have turned and ran. She’s a stalker, you ass!!! Like Glen Close! She’ll take that teddy (called Howard by the way; how lame is this kid?) and boil it if you fight with her!!

Stalker Meg with Howard the dead duck.

But what I don’t get is how this deeply shitty movie can be a perennial favorite of rom-com lovers. Sleepless in Seattle is truly disturbing; though not as much as “While you were Sleeping”. That movie is terrifying. Think. While this man is comatose, this woman pretends to be his fiancé, insinuates herself with his family, and snags his brother. And then when he wakes up she says: hey there! you don’t remember me because you have amnesia. And then his uncle tries to trick him into marrying her. How sucky must this guy’s family be?

Mercifully, the 90’s are over. Now romantic comedies try not to be completely insane (Bridget Jones being the one exception), preferring to walk the thin line between cutely brainless and absurdly surreal. It’s too much to ask them to be intelligent; but at least they ATTEMPT to keep it real. They don’t usually succeed, but they get at least passing marks for effort.

Personally, I liked Love Actually. I found Colin Firth’s Christmas Eve rush to France idiotic (hel-lo, couldn’t this be done later? Like maybe after the family dinner?) and the Prime Minister not being able to get the address of one of his former employees equally inane (the MI6 must really be going to the dogs); but Emma Thompson and Keira Knightley’s storylines were sweet yet bitter, and to a certain extent, real. I like happy endings (really I do) but I don’t like Hollywood’s way of making things ecstatically happy. I think the Rom Com tradition of the epiphany and the rush-through-crazy-traffic-jam or the epiphany followed by the jumping-onto-the-plane-and-going-to-France-to-tell-the-One-
I-love-you has been done to death and should be replaced with the epiphany and the walk to the telephone to tell the One I love you. Or chalo ziada se ziada, call him over for a drink and tell him I love you (after the epiphany, of course). I mean, it’s not like the sales will drop exponentially or something. After all; the starting animosity, drunk sequence, dance sequence, other person who also seems to like protagonist but doesn’t really, misunderstandings galore, and final speech by guy/girl who’s the One, and final kiss will all be there. You’ll get your moneys worth, honestly.

Starting to say goodbye

2008-05-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

Today was the last working day of the semester. Shazi, Salman, Haris, Haris, Mohsin and Ali’s last working day. And I didn’t go to university. Not that it makes much of a difference to anyone. But I will miss them…Shazi more than anything, considering she’s the one who keeps us together with her stupid jokes, and adorable ditsiness. And Salman, Haris and Mohsin people because I’m so used to seeing them everyday. I don’t want to imagine what next year will be like.

Today was also the day I realized that a serious diet has become an almost necessity for me. The more tensed I get, the more I eat. And did I overdo the eating, tension and eating bit today. I was in a tizzy, so I ate, and then I was in a tizzy because I ate, which made me eat some more. I can actually feel fat molecules accumulating everywhere…oh why can’t we get rid of fat like fibre?

And next year is nothing but worry. And there won’t be any Shazi to go to Mostaro with Awzeen, so she’ll drag me with her, and I won’t like that. And there’ll be no Haris to torture me on the way back home and Salman to say “Sahi he na. Tum kuch kar tau nahi sakti tau kiya fayeda pareshan hone ka” which makes me feel worse rather than better.

And Hassan!!! What will uni be like without Hassan??

There’s one consolation though. If they all fail their thesis they’ll be able to stay for another year.

Nah. That’s too mean a wish even for me.

The girl who killed ironman is a wuss

2008-05-17T13:48:00.000-07:00

I hate my guy friends. Really I do.

Or maybe I hate the fact that they act nothing like other people’s guy friends act like. They don’t carry my stuff, they don’t help me with my weaving, they never let me borrow their usb, they do not drive me anywhere, they do not pay for me, they do not get me a birthday present (with the exception of Haris Hanif, and Ali Hakeem), they do not help me in any assignment whatsoever, and they will not embarrass themselves on stage to make my presentation successful. Ulta mujh se assignments karwate hain, ullu ke pathey.…

What’s worse is I can’t look to them for any moral support either. I don’t remember any of them standing up for me during the hell that was my first year. I can’t imagine any of them doing anything but make fun of me even now. Screw up their mouth and twist their tongues; speak like they have marbles stuck on their teeth. Her accent is a drama like all the rest of her. And we don’t speak her language anyway. If I can’t go to any of them for help, support or even simple understanding, why call them friends?

Maybe friends are more than people you enjoy hanging out with. It’s about actually believing someone’s got your back. Sigh…one of my ‘friends’ thinks I sabotaged his standing with a girl he liked. As if that’s something I would do. As if.

As if it’s easy to tell him that he never had a chance. As if he’ll ever believe it.

As if it’s not just simpler to blame me.

I need a support system…even bitchy feminists need crutches once in a while.

I will sooo regret putting this online, later. But right now I just need to vent.

2008-05-17T02:09:00.000-07:00

I got this message on Facebook recently, from this dude named Osman:

Salam, well i am a new user on facebook. I am looking for a true, special and harmless friend, one who can see right through my eyes,who can touch my soul, who can feel my eyes, who can penetrate deep down my thoughts. With whom i can share my inside and out without any fear. One who can stand by me forever. As u know fate decides our relatives, we choose friends ourself, so i need a friend of my dreams. A friend who can be sincere before whom i can think out loud. I am a person who dont like fame nor crowed rather a corner of peace with few but special friends. I feel friendship is like strings of violine, the music may stop but the strings will last forever. I need a friend with whom i can share my secrets deep, who can be a shoulder to cry on when the days are blue. One who can only see me in crowed who can hear only me in noise. I will give calm and comfort n will be by ur side even when the whole world will be against u, i will protect u and with unselfish love i will protect u. I assure u that for me ur dignity and respect will be more dear then my own. I am a person who have two treasures in life one is my smile and other is my tears, my smile is for others and my tears are just for me. I can change ur frown into a smile, when u r down. I will understand ur little trials and will lend a hand. I will share ur litte dreams cuz i care. For me u will be gold, i will give all love ur heart can hold. U will never be alone, i will be near to u, all u need is to call, i will always be there for u. so if u think u have similar thoughts n u need similar kinda friend, then do reply me, even if not then always keep smiling cuz u know ur smile is great source of oxygen for ur loved ones, i wish life treat u kind and u will have all u wish for n above all this i wish love and respect of all. Allah Hafiz

Anybody who actually reached the end of it, please mail me a summary. I didn't bother reading past the first sentence.

