knicq
Monday, April 17, 2006
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Sands and Blizzards!
There is entirely too much print space, if that is the word I am looking for, wasted on what is called ‘celebrity gossip’. The past few weeks, the newspapers have been replete with stories about the ‘celebrity’ gay marriage, and this in an Islamic country like the UAE, where Orkut and Naseeb are banned because they are dating sites, and where when recently police raided a ‘discreet’ gay party and made arrests, it was front page news. Prior to that there was Aniston pitted against Angelina, and not very long ago you could not start your morning without finding out what Bennifer had been upto in the preceding twelve hours. Today, once again, City Times, the tabloid-cum-sports pages of Khaleej Times, thought it necessary to splash A.Jolie’s semi-naked picture on its cover, and inform us that Angelina and Brad have had success at procreation. Its the Pitts, pun intended.
I subscribe to Khaleej Times, since long ago I had decided against spending any money on Gulf News because of its inherent bias against Pakistan in its coverage. Outisde of these two publications one’s options are still quite limited when it comes to mainstream newspapers. KT used to be quite a decent publication, with a balanced approach to news coming from both sides of the Pak-India border. More than that, City Times in its good old days did not carry the extra baggage of spots news, and was indeed looked forward to because of a certain humorist’s column on its last page. Bikram Vohra, who put a smile on many a face every morning, has long since left City Times, and has been recycling his CT columns in the recently launched Evening Post.
I have continued with Khaleej Times, more out of habit than anything else. The paper has gone to the dogs. The front page induces nausea with its “Your favorite and number one paper in the UAE, Khaleej Times, this…; and your favorite and no.1 paper in the UAE, Khaleej Times, that…” stories. I had half a mind to ask our paper boy to rip off the front page before delivering the paper at our place, but then I noticed that even the stories inside were not much better either, and if we continued with the ripping strategy, we might as well ask him to shred the damn thing for us as soon as he received it. He’s a poor chap, who works really hard to make ends meet, and I did not think, he would have been able to afford a shredder, so we continued to receive the paper every morning, and I continue to shred it in our office daily. On a positive note, KT did take lead in putting the officials of government organizations under the microscope, and often imitates the western publications’ tone in its ‘fight’ to bring forth the causes of accountability, and justice. This is a favorable development, since one felt that the officials in the Government departments, and quite often the expatriates in private institutions flouted the moral, ethical, or regional norms with impunity and with the least consideration for those affected by their behavior. With KT on the prowl to report such incidents, and other publications following suit, perhaps one can expect these incidents to reduce. On the whole though, the newspapers are disappointing, especially in their choice of stories to fill up their pages.
It has often made me think, however, why do they have to fill up the paper with such riff raff. So Elton John and his gay friend got married, and I can understand the inevitability of having to report the marriage too, but who needs the intricate details of the preparations for the wedding, and the celebrity list attending the wedding, and whatever else happened there. How does it hold any importance for the people of the UAE, for it to keep propping up in the newspapers on regular basis. So, Pitt and Aniston got divorced, and found other partners, whats the big deal? Must we have their daily lives forced down our throats? And what’s with the Jude law and Miller story? One committed adultery, tendered in apologies, the other forgave; and now me thinks they are playing the same story with the roles reversed. I can understand if this were reported as news, but when it becomes the topic for discussion every day, it gets to me.
Looking at above, you could be forgiven for assuming that I keep a close watch on the celebrity gossip. You could not, however, make a more fallacious assumption. I never read celebrity gossip, yet it is so in your face all the time, so omni-present, this celebrity gossip, that you can hardly not know whats been happening. The newspaper in the morning, the magazines stacked by the cashier’s side in your area supermarket, the TV news, the radio…its everywhere.
Who are these celebrities? What makes them such celebrities? What is their claim to fame? Their art? Their talent? I do not think so. None of these news, which clutter the information highways, subways, underpasses and overpasses, are about their art or their talent. All this news is about is their homosexuality, adultery, more adultery and still more adultery. Why should a responsible paper in an Islamic country commit pages after pages in print space to these inane stories? Why can’t these stories write about real people having real issues, people who need these papers to bring their plight to the fore, so they can be helped. Why can’t these papers write about those unsung heroes who toil day and night to eek out a living, and make life worth living for others?
They say gossip sells paper. Perhaps it does too, in a society whose obsession with the individual’s right to trample over another individual’s rights has blinded it to the cause of preserving the good in a society. In an Islamic country, in an Arab country, and that too in a GCC Arab country, a newspaper ought to exercise more caution and responsibility in its choice of stories. The GCC newspaper should realize that it has to take the same pride in its own self, which an average GCC national exhibits in his own thob and gatra. The GCC paper, I strongly feel, should write about the sands and the oasis in those sands, not about the blizzards in the west; only then will there be an international entity called the GCC paper.
-->
7 Responses to 'Sands and Blizzards!'
1TariqJanuary 4th, 2006 at 3:14 am
Salaams knicq,
I agree with you. Too much riff raff.
Maybe there should be a new newspaper in the UAE?
P.S. thanks for the update on Jolie and Pitt. I didn’t know they had ’succeeded at procreation’. I guess i’m uptodate now..
In addition: A very coherent and targeted post.
2hemlockJanuary 4th, 2006 at 11:31 am
i hear ya! i hear ya! i hear ya!!!dude, gossip so does not sell paper.like, this one time at bandcamp…err, noi mean, incidently, i was in charge of the gossip page in my paper (dont ask) and for the longest time i carries this guilt over my shoulders because i felt responsible for what i was allowing to go into print… cuz ppl were reading it…so i took a stand, and cut out the trash. my ed would shout at me, i would shout back at him, tell him to do the job himself, which he obviously couldnt, so he would leave me alone until a later spasm.he. he. he.
btw: GEO is like the newest pakistani channel, BRILLIANT news coverage… hats off to them yeah?last night on GEO news:“Ashwaria Rai says 2006 will be her year”nuff said.
3knicqJanuary 5th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
Tariq: W/Salaam. I agree with your agreeing with me. There are already a couple of new papers in town, but they have their job cut out for them…and unfortunately, they are as taken with the gossip news as the ’senior’ ones. As for the update on Pitt/Jolie ’success’, I am not entirely sure whats transpiring there, but I surmised from the headline that third time lucky meant something….
Hemmie: Bravo! Thats what all these people who put in those gossip news unwillingly ought to do…I have this feeling that no-one can willingly put that crap in papers under their name…it would take a really dumb person, if ot a really sick person, to be willing to share people’s private lives with the world. But it takes a brave one…I nominate you for the knicq journalistic personality award!
Oh, and I saw that GEO brilliance in news coverage too! It was one of their headlines…!!!
The Morons!
4HappySohailJanuary 5th, 2006 at 10:21 pm
I just found out why knicq do not want us to read celebrity gossip stuff.
:D
You will figure it out after reading this excerpt from “Lie” magazine, “As per totally unreliable sources knicq was seen along with Christina Augilera at a famous night spot in Dubai…….”
5AnjumJanuary 6th, 2006 at 5:42 am
bravo, knicq - what a great, targeted post! i agree with you that gossip is so prominent that even if you’re NOT paying attention you come to find out what’s going on in these ppl’s lives. and who ARE they anyway? what have they done that we should be so interested in their every movement and thought? acted in a movie?! gimme a break..
it is sad for me though to realize that this same prevalence of gossip is found in muslim countries as it is in the usa. i had high hopes for living in a muslim country but more and more, i hear that it’s just as bad, if not worse, than here.
6knicqJanuary 6th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
Now, now Sohail…you should not believe everything you read in the “lie” magazine…as for that news, here’s my official position….”first of all, it was not me, second it was not a club, third the club was not in Dubai, and fourth it was not Chritina Aguilera but Salma Hayek in a disguise”.
Anjum: So good to have you here after so long. Sometimes, I think its all a big conspiracy…not the one that has th Hondas/Toyotas party to it, but one that has the fourth estate n cohoots with the powers that be…all this gossip is a diversion, people are conditioned to think they care, and should care about what a certain actor/actress/singer/dancer/director/etc., etc. had or did not have for break fast, so that there is no room left for the news that matter, on the front pages…so that people are not thinking about issues that matter…
If you start reporting the millions starving to death everyday around the world on those pages, sooner or later you will have people wondering about questions no-one wants raised.
Do you smell a conspiracy too?
7happysohailJanuary 6th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
Here are my 2 cents on this topic:
There are three reasons for all these gossip columns showing up everywhere.
1) Globalization and American culture (culture of tolerance) being center of it.
2) The way we do business in this day and age; we got very very marketing oriented corporate juggernauts irrespective whether they are American, European or Asian. Films and other entertainment is a big part the global economy with Hollywood being the center of it. All these gossip columns are just marketing tools. There are people who read it and enjoy it.
3) Its all about choices, I never read gossip columns. But I will never demand that it should not be there as there are people who read them and enjoy that kind of stuff. There is enough demand for that kind of journalism to make it economically viable to be printed.
Trust me if there is enough demand for other kind of newspapers that you believe should be there then they will crop up soon as its an economic opportunity not to be missed.
Conspiracy what conspiracy? Sony is Japanese company and has a big clout over Hollywood (production of movies and music). We can not say that its Japanese conspiracy to control American youth. It’s a global village and we are free to move anywhere and share anything. I have been in USA for almost 7 years now and whenever I read online or other Urdu newspapers I burst in to laughter about funny and baseless news of discrimination against Muslims in USA. I and other friends from Pakistan who came from Pakistan never felt discriminated here. Is there a conspiracy going on in Muslim world against USA too? I think newspapers print what majority of their readers will like to read.
Again I just expressed my opinion; I hope no one is angry with me after reading this.
knicq please now please do not try to get a vodoo doll for poor me and try to torture it.
Love and peace for all. ¶ 1/26/2006 02:45:00 AM
I subscribe to Khaleej Times, since long ago I had decided against spending any money on Gulf News because of its inherent bias against Pakistan in its coverage. Outisde of these two publications one’s options are still quite limited when it comes to mainstream newspapers. KT used to be quite a decent publication, with a balanced approach to news coming from both sides of the Pak-India border. More than that, City Times in its good old days did not carry the extra baggage of spots news, and was indeed looked forward to because of a certain humorist’s column on its last page. Bikram Vohra, who put a smile on many a face every morning, has long since left City Times, and has been recycling his CT columns in the recently launched Evening Post.
I have continued with Khaleej Times, more out of habit than anything else. The paper has gone to the dogs. The front page induces nausea with its “Your favorite and number one paper in the UAE, Khaleej Times, this…; and your favorite and no.1 paper in the UAE, Khaleej Times, that…” stories. I had half a mind to ask our paper boy to rip off the front page before delivering the paper at our place, but then I noticed that even the stories inside were not much better either, and if we continued with the ripping strategy, we might as well ask him to shred the damn thing for us as soon as he received it. He’s a poor chap, who works really hard to make ends meet, and I did not think, he would have been able to afford a shredder, so we continued to receive the paper every morning, and I continue to shred it in our office daily. On a positive note, KT did take lead in putting the officials of government organizations under the microscope, and often imitates the western publications’ tone in its ‘fight’ to bring forth the causes of accountability, and justice. This is a favorable development, since one felt that the officials in the Government departments, and quite often the expatriates in private institutions flouted the moral, ethical, or regional norms with impunity and with the least consideration for those affected by their behavior. With KT on the prowl to report such incidents, and other publications following suit, perhaps one can expect these incidents to reduce. On the whole though, the newspapers are disappointing, especially in their choice of stories to fill up their pages.
It has often made me think, however, why do they have to fill up the paper with such riff raff. So Elton John and his gay friend got married, and I can understand the inevitability of having to report the marriage too, but who needs the intricate details of the preparations for the wedding, and the celebrity list attending the wedding, and whatever else happened there. How does it hold any importance for the people of the UAE, for it to keep propping up in the newspapers on regular basis. So, Pitt and Aniston got divorced, and found other partners, whats the big deal? Must we have their daily lives forced down our throats? And what’s with the Jude law and Miller story? One committed adultery, tendered in apologies, the other forgave; and now me thinks they are playing the same story with the roles reversed. I can understand if this were reported as news, but when it becomes the topic for discussion every day, it gets to me.
Looking at above, you could be forgiven for assuming that I keep a close watch on the celebrity gossip. You could not, however, make a more fallacious assumption. I never read celebrity gossip, yet it is so in your face all the time, so omni-present, this celebrity gossip, that you can hardly not know whats been happening. The newspaper in the morning, the magazines stacked by the cashier’s side in your area supermarket, the TV news, the radio…its everywhere.
Who are these celebrities? What makes them such celebrities? What is their claim to fame? Their art? Their talent? I do not think so. None of these news, which clutter the information highways, subways, underpasses and overpasses, are about their art or their talent. All this news is about is their homosexuality, adultery, more adultery and still more adultery. Why should a responsible paper in an Islamic country commit pages after pages in print space to these inane stories? Why can’t these stories write about real people having real issues, people who need these papers to bring their plight to the fore, so they can be helped. Why can’t these papers write about those unsung heroes who toil day and night to eek out a living, and make life worth living for others?
They say gossip sells paper. Perhaps it does too, in a society whose obsession with the individual’s right to trample over another individual’s rights has blinded it to the cause of preserving the good in a society. In an Islamic country, in an Arab country, and that too in a GCC Arab country, a newspaper ought to exercise more caution and responsibility in its choice of stories. The GCC newspaper should realize that it has to take the same pride in its own self, which an average GCC national exhibits in his own thob and gatra. The GCC paper, I strongly feel, should write about the sands and the oasis in those sands, not about the blizzards in the west; only then will there be an international entity called the GCC paper.
-->
7 Responses to 'Sands and Blizzards!'
1TariqJanuary 4th, 2006 at 3:14 am
Salaams knicq,
I agree with you. Too much riff raff.
Maybe there should be a new newspaper in the UAE?
P.S. thanks for the update on Jolie and Pitt. I didn’t know they had ’succeeded at procreation’. I guess i’m uptodate now..
In addition: A very coherent and targeted post.
2hemlockJanuary 4th, 2006 at 11:31 am
i hear ya! i hear ya! i hear ya!!!dude, gossip so does not sell paper.like, this one time at bandcamp…err, noi mean, incidently, i was in charge of the gossip page in my paper (dont ask) and for the longest time i carries this guilt over my shoulders because i felt responsible for what i was allowing to go into print… cuz ppl were reading it…so i took a stand, and cut out the trash. my ed would shout at me, i would shout back at him, tell him to do the job himself, which he obviously couldnt, so he would leave me alone until a later spasm.he. he. he.
btw: GEO is like the newest pakistani channel, BRILLIANT news coverage… hats off to them yeah?last night on GEO news:“Ashwaria Rai says 2006 will be her year”nuff said.
3knicqJanuary 5th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
Tariq: W/Salaam. I agree with your agreeing with me. There are already a couple of new papers in town, but they have their job cut out for them…and unfortunately, they are as taken with the gossip news as the ’senior’ ones. As for the update on Pitt/Jolie ’success’, I am not entirely sure whats transpiring there, but I surmised from the headline that third time lucky meant something….
Hemmie: Bravo! Thats what all these people who put in those gossip news unwillingly ought to do…I have this feeling that no-one can willingly put that crap in papers under their name…it would take a really dumb person, if ot a really sick person, to be willing to share people’s private lives with the world. But it takes a brave one…I nominate you for the knicq journalistic personality award!
Oh, and I saw that GEO brilliance in news coverage too! It was one of their headlines…!!!
The Morons!
4HappySohailJanuary 5th, 2006 at 10:21 pm
I just found out why knicq do not want us to read celebrity gossip stuff.
:D
You will figure it out after reading this excerpt from “Lie” magazine, “As per totally unreliable sources knicq was seen along with Christina Augilera at a famous night spot in Dubai…….”
5AnjumJanuary 6th, 2006 at 5:42 am
bravo, knicq - what a great, targeted post! i agree with you that gossip is so prominent that even if you’re NOT paying attention you come to find out what’s going on in these ppl’s lives. and who ARE they anyway? what have they done that we should be so interested in their every movement and thought? acted in a movie?! gimme a break..
it is sad for me though to realize that this same prevalence of gossip is found in muslim countries as it is in the usa. i had high hopes for living in a muslim country but more and more, i hear that it’s just as bad, if not worse, than here.