Important Announcement

2008-05-16T08:19:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen
Adil Moosajee is officially off my tomato list because he is finally putting my gothic architecture design into production!
So in a month or so, maybe (just maybe) I will enter Ego with a friend and point out to her proudly, "see that? that's MY design!"
And this is all because I decided to virtually pelt Adil Moosajee with tomatoes.
People who are reading this, create your own tomato, or egg, or paintball list. It gets results,I assure you. Jason Castro has been kicked off the Idols, Nawaz Sharif is out of the government, and Meera... well just being Meera is downfall enough.

Oh, and Haris Jafri is now on my tomato list as well. Jafri, you're going down.

2008-05-16T02:09:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Word 2007 is difficult. I have absolutely no idea how to format my document, and what with the rulers on the top and left being missing, the page looks horribly naked. Actually it doesn’t look naked. There are a hundred million icons on the top, many of which I have never seen before and quite a few on the bottom as well. In fact the overall look is a woman who’s wearing so much lingerie that she’s forgotten to put on her actual clothes. Sigh…to think, just the lack of a ruler makes a Word page indecent.

Today I’ve decided to write a long entry. As to what I’ll put in this long entry I haven’t decided yet. Needless to say, it’ll be the same self-absorbed babble that has become the norm of my blog, but with a difference! It shall NOT be self-absorbed! Ha! How’s that for a twist?

Ok I’ve found out how to turn the ruler on. Finally my page looks Muslim.

Oh cool…this is saving itself!

I really like this Microsoft Word version (: D)

Anyway, I return.

Living in Pakistan is never boring. Our political and social climate is so refreshingly insane that not only do we laugh at ourselves; we even have the world laughing with us. For example, the Baluchistan Assembly comprises of 42 members, out of which 38 are ministers. The Opposition consists of an individual. Yes, one person. That leaves 3 other people- hmm…maybe they were absent the day the Assembly was distributing ministries.

Just once I would like to be truly proud of being Pakistani, not just because I have to (non-patriots being synonymous to kafirs) but because I can’t help it, after all ‘we’re such a great nation.’ Constant repetition doesn’t make something come true. I’m not Angelina Jolie; I can tell myself I’m her til my lips fall off rather than get poofy and I’ll still be Hira Saiyed-the delusional. So we can tell ourselves we’re a great nation til we’ve brainwashed all the children we can find, but when Geo shows lawyers jumping on innocent cars and smashing their windows, and calls them “guardians of democracy” then sane people begin questioning themselves. Who do we trust? The Media? The Politicians? The Military? Where can we find somebody who can tell the nation what it needs to hear, rather than what it wants to. This is a nation of idiots. And the best thing to do with an idiot is to take him by his ear, tell him that he’s being a dork, and set him on the right track, telling him that there’s a reward for him if he does his work right. You don’t let an idiot make his own decisions.

Gradually, I’ve come to wonder whether Pakistanis deserve leaders who actually wish to improve the country. We don’t want our lot to get better because then we’ll be left with little to complain about; and being deprived of our national hobby will just cripple our society…what will Kamran Shafi write about? Who will Hamid Mir insult on his show? How can we enjoy misery if we have nothing to be miserable about?

No, we’ll always find ways to be miserable. Pakistanis will whine about being bored in Jannat.

Being Musharraf

2008-05-11T01:14:00.000-07:00

It must suck to be the President of Pakistan. Not only are you blamed for everything that goes wrong (and this includes traffic jams, and bad weather…) but you also have to deal with frequent uncivil civil society members who write disgustingly rude columns in the newspaper. And the best way to deal with people is to not deal.

One thing I’ve learnt the hard way is that people are too self absorbed to really give a shit about you for more than ten minutes. I spent my first two years in university trying hard to keep my reputation and sanity intact, thinking that people actually were taking note of everything I was doing, and looking for me to make a mistake. Now I realize that nobody, no matter how pathetic, spends more than 1/80^th of a day thinking about someone other than himself. So why worry about the opinion of a person who wastes 18 minutes of his day on the rest of humanity? Another thing I learnt is that reputation means nothing. The cliché “the first impression is the last impression” is abysmally incorrect. Our knowledge of someone keeps evolving. I may think a person a complete snob the first time I see her, only to realize how wrong I was on our second meeting, and on the third I may end up considering her the humblest person I know. And vice versa. We evolve, our perceptions of people evolve. Why bother caring what someone thinks of you at the present moment when he’ll probably think of you in a completely different way the next? Why limit yourself to what you want people to think of you?

And that’s the gist of everything. If I want to portray myself as dignified, sophisticated and intellectual, I’ll act that way. The keyword here is act. Why make that effort? If that’s the way I am, it’ll emanate (is that the word?) itself. I’ve spent so long trying to be what I want to be, I’ve forgotten what I was to begin with.

Le!!! Tamatar kha!!!!

2008-05-03T06:07:00.000-07:00

When I was in school I had one wish…to slide down the banisters on the last day. It didn’t come true since I’m a wuss. I’m the Phattu Queen; except, of course, when I’m drunk on coke and overworked. Then I become Evil Hir-ievel and jump through society’s ring of fire on my yellow scooter, and land in the middle of the valley of embarrassment with my foot in my mouth. Taalian!! What a trick!

Anyway, on to the tomato awards: Here’s a list of people who deserve to be tomatoed:

Mohsin Sahab ( for promising to get rid of the Makrani a week ago. Mohsin sahib- you lied…!?)
The Makrani- who should be egged and toilet papered as well
Nawaz Sharif- for being the dumbest public figure in the world
Chris Martin of Coldplay- for making me feel single, and lonely and very very sad…
Arshi Valliani – just to see how she’d react…he he
Adil Moosajee- A-S-S-H-O-L-E
Meera- because she’s so fabboolous
Mohsin Ali Sadiq- blech.
Jason Castro- why is he still on Idols?
Hilary Clinton- because Obama would make a hot president.
Nadya Mistry- enough said.
The Makrani again- (and just AFTER he cleans himself up)

Hmm…I’ll add people later. It’s always nice to have a list.

I am...therefore i am?

2008-05-03T00:47:00.000-07:00

Let it slide, Johnny

2008-05-02T09:42:00.000-07:00

I sit next to Haris on the way back. I tell him my aim in life is to be a rich, young widow. And that I’ll forget my kids in the supermarket one day. And that I want to buy a house with a giant tree in the garden and I’ll write all my wishes on pieces of glass and hang them on its branches and that I plan to be buried in my garden. He starts snoring.
He calls me a “munh ki fire”.
Shazia says ke main “banti huun”
Wow. Hit the jackpot, haven’t they?

“Do you want to get married, or run away?” sings Johnny Rzeznik.

Run away Johnny, every time you ask. Run away, elope, and just start over completely different, where nobody knows who we are and where we’ve come from. A clean slate. Without looking back at the people we’ve hurt; escaping those who hurt us. I’ll not be Hira, daughter of Amanullah Saiyed and Afia Badar and he won’t be whoever he happened to be before. We’ve cut our strings to dance on our own. Puppets live too when nobody’s watching.

Nothing beats dreaming expensive. The cruise, the art galleries, the zen garden, the huge kitchen…if I know my dreams will never be metal or concrete real, why not dream in platinum and 18th century red brick? Snore away Haris, I’ll stay a “munh ki fire”.

Sadly Johnny, I’m not your May. And you’ll never really know what it feels to be a man either. Somehow that makes it all better. If I’m incomplete, you have no right to be anything else either.

Us rabid feminists, tees maar khans, guerilla sisters, female eunuchs are the biggest saps of all.

Hira is loopy

2008-04-22T08:58:00.000-07:00

I will lose myself someday. One day, completely out of the blue I’ll realize I misplaced myself somewhere; probably at the supermarket, or on the way back from my nani's, or in the kitchen. And I will search like crazy, reciting innalilahi wa inni ilaihi rajioon continuously, but will still not be able to find myself anywhere. And I’ll worry and fret, curse my carelessness and irresponsibility without realizing that I’m right where I put myself. Nobody’s stolen me, or thrown me away, because frankly, not many people ever do bother to take what doesn’t belong to them.

The average person doesn’t steal, or lie, or cheat needlessly. It’s so much easier to tell the truth, use one’s own things and study. People are instinctively good. It takes so much effort to sin…lying for example. Other then the sheer torture of saying something we know so obviously to be false, the strain of having to figure out how to back your lie up so that it seems believable, is awful. It’s so much simpler to say “fuck it man, here’s the truth. Take it or leave it.”

Sigh. So.

By the time I’m 40 I’ll be carrying around little cards which will remind me of my name, address, and current destination (in case I want to go get eggs at the local grocery and end up wandering aimlessly by tyre shops). I’ll also need cards telling me which section of my purse I keep my wallet in, and a card to tell me which pocket I’ve kept the cards telling me which section of my purse I’ve kept my wallet in. I will be senile by my 30’s. My children will grow up taking care of their mother. Woe woe woe.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to take responsibility for myself, or for my belongings. I need a secretary. sigh…but who’s going to pay him?

just an afterthought: if being in love seems tough, try falling out of love and having no one believe you.

The Dulhans of the road

2008-04-16T08:38:00.000-07:00

I realized today that I never needed a reason to be happy. Or unhappy for that matter. I swing from completely irrationally ecstatic, to absolutely pointlessly tragic in minutes. And it’s the lack of reason behind these mood swings that scare me. I’m hyper when I’m miserable and oh-so-blah when I should be prancing around strewing lilies on the footpaths. Oh well. At least I’m unpredictable.

Currently, life is all about truck art. I’ve learned to seriously appreciate our dulhans of the road…and the men who spend more on decorating their princesses than in purchasing them. You see, a bus driver or truck driver spends most his life in his vehicle so it becomes his home, his wife, and his baby. And for some reason, though these men let their actual homes, wives and babies go to the dogs, their trucks and buses are loved, and decorated and gaudied to bits.

Chamakpatti (the colorful stickers used for decorating the sides) for example costs 60 rupees per meter and there’s at least about a hundred meters you use on an average bus…coupled with the paint, the workmanship, the jhaalars and the metal bars and the reflectors and the lights…they buy the truck for 12 lakhs, and then spend up to 6 for decoration. Usually the drivers purchase the trucks, leave them at the decorators for a month, pay a certain amount depending on the amount of decoration they require, and let the artists have full sway. Of course sometimes they do give suggestions (like having a picture of Saima in the rear :P). A bus or truck that is decent, or minimalist, is an unloved bus or truck. Vive le chichorpan!!!

I can’t help wondering though; a bus is the driver’s flower (guls), his shehzadi, or his dulhan… So there’s not much place left then for actual flesh and blood women, is there?

Reflections on Quotations

2008-02-11T08:00:00.000-08:00

“I hope you’ve lost your good looks, for while they last any fool can adore you, and the adoration of fools is bad for the soul. No, give me a ruined complexion and a lost figure and sixteen chins on a farmyard of crow’s feet and an obvious wig. Then you shall see me coming out strong.”