6knicqJanuary 6th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
Now, now Sohail…you should not believe everything you read in the “lie” magazine…as for that news, here’s my official position….”first of all, it was not me, second it was not a club, third the club was not in Dubai, and fourth it was not Chritina Aguilera but Salma Hayek in a disguise”.
Anjum: So good to have you here after so long. Sometimes, I think its all a big conspiracy…not the one that has th Hondas/Toyotas party to it, but one that has the fourth estate n cohoots with the powers that be…all this gossip is a diversion, people are conditioned to think they care, and should care about what a certain actor/actress/singer/dancer/director/etc., etc. had or did not have for break fast, so that there is no room left for the news that matter, on the front pages…so that people are not thinking about issues that matter…
If you start reporting the millions starving to death everyday around the world on those pages, sooner or later you will have people wondering about questions no-one wants raised.
Do you smell a conspiracy too?
7happysohailJanuary 6th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
Here are my 2 cents on this topic:
There are three reasons for all these gossip columns showing up everywhere.
1) Globalization and American culture (culture of tolerance) being center of it.
2) The way we do business in this day and age; we got very very marketing oriented corporate juggernauts irrespective whether they are American, European or Asian. Films and other entertainment is a big part the global economy with Hollywood being the center of it. All these gossip columns are just marketing tools. There are people who read it and enjoy it.
3) Its all about choices, I never read gossip columns. But I will never demand that it should not be there as there are people who read them and enjoy that kind of stuff. There is enough demand for that kind of journalism to make it economically viable to be printed.
Trust me if there is enough demand for other kind of newspapers that you believe should be there then they will crop up soon as its an economic opportunity not to be missed.
Conspiracy what conspiracy? Sony is Japanese company and has a big clout over Hollywood (production of movies and music). We can not say that its Japanese conspiracy to control American youth. It’s a global village and we are free to move anywhere and share anything. I have been in USA for almost 7 years now and whenever I read online or other Urdu newspapers I burst in to laughter about funny and baseless news of discrimination against Muslims in USA. I and other friends from Pakistan who came from Pakistan never felt discriminated here. Is there a conspiracy going on in Muslim world against USA too? I think newspapers print what majority of their readers will like to read.
Again I just expressed my opinion; I hope no one is angry with me after reading this.
knicq please now please do not try to get a vodoo doll for poor me and try to torture it.
Love and peace for all. ¶ 1/26/2006 02:45:00 AM
Digression - The Rule.
Its a conspiracy, and the Hondas, Toyotas, Mitsubishis and the Mazdas of the world are party to it. But, let me not get ahead of myself. Lets start from the begining…
Long long ago, yours truly used to eat an apple a day. It was,however, not necessarily the habit that kept the doctor away. What did keep the doctor away was a combination of various factors, chief amongst them being the fact that the doctors kept to their seats in the military hospital, which was a few miles outside the city. A distant second reason was the fact that Walid Sahib had a car and could drive us there whenever the need for doctor’s expert opinion to corroborate Manji’s expert opinion arose. It may also have to do something with the fact that doctors had long ceased to make house calls in this part of the world, unless of course the house call were made purely out of social obligation rather than professional compulsion.
The long and short of it though is that yours truly used to eat an apple a day. Sometimes, yours truly ate two or three apples a day too, provided the apples were crunchy and juicy. If the apples did not have, what one used to call ‘the crunch’ one supplemented the apples with almonds, which while did make the meal crunchier, was as bad a combination as they come, but yours truly was not, at the time, aware of the new precedents he was setting in bad food combinations. On the contrary, one remembers having rather relished the combination to a great extent. So much so, that there came a time, when if an apple turned out to be a good, and crunchy-as-a-good-crunchy-apple-apple, thereby making almonds totally redundant, one was rather disappointed.
It just goes on to prove that our senses are largely acquired senses. Haven’t you ever wondered about that cream roll you used to love eating when you were a five year old, but could not bear to take a bite of now? Granted, the said cream roll might not have been able to maintain its freshness after all these years, but hey, if you like something today, isn’t it rather rummy not liking it a few years down the road. I wouldn’t like it if Count Dracula went all watery mouth seeing the ‘well-rounded’ me today, and refused to partake of me, say thirty, or for that matter three hundred years down the road. Whats a few hundred years in a vampire’s life?
Speaking of Vampires, I have often wondered what would a vampire end up with, were he to sink his teeth in Jalali Baba’s fat neck? There are multiple possibilities that come to mind, and it is almost impossible to be entirely confident of which one is most realistic in nature. What one can be confident of though is that such an eventuality would be entirely to the detriment of the said vampire. JB, as I have often highlighted, is the reason why so many people in the tobacco business are still able to eek out a livelihood. He is also directly responsible for stifling the pesticide business in his area of residence.
Not very long ago, the municipality workers with their pesticide guns emitting clouds of smoke could be seen systematically going through the streets of that area, trying to ensure that the residents were rid of mosquitos, flies, and the like. However potent the mixture they used, their foes were always able to muster the resilience to survive through those termination campaigns, and almost always came back to exact their revenge on the residents through sheer numbers. The municipality appointed terminators were fighting a losing battle - that is until JB moved into the locality.
Fortunately for JB, and for the residents of JB’s locality, Mrs. JB is a doctor by profession, who forbids JB’s suicidal ambition to fill up as many empty pringles boxes with ‘Marlboro’ and ‘Gitanes’ ash, as required to set an enduring world record. JB is a highly intelligent and wise person, his attributes amply reflected in his choice of friends and devotees. He is gifted (or cursed, depending on how you choose to look at it) with a devious mind adept at spinning strategies to foil Mrs. JB’s best laid plans to keep him healthy and around for longer than his own modest target.
As soon as the pringles ban was clamped down on him, he experienced a rebout of his selective amnesia. Apparently, this selective amnesia had served him well in his college days, when he needed to step out and act out his part on the other side of the cigarette. For those who do not know, a certain gentleman, evidently extensively experienced in and deeply knowledgeable about such matters, has gone on record saying that a cigarette is nothing but negligible levels of tobacco complimented by generous helpings of that addictive agent nicotine rolled into a stick which has fire at one end, and a fool’s mouth at the other. I tender heart-felt apologies to any puritans who might have been irked by my-not-so-accurate reproduction of the said gentleman’s words. Suffice it is to say that I feel rather strongly on the subject and find it difficult to not offer my tupence worth, even if that means resorting to synthetic quotes.
Pardon my habitual digressions. JB, therefore, had to feign amnesia, when he went out shopping for the house. He would conveniently forget picking up such essential items such as powdered milk, diapers, mineral water, or whatever it was that Mrs. JB had underlined the importance of not forgetting to bring back. It would give him an excuse then to saunter around the block on the premise of going back and picking that essential item in a jiffy, and, of course, to light the fire at the other end of the cigarette. Little did he know that as he went around completing these household chores, he was cleaning out the neigbourhood of all insects, even the roaches. The poor things, roaches that is, found it the hard way, and fortunately did not live to alert their kind, that it is one thing surviving a nuclear holocast, but it is enirely another proposition surviving JB fumes.
Mosquitos, an Urdu humorist declares, are a gallant kind. They are not known to resorting to blitzkreig tactics, nor are they prone to stooping to shock and awe kind of warfare. They follow, and quite consistently so, the search, warn, challenge and attack line of offensive. Well, in JB’s case, they found the hardway that their tactic was flawed. Searching him was no issue, since he leaves a nicotinic trail behind him, and the paths leading to him are normally lined with insects of various kinds, sizes and shapes which have perished after falling in the line of JB fire. It was the warning part that they failed to do, they had to get near him to effectively buzz the warning-cum-challenge in his ears, and this proved a task they were ill-equipped to carry out. Perhaps, if they had the gas masks…!
They brought out the infantry once, and as scores fell left and right trying to bridge the distance between their kind and JB, some finally did manage to make contact with the enemy. The offensive was altogether anandoned, however, once they saw their valiant commandoes and marines wilting before their eyes after sipping from river of nicotine. It is rumoured that the mosquitos are working to train an SSG unit, where the young mosquitos chosen for the training are weaned on “beedi”, and it is a smart move too, since the only thing that stinks more than JB smoke is the ‘beedi’.
It remains to be seen, however, if this strategy will bear fruit. Apparently, too many young mosquitos have perished in this cause, and a certain group of mother mosquitos have got together and started protesting the very idea of launching the war on JB. Their point is that JB is headed the destruction way as it is, and the mosquitos should not have to mindlessly lay down their lives towards achievement of this end. Many believe that the head mosquito may just have signed his own exit from the dorms of mosquito power through his incessant and mindless gibberish about conquering JB and sucking him dry. A growing number of mosquitos and other insects are begining to feel that black, nicotine infested, blood is not all it is made out to be, and that it might not hold the key to enduring insect supremacy. There are, however, paddy field grown mosquitos and other rum drinking insects that have not allowed reason to interfere with their ambition, and they continue to espouse the insect way of live for JB, lions, elephants, birds, and plants alike.
Given all of the above, and JB’s record against other blood-sucking creatures, those vampires had better watch out.
Digression seems to be the rule of the day today. I think, I had better stop here. We will come to that conspiracy by the Hondas, Toyotas, Mitsubishis, Nissans and Mazdas in another post.
Ciao!
-->
11 Responses to 'Digression - the rule.'
1MaranelloDecember 31st, 2005 at 6:56 pm
What did the poor apple do to be mentioned in this post then? Unless of course this was a subliminal reference to the fact that this apple is meant to be smoked through a sheesha with the ashes carefully preserved for posterity in a Pringles can…. hmm, yeh, that makes a lot of sense!
I am all for the odd (or in some cases, very odd)tangential comment aka the “jumla-e-mu’tarza“… however, yahan toh poori post hi mu’tarza hay…. Magar khair, it would be rude for one to be mu’tariz on your post-e-mu’tarza, so I won’t be
2MaranelloDecember 31st, 2005 at 7:40 pm
Another thing… if “Digression is the Rule”, then what about change? Apologies for talking in cliches (and ghissay pattay cliches at that) but isn’t change the only constant? Or, to put it more eloquently, sabat siraf taghaiyur ko hay zamanay main… or words to that effect… based on which, taghaiyur should be the Rule, and Digression should merely watch from the sidelines, waving the odd pom pom. No?
PS: Seems like I am talking to myself here.. khair, someone has to (talk to me, that is) - so probably wise to inflict this misery on someone I know and vaguely trust (ie my own self)
3knicqJanuary 1st, 2006 at 2:01 am
Maranello bro., you crack me up. You sure, you’ve never read Yousufi? you do seem to have Yousufiic traits!
I must clarify, however, that the apple has as much to do with sheesha smoking, as I do with the filling up of empty pringles boxes with ash. It found mention, because it was the first thing that came to mind, after “Long, long, ago…” I am sorry to discount the only thing that had seemed to make sense.
The tangential comment elongated into a post only depicts my blinking mind. As conciousness dawns, I strive for the nearest straw to stay afloat, and before long I find myself looking into the deep unblinking eyes of the creatures of the deep once again. From a distance, I must present the picture of a haplessly drowning person… up close it ain’t much different. When you are me, it is quite difficult to stay coherent and make sense for long enough to become less irritating…
Mashyat-e-Aezdi main muslihat ke kai pahloo pinhaan hua karte hain…jumlaha-e-mo’tariza, aur woh bhi tuwalat pazeer, kitni badi ne’mat hain, is ka andaza aap ko usee waqt ho sakta ai, jab aap ko ehsaas ho, ke agar jumla-e-mo’tariza nan aata, to aapko khurafaat ka sirf aik hee pehloo hazam karna padta…hazrat-e-insaan ka nizam-e-hazma aik hee jins se musalsal do-do haath karne se yaksar qaasir hai.
Khair yeh to jumla-e-mo’tariza ba-jumla-e-mo’tariza ho gaya…:)
You make an error in assuming that change and digression are mutually exclusive…if one is twisted enough, and has influences demented enough (hint: JB) one can actually get the two to work together. Fact is digression, as practiced by the likes of yours truly, is change itself. Won’t you agree?
Oh, and I love talking tomyself…I find myself to be the best audience. Looks like, i just doubled my audience, as did you…count me in as your friend in misery bro!
4BaptizedLuciferJanuary 1st, 2006 at 2:37 pm
naye saal ki shubh kaamnaayein
5knicqJanuary 1st, 2006 at 7:50 pm
Whoa! For a minute I read it as… “Nayee saas kee sub kanyaein!”
…and I was wondering, what the…?
Aap ko bhi naya saal mubarak…:)
6BaptizedLuciferJanuary 1st, 2006 at 11:00 pm
looool, at least now we know whats goin on in ur mind!
7MaranelloJanuary 2nd, 2006 at 8:08 am
Shubh Kaamnaayein
yeh kon khatoon hain?
8knicqJanuary 2nd, 2006 at 8:40 am
Yeh Shobha Kamnaayein kee choti bahan hain.
9knicqJanuary 2nd, 2006 at 10:22 am
Bee Lucifer: Hmmm…I hate you for these trick comments that bring out the carefully concealed real me!
10happysohailJanuary 3rd, 2006 at 7:04 pm
Hi kcniq:
Its strange I even do not know kcniq? Do let me know
Also you must put ur latest pic on ur website too.
Also I was expecting to see some New Year resolutions in your next blog. Please share ur wisdom with us.
U must be wondering why suddenly I have become so demanding, well there is a good chance I will be ur new neighbor so I want u get used to it. Now u know my plan so do not even dare to move.
I remember once you told me that u want to have a rock solid body by the age of 30. To be exact in second semester during MBA, Whats going on that avenue. You still have some time.
Take care.
11knicqJanuary 3rd, 2006 at 9:11 pm
Oh Hi Happysohail,
Frankly, even I do not know kcniq, his name is striking similar to mine though…mine has a misplaced ‘c’…:)
My new year resolutions eh? Thats a good one. I guess we could sum it up in one line…lesser procrastination, greater compassion, and zero consternation.
Now, you coming here…isn’t that good news? Make that great news! So sawari baad-e-bahari ka ETA kia hai?
I am on local leave for two weeks after the Eid, and if you arrive here in those days, you will have a guide to show you around, and to accompany you on your qdambosi trip to JBland.
Oh, and about that rock solid body, which I have wanted to have since my school days by the way, I am quite close to my target…WE, (my wife and I) have achieved the rock part, and its a BIG rock…now I have to start working on the solid part. That picture…we’ll put it here as soon as we achieve the solid part. My doctor and the photographer both agree that for best results we should go for a little bit of blasting here and there…or may be hope for a few landslides…the photographer thinks this way we should be able to capture thw whole of me in a single shot!
:) ¶ 1/26/2006 02:42:00 AM
Long long ago, yours truly used to eat an apple a day. It was,however, not necessarily the habit that kept the doctor away. What did keep the doctor away was a combination of various factors, chief amongst them being the fact that the doctors kept to their seats in the military hospital, which was a few miles outside the city. A distant second reason was the fact that Walid Sahib had a car and could drive us there whenever the need for doctor’s expert opinion to corroborate Manji’s expert opinion arose. It may also have to do something with the fact that doctors had long ceased to make house calls in this part of the world, unless of course the house call were made purely out of social obligation rather than professional compulsion.
The long and short of it though is that yours truly used to eat an apple a day. Sometimes, yours truly ate two or three apples a day too, provided the apples were crunchy and juicy. If the apples did not have, what one used to call ‘the crunch’ one supplemented the apples with almonds, which while did make the meal crunchier, was as bad a combination as they come, but yours truly was not, at the time, aware of the new precedents he was setting in bad food combinations. On the contrary, one remembers having rather relished the combination to a great extent. So much so, that there came a time, when if an apple turned out to be a good, and crunchy-as-a-good-crunchy-apple-apple, thereby making almonds totally redundant, one was rather disappointed.
It just goes on to prove that our senses are largely acquired senses. Haven’t you ever wondered about that cream roll you used to love eating when you were a five year old, but could not bear to take a bite of now? Granted, the said cream roll might not have been able to maintain its freshness after all these years, but hey, if you like something today, isn’t it rather rummy not liking it a few years down the road. I wouldn’t like it if Count Dracula went all watery mouth seeing the ‘well-rounded’ me today, and refused to partake of me, say thirty, or for that matter three hundred years down the road. Whats a few hundred years in a vampire’s life?
Speaking of Vampires, I have often wondered what would a vampire end up with, were he to sink his teeth in Jalali Baba’s fat neck? There are multiple possibilities that come to mind, and it is almost impossible to be entirely confident of which one is most realistic in nature. What one can be confident of though is that such an eventuality would be entirely to the detriment of the said vampire. JB, as I have often highlighted, is the reason why so many people in the tobacco business are still able to eek out a livelihood. He is also directly responsible for stifling the pesticide business in his area of residence.
Not very long ago, the municipality workers with their pesticide guns emitting clouds of smoke could be seen systematically going through the streets of that area, trying to ensure that the residents were rid of mosquitos, flies, and the like. However potent the mixture they used, their foes were always able to muster the resilience to survive through those termination campaigns, and almost always came back to exact their revenge on the residents through sheer numbers. The municipality appointed terminators were fighting a losing battle - that is until JB moved into the locality.
Fortunately for JB, and for the residents of JB’s locality, Mrs. JB is a doctor by profession, who forbids JB’s suicidal ambition to fill up as many empty pringles boxes with ‘Marlboro’ and ‘Gitanes’ ash, as required to set an enduring world record. JB is a highly intelligent and wise person, his attributes amply reflected in his choice of friends and devotees. He is gifted (or cursed, depending on how you choose to look at it) with a devious mind adept at spinning strategies to foil Mrs. JB’s best laid plans to keep him healthy and around for longer than his own modest target.
As soon as the pringles ban was clamped down on him, he experienced a rebout of his selective amnesia. Apparently, this selective amnesia had served him well in his college days, when he needed to step out and act out his part on the other side of the cigarette. For those who do not know, a certain gentleman, evidently extensively experienced in and deeply knowledgeable about such matters, has gone on record saying that a cigarette is nothing but negligible levels of tobacco complimented by generous helpings of that addictive agent nicotine rolled into a stick which has fire at one end, and a fool’s mouth at the other. I tender heart-felt apologies to any puritans who might have been irked by my-not-so-accurate reproduction of the said gentleman’s words. Suffice it is to say that I feel rather strongly on the subject and find it difficult to not offer my tupence worth, even if that means resorting to synthetic quotes.
Pardon my habitual digressions. JB, therefore, had to feign amnesia, when he went out shopping for the house. He would conveniently forget picking up such essential items such as powdered milk, diapers, mineral water, or whatever it was that Mrs. JB had underlined the importance of not forgetting to bring back. It would give him an excuse then to saunter around the block on the premise of going back and picking that essential item in a jiffy, and, of course, to light the fire at the other end of the cigarette. Little did he know that as he went around completing these household chores, he was cleaning out the neigbourhood of all insects, even the roaches. The poor things, roaches that is, found it the hard way, and fortunately did not live to alert their kind, that it is one thing surviving a nuclear holocast, but it is enirely another proposition surviving JB fumes.
Mosquitos, an Urdu humorist declares, are a gallant kind. They are not known to resorting to blitzkreig tactics, nor are they prone to stooping to shock and awe kind of warfare. They follow, and quite consistently so, the search, warn, challenge and attack line of offensive. Well, in JB’s case, they found the hardway that their tactic was flawed. Searching him was no issue, since he leaves a nicotinic trail behind him, and the paths leading to him are normally lined with insects of various kinds, sizes and shapes which have perished after falling in the line of JB fire. It was the warning part that they failed to do, they had to get near him to effectively buzz the warning-cum-challenge in his ears, and this proved a task they were ill-equipped to carry out. Perhaps, if they had the gas masks…!
They brought out the infantry once, and as scores fell left and right trying to bridge the distance between their kind and JB, some finally did manage to make contact with the enemy. The offensive was altogether anandoned, however, once they saw their valiant commandoes and marines wilting before their eyes after sipping from river of nicotine. It is rumoured that the mosquitos are working to train an SSG unit, where the young mosquitos chosen for the training are weaned on “beedi”, and it is a smart move too, since the only thing that stinks more than JB smoke is the ‘beedi’.
It remains to be seen, however, if this strategy will bear fruit. Apparently, too many young mosquitos have perished in this cause, and a certain group of mother mosquitos have got together and started protesting the very idea of launching the war on JB. Their point is that JB is headed the destruction way as it is, and the mosquitos should not have to mindlessly lay down their lives towards achievement of this end. Many believe that the head mosquito may just have signed his own exit from the dorms of mosquito power through his incessant and mindless gibberish about conquering JB and sucking him dry. A growing number of mosquitos and other insects are begining to feel that black, nicotine infested, blood is not all it is made out to be, and that it might not hold the key to enduring insect supremacy. There are, however, paddy field grown mosquitos and other rum drinking insects that have not allowed reason to interfere with their ambition, and they continue to espouse the insect way of live for JB, lions, elephants, birds, and plants alike.
Given all of the above, and JB’s record against other blood-sucking creatures, those vampires had better watch out.
Digression seems to be the rule of the day today. I think, I had better stop here. We will come to that conspiracy by the Hondas, Toyotas, Mitsubishis, Nissans and Mazdas in another post.
Ciao!
-->
11 Responses to 'Digression - the rule.'
1MaranelloDecember 31st, 2005 at 6:56 pm
What did the poor apple do to be mentioned in this post then? Unless of course this was a subliminal reference to the fact that this apple is meant to be smoked through a sheesha with the ashes carefully preserved for posterity in a Pringles can…. hmm, yeh, that makes a lot of sense!
I am all for the odd (or in some cases, very odd)tangential comment aka the “jumla-e-mu’tarza“… however, yahan toh poori post hi mu’tarza hay…. Magar khair, it would be rude for one to be mu’tariz on your post-e-mu’tarza, so I won’t be
2MaranelloDecember 31st, 2005 at 7:40 pm
Another thing… if “Digression is the Rule”, then what about change? Apologies for talking in cliches (and ghissay pattay cliches at that) but isn’t change the only constant? Or, to put it more eloquently, sabat siraf taghaiyur ko hay zamanay main… or words to that effect… based on which, taghaiyur should be the Rule, and Digression should merely watch from the sidelines, waving the odd pom pom. No?
PS: Seems like I am talking to myself here.. khair, someone has to (talk to me, that is) - so probably wise to inflict this misery on someone I know and vaguely trust (ie my own self)
3knicqJanuary 1st, 2006 at 2:01 am
Maranello bro., you crack me up. You sure, you’ve never read Yousufi? you do seem to have Yousufiic traits!
I must clarify, however, that the apple has as much to do with sheesha smoking, as I do with the filling up of empty pringles boxes with ash. It found mention, because it was the first thing that came to mind, after “Long, long, ago…” I am sorry to discount the only thing that had seemed to make sense.
The tangential comment elongated into a post only depicts my blinking mind. As conciousness dawns, I strive for the nearest straw to stay afloat, and before long I find myself looking into the deep unblinking eyes of the creatures of the deep once again. From a distance, I must present the picture of a haplessly drowning person… up close it ain’t much different. When you are me, it is quite difficult to stay coherent and make sense for long enough to become less irritating…
Mashyat-e-Aezdi main muslihat ke kai pahloo pinhaan hua karte hain…jumlaha-e-mo’tariza, aur woh bhi tuwalat pazeer, kitni badi ne’mat hain, is ka andaza aap ko usee waqt ho sakta ai, jab aap ko ehsaas ho, ke agar jumla-e-mo’tariza nan aata, to aapko khurafaat ka sirf aik hee pehloo hazam karna padta…hazrat-e-insaan ka nizam-e-hazma aik hee jins se musalsal do-do haath karne se yaksar qaasir hai.
Khair yeh to jumla-e-mo’tariza ba-jumla-e-mo’tariza ho gaya…:)
You make an error in assuming that change and digression are mutually exclusive…if one is twisted enough, and has influences demented enough (hint: JB) one can actually get the two to work together. Fact is digression, as practiced by the likes of yours truly, is change itself. Won’t you agree?
Oh, and I love talking tomyself…I find myself to be the best audience. Looks like, i just doubled my audience, as did you…count me in as your friend in misery bro!
4BaptizedLuciferJanuary 1st, 2006 at 2:37 pm
naye saal ki shubh kaamnaayein
5knicqJanuary 1st, 2006 at 7:50 pm
Whoa! For a minute I read it as… “Nayee saas kee sub kanyaein!”
…and I was wondering, what the…?
Aap ko bhi naya saal mubarak…:)
6BaptizedLuciferJanuary 1st, 2006 at 11:00 pm
looool, at least now we know whats goin on in ur mind!
7MaranelloJanuary 2nd, 2006 at 8:08 am
Shubh Kaamnaayein
yeh kon khatoon hain?
8knicqJanuary 2nd, 2006 at 8:40 am
Yeh Shobha Kamnaayein kee choti bahan hain.
9knicqJanuary 2nd, 2006 at 10:22 am
Bee Lucifer: Hmmm…I hate you for these trick comments that bring out the carefully concealed real me!
10happysohailJanuary 3rd, 2006 at 7:04 pm
Hi kcniq:
Its strange I even do not know kcniq? Do let me know
Also you must put ur latest pic on ur website too.
Also I was expecting to see some New Year resolutions in your next blog. Please share ur wisdom with us.
U must be wondering why suddenly I have become so demanding, well there is a good chance I will be ur new neighbor so I want u get used to it. Now u know my plan so do not even dare to move.
I remember once you told me that u want to have a rock solid body by the age of 30. To be exact in second semester during MBA, Whats going on that avenue. You still have some time.
Take care.
11knicqJanuary 3rd, 2006 at 9:11 pm
Oh Hi Happysohail,
Frankly, even I do not know kcniq, his name is striking similar to mine though…mine has a misplaced ‘c’…:)
My new year resolutions eh? Thats a good one. I guess we could sum it up in one line…lesser procrastination, greater compassion, and zero consternation.
Now, you coming here…isn’t that good news? Make that great news! So sawari baad-e-bahari ka ETA kia hai?
I am on local leave for two weeks after the Eid, and if you arrive here in those days, you will have a guide to show you around, and to accompany you on your qdambosi trip to JBland.
Oh, and about that rock solid body, which I have wanted to have since my school days by the way, I am quite close to my target…WE, (my wife and I) have achieved the rock part, and its a BIG rock…now I have to start working on the solid part. That picture…we’ll put it here as soon as we achieve the solid part. My doctor and the photographer both agree that for best results we should go for a little bit of blasting here and there…or may be hope for a few landslides…the photographer thinks this way we should be able to capture thw whole of me in a single shot!
:) ¶ 1/26/2006 02:42:00 AM
ANQ’s birthday, The Trio, and ANQ’s birthday.
ANQ turned three today (December 16), Masha Allah. Madi called to wish, the gorgeous chachu that he is, and the lovely person that he is. May Allah bless him for his love, affection and kindness which he has always shown me; I have introduced him earlier in some posts, and I have perhaps already written that he forms the trio that I was blessed with in my college days, the trio that has stood by me like the Hindukush in my times of adversity.
This trio is comprised of Felicity and Fash in addition to Madi. True, Fash is the oldest soul outside of blood relations that has had to bear the curse that I am, and folks, I tell you 20 years of bearing this curse is a tad too much. However, there was this period of almost a decade when he and I were out of touch completely, and it was in college that we ran into each other again, so I am inclined to think of it as a rediscovery of a sorts - more so for me than it has been for him. He was also instrumental in bringing us all together in this wonderful friendship, where each of these amazingly special people have had multiple chances to prove their consistency in standing by me in my times of adversity, in my times of foolishness and stupidity, and in my times of going through I-should-never-have-been-born phases.
They have been stubborn in giving me good advice, patient in their consternation at seeing me do the exact opposite, and gracious and generous in not taking the didn’t-I-tell-you-so-again-and-again-and-again route when helping me pick up the peices. They have also been immensely generous in sharing their laughter, limelight and love with me. We are, today, in three different countries; which, come to think of it, is a huge improvement on the state of affairs a few years ago, when we were in three different continents; however, we are bound together by that most enduring of bonds which everyone calls friendship.Thank you God for great friends, and thank you for all your blessings - blessings, that not only include great parents, wonderful teachers, loving wifey, and adorable TNQ & ANQ, but also the many, many stellar, albiet eccentric friends, and patient colleagues, neighbors, fellow-drivers, and fellow citizens….
Thank you once again, and many times over, for TNQ and ANQ. ANQ, being ANQ, made the most of our birthday wishes this morning, and promptly put forth inquiries pertaining to a certain item that is automatically associated with birthdays - the birthday cake. We did not have the heart to turn her down, so we decided to get a cake in the evening, if she still remembered about it. Who were we kidding, she remembered very well, and repeated her inquiry as soon as I stepped back from a very tiring day out at the beach with “the guys”, the guys being HPN - the sand stealer, HPN’s father, HPN’s father-in-law - the newly crowned frisbee champion Sharjah beach, HPN’s BiL aka LHS on daMomma’s blog, Jalali Baba - who needs little introduction on this blog, Fash’s BiL aka O on KK’s blog, Dr.IK who was hastily roped in as resident doctor after KK, our regular and blogistan’s very own doctor, had to pull out to get ready for his flight tomorrow morning to the land of the pure, and yours truly - the logistics specialist held responsible for lack of plans, and poor logistics. More about that, however, in a separate blog which, as Yasmine warns in her recent comments, might take too long to materialize.
We, therefore, had to arrange for a cake hastily, light some candles on it, and get a hastily gathered crowd, which included a total of two guests, to clap and sing out of tune as ANQ blew the candles with some help from TNQ and cut the cake. I have hardly ever celebrated my own birthday, I remember we did get a proper birthday organzied way back in 1998, because we needed an excuse to get all the friends together one last time before everyone left to discover his/her destiny, and my birthday happened to fall just about the time. The point, at that time, was not celebrating the birthday. Besides, every present I opened turned out to be a shirt - I have been using them for seven years now, and I still have some left in the closet that I have never worn. Take it from me, it takes one a long time getting through 30 shirts that do not fit.
We never celebrated brithdays in our home, when we were children. It was just no big deal, once or twice we got called to birthday parties, and we did not know what to make of the proceedings. So, the guy was born years ago on that day, what’s the fuss about? Years later, when my own birthday was celebrated, I had felt so at a loss and so inadequate having all these people standing around me waiting for me to cut the cake…birthdays, as far as I was concerned, were for kids, or for other people whose day can be brightened by wishing them, but not for myself.
On a point of principle, we still do not celebrate birthdays in our home, the principle being simple… there is no Islamic precedence of celebrating this occasion. We did celebrate one birthday of TNQ’s and one of ANQ’s, but the idea was that the kids were too small to register the proceedings as an occasion, and we the parents were delighted that we had been blessed with our precious children on that date, and wanted to celebrate Allah’s mercy on us. Today, once again, we had this semi-party sort of a thingy, because our child had been asking for the cake, but also, and more so, because we are so so thankful to Allah for the blessings TNQ and ANQ are, and our hearts rejoice on the day Allah had blessed us with these children.
So, ANQ turned three today, and had Madi Chachoo call from Karachi to wish her, and had a strawberry cake to blow the candles on….May Allah bless her and TNQ, and may He keep them on the right path always, and may He fill their lives with Iman, joy, happiness and contentment, and He reward them with Jannah in the hereafter. Ameen.
-->
13 Responses to 'ANQ’s birthday, The Trio, and ANQ’s birthday.'
1MaranelloDecember 17th, 2005 at 3:56 am
“May Allah bless her and TNQ, and may He keep them on the right path always, and may He fill their lives with Iman, joy, happiness and contentment, and He reward them with Jannah in the hereafter. Ameen. “
Ameen to that. And may He make them both a source of blessing for their parents in the dunya, and a source of blessing and forgiveness for their parents in the Akhirah, ameen.