George Bernard Shaw to Mrs. Patrick Campbell

Didn’t she have a name of her own? That’s how she’s remembered to this day, other then the fact that Mr. Shaw wrote the role of Eliza Doolittle especially for her. Mrs. Patrick Campbell was a famous stage actress of her time, and from what I’ve read of her, she must have been a hell of a person to hang out with. To think, George Bernard Shaw respected her, probably even loved her…yup, she must have been a woman to beat all women.

There’s going to be some sort of “Words of wisdom” talkathon at TIP by the end of this month, so I’ve been looking through my brother’s quote book. Some are pretty interesting though whether they’re words of wisdom is another matter. This for example:

“We’re all hookers. What matters is dignity.” Mike Farren

When my internet returns I’ll look him up. He must have been an embarrassment to his grandmother.

According to mine, girls should believe in the stork theory until the day before their marriage. Then you let the bricks fall on their head. My mother gets quite upset when I talk about my wedding. It seems the topic is taboo. I wonder what I’d be like if I hadn’t taken O’level biology…probably looking through cabbage patches in hope of seeing a baby sprout out of the ground.

“The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.” Hubert Humphrey

“We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity—romantic love and gunpowder” André Maurois

Romantic love isn’t a Christian invention. According to Rizwanullah Khan, it was basically a Muslim concept. Chivalry or ‘javanmardi’ started with the Arabs as did the idea of love at first sight. Since Arab culture entails complete separation of men and women in their daily lives, people rarely fell in love with each other, rather they were in love with the idea of being in love. And of course, since it’s easier to sacrifice oneself for an ideal rather than an actual flesh and blood person who probably snorts when laughing or is obnoxious and thus romantic love, love at first sight, knights in white armor, preux chevaliers and that damned Valentine ’s Day were born.

type chivalry and you get pictures like this. type javanmardi and you get people's adresses. Islam needs a publicist.

2 more days...i wonder if I'll I get any flowers this year?

My Zoey- part 1

2008-02-03T09:28:00.000-08:00

Something catastrophic should have happened when Zoey was born. My ten year old niece will accomplish what even Hitler couldn’t manage to do; she WILL take over the world. And she’s planned it all…every little detail is mapped out in that brilliant precocious brain of her; the evil lair inside a mountain, with the moat full of crocodiles and two highly trained rescue dolphins in case she herself fell in by accident, her two not-so-evil henchmen codenamed ‘brownie’ and ‘pie’ who will be her publicity agents, and of course, the end of all free speech. Zoey hates free speech, she thinks it’s silly. And she’ll need a secretary to note down every word she says.

Yesterday that was my job. I’d been asking people how they would define a hero. Zoey, the exceptionally evil mastermind, happened to overhear me ask Farya that question, and insisted that I write down her opinion on heroes. Here it goes (these are actual quotes):

Zoey: “A hero?? A hero is a heroine! Never marry a policeman. Policemen carry bombs. A policeman is the lowest form of a hero. Nobody is the highest form of a hero.”

“Why do heroes always have broad shoulders? They look ugly. Heroes should hate babies. They should let them burn in buildings”

“Parvez Musharraf is a baby. He sucks his thumb and cries for his mommy.”

“Heroes are silly creations. They’re not real.”

Now taken collectively they seem childish ramblings, but let’s analyze each one separately.

A hero is a heroine

A heroine is twice a hero, because she has to work harder to be taken seriously. So basically, being a heroine is heropana squared.

Never marry a policeman. Policemen carry bombs. A policeman is the lowest form of a hero.

Policemen are the lowest forms of heroes because they’re PAID to be heroes!! It’s their job! That’s actually really profound…

Nobody is the highest form of a hero

What’s the highest form of a hero? Batman? Superman? Do they exist? No…therefore NOBODY is the highest form of a hero!

Why do heroes always have broad shoulders? They look ugly.

I agree. They look terrible deformed. And there’s no rule that states a hero has to look like Lenny Coleman. Ordinary people can be heroes. In most cases ordinary people are heroes.

Heroes are silly creations. They’re not real

This takes the cake. This one comment was more insightful then all the opinions I’d noted from every slightly intelligent person I could find, and I received a lot of opinions (link). The truth is that heroes, whether real, or imaginary, are usually as we perceive them. They’re what we make them out to be. And a ten year old understood what a lot of people don’t. That’s just weird…

I’ll continue the Zoey chronicles tomorrow. That is, if she hasn’t taken over the world by then.

Return of the me

2008-02-01T08:46:00.000-08:00

Let this song finish. I can’t think when every single lyric seems like it was written by me, for me. Ever felt like that?

I haven’t been around for some time. University, laziness, and the belief that people might be reading what I wrote and making fun of me made me ignore my blog. Then a few days ago Mutahira asked me why I had stopped writing and that Samir had mentioned my blog to her. It made me wonder how many people had actually visited this site. I felt quite important after that thought… Muta, if you’re reading this, Mwah!! You gave me a giant Godiva dark chocolate bar worth of self esteem!

One whole month I wasted… well not exactly. I spent quite a lot of time reading the newspapers, reading websites, and watching the three channels available on my tv (no cable, haye!). Other than watching Benazir turn into a saint by the local media, I found that the trashing of my university got next to no coverage. But to be honest, other than the assassination very little else got any media space at all. It was tragic surely, though not unexpected. I wasn’t shocked by her death, but the aftermath. You’d think that Karachi had become a rehearsal for a broadway play called ‘Hell’. And honest, that trash about the frustrations of the have-nots against the haves is such bull that I won’t even make fun of it. My family was out that night, stuck in traffic, while I was home getting calls by my frantic relatives asking whether they were safe or not, and lying that “no, it’s ok, they’re at home” while on the verge of hysterics myself because I couldn’t find any way to contact them. Anyway, while stuck in some street in PECHS, they saw a vegetable vendor being raided. The Corolla in front of theirs stopped, and the man driving it ran to the vendor and started grabbing as many vegetables he could find. Haves and Have-nots? Spare me.

Nobody in Pakistan starves. The people here who scream of poverty have never slept hungry. Yes, there is a divide among the classes, a huge one. There are people who don’t have the luxuries that we do, but you will not find people who lack the necessities. The woman who works at my house is always crying about money, but a few months ago she was asking my mother for an advance so that her daughter could celebrate her birthday with a party. This was her second youngest daughter. She has eight kids. My parents have three and they’re constantly complaining about finances. And nobody celebrates birthdays in my house. Define irony.

I’ve never seen poverty, except maybe on television, where children in Ethiopia are shown starving near half dead crops; and India, where hundreds of people pay daily to sleep on footpaths…I’ve spent my gloriously sheltered life listening to “Tum logon ko khane ko milta he isi liye nakhrey karte ho” and “Hum ne tau apni umar main itni aasaishein nahin dekhi thiin jitni tum logon ko abhi milti hain”. And I agree. I’ve got it much better than millions of people. I’ve never starved (except when I was trying to lose weight last month) but I can safely say that neither have the beggars here. I see them, standing in line for free biryani, or salan and roti; the woman wearing fake gold jewellery (if not real) and bangles, their children bedraggled but healthy. Try offering any of them a job, and see what happens. My mother has quite a few times. They turned her down flat; if they can earn more begging why should they work?

This is a screwed up country where black isn’t black and white isn’t white. Everything’s a murky brown…the kind you get after you’ve cleaned all your brushes in the same water. The principles that apply to the rest of the world won’t work here, at least not right now. Maybe in the distant future they might, when people will stop blaming everybody else for their problems, but that’s about as likely as my mother not blaming me when the onions burn. Hel-lo? You’re the one cooking. I don’t blame you when I fail in marketing, do I?

The hell that is Eid

2007-10-15T12:01:00.000-07:00

6:15 pm

Today is the second day of Eid. Today the extent of my parents social life becomes evident…it seems anybody who has ever met ammi and abbu can never forget them. He/she finds it necessary to pay homage to them every eid, to bask in my mother’s wonderful interpersonal skills and to listen with awe to my father’s wonderful assessment of the political and economic situation of the world at large; while I run back and forth from the kitchen to the living room dragging a trolley full of whatever-I-could-find-in-the-cupboard or a tray of tea. I can’t stand visitors on Eid day. Or rather, I like visitors but if they come intermittently, giving me breathing space of an hour or so. This steady trickle is very very disturbing. I often forget what conversation I was having with whom, if I find time to actually carry out a conversation.

My inter-personal skills are zilch. I only realize the right thing to say twenty minutes after I should have said it.

I’ve had ten minutes to type this out. Ten minutes for myself throughout this day. Here comes somebody else.

11:25 pm

I’m praying to God almighty, the Holy Trinity, Satan, any deity or unity or trinity that can grant any sort of prayer that no more ‘mehmaans’ will show up. I’m pooped. The kitchen is spotless, the dishes are all washed, the living room is in order again and if the doorbell rings again I will go mad. At 9:00 I was about to start crying. I’m not social, I don’t like half my relatives and making tea again and again and serving the same things again and again and smiling and saying “asalam u alaikum, eid mubarak!” again and again…monotony, repetition, aaaugh augg augggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can’t stand Eid. People take time to visit relatives they avoid the rest of the year. I’m not that big a hypocrite. There will be no such mess in my life inshaAllah. I’ll spend Eid in the Bahamas if necessary, but I’m not going to go through the misery when I’m independent that I go through now.

Untitled Blog #2

2007-10-11T02:40:00.000-07:00

UFF!!! Kiya satyanaas mara he main ne apne hourlies ka! I’m so screwed…there goes my dream of another 3.5+ GP. Khaer, it happens. Shit happens. If it didn’t, we’d all have constipation and a constipated world is an unhappy world. Let us thank God for shit, Amen.

Hmm…so I’ve massacred my chance for a Dean’s list, as well as given up on going to Germany for Heimtex (is that how you spell it?) and am clueless about CAD and marketing. This is going to be a bad semester. Sigh…and I really really really want money.

I’m serious, I need money. I have to buy a camera, a drawing tablet, a new look for myself, books, art material, maybe a car, as well as somebody to drive it for me, and a turtle which I will call Obi wan Knobi as a tribute to George Lucas’s amazing naming skills. Hassan stole “bling bling” which was the name originally planned for my future turtle friend but since it’s Hassan he’s forgiven.

And sadly, what with my grades dropping below sea level I can’t ask my dad for anything like a raise in my allowance or a loan. I’m not violent, so robbing a bank is out of the question; not promiscuous, so I can’t sell myself. I can write, but I digress so much none of my writing makes much sense. Plus, what do I write about? I’m not passionate about anything. I’m a gila monster! Slither, slither, flick tongue…

I can’t help thinking I came into the wrong field. Or maybe I just came to the wrong place. Or maybe I just don’t know what I’m doing at all. Maybe I can’t apply myself to anything. Maybe all I’m fit for is sitting in a corner, biting off the few millimeters of fingernails I have left and making sarky comments at people who are more talented, focused, and hard-working then me. Is there a career option for lazy bums who are bitter about everything in the world in which they have to do nothing but be lazy cynical bums?

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned :P

2007-10-05T10:53:00.000-07:00

It hurts just the same. I keep telling myself it's over but it's exactly the same. You never get over your first love, though you may reach the point where you cant stand seeing him and the idea of having a conversation with him starts you yawning but you'll still not be over him. It's like the cut you get when a bangle breaks on your wrist. The glass goes inside the skin, there's a crazy amount of bleeding, and though it all heals at some point and it doesn't hurt anymore, the scar will always remind you how much it hurt when it happened. Crying doesn't help, neither does making a list of all his faults and other reasons he doesn't deserve you, nor the hour long counseling sessions with one's friends. You can't anesthetize heartbreak for some reason. It's cureless, like the cold except that the cold gets you sympathy. The damn thing.