2knicqDecember 18th, 2005 at 10:30 pm
Ameen to and thanks for your prayers brother….:)
3HappySohailDecember 19th, 2005 at 9:53 pm
Happy birthday to little kido, with all the best wishes.
4knicqDecember 20th, 2005 at 12:33 am
Thanks Sohail….juss getting around to making that call I promised you!
5HappySohailDecember 20th, 2005 at 1:20 am
I tried to call u again after posting, but it just rang, rang and rang and no one picked up. Now I will officially declare it, its easier to get Paris Hilton on phone than NKQ.
:)
6yasmineDecember 20th, 2005 at 6:06 am
Ameen to your dua for your children. And to Maranello’s. And may you and your wife be blessed and rewarded for the time, effort, and love you put into raising your children who are such a joy to you. Ameen to that as well.
My favorite part of this post, I must admit, was the references to HPN and KK and daMomma and daAbbu and Jalali Baba. It’s such fun seeing the ways in which Blogistan intersects.
7knicqDecember 20th, 2005 at 8:58 am
Hmmm…I had stepped out for a while, initially to answer the doorbell, but ended up playing dark frisbee, which is frisbee played in the cloak of darkness, so the pride of players stays intact, and the frisbee and the noses do not.
Came back to find a missed call from a Lahore number…was that you? Are you in someway able to call via Lahore? Or have you taken paris Hilton there to show her the ‘Yaadgar’?
Been calling that number, and a Paris-Hiltonish- voice keep telling me something about my matlooba number no longer being in iste’mal…I tried reasoning with her, tried explaining to her that it had to be in use for it give me that missed call, but she is not good on the listening skills.
Yasmine: Jazak Allah for your prayers sis. Your favorite part itches to transform itself into an independent post, but good old procrastination will have no part of it - the itching.
8SaadatDecember 20th, 2005 at 10:18 am
And I missed another birthday. *sigh*
Ameen to your duas and everybody else’s.
9ADecember 20th, 2005 at 10:29 am
why?
10knicqDecember 21st, 2005 at 8:36 am
Hmmm…Saadat, you would not have missed this one, had your enetation not been playing those ‘bouncer’ games with me. If I counted the number of times, it has bounced my comments, I’d need that abacus thingy to get the figure right.
You gotta work that thing’s prejudices out bro…:)
Thanks for the wishes.
A: In ANQ’s own trade mark one word reply to all why questions…Ish’liyey!
11SaeedDecember 21st, 2005 at 3:36 pm
Ameen to all the duas!& yeah, my bad, even i missed this one….& forget the plans etc, atleast you were able to spend the afternoon with all those people….just this sunday i finally met my buddy after a whole month (yes, we stay in the same city!).Yes, its definately a dampner when friends get seperated into different countries & continents…..
12hemlockDecember 27th, 2005 at 10:50 pm
ok… like 3 yr olds??? are the FUNNESHT to be with lots of hugs and smothering kisses to ANQ from umm… hemlock … errr phopo?lol but seriously speaking? is your kid ticklish? i love tickling kids… hehehe
birthdays in my household are such a huge affair, for like, the immediate family. just an excuse to celebrate (the whole affairs last well over a week), seeing as how life sux otherwise we try make the most of the little things in life.
13knicqDecember 28th, 2005 at 9:05 am
Salaams Hemmie…
I’ll convey your hugs and kisses to ANQ…phuppo just about sounds right
ANQ is not the least bit ticklish…TNQ is though…
ANQ is tickled, if at all, by our futile attempts at disciplining her…she then gets on with her agenda as royalty does in the face of commoners protestations.
These days her favorite threat is…”Main aap ko moon pe phaink doonga…!” It is normally issued immediately after old man knicq has put on his sternest face and handed down what he considers his harshest scolding….:( ¶ 1/26/2006 02:40:00 AM
This trio is comprised of Felicity and Fash in addition to Madi. True, Fash is the oldest soul outside of blood relations that has had to bear the curse that I am, and folks, I tell you 20 years of bearing this curse is a tad too much. However, there was this period of almost a decade when he and I were out of touch completely, and it was in college that we ran into each other again, so I am inclined to think of it as a rediscovery of a sorts - more so for me than it has been for him. He was also instrumental in bringing us all together in this wonderful friendship, where each of these amazingly special people have had multiple chances to prove their consistency in standing by me in my times of adversity, in my times of foolishness and stupidity, and in my times of going through I-should-never-have-been-born phases.
They have been stubborn in giving me good advice, patient in their consternation at seeing me do the exact opposite, and gracious and generous in not taking the didn’t-I-tell-you-so-again-and-again-and-again route when helping me pick up the peices. They have also been immensely generous in sharing their laughter, limelight and love with me. We are, today, in three different countries; which, come to think of it, is a huge improvement on the state of affairs a few years ago, when we were in three different continents; however, we are bound together by that most enduring of bonds which everyone calls friendship.Thank you God for great friends, and thank you for all your blessings - blessings, that not only include great parents, wonderful teachers, loving wifey, and adorable TNQ & ANQ, but also the many, many stellar, albiet eccentric friends, and patient colleagues, neighbors, fellow-drivers, and fellow citizens….
Thank you once again, and many times over, for TNQ and ANQ. ANQ, being ANQ, made the most of our birthday wishes this morning, and promptly put forth inquiries pertaining to a certain item that is automatically associated with birthdays - the birthday cake. We did not have the heart to turn her down, so we decided to get a cake in the evening, if she still remembered about it. Who were we kidding, she remembered very well, and repeated her inquiry as soon as I stepped back from a very tiring day out at the beach with “the guys”, the guys being HPN - the sand stealer, HPN’s father, HPN’s father-in-law - the newly crowned frisbee champion Sharjah beach, HPN’s BiL aka LHS on daMomma’s blog, Jalali Baba - who needs little introduction on this blog, Fash’s BiL aka O on KK’s blog, Dr.IK who was hastily roped in as resident doctor after KK, our regular and blogistan’s very own doctor, had to pull out to get ready for his flight tomorrow morning to the land of the pure, and yours truly - the logistics specialist held responsible for lack of plans, and poor logistics. More about that, however, in a separate blog which, as Yasmine warns in her recent comments, might take too long to materialize.
We, therefore, had to arrange for a cake hastily, light some candles on it, and get a hastily gathered crowd, which included a total of two guests, to clap and sing out of tune as ANQ blew the candles with some help from TNQ and cut the cake. I have hardly ever celebrated my own birthday, I remember we did get a proper birthday organzied way back in 1998, because we needed an excuse to get all the friends together one last time before everyone left to discover his/her destiny, and my birthday happened to fall just about the time. The point, at that time, was not celebrating the birthday. Besides, every present I opened turned out to be a shirt - I have been using them for seven years now, and I still have some left in the closet that I have never worn. Take it from me, it takes one a long time getting through 30 shirts that do not fit.
We never celebrated brithdays in our home, when we were children. It was just no big deal, once or twice we got called to birthday parties, and we did not know what to make of the proceedings. So, the guy was born years ago on that day, what’s the fuss about? Years later, when my own birthday was celebrated, I had felt so at a loss and so inadequate having all these people standing around me waiting for me to cut the cake…birthdays, as far as I was concerned, were for kids, or for other people whose day can be brightened by wishing them, but not for myself.
On a point of principle, we still do not celebrate birthdays in our home, the principle being simple… there is no Islamic precedence of celebrating this occasion. We did celebrate one birthday of TNQ’s and one of ANQ’s, but the idea was that the kids were too small to register the proceedings as an occasion, and we the parents were delighted that we had been blessed with our precious children on that date, and wanted to celebrate Allah’s mercy on us. Today, once again, we had this semi-party sort of a thingy, because our child had been asking for the cake, but also, and more so, because we are so so thankful to Allah for the blessings TNQ and ANQ are, and our hearts rejoice on the day Allah had blessed us with these children.
So, ANQ turned three today, and had Madi Chachoo call from Karachi to wish her, and had a strawberry cake to blow the candles on….May Allah bless her and TNQ, and may He keep them on the right path always, and may He fill their lives with Iman, joy, happiness and contentment, and He reward them with Jannah in the hereafter. Ameen.
-->
13 Responses to 'ANQ’s birthday, The Trio, and ANQ’s birthday.'
1MaranelloDecember 17th, 2005 at 3:56 am
“May Allah bless her and TNQ, and may He keep them on the right path always, and may He fill their lives with Iman, joy, happiness and contentment, and He reward them with Jannah in the hereafter. Ameen. “
Ameen to that. And may He make them both a source of blessing for their parents in the dunya, and a source of blessing and forgiveness for their parents in the Akhirah, ameen.
2knicqDecember 18th, 2005 at 10:30 pm
Ameen to and thanks for your prayers brother….:)
3HappySohailDecember 19th, 2005 at 9:53 pm
Happy birthday to little kido, with all the best wishes.
4knicqDecember 20th, 2005 at 12:33 am
Thanks Sohail….juss getting around to making that call I promised you!
5HappySohailDecember 20th, 2005 at 1:20 am
I tried to call u again after posting, but it just rang, rang and rang and no one picked up. Now I will officially declare it, its easier to get Paris Hilton on phone than NKQ.
:)
6yasmineDecember 20th, 2005 at 6:06 am
Ameen to your dua for your children. And to Maranello’s. And may you and your wife be blessed and rewarded for the time, effort, and love you put into raising your children who are such a joy to you. Ameen to that as well.
My favorite part of this post, I must admit, was the references to HPN and KK and daMomma and daAbbu and Jalali Baba. It’s such fun seeing the ways in which Blogistan intersects.
7knicqDecember 20th, 2005 at 8:58 am
Hmmm…I had stepped out for a while, initially to answer the doorbell, but ended up playing dark frisbee, which is frisbee played in the cloak of darkness, so the pride of players stays intact, and the frisbee and the noses do not.
Came back to find a missed call from a Lahore number…was that you? Are you in someway able to call via Lahore? Or have you taken paris Hilton there to show her the ‘Yaadgar’?
Been calling that number, and a Paris-Hiltonish- voice keep telling me something about my matlooba number no longer being in iste’mal…I tried reasoning with her, tried explaining to her that it had to be in use for it give me that missed call, but she is not good on the listening skills.
Yasmine: Jazak Allah for your prayers sis. Your favorite part itches to transform itself into an independent post, but good old procrastination will have no part of it - the itching.
8SaadatDecember 20th, 2005 at 10:18 am
And I missed another birthday. *sigh*
Ameen to your duas and everybody else’s.
9ADecember 20th, 2005 at 10:29 am
why?
10knicqDecember 21st, 2005 at 8:36 am
Hmmm…Saadat, you would not have missed this one, had your enetation not been playing those ‘bouncer’ games with me. If I counted the number of times, it has bounced my comments, I’d need that abacus thingy to get the figure right.
You gotta work that thing’s prejudices out bro…:)
Thanks for the wishes.
A: In ANQ’s own trade mark one word reply to all why questions…Ish’liyey!
11SaeedDecember 21st, 2005 at 3:36 pm
Ameen to all the duas!& yeah, my bad, even i missed this one….& forget the plans etc, atleast you were able to spend the afternoon with all those people….just this sunday i finally met my buddy after a whole month (yes, we stay in the same city!).Yes, its definately a dampner when friends get seperated into different countries & continents…..
12hemlockDecember 27th, 2005 at 10:50 pm
ok… like 3 yr olds??? are the FUNNESHT to be with lots of hugs and smothering kisses to ANQ from umm… hemlock … errr phopo?lol but seriously speaking? is your kid ticklish? i love tickling kids… hehehe
birthdays in my household are such a huge affair, for like, the immediate family. just an excuse to celebrate (the whole affairs last well over a week), seeing as how life sux otherwise we try make the most of the little things in life.
13knicqDecember 28th, 2005 at 9:05 am
Salaams Hemmie…
I’ll convey your hugs and kisses to ANQ…phuppo just about sounds right
ANQ is not the least bit ticklish…TNQ is though…
ANQ is tickled, if at all, by our futile attempts at disciplining her…she then gets on with her agenda as royalty does in the face of commoners protestations.
These days her favorite threat is…”Main aap ko moon pe phaink doonga…!” It is normally issued immediately after old man knicq has put on his sternest face and handed down what he considers his harshest scolding….:( ¶ 1/26/2006 02:40:00 AM
On making a Jalebi...
In the past few days, I have often made time to sit down and put a serious update up. I have strived to create the right conditions, which every serious blogger knows is most important - the creating of the right conditions that is, not the striving, though it would amount to criminal something to undermine the importance of striving. One must continue to strive, and strive diligently towards the achievement of one’s goals, even if the goal in itself is nothing but to achieve the highest standards of striving. That would, in fact, be considered the purest form of striving - to strive to strive.
I digress. The right conditions to blog vary from blogger to blogger; some must have absolute silence, a dimly lit place, and their favorite stuffed toy by their side before they can get down to the business of serious blogging; others must have the soothing light of a full moon illuminate the blogging sectors of their brain while they sit under the open skies typing out with their right hand while the left hand twiddles a lead pencil incessantly; still others must first complete a five minute mile before they can hope to get anything close to an update. About the latter, I have a theory. I think they are porous bloggers, whose ideas do not take the conventional route when seeking expression; these are ideas that seep out of their whole existences, and eventually find expression in words…
I have known people who must wear their school badges when they sit down to blog, and those who must have at least two sharp lead pencils, a pound of lined A4 sheets at their disposal, and a white board right in front of them, so that they can type out an update on their laptops. There is, of course, Jalali Baba who will not blog until his neighbor has smelled a dozen roses tinged with the smell of JB’s sautéd flesh, or until a yellow Hummer has overtaken a red Aston Martin on the dirt road leading to a highway in Nouadhibou.
There are less particular bloggers too, who need nothing more than a keyboard for a tool to get down to blogging, and those who find a hundred subjects in a sneeze, a sunset, a sunrise, or an alley cat to keep blogging for a month. I have heard about them, but I am quite convinced that they are the stuff of legend, and quite possibly do not exist in reality. I have seen cases that are close though - the blog celeb trio of Momma, Little Baji and Owlie are examples that come to mind.
Unfortunate as it might seem, I find myself closer in my blogging behavior to the former than the latter group. I must have the right conditions. The trouble, however, is that given the dynamic personality that I am, the right conditions for me to blog can ill-afford to be static. This dynamic disposition of the right conditions, while completely commendable, and absolutely impressive, has inherent flaws, or challenges if you may. The biggest challenge for me is to keep pace with the change. Quite often, I am able to figure out the current right conditions, and get down to laying the ground-work for what could possibly be a legendary post in blogistan; but before I can create the absolute right conditions, change sets in, with the result that when I am finished with creating what were until recently the right conditions, I must reconcile myself with missed chances and lost glory - once again.
It has been a cat and mouse game, with the mouse inevitably getting away, and the cat left to lick its wounds. I am not one to give up though, and try, try, try I do as I must. Success continues to elude me, as does that moment of glory when the right conditions are created long before a different set of conditions comes to be defined as the right conditions, and the perfect update is born. Perseverance, however, is seldom in short supply in knicqland. Its, in fact, the only thing that keeps the place going. Ah! The challenges legends-in-the-making must confront.
So, as I was saying, I have often sat down to put up a serious blog, and worked to create the right conditions, so the serious update might just translate into “The Update”. In so far as I can understand, there has been only one ingredient missing, and it is that most elusive of all ingredients that goes by the name “chance”. It takes many disguises, and would rather have me believe that it was an inconsequential fountain pen, or chilled can of Coke, or the right temperature setting that went amiss at that decisive magical moment when everything must fall in place to give birth to a worthy update, but I know better…I know what is amiss is nothing but chance. Luck has not favored me despite my arduous toil…blah, blah, and blah.
There! That is my explanation for not having updated in a century!
p.s. That recipe for making a Jalebi, here it is.
-->
11 Responses to 'On making a Jalebi…'
1hemlockDecember 11th, 2005 at 2:11 am
*waves right back*i like the way you think. except in all of this, you’ve forgotten to point one thing out. you almost always end up NOT blogging about what you had intended to blog about, having veered off the course, to either the south east, or the north west.