But I still believe that everybody should get rejected at least once in their life. They should hurt and suffer, drive themselves crazy with humiliation and self-loathing, cry their eyes out and lie to everyone that everything is "all good" when it isn't. It's so far from all good that it's funny. I could claw his eyes out for ignoring my feelings, if i had nails. His not-so-gorgeous-face would have scratches inches deep, and then he'd have nothing to be so egotistical about. I'll never feel complete until I know where i lack, what he thinks i don't have, other than fingernails; and even that is lucky for him. Love is a bitch generally, but when it's one sided it's vicious and rabid as well.

Questions questions...

2007-09-28T10:10:00.000-07:00

I’ve been wasting time again. This time though I’m actually facebook-stalking. One of my seniors in college was Mahwash Ajaz, and I knew her through the debate society. I went to Commecs with her and to be honest, she’s been my hero ever sine. She’s done everything I’ve ever dreamed of doing; not only is she a brilliant, refined woman, she’s also been a radio jockey, a TV host, and is now a lecturer at Iqra University, and she’s only 24 years old. I’m 21, and I haven’t done scratch. What am I waiting for?

If according to everybody I’m so confident, why do I act so gutless?

The chocolate days...

2007-09-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

I cannot sit on the library floor anymore. If I wasn’t penniless I would have said “screw the Rs.500 fine, I’m sitting right where I want to!” but I can’t afford rebellion. Damn.

I’ve started work on my print, my first weaving sample is complete and I think I can manage to pass in CAD/CAM. I’m not going to drive myself crazy like I did last year. It’s good to be work-conscious but you shouldn’t make it your top-priority, because in the end you won’t remember the crazy amount of effort you put in, you’ll remember the fun you had. And I didn’t have fun last year at all. Even in first year, I remember the sheer excitement and joy of our newborn freedom, of having friends, of being a part of this vibrant, beautiful place with a lake and a walkway and a fertilizer factory cum cruise ship that sparkled in the night; the only assignments I remember doing are the ones where Awzeen, Shazia, Mariam, Mutahira and I were cramped together in our hostel rooms trying to paint perfect, strokeless strips of paper, or reproducing magazine cutouts using poster color. I remember the night before Valentines Day when we had a mini-competition on who would get the first Valentine sms, and Mutahira went crazy and started cussing all the guys she knew for being insensitive, careless assholes. I think Awzeen won…I’m not sure. I know I certainly didn’t.

Nothing is the same anymore. A lot of people we loved have graduated, and the ones that are left…well we don’t have any time to spend with them. I’m a stranger now to the people I’ve been friends with since the first day of university. I could blame it on the Administration. They’ve killed the hostel night-life, they’ve made sure that we have no time whatsoever to have fun, they’ve given the cafeteria over to a group that can’t cook at all…Nope, not enough reasons. Sigh. Since I can’t really blame it on the Administration, I’ll have to blame it on myself. We have to learn to take out time for the people who are important to us. If I can’t do that, it’s my own fault.

Peeping Toms, Dicks and Harrys

2007-09-25T10:25:00.000-07:00

I can and will do anything to avoid work. I have loads of it waiting for me upstairs but I still prefer to do nothing on my pc here in the basement. I’ve been randomly looking through my brother’s book-marked websites, not because I’m suspicious of him or any such reason. I mean, he can do what he wants, see what he wants, it’s none of my concern. But I’m bored, and I have hundreds of better things to do which I really don’t feel like doing and this is the only way I can think up to waste time.

Anyway, one of the randomly clicked sites features trailers of upcoming Hollywood movies. It also features gossip but who really cares how Hayden Panitierre (I swear she sounds like a bakery) carries herself out of her limo? I don’t. But for some reason it’s on the front page. If it wasn’t so funny, it would have been sad. Khaer, I’m digressing. I saw something extremely disturbing on the website (which I’d like to share with anyone khwar enough to read this blog) and strangely it wasn’t Britney Spears. This is the promotional poster of upcoming movie "One Missed Call"

I don’t know about anybody else, but movie-makers obsession with showing the most disgustingly horrifying things does, like the blogger, “creep me out”. I watched the first installment of the Saw franchise recently and the only thing I could think, by the end of the movie was “Why?! How pointlessly macabre and sadistic could the writer, director, and producer get?” Saw is a senseless gore-fest meaning NOTHING. In fact, I would refer anybody who enjoyed watching Saw and all its successors to another movie “Peeping Tom”*. Why do we enjoy watching people suffer needlessly? What insane, homophobic tendency draws us to such trash? I’m not the sort of person who feels that the only purpose of cinema is to depict life. Just living life is pretty all-consuming anyway; I prefer not to spend hours analyzing it. I like escapist cinema, but this consistent need to feed one’s inner sadist is not just disturbing, it speaks volumes on our growing insensitivity to other people’s pain, be it physical or mental, because practically nothing can be as bad as the movies. Do we really have an inner, subconscious serial killer who’s cravings need to be fed?

I don’t know…Imagine an innocent victim strapped to a table with the “psychopath” casually dissecting parts of his/her body and we’re watching it all happen. And there’s no camera, and no director to yell “cut” and the blood is real and the screaming is real and the villain is real. What they show should not be taken as “just a movie”. You can’t get up and forget the pain. If you manage to, you’re not that different from the killer.

*In this seriously scary masterpiece, the killer makes videos of how he kills his victims and watches them over and over again. By the end we feel just as disgusting and perverted as him. And we are. We enjoy the thrill as much as he does. Yuck.

Monk-woman from Neptune!

2007-09-23T09:39:00.000-07:00

Whe

When you’re 21 you should know a bit about people, human interactions and the world in general. After all, you’re legally adult. That means you are considered capable of making difficult decisions like who to marry, who to vote for and what to do with your inheritance if you actually have one. Why then, am I so completely clueless?