2yasmineDecember 11th, 2005 at 11:36 am
Man, I could so relate to this post, Knicq bhai. The problem with being a blogger (or at least, with being me) is that I’m constantly thinking to myself, “Oh! I should blog about that!” whenever something interesting happens/is said. And I start mentally composing a post right then and there. But if I don’t post it for reals within the next few days or so, then I’ll never get around to writing it. This would be alright, and I would just move on, except for the fact that the post is all half-written in my head already, and if I don’t get it out, it’ll stay there forever, reminding me, ‘Remember? You never wrote about me.’ So that’s a long-winded way of sharing the fact that there are plenty of things from like two years ago that are still just itching to be posted, and someday inshaAllah I’ll get around to it, because I really have no choice, as far as these words floating around in my head are concerned.
3SaeedDecember 11th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
excuse accepted!lol!& we really wouldn’t mind as long as there is a new update to read & comment on!U can strive for those right conditions as much as you like,& althou you may not be elated with the end result, we love it!I’m sure TNQ & ANQ give you enough incidents to blog about incase you cannot think of something when you’re at the comp???
4knicqDecember 12th, 2005 at 1:22 am
Hemmie: Here’s welcoming back to this place. I was beginning to think we’d lost you to cyberworld…that’s a potent observation you make…for as far back as I can see, I end up either not blogging about what I had set out to blog about, or not blogging at all. I guess, what keeps me going is the thought that if I do veer off the course to, lets say, South East, and continue going long enough, I’ll emerge, one day, from the North West to end up at the point where I had started off from…or vice verca. As long as you are at the same point, you can resort to what you had originally set out for…:)
Yasmine: Being a relative amateur at the blogging game, I seldom get past the “Oh! I should blog about that!” part, but you are right, I get to that part a dozen times in a day. It is what one might call the non-blogging-blogger’s syndrome. The trouble is when I sit down to blog, I can’t seem to recall one such moment…sigh!But hey! You’ve got to get those posts out of your system…you owe it to them, to yourself, and most of all to your fan club!!!We, here, are now eagerly looking forward to those floating words settling down in the RM land! Perhaps, that will give me impetus to move on to that I-have-half-written-posts-floating-in-my-head stage…:)
Saeed bro, you rock!You are right about TNQ and ANQ too. They conduct themselves in Urdu, so the essence of their actions/sayings can only be captured in Urdu, which is why I have long toyed with the idea of putting up an Urdu blog…ANQ has, however, picked up a most appropriate english phrase from TNQ, who for his part brought it home from school, but employs it to communicate with high-fliers only—literally. “Come back hea plane!” as she runs after an aeroplane…
5SaeedDecember 12th, 2005 at 4:14 pm
lol @ TNQ & ANQ’s antics!
6SaadieDecember 13th, 2005 at 4:03 pm
:), for me just motivation will do. when I want to write something I write and at times the urge of writing happens at the most oddest of hours errrr so I endup not posting at all.
7AnjumDecember 14th, 2005 at 5:58 am
salaam knicq! ahh, the classic blog-about-not-being-able-to-write-a-blog post always entertaining, despite the supposed lack of subject.
8hemlockDecember 14th, 2005 at 6:53 pm
how is it smart, travelling across the world to end up at square one?travelling for teh sake of travelling is one thing… but if square one is where u want to end up, why take a step forward at all?*ignore me, i tend to give myself headaches*
9knicqDecember 15th, 2005 at 8:48 am
W/salaaaaam Anjum. Where ya been sis.? Good to see you here…:)
Entertainment is often more fun when devoid of subject. It is then that it becomes PURE entertainment. e.g…ever been ticked off by one of those sitcoms with a message? My favorite is Sienfeld, precisely because it is black, and without any messages…not that it all has anything to do with my blog…:)
Hemmie: I think it is all about making an informed choice…you go around the world and ascertain for yourself that there is nothing better than square one…”I have seen the world, and I know now, my square, the one which is one, is the one. Breeds contentment, you know….
I have been known to give headaches to headaches…
10MaranelloDecember 16th, 2005 at 3:07 am
knicq, if I was a Martian, had just come to Earth, and had not read any of your other very interesting and insightful blogs, then my thoughts after reading this particular entry could be summed up this:
Nach na jaanay, aangan terha . . .
However, as I am not one (a Martian, that is!), I have read your other blogs and know keh janab ko naachna toh bahut khoob ata hay (in this limited context only, I hasten to add!).
Hence, the more apt thought for my Martian alter-ego should be:
“Na nau mun tail ho ga, na Radha naachay gi . . .”
True, no?
Though of course, if I was a Martian, I probably would not know Urdu mahawaray…unless Mars is somewhere near Lucknow, maybe on the road to Kanpur, eh?
hmm… not sure why this comment is so naach-obsessed. Don’t blame li’l ole me, blame the ahl-e-zabaan who came up with the mohawaray!
And about the email… well, I hope its a case of neither (the mohawaray that is)
11knicqDecember 17th, 2005 at 12:32 am
Hmmm…so you have a great sense of humor, and write in a style that is close to my heart - yet to find its name, and if so far unnamed give it one - both of which qualities you displayed amply in that satirical eulogy you sent me about me by way of your introduction; and now you seem to not only have dastaras in Urdu, but if above is anything to go by, you have memorized the Kitab-e-Muhavra - if there is one called so, and nurture a fixation with ‘naach’, or at least naach-related muhavras.
You are one of the very few people I know, who know the Catch-22ish muhavra about Radha….that says a lot. So, here my friend, is thanking you for your kind words, and assuring you that the mail is a case of nither of those muhavras…it is actually more a case of me naaching tigni ka naach trying my hand at time-management, prioritizing and all those kind of things, because all those things refuse to get naaching at my isharas…if you know what I mean :) ¶ 1/26/2006 02:36:00 AM
I digress. The right conditions to blog vary from blogger to blogger; some must have absolute silence, a dimly lit place, and their favorite stuffed toy by their side before they can get down to the business of serious blogging; others must have the soothing light of a full moon illuminate the blogging sectors of their brain while they sit under the open skies typing out with their right hand while the left hand twiddles a lead pencil incessantly; still others must first complete a five minute mile before they can hope to get anything close to an update. About the latter, I have a theory. I think they are porous bloggers, whose ideas do not take the conventional route when seeking expression; these are ideas that seep out of their whole existences, and eventually find expression in words…
I have known people who must wear their school badges when they sit down to blog, and those who must have at least two sharp lead pencils, a pound of lined A4 sheets at their disposal, and a white board right in front of them, so that they can type out an update on their laptops. There is, of course, Jalali Baba who will not blog until his neighbor has smelled a dozen roses tinged with the smell of JB’s sautéd flesh, or until a yellow Hummer has overtaken a red Aston Martin on the dirt road leading to a highway in Nouadhibou.
There are less particular bloggers too, who need nothing more than a keyboard for a tool to get down to blogging, and those who find a hundred subjects in a sneeze, a sunset, a sunrise, or an alley cat to keep blogging for a month. I have heard about them, but I am quite convinced that they are the stuff of legend, and quite possibly do not exist in reality. I have seen cases that are close though - the blog celeb trio of Momma, Little Baji and Owlie are examples that come to mind.
Unfortunate as it might seem, I find myself closer in my blogging behavior to the former than the latter group. I must have the right conditions. The trouble, however, is that given the dynamic personality that I am, the right conditions for me to blog can ill-afford to be static. This dynamic disposition of the right conditions, while completely commendable, and absolutely impressive, has inherent flaws, or challenges if you may. The biggest challenge for me is to keep pace with the change. Quite often, I am able to figure out the current right conditions, and get down to laying the ground-work for what could possibly be a legendary post in blogistan; but before I can create the absolute right conditions, change sets in, with the result that when I am finished with creating what were until recently the right conditions, I must reconcile myself with missed chances and lost glory - once again.
It has been a cat and mouse game, with the mouse inevitably getting away, and the cat left to lick its wounds. I am not one to give up though, and try, try, try I do as I must. Success continues to elude me, as does that moment of glory when the right conditions are created long before a different set of conditions comes to be defined as the right conditions, and the perfect update is born. Perseverance, however, is seldom in short supply in knicqland. Its, in fact, the only thing that keeps the place going. Ah! The challenges legends-in-the-making must confront.
So, as I was saying, I have often sat down to put up a serious blog, and worked to create the right conditions, so the serious update might just translate into “The Update”. In so far as I can understand, there has been only one ingredient missing, and it is that most elusive of all ingredients that goes by the name “chance”. It takes many disguises, and would rather have me believe that it was an inconsequential fountain pen, or chilled can of Coke, or the right temperature setting that went amiss at that decisive magical moment when everything must fall in place to give birth to a worthy update, but I know better…I know what is amiss is nothing but chance. Luck has not favored me despite my arduous toil…blah, blah, and blah.
There! That is my explanation for not having updated in a century!
p.s. That recipe for making a Jalebi, here it is.
-->
11 Responses to 'On making a Jalebi…'
1hemlockDecember 11th, 2005 at 2:11 am
*waves right back*i like the way you think. except in all of this, you’ve forgotten to point one thing out. you almost always end up NOT blogging about what you had intended to blog about, having veered off the course, to either the south east, or the north west.
2yasmineDecember 11th, 2005 at 11:36 am
Man, I could so relate to this post, Knicq bhai. The problem with being a blogger (or at least, with being me) is that I’m constantly thinking to myself, “Oh! I should blog about that!” whenever something interesting happens/is said. And I start mentally composing a post right then and there. But if I don’t post it for reals within the next few days or so, then I’ll never get around to writing it. This would be alright, and I would just move on, except for the fact that the post is all half-written in my head already, and if I don’t get it out, it’ll stay there forever, reminding me, ‘Remember? You never wrote about me.’ So that’s a long-winded way of sharing the fact that there are plenty of things from like two years ago that are still just itching to be posted, and someday inshaAllah I’ll get around to it, because I really have no choice, as far as these words floating around in my head are concerned.
3SaeedDecember 11th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
excuse accepted!lol!& we really wouldn’t mind as long as there is a new update to read & comment on!U can strive for those right conditions as much as you like,& althou you may not be elated with the end result, we love it!I’m sure TNQ & ANQ give you enough incidents to blog about incase you cannot think of something when you’re at the comp???
4knicqDecember 12th, 2005 at 1:22 am
Hemmie: Here’s welcoming back to this place. I was beginning to think we’d lost you to cyberworld…that’s a potent observation you make…for as far back as I can see, I end up either not blogging about what I had set out to blog about, or not blogging at all. I guess, what keeps me going is the thought that if I do veer off the course to, lets say, South East, and continue going long enough, I’ll emerge, one day, from the North West to end up at the point where I had started off from…or vice verca. As long as you are at the same point, you can resort to what you had originally set out for…:)
Yasmine: Being a relative amateur at the blogging game, I seldom get past the “Oh! I should blog about that!” part, but you are right, I get to that part a dozen times in a day. It is what one might call the non-blogging-blogger’s syndrome. The trouble is when I sit down to blog, I can’t seem to recall one such moment…sigh!But hey! You’ve got to get those posts out of your system…you owe it to them, to yourself, and most of all to your fan club!!!We, here, are now eagerly looking forward to those floating words settling down in the RM land! Perhaps, that will give me impetus to move on to that I-have-half-written-posts-floating-in-my-head stage…:)
Saeed bro, you rock!You are right about TNQ and ANQ too. They conduct themselves in Urdu, so the essence of their actions/sayings can only be captured in Urdu, which is why I have long toyed with the idea of putting up an Urdu blog…ANQ has, however, picked up a most appropriate english phrase from TNQ, who for his part brought it home from school, but employs it to communicate with high-fliers only—literally. “Come back hea plane!” as she runs after an aeroplane…
5SaeedDecember 12th, 2005 at 4:14 pm
lol @ TNQ & ANQ’s antics!
6SaadieDecember 13th, 2005 at 4:03 pm
:), for me just motivation will do. when I want to write something I write and at times the urge of writing happens at the most oddest of hours errrr so I endup not posting at all.
7AnjumDecember 14th, 2005 at 5:58 am
salaam knicq! ahh, the classic blog-about-not-being-able-to-write-a-blog post always entertaining, despite the supposed lack of subject.
8hemlockDecember 14th, 2005 at 6:53 pm
how is it smart, travelling across the world to end up at square one?travelling for teh sake of travelling is one thing… but if square one is where u want to end up, why take a step forward at all?*ignore me, i tend to give myself headaches*
9knicqDecember 15th, 2005 at 8:48 am
W/salaaaaam Anjum. Where ya been sis.? Good to see you here…:)
Entertainment is often more fun when devoid of subject. It is then that it becomes PURE entertainment. e.g…ever been ticked off by one of those sitcoms with a message? My favorite is Sienfeld, precisely because it is black, and without any messages…not that it all has anything to do with my blog…:)
Hemmie: I think it is all about making an informed choice…you go around the world and ascertain for yourself that there is nothing better than square one…”I have seen the world, and I know now, my square, the one which is one, is the one. Breeds contentment, you know….
I have been known to give headaches to headaches…
10MaranelloDecember 16th, 2005 at 3:07 am
knicq, if I was a Martian, had just come to Earth, and had not read any of your other very interesting and insightful blogs, then my thoughts after reading this particular entry could be summed up this:
Nach na jaanay, aangan terha . . .
However, as I am not one (a Martian, that is!), I have read your other blogs and know keh janab ko naachna toh bahut khoob ata hay (in this limited context only, I hasten to add!).
Hence, the more apt thought for my Martian alter-ego should be:
“Na nau mun tail ho ga, na Radha naachay gi . . .”
True, no?
Though of course, if I was a Martian, I probably would not know Urdu mahawaray…unless Mars is somewhere near Lucknow, maybe on the road to Kanpur, eh?
hmm… not sure why this comment is so naach-obsessed. Don’t blame li’l ole me, blame the ahl-e-zabaan who came up with the mohawaray!
And about the email… well, I hope its a case of neither (the mohawaray that is)
11knicqDecember 17th, 2005 at 12:32 am
Hmmm…so you have a great sense of humor, and write in a style that is close to my heart - yet to find its name, and if so far unnamed give it one - both of which qualities you displayed amply in that satirical eulogy you sent me about me by way of your introduction; and now you seem to not only have dastaras in Urdu, but if above is anything to go by, you have memorized the Kitab-e-Muhavra - if there is one called so, and nurture a fixation with ‘naach’, or at least naach-related muhavras.
You are one of the very few people I know, who know the Catch-22ish muhavra about Radha….that says a lot. So, here my friend, is thanking you for your kind words, and assuring you that the mail is a case of nither of those muhavras…it is actually more a case of me naaching tigni ka naach trying my hand at time-management, prioritizing and all those kind of things, because all those things refuse to get naaching at my isharas…if you know what I mean :) ¶ 1/26/2006 02:36:00 AM
Cricket and The Crown.
There was a little bit of ambiguity surrounding the catch Sir Ian Bell had taken to dismiss bloody M. Yousuf, when bloody M. Yousuf had shown his impudent intent approaching his century. Thankfully, Sir Simon Tauffel was the umpire, and he took Sir Ian Bell’s declaration at face value, and ruled bloody M. Yousuf out. There was absolutely no need to refer the matter to the third umpire, since Sir Ian Bell, unlike bloody Rashid Latif is a gentleman, and would never have appealed for a catch, had he not taken it cleanly. Preposterous as it is, the bloody Pakis have been drawing parallels between the incident involving Sir Ian Bell and the infamous incident involving bloody Rashid Latif, and have had the audacity to even suggest an inquiry into the matter of Sir Ian Bell’s catch.
Bloody Rashid Latif was banned for five matches by the esteemed ICC for appealing for a caught out decision after what was shown by the TV replays to be a less than clean catch. Gentlemanly conduct does not come easy to the low-life brown people, and expecting them to display same under all circumstances is rather optimistic. Realistic approach demands that all appeals by the bloody brown people should be referred to a third umpire to ensure complete code of conduct of a gentleman is observed when the game of the gentlemen is played, especially by the bloody brown people with the gentlemen themselves. A gentleman’s word however should never be doubted, nor should a gentleman be slighted by referring a matter to a third umpire when a gentleman has already stated his position on the matter. It is because of this reason that any comparisons drawn between the incident involving Sir Bell and that made infamous by bloody Latif would in essence have to fall under fallacious comparisons. Apples may not be compared with dried dates.
There is then the matter of the decisions His Umpiring Excellency Darrel Hair has made. His credentials have been questioned by the insolent Pakis for having called bloody Shabbir Ahmed for chucking, or for warning bloody Kaneria for running onto the pitch, or sending Salman Butt back after he had visibly and intentionally run on the pitch while takng a run. His Umpiring Excellency is beyond reproach, even approach. That he should be requested to officiate in matches not played between gentlemen teams in itself is derogatory to him, and beyond the comprehension of yours truly. That he should undertake these assignments despite the low social stature of the ‘hosts’ in itself bears testimony to his dedication to upholding the cause of gentlemen.
His Umpiring Excellency does the bloody brownies an immense honour by often officiating in matches played by them, and at the same time ensures that the devious scehmes employed by the bloody brownies in their impertinent attempts at rising to the status of equals with gentlemen on the playing field are checked at all times under his scrutiny. If bloody Shabbir Ahmad thought he could jeopardize the English Gentlemen’s plans, he had another thing coming. In case, bloody Kaneria had forgotten his rightful brown place in the general scheme of cricketing things, His Umpiring Excellency was quick to remind him of the same; and for the impudent Salman Butt to think he could repeat his insolence of the past in the second test match was childish. His Umpiring Excellency knows a thing or two abour disciplining children.
What is beyond comprehension is the insistence of the bloody Pakis that His Umpiring Excellency did not have to refer the matter of bloody Inzamam’s dismissal by Sir Steve Harmisson to the third umpire. Some have gone so far so as to suggest that even Sir Steven Harmisson should have been reprimanded for shying at bloody Inzamam’s wicket in the first place, since, as they put it, bloody Inzamam was making no attempt at taking a run. A knighted gentleman to be penalized for exhibiting his exalted fury! What nerve, what impudence. Why, I ask, should bloody Inzamam not be ruled out when he has the insolence to take evasive action when a gentleman throws a ball at him. And to suggest that His Umpiring Excellency should have favoured Inzamam for this insolence, and that too after his 109- run defiance in the face of the exalted English attack. Who, by the way, was to ascertain that bloody Inzamam’s foot lifted in the air, and the other outide the crease was not a precursor to his attempt to take a run. Are we now to assume the best on the part of brownies?. Such amateur optimism can only spell doom for us all. Bloody Pakis know this well, but continue to expect us to give them the benefit of the doubt, and some even have the audacity to suggest that we play the game with them as equals, while many have been demanding that His Umpiring Excellency should be relieved of his duties.
Alas! The world outside the Empire, as well as beyond the realms of pure, white skinned people seems to have forgotten its place.
-->
4 Responses to 'Cricket and the crown.'
1SaeedDecember 1st, 2005 at 4:33 pm
will b bak to read later…..abhi bas “Happy National day!!!” lol!
2knicqDecember 1st, 2005 at 6:10 pm
…and a happy National day to you too bro…!
3MaranelloDecember 13th, 2005 at 4:40 am
LOL..well said and well written.
I fully sympathise with your views ‘knicq’; however, am less sure about what can be done in this regard. Its not as if Their Imperial Majesties at the Imperial Cricket Conference still run cricket; no, we have in charge our very own Pak, Mr Ehsan Mani, FCA, formerly resident of the leafy suburb St. John’s Wood and presently enamoured by the bright lights and skyscrapers of Dubai. The ICC is no more Imperial; it is International, not only in name, but in appearance too - an Indian (Sunny G) heads its cricket committee; a Pak is the President; a Sri Lankan heads the powerful Match Referees Panel and another Sri Lankan was the Referee officiating in the Pak v Eng series; the four Asian countries have a near-veto in the ten-member voting group, and finally, the ICC itself is based in Dubai and financed by Indian Rupees and Dollars…
However, why do I do get the feeling that all of this is mere window-dressing? Cynical? Perhaps.. but leave aside the appearances and review the reality and it still is a game for the goras, run by the goras and officiated by the goras.
4knicqDecember 13th, 2005 at 9:05 am
Maranello…thanks first of all for that lovely email…I am looking for words to write a reply back, and should write back as soon as I have the first line ready….gimme a few weeks!
Now, I can see that you have stayed away from Pakistan, and from Sub-Continent for that matter, for long enough not to know that the whitest, racistest, imperialistest people of the world are brown people wearing suits, and doing white jobs!
It is no window dressing my friend…when faced with challenging times, the goras have brought their knights to the fore…and like I said, brown people are the best gora knights!
Sigh! ¶ 1/26/2006 02:33:00 AM
Bloody Rashid Latif was banned for five matches by the esteemed ICC for appealing for a caught out decision after what was shown by the TV replays to be a less than clean catch. Gentlemanly conduct does not come easy to the low-life brown people, and expecting them to display same under all circumstances is rather optimistic. Realistic approach demands that all appeals by the bloody brown people should be referred to a third umpire to ensure complete code of conduct of a gentleman is observed when the game of the gentlemen is played, especially by the bloody brown people with the gentlemen themselves. A gentleman’s word however should never be doubted, nor should a gentleman be slighted by referring a matter to a third umpire when a gentleman has already stated his position on the matter. It is because of this reason that any comparisons drawn between the incident involving Sir Bell and that made infamous by bloody Latif would in essence have to fall under fallacious comparisons. Apples may not be compared with dried dates.
There is then the matter of the decisions His Umpiring Excellency Darrel Hair has made. His credentials have been questioned by the insolent Pakis for having called bloody Shabbir Ahmed for chucking, or for warning bloody Kaneria for running onto the pitch, or sending Salman Butt back after he had visibly and intentionally run on the pitch while takng a run. His Umpiring Excellency is beyond reproach, even approach. That he should be requested to officiate in matches not played between gentlemen teams in itself is derogatory to him, and beyond the comprehension of yours truly. That he should undertake these assignments despite the low social stature of the ‘hosts’ in itself bears testimony to his dedication to upholding the cause of gentlemen.
His Umpiring Excellency does the bloody brownies an immense honour by often officiating in matches played by them, and at the same time ensures that the devious scehmes employed by the bloody brownies in their impertinent attempts at rising to the status of equals with gentlemen on the playing field are checked at all times under his scrutiny. If bloody Shabbir Ahmad thought he could jeopardize the English Gentlemen’s plans, he had another thing coming. In case, bloody Kaneria had forgotten his rightful brown place in the general scheme of cricketing things, His Umpiring Excellency was quick to remind him of the same; and for the impudent Salman Butt to think he could repeat his insolence of the past in the second test match was childish. His Umpiring Excellency knows a thing or two abour disciplining children.
What is beyond comprehension is the insistence of the bloody Pakis that His Umpiring Excellency did not have to refer the matter of bloody Inzamam’s dismissal by Sir Steve Harmisson to the third umpire. Some have gone so far so as to suggest that even Sir Steven Harmisson should have been reprimanded for shying at bloody Inzamam’s wicket in the first place, since, as they put it, bloody Inzamam was making no attempt at taking a run. A knighted gentleman to be penalized for exhibiting his exalted fury! What nerve, what impudence. Why, I ask, should bloody Inzamam not be ruled out when he has the insolence to take evasive action when a gentleman throws a ball at him. And to suggest that His Umpiring Excellency should have favoured Inzamam for this insolence, and that too after his 109- run defiance in the face of the exalted English attack. Who, by the way, was to ascertain that bloody Inzamam’s foot lifted in the air, and the other outide the crease was not a precursor to his attempt to take a run. Are we now to assume the best on the part of brownies?. Such amateur optimism can only spell doom for us all. Bloody Pakis know this well, but continue to expect us to give them the benefit of the doubt, and some even have the audacity to suggest that we play the game with them as equals, while many have been demanding that His Umpiring Excellency should be relieved of his duties.
Alas! The world outside the Empire, as well as beyond the realms of pure, white skinned people seems to have forgotten its place.
-->
4 Responses to 'Cricket and the crown.'
1SaeedDecember 1st, 2005 at 4:33 pm
will b bak to read later…..abhi bas “Happy National day!!!” lol!
2knicqDecember 1st, 2005 at 6:10 pm
…and a happy National day to you too bro…!
3MaranelloDecember 13th, 2005 at 4:40 am
LOL..well said and well written.
I fully sympathise with your views ‘knicq’; however, am less sure about what can be done in this regard. Its not as if Their Imperial Majesties at the Imperial Cricket Conference still run cricket; no, we have in charge our very own Pak, Mr Ehsan Mani, FCA, formerly resident of the leafy suburb St. John’s Wood and presently enamoured by the bright lights and skyscrapers of Dubai. The ICC is no more Imperial; it is International, not only in name, but in appearance too - an Indian (Sunny G) heads its cricket committee; a Pak is the President; a Sri Lankan heads the powerful Match Referees Panel and another Sri Lankan was the Referee officiating in the Pak v Eng series; the four Asian countries have a near-veto in the ten-member voting group, and finally, the ICC itself is based in Dubai and financed by Indian Rupees and Dollars…
However, why do I do get the feeling that all of this is mere window-dressing? Cynical? Perhaps.. but leave aside the appearances and review the reality and it still is a game for the goras, run by the goras and officiated by the goras.
4knicqDecember 13th, 2005 at 9:05 am
Maranello…thanks first of all for that lovely email…I am looking for words to write a reply back, and should write back as soon as I have the first line ready….gimme a few weeks!
Now, I can see that you have stayed away from Pakistan, and from Sub-Continent for that matter, for long enough not to know that the whitest, racistest, imperialistest people of the world are brown people wearing suits, and doing white jobs!
It is no window dressing my friend…when faced with challenging times, the goras have brought their knights to the fore…and like I said, brown people are the best gora knights!
Sigh! ¶ 1/26/2006 02:33:00 AM
Monk Knicq
I have obsessive compulsive behavioral disorders…if that is the term I am looking for. For years, when my mother and I were closer than we are today, she would stop me early, hence ensuring it did not become a habit. There are scores of habits that she saved me from, and there are still scores that she perhaps did not even know of - most of the latter ones plague me today. I have lost count of the relatively innocuous ones like nail biting, clicking my tongue, plucking my eye-lashes, and making a deep squeaking sound that could easily be mistaken for a stifled hiccup, every now and then . There were more serious ones at all times, but they kept changing (because mother would pounce on those more aggressively than she did on the other ones, and left me with no option but to invent new ones) and that is why it is easy for me to not remember them, especially when I do not want to.
I remember when I first saw episodes of Monk, I was terrified, excited, and amused all at the same time; because I knew exactly what was happening with him, I could identify with his compulsions out of personal experience. Thankfully, my compulsions were not that intense, and unfortunately I was never that brilliant, or anything close. But, I had my problems.
I could not look at a fan, when I was about five years old. It made me dizzy, and it frightened me. I distinctly remember going back to Pakistan from here when I was about 6 years old, and not going in to meet my relatives when they came visiting, because the fan in the room they were sitting in was revolving so slow I could follow each of its blades, and I did, and that made me dizzy. You would think a smart kid would figure out that part and not look at it again, but once I knew that it made me dizzy, I could not ignore it, not even if I forced my eyes shut, and then to be on the safe side looked at the floor with my closed eyes.
Actually, I could not look at anything that was revolving, so for obvious reasons, merry-go-rounds were not for me for a long long time. By the time, I was over that fright, I was too old to be seen on one of those rides. Who knows the latter might just have been the very reason I was able to overcome that fright.
A fly hovering too close to a dining table was enough to kill my appetite, which in itself was not a
very pronounced entity. Actually, I did have an appetite as most growing children do, but there was little that I ate. I did not eat most lentils, rice in any form, meat that came with a bone and most of it did come with a bone, and anything remotely green or classifiable as a vegetable.
Walid Sahib loves food, and relishes it in all forms. He also has a deep, personal disdain for anyone who does not share his love of food. Mother, though not entirely taken with food in itself, eats everything and anything that is halal, and edible. They were like that quarter of a century ago also, which I think is about the time I must have started acting up.
Ours was a house where not eating food served on the dastarkhwan was tentamount to nashukri - unthankfulness to Allah; you could have your preferences, you could also keep something really low on your preference list, and if something figured low on everyone’s list, it was seldom cooked or served, but if and when it was, it was to be eaten. Now, factor in the fact that I did not have a preference list, I just did not eat anything that was not curd, cheese, jam, or chapati with butter on it. Sometimes, I ate a few varieties of lentils, and that was that.
My parents’ initial strategy was the “take it or leave it” route, which failed to yeild desired results, since I would finish my chapatis/rotis dry, or by pressing them against the curry served to absorb the spicy oil from the plate. I do not remember how we ever managed, but as far as I can remember I was not eating what was cooked and getting scolded for it. Sometimes, they would give in, and allow me to eat with cheese, and when I say cheese I mean Kraft, and jam. In these moments of dastarkhwani bliss, all could be spoiled by one housefly hovering over any of the items served - even if I were not going to be eating those items anyway.
I have spent night after night plotting to wipe out the entire housefly population from the face of earth. My disdain for houseflies was not without reason - Pak Railways were to be blamed for breeding that hatred, because it was on one of our journeys aboard one of the tezgaams/expresses from Jhelum to Karachi when I had seen the flies covering a pile of dirt on another train next to our train at the station. The image stuck, and to me every fly was dirty, and anything they sat on was dirty, and utterly inedible.
Speaking of nights, I would not go to sleep for what seemed like hours after we were put into bed. It was a combination of fear of darkness, and over active imagination that kept me awake, and often got me into trouble. For when you are a seven eight year old, one of the most difficult tasks in the world is lying still in bed. It becomes an impossible task, when you have to lie in bed, petrified by the ghosts staring at you from all corners of the room, and insects crawling up and down all over you.
When your father is as light a sleeper, as Walid Sahib used to be in those days, all these factors can lead to a lot of trouble for you. Walid sahib found it difficult to go to sleep if the little green light our air-conditioner used to emit were not covered with a piece of cardboard…the little green light that indicated that the compressor was active. He could be startled out of his slumber by the noise of a television being switched on in the neighboring room…needless to say the volume on that television used to be turned down to zero. The best part is that the television used to be in the same room in which we used to be sleeping, because for a long time one room used to be all we used to have, and when you have lied down fidgeting in your bed for two hours, you finally decide to watch some cartoons! The peculiar thing about cartoons is that they are quite bright, and are set to a super sonic pace. When I think back to it, I realize Walid Sahib must often have woken up thinking he was on the dance floor of a disco; all that flickering lighting. The rest as they say is history, and I am not complaining it is.
Those days are long gone, Walid Sahib sleeps like a child under flash lights and with stereos blaring under his pillow. This has a lot to do with the fact that after 30 years of a 7-1 government job, he is putting in twice the physical effort running his gift items shop; and with the fact that he has lost hearing in one ear, and strains a little to listen to what is being said normally. But my habits are coming back with a vangeance.
No, I am not an insomniac, on the contrary, I am a hopeless hybernating animal. But, I am getting those little unsettling habits, new ones and hordes of them. The other day, I found it difficult to fall asleep on the couch because I knew my glasses were lying under the couch. I could feel them under me, and even though I was as sleepy as I always am, I had trouble dozing off…the presence of those glasses under the couch poking me in a remote area of my warped brain. As if that were not enough I could not lie down and watch the match the other day, because the remote control of the VCR was lying at a rather non-complimenting angle to where I was lying down - across the room on the table!
I had to get up, and correct its angle. Increasingly there are things that I do not really have to do, but I have to do, and vice verca.
I am headed the facility way….the mental facility way. Promise you will come visit…?
-->
4 Responses to 'Monk Knicq!'
1JBNovember 27th, 2005 at 8:33 pm
Dear Knicq,Your incident reminds me of a fairy tale I heard when I was young(that was a looong time ago). It was about the true princess who gets all black and blue when she sleeps on a heap pf 30 matresses stacked on top of a pea.
Mr. Knicq, by the powerd usurped by me, I dub thee: The True Prince.
2knicqNovember 27th, 2005 at 10:03 pm
Jalali Baba and The True Prince…kinda nice ring to it JB, won’t you agree?