I often wonder whether parents aren’t making a mistake by over sheltering their kids. I can understand the whole idea of protecting them from the world’s bad and broken, but then, once a child walks out of the shield he/she is incapable of differentiating between good and bad, and fixed and broken. I’m a terrible judge of people, and I can’t help blaming that on my mum and dad.

I’ve bitten off almost half of my nails, they're embedded so low on the nail base that from far away you might think I don’t have any. I’m constantly fidgety, and can’t sit still. If I’m not biting my nails, I’m playing with my hair, or with my fingers or tapping my foot or clicking my pen. I feel like Monk without the brains and the observation skills. And the 6 cups of tea or coffee I take every day don’t really help.

Nothing irritates me more than a magazine editor who has no clue what he’s doing. Or maybe he does and is pretending he doesn’t. And I really really don’t like being taken for granted. Nobody does I’m sure, but for some reason people assume that just because they consider themselves my friends I should be willing to slave for them. I have a new strategy now though; it’s called give and take. The world has been using it for centuries but for some reason I came across it only a few months ago when I decided that the rock I lived under needed spring cleaning.

People glorify friends. Sitcoms, and medical dramas or comedies, and teen flicks all scream out “we are nothing without our friends!” and maybe they’re right. But life, I guess, isn’t a sitcom, or medical drama or teen flick because I haven’t met anybody I could sit and have coffee and talk about my daily routine with, much less my boyfriend’s (if God forbid, I ever have one, ) strange eating habits. Or maybe you only find good friends if you frequent coffee houses. Good he! I get to blame my lack of mental companionship on my parent’s strictness as well.

This seat is made for sitting

2007-09-18T05:30:00.000-07:00

How awful is it when nobody wants to sit next to you in the point? Not that bad actually since I got to sleep the entire way back and didn’t have to nod my head to constant rambling and continue the conversation using “haan?” “nahi!!” and “waqai?” wherever I saw fit. I wouldn’t mind having the seat next to me empty if it didn’t scream out how unpopular I am. Sigh…I guess I better get used to it now.

One only realizes how huge a blessing water is when one is dying of thirst. I was so thirsty today that the sludge in the lake was actually looking good. I felt like going out in the streets shouting out “a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse” like Richard the third; except that I would rather be asking for a bottle of mineral water and I have no kingdom to trade for it. I’d willingly barter off my used battery collection though. Any takers? Ever since Ramzaan started BBC Food and masala are the only channels I feel like watching. The only websites I visit feature Ramzaan specialties like gol gappay and anokhey kabab. I worship food, I can dream about it endlessly. Write about it, sing about it, make a gigantic statue of Jamie Oliver in the name of it….Food, oh glorious food.

I love Karachi. It’s the ideal place to be if you’re a food maniac. People overdo Lahore’s standing as a khana kingdom, after all Karachi has everything. From the world’s greatest kabab rolls to some really bang-up hummus and shwarma…oh hell, now I’m hungry too.

But what I really really miss right now, is tea. The first thing I’ll do after the azaan is take a bite of a khujoor and then settle down with a huge mug of chai and a plateful of pakoray.

By the by, I’ve been reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows again, and again and again and strangely, the more I read it the less sense it makes. At first everything seems to tie in nicely, but then afterwards you can’t help thinking that it’s all a bit too coincidental and some parts just don’t gel; I mean how many multiple reasons can you think up for Harry not dying? And why do wizards even bother dying in the first place seeing their spirits live on in pictures, broken glass mirrors, and Harry’s subconscious?

Yea Socialism!

2007-09-17T09:44:00.000-07:00

Today I missed the point. By seconds. My dad deliberately drove at 30 km per hour to teach me the importance of punctuality and all that shit…and I cried like a maniac all the way back home. I really needed to go to university aaj, I had to show my print design layout, had to give the cad cam quiz, had to work with Anam on her embroidery and bring the hostel forms. And since I had to do so much, I woke up twenty minutes late and subsequently missed out on university. Define irony.

So I stayed at home…my attendance will undoubtedly go to the dogs as will my grades. But today I learned the importance of perspective, and keeping your feet firmly on the ground. Some great thinker, I’m assuming its George Bernard Shaw said something about how if you give your children lots of attention and minimal of money, they will turn out to be great adults. If that maxim is anywhere near halfway correct then we siblings are going to turn out model citizens.

But I was talking about today…my sister used to take tuitions from this lovely young woman named Saba. Ms Saba is probably the bravest person I know. Her father is in Shaukat Khanum suffering from cancer, her mother is ill as well, and her brother like most young men nowadays is completely useless. She’s the sole supporter of her family, giving tuitions continuously from morning to evening, and since her family can’t afford a car she either walks or takes a bus. My mother and I saw her walking from my lane towards the KDA chawrangi on our way to hyderi and offered her a lift. It seems the poor dear was going to walk all the way to L block, about 4 kilometres from where we picked her up. I’ve never felt so guilty in my life. People keep recounting that life isn’t fair. The line has become so clichéd that it’s taken as a joke…but like all clichés, once in a while it hits you hard. It’s true that everybody has his or her own problems; that even the rich aren’t happy, but they sure as hell have a better chance to be. If they’re not happy, they deserve to be hanged. Class distinctions will continue to exist, but it must feel like shit watching people do nothing but enjoy themselves and strive for nothing except beauty and youth. Why should some people get so less, while others so much? What right do the rich have to their wealth?

Ramzaan Mubarak to All!!!

2007-09-13T10:09:00.000-07:00

So you would think that something actually happened today, I mean there's got to be some reason i'm adding a new post. You're wrong. But i DID get a mariage proposal today :). so what if my wanna-be fiance is 3 years younger to me and a bit of a twit?

11th September 2007

2007-09-11T08:08:00.000-07:00

Today Awzeen and I discovered how extremely boring we were. It didn’t come up as a sudden revelation… we had gradually reached the idea that our social life is not only extremely limited, but it primarily includes friends of friends. At least, that’s so in my case. I know only one person now who I actually like spending time with during university. I am, for the first time in my life, very very unpopular.