3SaeedNovember 28th, 2005 at 3:51 pm
lol!relax….either this isnt something to worry about,or you’ll find you’re not the only 1 in the asylum…LOL!even i have such habits-like checking that the door is locked-i’ll b in bed, know that i probably have locked it, but i wont b able to sleep unless i’ve checked it once more….
4knicqNovember 29th, 2005 at 3:21 pm
Oh well Saeed, I have a fair idea I will not be alone in the assylum…JB with his warped sense of self, and warpeder sense of the world around him is sure to trace my steps to the facility pretty soon….there is Coori, who was blessed with a daughter Masha Allah last week, who will probably have ended in the assylum for his detergent optimizing ways, and who knows they might consign HPN there too for his obsessive compulsion on others to follow a queue in a SCRUMPTIOUS buffet at his home, and his wife for her multiple, varied and often succesful attempts to mortally wound herself…..
Just for the sake of comparing notes, do you lock yourself out also to be doubly sure that nobody can enter the place once the door is locked? ¶ 1/26/2006 02:29:00 AM
I remember when I first saw episodes of Monk, I was terrified, excited, and amused all at the same time; because I knew exactly what was happening with him, I could identify with his compulsions out of personal experience. Thankfully, my compulsions were not that intense, and unfortunately I was never that brilliant, or anything close. But, I had my problems.
I could not look at a fan, when I was about five years old. It made me dizzy, and it frightened me. I distinctly remember going back to Pakistan from here when I was about 6 years old, and not going in to meet my relatives when they came visiting, because the fan in the room they were sitting in was revolving so slow I could follow each of its blades, and I did, and that made me dizzy. You would think a smart kid would figure out that part and not look at it again, but once I knew that it made me dizzy, I could not ignore it, not even if I forced my eyes shut, and then to be on the safe side looked at the floor with my closed eyes.
Actually, I could not look at anything that was revolving, so for obvious reasons, merry-go-rounds were not for me for a long long time. By the time, I was over that fright, I was too old to be seen on one of those rides. Who knows the latter might just have been the very reason I was able to overcome that fright.
A fly hovering too close to a dining table was enough to kill my appetite, which in itself was not a
very pronounced entity. Actually, I did have an appetite as most growing children do, but there was little that I ate. I did not eat most lentils, rice in any form, meat that came with a bone and most of it did come with a bone, and anything remotely green or classifiable as a vegetable.
Walid Sahib loves food, and relishes it in all forms. He also has a deep, personal disdain for anyone who does not share his love of food. Mother, though not entirely taken with food in itself, eats everything and anything that is halal, and edible. They were like that quarter of a century ago also, which I think is about the time I must have started acting up.
Ours was a house where not eating food served on the dastarkhwan was tentamount to nashukri - unthankfulness to Allah; you could have your preferences, you could also keep something really low on your preference list, and if something figured low on everyone’s list, it was seldom cooked or served, but if and when it was, it was to be eaten. Now, factor in the fact that I did not have a preference list, I just did not eat anything that was not curd, cheese, jam, or chapati with butter on it. Sometimes, I ate a few varieties of lentils, and that was that.
My parents’ initial strategy was the “take it or leave it” route, which failed to yeild desired results, since I would finish my chapatis/rotis dry, or by pressing them against the curry served to absorb the spicy oil from the plate. I do not remember how we ever managed, but as far as I can remember I was not eating what was cooked and getting scolded for it. Sometimes, they would give in, and allow me to eat with cheese, and when I say cheese I mean Kraft, and jam. In these moments of dastarkhwani bliss, all could be spoiled by one housefly hovering over any of the items served - even if I were not going to be eating those items anyway.
I have spent night after night plotting to wipe out the entire housefly population from the face of earth. My disdain for houseflies was not without reason - Pak Railways were to be blamed for breeding that hatred, because it was on one of our journeys aboard one of the tezgaams/expresses from Jhelum to Karachi when I had seen the flies covering a pile of dirt on another train next to our train at the station. The image stuck, and to me every fly was dirty, and anything they sat on was dirty, and utterly inedible.
Speaking of nights, I would not go to sleep for what seemed like hours after we were put into bed. It was a combination of fear of darkness, and over active imagination that kept me awake, and often got me into trouble. For when you are a seven eight year old, one of the most difficult tasks in the world is lying still in bed. It becomes an impossible task, when you have to lie in bed, petrified by the ghosts staring at you from all corners of the room, and insects crawling up and down all over you.
When your father is as light a sleeper, as Walid Sahib used to be in those days, all these factors can lead to a lot of trouble for you. Walid sahib found it difficult to go to sleep if the little green light our air-conditioner used to emit were not covered with a piece of cardboard…the little green light that indicated that the compressor was active. He could be startled out of his slumber by the noise of a television being switched on in the neighboring room…needless to say the volume on that television used to be turned down to zero. The best part is that the television used to be in the same room in which we used to be sleeping, because for a long time one room used to be all we used to have, and when you have lied down fidgeting in your bed for two hours, you finally decide to watch some cartoons! The peculiar thing about cartoons is that they are quite bright, and are set to a super sonic pace. When I think back to it, I realize Walid Sahib must often have woken up thinking he was on the dance floor of a disco; all that flickering lighting. The rest as they say is history, and I am not complaining it is.
Those days are long gone, Walid Sahib sleeps like a child under flash lights and with stereos blaring under his pillow. This has a lot to do with the fact that after 30 years of a 7-1 government job, he is putting in twice the physical effort running his gift items shop; and with the fact that he has lost hearing in one ear, and strains a little to listen to what is being said normally. But my habits are coming back with a vangeance.
No, I am not an insomniac, on the contrary, I am a hopeless hybernating animal. But, I am getting those little unsettling habits, new ones and hordes of them. The other day, I found it difficult to fall asleep on the couch because I knew my glasses were lying under the couch. I could feel them under me, and even though I was as sleepy as I always am, I had trouble dozing off…the presence of those glasses under the couch poking me in a remote area of my warped brain. As if that were not enough I could not lie down and watch the match the other day, because the remote control of the VCR was lying at a rather non-complimenting angle to where I was lying down - across the room on the table!
I had to get up, and correct its angle. Increasingly there are things that I do not really have to do, but I have to do, and vice verca.
I am headed the facility way….the mental facility way. Promise you will come visit…?
-->
4 Responses to 'Monk Knicq!'
1JBNovember 27th, 2005 at 8:33 pm
Dear Knicq,Your incident reminds me of a fairy tale I heard when I was young(that was a looong time ago). It was about the true princess who gets all black and blue when she sleeps on a heap pf 30 matresses stacked on top of a pea.
Mr. Knicq, by the powerd usurped by me, I dub thee: The True Prince.
2knicqNovember 27th, 2005 at 10:03 pm
Jalali Baba and The True Prince…kinda nice ring to it JB, won’t you agree?
3SaeedNovember 28th, 2005 at 3:51 pm
lol!relax….either this isnt something to worry about,or you’ll find you’re not the only 1 in the asylum…LOL!even i have such habits-like checking that the door is locked-i’ll b in bed, know that i probably have locked it, but i wont b able to sleep unless i’ve checked it once more….
4knicqNovember 29th, 2005 at 3:21 pm
Oh well Saeed, I have a fair idea I will not be alone in the assylum…JB with his warped sense of self, and warpeder sense of the world around him is sure to trace my steps to the facility pretty soon….there is Coori, who was blessed with a daughter Masha Allah last week, who will probably have ended in the assylum for his detergent optimizing ways, and who knows they might consign HPN there too for his obsessive compulsion on others to follow a queue in a SCRUMPTIOUS buffet at his home, and his wife for her multiple, varied and often succesful attempts to mortally wound herself…..
Just for the sake of comparing notes, do you lock yourself out also to be doubly sure that nobody can enter the place once the door is locked? ¶ 1/26/2006 02:29:00 AM
A month ago...
This morning, at precisely 8:51a.m. PST, it will be a month since a devastating earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale struck the northern areas of Pakistan; or at least that is how most of us will see it. There will be some amongst us, who will choose to interpret it as 30 days since their fellow human beings were devastated by this calamity. However, for the three and a half million, whose lives were turned upside down on that fateful morning, all sense of time is lost. It is as if the earthquake broke all clocks in the region, and time now stands still with no needles to prod it on, no pendulum to help it swing from one minute to another. For most of these people, it has been one long painful moment of misery that refuses to pass.
Tragically, for many, as many as 73,000, time did stop that morning. Then there are those, who fervently pray for time to stop this instant, because every new second brings with it untold misery, unimaginable pain, unprecedented gloom, and new forecasts of doom. 73,000 dead is the official death toll, which has come under fire for being conservative to the point of understating the tragedy. The NGOs have near unanimously put the death toll in excess of 100,000 already; gangerine, pneumonia, diarrheoa and diseases of the respiratory tract threaten to kill untold numbers still, and looming over all of it is the harsh winter of the northern region which it is feared might freeze over a 100,000 people to death in the coming weeks.
Yet, these are not the gravest threats faced by the people of Azad Kashmir and Northern Pakistan. The greatest threat that these people face is human failure, our failure. Hundreds of hours have been lost in pledging this and that; in explaining why this cannot be done and why that is not feasible; in pondering if this might be the right course to take, or that; and in not believing that such a collossal tragedy has strcuk such a large section of the earth’s population. Countless hours have been lost in not pushing those who have the power to help and contribute to saving the lives of those struck by the earthquake and stuck in the face of fast approaching death. Innumerable failures have beset humanity as humans have struggled to put aside limitations they impose on themselves.
The earth has a population exceeding 7 billion, and every hour lost in not ensuring that those affected by this tragedy are saved, provided shelter, food and security is equivalent to 7 billion hours lost. I agree, it takes a utopian naivete to expect every person in the world to contribute to this cause, and that too with this urgency, but I wonder if it really must require a utopian world for each country of the world to take responsibility for the reconstruction and rehabiliation of a village, if not a couple of villages. The UN has 191 members. When something this tragic strikes humanity, humans must rise above themselves, and set new precedents with an urgency with which they would expect others to come help them if such tragedy befell them. I wonder if it is too late to set new perecdents now?
For to most of us, it was a month ago….!
-->
One Response to 'A Month Ago…!'
1SaadieNovember 9th, 2005 at 12:36 am
:), world may come or not but we have to be there, keep writing. ¶ 1/26/2006 02:26:00 AM
Tragically, for many, as many as 73,000, time did stop that morning. Then there are those, who fervently pray for time to stop this instant, because every new second brings with it untold misery, unimaginable pain, unprecedented gloom, and new forecasts of doom. 73,000 dead is the official death toll, which has come under fire for being conservative to the point of understating the tragedy. The NGOs have near unanimously put the death toll in excess of 100,000 already; gangerine, pneumonia, diarrheoa and diseases of the respiratory tract threaten to kill untold numbers still, and looming over all of it is the harsh winter of the northern region which it is feared might freeze over a 100,000 people to death in the coming weeks.
Yet, these are not the gravest threats faced by the people of Azad Kashmir and Northern Pakistan. The greatest threat that these people face is human failure, our failure. Hundreds of hours have been lost in pledging this and that; in explaining why this cannot be done and why that is not feasible; in pondering if this might be the right course to take, or that; and in not believing that such a collossal tragedy has strcuk such a large section of the earth’s population. Countless hours have been lost in not pushing those who have the power to help and contribute to saving the lives of those struck by the earthquake and stuck in the face of fast approaching death. Innumerable failures have beset humanity as humans have struggled to put aside limitations they impose on themselves.
The earth has a population exceeding 7 billion, and every hour lost in not ensuring that those affected by this tragedy are saved, provided shelter, food and security is equivalent to 7 billion hours lost. I agree, it takes a utopian naivete to expect every person in the world to contribute to this cause, and that too with this urgency, but I wonder if it really must require a utopian world for each country of the world to take responsibility for the reconstruction and rehabiliation of a village, if not a couple of villages. The UN has 191 members. When something this tragic strikes humanity, humans must rise above themselves, and set new precedents with an urgency with which they would expect others to come help them if such tragedy befell them. I wonder if it is too late to set new perecdents now?
For to most of us, it was a month ago….!
-->
One Response to 'A Month Ago…!'
1SaadieNovember 9th, 2005 at 12:36 am
:), world may come or not but we have to be there, keep writing. ¶ 1/26/2006 02:26:00 AM
What if...?
In a few hours from now, it will be exactly a month since a devastating earthquake rattled the Richter Scale at 7.6 in the northern areas of Pakistan. Baffling as it sounds now, the official death toll by the end of that day had not exceeded 100. Consequently, the world community’s response to the calamity was lukewarm, evidenced by the USD 100,000 pledged in aid by the US on the first day.
Earthquakes are devastating, and with the exception of earthquake prone Japan, which is one of the best prepared countries to combat earthquakes, an earthquake brings with it large scale death and destruction. Almost a decade ago, on January 17, 1995 Kobe, Japan was jolted by an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter Scale. The earthquake had lasted 20 seconds, and the death toll from this earthquake was 5100 people. This in Japan, where afterwards Japanese seismology Professor Tsuneo Katayama had written that he “had opportunity to observe the damages causd by the 1989 Lome Prieta and the 1994 Northridge earthquakes”. However he had thought that Japanese structures would not collapse as the US structures had in those earthquakes. He was wrong, Japanese structures did collapse, despite the fact that they had been constructed under stringent earthquake safety regulations, and in so collapsing brought death to over 5000 people.
I wonder what were our poeople thinking when they spent the whole day covering Margalla Towers, when they knew full well that the epicentre of the earthquake was 90 miles to the north of Margalla Towers, and how did they arrive at the ridiculous figure of under 100 dead at the end of the first day, when they knew the eqrthquake had measured 7.6 on the Richter Scale? Did they think, our construction models were superior to those of the Japanese?
I just cannot stop wondering what might have been different had we reacted 24 hours earlier than we did…
-->
3 Responses to 'What If?'
1sh_gufNovember 8th, 2005 at 5:53 am
ٹیسٹ کمنٹ
2sh_gufNovember 8th, 2005 at 5:58 am
اور ابھی بھی ضروری ہے وقت پر پہنچنا۔۔۔ فوری طور پر جو نہیں کیا جا سکا وہ افسوسناک ہے تاہم اب اس وقت جو سب کرنے کی ضرورت ہے وہ اگر نہ کیا جا سکا تو ۔۔۔سوال یہ بھی ہے
3sh_gufNovember 8th, 2005 at 6:07 am
بھائی اگر یہاں اردو قابلِ خواندن ہے تو کیا اس ناچیز کو اس کاوش پر سلور میڈل کا حقدار قرار دیا جا سکتا ہے ۔۔۔ ! ¶ 1/26/2006 02:25:00 AM
Earthquakes are devastating, and with the exception of earthquake prone Japan, which is one of the best prepared countries to combat earthquakes, an earthquake brings with it large scale death and destruction. Almost a decade ago, on January 17, 1995 Kobe, Japan was jolted by an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter Scale. The earthquake had lasted 20 seconds, and the death toll from this earthquake was 5100 people. This in Japan, where afterwards Japanese seismology Professor Tsuneo Katayama had written that he “had opportunity to observe the damages causd by the 1989 Lome Prieta and the 1994 Northridge earthquakes”. However he had thought that Japanese structures would not collapse as the US structures had in those earthquakes. He was wrong, Japanese structures did collapse, despite the fact that they had been constructed under stringent earthquake safety regulations, and in so collapsing brought death to over 5000 people.
I wonder what were our poeople thinking when they spent the whole day covering Margalla Towers, when they knew full well that the epicentre of the earthquake was 90 miles to the north of Margalla Towers, and how did they arrive at the ridiculous figure of under 100 dead at the end of the first day, when they knew the eqrthquake had measured 7.6 on the Richter Scale? Did they think, our construction models were superior to those of the Japanese?