I miss the days people would give me chocolate for no reason...

Blog #3: mild chit chat

2007-09-04T10:30:00.000-07:00

My PC is dying. It’s overburdened with downloaded crap from all over the world. Typing two words takes twenty minutes; I can’t open Word, and my browser at the same time…the media player has committed suicide and woe betide the person who accidentally tries to watch a movie on the dvd player/ burner that we all chipped in to buy but which I can’t use at all. My brother has destroyed his own desktop and is now after mine; and I really can’t threaten him with anything. I tried the whole “you leave my desktop alone or else…!” bit but it sounded so flimsy even I didn’t take it seriously. Hani just laughed (an evil diabolical laughter, right out of Pashto films). If only I was 4 inches taller and 50 pounds heavier…

This blog of mine is way too much me-oriented. Since I know that barely anyone will read it I’ll use it as sort of an online journal. Don’t expect intelligent commentary on the political situation of Pakistan here. If that’s what you want, then you’re welcome to my house for tea, pakoray and intellectual bakwas anytime. If you’re lucky I might be able to dig up a samosa or two. But here it’s just me, what I’m thinking, who I’m thinking about and how I feel (and I feel nothing for the politico-economic situation of my country…how callous of me). I so rarely get to talk about how I feel in real life (and by real, I mean my offline life) that I need something to vent to. My diary isn’t safe, since my sister is the world’s biggest bloodhound of gossip.

You would think that I’d be able to be honest here. Say frankly that I’m a deeply insecure, attention craving, pretentious mess. Well, I did it. There it is. Even Shabih knows I pretend most of the time, and to be honest I have to. Whenever I try to be myself I end up getting hurt. You show someone your vulnerable side and the first thing they’ll do is prick you with a fork.

There are two approaches people take when it comes to their personal faults; they can try to hide them or deny them, or they can flaunt them openly. Trying to hide one’s faults makes other people more curious about them; flaunting them gives people an open ticket to hurt you. Of course you could be the rare type that has no personality defects, but then I guess everybody else will just loathe your very being. In such a case I’d suggest cultivating kleptomaniac tendencies; it’s the most profitable vice.

The more I let somebody in, the more he/she is likely to screw me over. That’s why I don’t let people know how I feel anymore.

Why the hell am I putting this stuff online?

Weblog 2: Hira's Empty Slate

2007-09-03T09:35:00.000-07:00

So Shazia’s getting married…. How weird is that? On Friday she will officially become Mrs. Hasan Udvani. I still can’t believe it. In a way it’s kind of romantic and story-bookish, after all how many period romances have I read where the hero and heroine are somehow inexplicably tied up together in a quirk of fate? I’d say about a dozen. I remember this exceedingly shitty Mills and Boon book my friend made me read in which the heroine gets married in a matter of hours to the hero (who other than being twice her age, was named Don Diablo…I mean puh-leeze!) and after one or two misadventures realizes that she loves him after all. Ok, so maybe Shazia’s story isn’t as much a quirk of fate as all that…but it’s still pretty dramatic. One day she’s happily single, flirting with any guy who can pay for her milkshake and the next, she’s married. I’d like a bit of time to mentally prepare myself before I get emotionally handcuffed to anybody.

But then, I’m clean. You won’t find a single commitment throughout my 21 year timeline. Mera jeewan kora kaghiz, mera dil ek khali slate he…as to why, there are three reasons:

a) the guys I like, don’t like me
b) the guys who like me, I can’t stand
c) the guys I like, and who like me back (by some strange unearthly coincidence)… well I can’t really commit to the thought of being commited to them. To simplify the previous sentence, I’m a mess.

So you see, you’ll have to physically handcuff me, before you can emotionally handcuff me. I pity the man I marry.

On Chicken Teriyaki, Fleetwood Mac and Lebanese head scarves

2007-08-31T09:11:00.000-07:00

so i'm starting a blog. heaven knows why. i rarely have much to say of my own, and most of what i say involves contradicting everbody around me. that's athe only habit i've inherited from my dad, other than nailbiting. i'm the world's most contradictory person; i really can't agree with people at all and it's not because i think they're wrong. it's due to the simple fact that i can't continue a conversation after "yes". see, it goes something like this:

Person i happen to be talking to: Yaar electricity ki bari museebat he. kal mere yaan 5 baar bijli gaee. i wish i could set the K.E.S.C on fire

Me: yeah sure. go ahead.

conversation over.

now if i contradict him, or start an argument, the conversation would be completey different

Person i happen to be talking to: Yaar electricity ki bari museebat he. kal mere yaan 5 baar bijli gaee. i wish i could set the K.E.S.C on fire

Me: Are you crazy? Do you know the insane amount of burden the K.E.S.C is undergoing currently? theres not enough electricity production, and the distribution is so wide that the company can barely supply enough to keep industries going? and how many people in karachi actually pay taxes? haven't you seen the amount of electricity being stolen...yada yada yada

so you see. it goes on. true it's usually one sided but atleast its a conversation.

so anyway, today my friend shazia is getting engaged which is kind of surreal because uptil 2 days ago she was in islamabad while her dad was attending a business meet. now she's in islamabad getting engaged to Hasan from Canada, so i'm assuming her going-to-be-husband must be her dad's business partner...or shazia (according to some business deal) is being traded, sold, or bartered off. khaer, she's happy, i'm happy, awzeen's happy and Hasan from Canada must be very happy because Shazia's a doll.

As for Teriyaki Chicken, iHave (lol. like an iPod, or iLike...ohmiGod, i'm so lame) to look up the recipe. japanese food is great, though my mum can't stand it. until a piece of meat isnt nearly burnt, smothered in 25 or so spices and left to boil in a steel pot for an hour my mother can't eat it. thus when i make teriyaki chicken i'll just cook a leg of chicken and eat it myself while the rest of my family eats daal, chawal and qeema.

Sigh. Fleetwood Mac and lebanese headscarves i'll leave for tomorrow.