I just cannot stop wondering what might have been different had we reacted 24 hours earlier than we did…
-->
3 Responses to 'What If?'
1sh_gufNovember 8th, 2005 at 5:53 am
ٹیسٹ کمنٹ
2sh_gufNovember 8th, 2005 at 5:58 am
اور ابھی بھی ضروری ہے وقت پر پہنچنا۔۔۔ فوری طور پر جو نہیں کیا جا سکا وہ افسوسناک ہے تاہم اب اس وقت جو سب کرنے کی ضرورت ہے وہ اگر نہ کیا جا سکا تو ۔۔۔سوال یہ بھی ہے
3sh_gufNovember 8th, 2005 at 6:07 am
بھائی اگر یہاں اردو قابلِ خواندن ہے تو کیا اس ناچیز کو اس کاوش پر سلور میڈل کا حقدار قرار دیا جا سکتا ہے ۔۔۔ ! ¶ 1/26/2006 02:25:00 AM
Blog Quake Day.
Today is Blog Quake Day, well technically it was yesterday, but I have yet to sleep. I found out about BQD from Rambling Monologues, whose blog is one of the best blogs linked to your right, and who has written heart felt, informative and very useful posts about the earthquake, and how one can help the victims of the earthquake.
I do not know where to begin…that feeling of helplessness and uselessness, which first descended on me when I saw the pictures of that massive devastation for the first time, pervades my days and nights here as I, and pretty much everyone around me, otherwise go about our lives as usual. For the first time in my life, I share my parents’ unbounded disappointment at my not having got into a medical school; perhaps I could have been of more use, had I been a doctor. For the first time in my life, I am disgusted with myself for living the life of that anecdotal cricket who saved nothing for tomorrow; perhaps if I had been saving something in my bank, I could have put it into good use at this hour. Not for the first time in my life, I feel a total failure. I am wrong of course; I am what I was destined to be, and prior today I have always believed that saving is for middle aged people - if at all; my needs and wants have always been taken care of by Allah, and will be taken care of by Him always. I have never had ambitions to build a mansion, buy acres, or stock up on the yellow metal. I know I am not a failure when I look at the wonderful people, and whose love, Allah Almighty has blessed me with, family and friends alike. Yet, I cannot help but feel that way. that has been the effect this earthquake and its aftermath have had on most of us - they have jolted the very premise of our philosophies.
I am invaded by a feeling of guilt each time I spend a dirham towards items not essential to my survival, as it rears up images of those devastated, cold, hungry, and desparate people who would kill for each of these dirhams right now.
I shudder at the thought of being in their predicament…and beseech Allah to ease their suffering, and spare all His creations, including my family, any such suffering. I pray and pray and pray…
Yet, there is no denying the fact that those five million people affected by this catastrophe went to bed after Suhoor on the morning of eighth, with not the slightest hint in their minds that their lives, if at all spared, would be turned upside down in the next few hours. There is no knowing what lies in store for us, and it just underlines the importance of making the most of this time we have to carry out our mission on earth, and our mission on earth is to follow Allah’s commands, and He commands us to refrain from shirk, worship Him, and spend on and for the betterment of our brothers ans sisters in need, out of the bounty He has given us.
Donate, donate and donate, because this is the only way of loaning out to Allah, and Allah promises to be the best repayer of all loans. www.pakrelief.org lists the various channels through which donations can be funnelled into the affected areas, take your pick, but remember to donate as much as you can, and then some.
In the aftermath of the earthquake, we have all seen and heard uplifting stories of sacrifice and devotion from all segments of the Pakistani Society and from multiple sections of the world society. It is unfortunate to note that it took such a collossal tragedy to bring out this compassion and sincerity in us. Yet, there is a dire need to keep this spirit alive until the victims of this earthquake have been rehabiliated, until the women widowed by this earthquake are freed of concerns about how to go about the rest of their lives, and until the children orphaned by this earthquake are all provided the compassion, love and security that we all want for our own children. The Abdalians, alumni of the Hassan Abdal College, have shown this spirit and have adopted two villages and its people, vowing to cater to the needs of the people of these two villages, until those villages find their own feet. It is not possible to put a time frame to the life of this spirit, but it is easy to see that this spirit calls for more than just digging deep into pockets today - it requires for all of us to make a long term commitment; a commitment to continue to open our hearts and pockets for our people until these people, especially the old, the widows and the children are self sufficient. It could take years, and if it must, we must be ready to come through for those years.
Lastly, we must remember that this is not the last earthquake to jolt us humans, but it should be the last one that comes to jolt us into humanity.
Perhaps, then, there will be fewer earthquakes; perhaps then they will strike in unpopulated areas; and perhaps then, we will have completed our mission.
-->
9 Responses to 'Blog Quake Day'
1DesiPundit » Blog Quake DayOctober 27th, 2005 at 4:17 am
[…] Blog Quake Day Posts: Zack, Patrix, Ash, Navin, Raphael, Al Muhajabah, Rjputro, Pinstripe, Neha, Anthony, Balaji, Devious Diva, Charu, Gawker, Brad Miner, Sujatha, Pickled Politics, Daily Rhino, Cadmus, Pablo Halkyard, Sunil, Aisha, Anjum, Vikram, Rashmi Bansal, Rosie, Aswin, Nagu, Sohnii, Abinandanan, Basil, Rezwan, Lores Rizkalla, Kaushik-Bidisha, Indigo Jo, Sume, Monologist, Shirazi, Neha V, Mayank, Kush Tandon, Nicecafe, Daniel, KM, Michelle, Baraka, Robert Sharp, Joy D. Sepoy, David T, Yasmine, Gratisgab, eM, Uma, Chamique, Greatbong, Veena, Knicq, Islamoyankee, Aun, One more reason, Aparna, Mumbaigirl, aNTi, Peregrina, lawhawk, Anand, Elizabeth, Angelo Embuldeniya(Strav), Madhu, Shabina, Kaashyapeya, Oodles, Tobias, KAWyle, Jemgal, Zigzackly, Shenaz, Maria, Chai, DeGrouchy Owl, Shaheen, Nafiza […]
2newbieOctober 28th, 2005 at 5:42 pm
there is a update about the situation here
http://islamiblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/what-i-will-aim-to-do-in-this-post-is.html#comments
3SaadieOctober 31st, 2005 at 1:26 pm
you have wrote about everything I was thinking about, amazing post.
4AbezNovember 1st, 2005 at 1:39 pm
JazakAllahuKheiran and many many thanks for yesterday. Please convey that too Wifey, too.
5knicqNovember 1st, 2005 at 2:57 pm
Newbie: I have been reading many posts from ground zero, but none was as detailed, and as objective as yours. May Allah bless you for your efforts, and may He help you with malaik. Ameen.
Saadie: Thanks bro.:)
Little Baji: You are welcome Little Baji. May Al Shaafi shower His blessings on you. Ameen.
6BaptizedLuciferNovember 4th, 2005 at 2:31 am
holy moly batman! no eid post? this is blasphemy
7SaadatNovember 4th, 2005 at 5:37 am
Eid Mubarak, Bhaijan!
8SaeedNovember 5th, 2005 at 10:45 am
EID MUBARAK!!!
9knicqNovember 8th, 2005 at 7:28 pm
Lucifer: Whoever said there isn’t an eid post - its just late….
Saadat: You gotta teach your enetation thingy some manners bro…its been acting like a pretty secretary…there is an MBA term for it…”Gate Keeper”. Won’t let my comments in…
Saeed: …and a very happy Eid Mubarak to you too! ¶ 1/26/2006 02:23:00 AM
I do not know where to begin…that feeling of helplessness and uselessness, which first descended on me when I saw the pictures of that massive devastation for the first time, pervades my days and nights here as I, and pretty much everyone around me, otherwise go about our lives as usual. For the first time in my life, I share my parents’ unbounded disappointment at my not having got into a medical school; perhaps I could have been of more use, had I been a doctor. For the first time in my life, I am disgusted with myself for living the life of that anecdotal cricket who saved nothing for tomorrow; perhaps if I had been saving something in my bank, I could have put it into good use at this hour. Not for the first time in my life, I feel a total failure. I am wrong of course; I am what I was destined to be, and prior today I have always believed that saving is for middle aged people - if at all; my needs and wants have always been taken care of by Allah, and will be taken care of by Him always. I have never had ambitions to build a mansion, buy acres, or stock up on the yellow metal. I know I am not a failure when I look at the wonderful people, and whose love, Allah Almighty has blessed me with, family and friends alike. Yet, I cannot help but feel that way. that has been the effect this earthquake and its aftermath have had on most of us - they have jolted the very premise of our philosophies.
I am invaded by a feeling of guilt each time I spend a dirham towards items not essential to my survival, as it rears up images of those devastated, cold, hungry, and desparate people who would kill for each of these dirhams right now.
I shudder at the thought of being in their predicament…and beseech Allah to ease their suffering, and spare all His creations, including my family, any such suffering. I pray and pray and pray…
Yet, there is no denying the fact that those five million people affected by this catastrophe went to bed after Suhoor on the morning of eighth, with not the slightest hint in their minds that their lives, if at all spared, would be turned upside down in the next few hours. There is no knowing what lies in store for us, and it just underlines the importance of making the most of this time we have to carry out our mission on earth, and our mission on earth is to follow Allah’s commands, and He commands us to refrain from shirk, worship Him, and spend on and for the betterment of our brothers ans sisters in need, out of the bounty He has given us.
Donate, donate and donate, because this is the only way of loaning out to Allah, and Allah promises to be the best repayer of all loans. www.pakrelief.org lists the various channels through which donations can be funnelled into the affected areas, take your pick, but remember to donate as much as you can, and then some.
In the aftermath of the earthquake, we have all seen and heard uplifting stories of sacrifice and devotion from all segments of the Pakistani Society and from multiple sections of the world society. It is unfortunate to note that it took such a collossal tragedy to bring out this compassion and sincerity in us. Yet, there is a dire need to keep this spirit alive until the victims of this earthquake have been rehabiliated, until the women widowed by this earthquake are freed of concerns about how to go about the rest of their lives, and until the children orphaned by this earthquake are all provided the compassion, love and security that we all want for our own children. The Abdalians, alumni of the Hassan Abdal College, have shown this spirit and have adopted two villages and its people, vowing to cater to the needs of the people of these two villages, until those villages find their own feet. It is not possible to put a time frame to the life of this spirit, but it is easy to see that this spirit calls for more than just digging deep into pockets today - it requires for all of us to make a long term commitment; a commitment to continue to open our hearts and pockets for our people until these people, especially the old, the widows and the children are self sufficient. It could take years, and if it must, we must be ready to come through for those years.
Lastly, we must remember that this is not the last earthquake to jolt us humans, but it should be the last one that comes to jolt us into humanity.
Perhaps, then, there will be fewer earthquakes; perhaps then they will strike in unpopulated areas; and perhaps then, we will have completed our mission.
-->
9 Responses to 'Blog Quake Day'
1DesiPundit » Blog Quake DayOctober 27th, 2005 at 4:17 am
[…] Blog Quake Day Posts: Zack, Patrix, Ash, Navin, Raphael, Al Muhajabah, Rjputro, Pinstripe, Neha, Anthony, Balaji, Devious Diva, Charu, Gawker, Brad Miner, Sujatha, Pickled Politics, Daily Rhino, Cadmus, Pablo Halkyard, Sunil, Aisha, Anjum, Vikram, Rashmi Bansal, Rosie, Aswin, Nagu, Sohnii, Abinandanan, Basil, Rezwan, Lores Rizkalla, Kaushik-Bidisha, Indigo Jo, Sume, Monologist, Shirazi, Neha V, Mayank, Kush Tandon, Nicecafe, Daniel, KM, Michelle, Baraka, Robert Sharp, Joy D. Sepoy, David T, Yasmine, Gratisgab, eM, Uma, Chamique, Greatbong, Veena, Knicq, Islamoyankee, Aun, One more reason, Aparna, Mumbaigirl, aNTi, Peregrina, lawhawk, Anand, Elizabeth, Angelo Embuldeniya(Strav), Madhu, Shabina, Kaashyapeya, Oodles, Tobias, KAWyle, Jemgal, Zigzackly, Shenaz, Maria, Chai, DeGrouchy Owl, Shaheen, Nafiza […]
2newbieOctober 28th, 2005 at 5:42 pm
there is a update about the situation here
http://islamiblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/what-i-will-aim-to-do-in-this-post-is.html#comments
3SaadieOctober 31st, 2005 at 1:26 pm
you have wrote about everything I was thinking about, amazing post.
4AbezNovember 1st, 2005 at 1:39 pm
JazakAllahuKheiran and many many thanks for yesterday. Please convey that too Wifey, too.
5knicqNovember 1st, 2005 at 2:57 pm
Newbie: I have been reading many posts from ground zero, but none was as detailed, and as objective as yours. May Allah bless you for your efforts, and may He help you with malaik. Ameen.
Saadie: Thanks bro.:)
Little Baji: You are welcome Little Baji. May Al Shaafi shower His blessings on you. Ameen.
6BaptizedLuciferNovember 4th, 2005 at 2:31 am
holy moly batman! no eid post? this is blasphemy
7SaadatNovember 4th, 2005 at 5:37 am
Eid Mubarak, Bhaijan!
8SaeedNovember 5th, 2005 at 10:45 am
EID MUBARAK!!!
9knicqNovember 8th, 2005 at 7:28 pm
Lucifer: Whoever said there isn’t an eid post - its just late….
Saadat: You gotta teach your enetation thingy some manners bro…its been acting like a pretty secretary…there is an MBA term for it…”Gate Keeper”. Won’t let my comments in…
Saeed: …and a very happy Eid Mubarak to you too! ¶ 1/26/2006 02:23:00 AM
Test - theirs and ours.
People have been saying, implicitly or explicitly, depending on who was saying it, that this earthquake was Allah’s wrath. Why are we so fatalistic, I wonder? I came across these ayahs in Surah Baqara recently, and I found an answer to all such deductions.
“155. Be sure we shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods or lives or the fruits (of your toil), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere,
156. Who say, when afflicted with calamity: “To Allah We belong, and to Him is our return”:-
157. They are those on whom (Descend) blessings from Allah, and Mercy, and they are the ones that receive guidance. ”
Why do our people not understand that life in the world is not a fairy tale affair, where the princesses are pretty, princes handsome, and villians ugly. If it were that simple, everyone would be a believer, save the Abu Jahal’s of this world. No, faith is just that - faith, and it is tested by bounty as well as by tragedy, and it is not easy to fare well in these tests.
The earthquake that shattered much of Azad Kashmir, and parts of Frontier (Pakhtoonkhwa?) on the 8th of October is the biggest test we as a nation have had to face. It is a test of faith, and of character. It is a great test for those who have lost loved ones in an instant, and must now come to terms with injuries, hostile weather, hunger, disease, and uncertainty. “Sabr” according to the Quran is where they must find solace, in Sabr and in Salaat, in patience and in prayer. For in these times of suffering, in these times of weakness, shaitan will attack them from all sides, and create in their hearts doubts of all kinds, raise questions in their minds as to why did Allah choose them to be victims of this tragedy. He will remind them of their good deeds, and make them skeptic of their value and importance. He will ask them if those good deeds were all of any good at all? Through patient and perseverant belief in Allah’s mercy alone will the people be able to stand up to these devious attacks, and I know it is not going to be easy for them.
It is not easy to hold on to one’s sanity after a calamity of this scale, and under such circumstances, to hold on to one’s belief is all the more demanding, all the more daunting. It is much easier said than done, and I am aware of that. We, who start complaining at the slightest inconveniences that hinder our daily lives, can have no idea of how much faith, and how much strength of character this task requires. One can only pray that Allah’s unlimited mercy arrives for them from all sides, and brings them comfort, relief, and reassurance.
It is an equally great test for the rest of us, who have been spared the horrifics of the earthquake. While, those affected must delve deep into their hearts to find the belief and the strength to come to terms with the after math of the earthquake, we must realize that just as their response to this collossal test could bring them the rewards of heaven or more misery from hell, so will our response determine our place in this world and in the hereafter. As Muslims, and as fellow humans, it is binding on us to reach out to our brethren in need, to do all in our power, and more, to lessen the impact of this catastrophe on their lives. This entails not just opening our wallets and digging deep in our pockets to donate, but it calls for us to open our hearts and dig deep in our souls to sacrifice. Donations alone cannot and will not help 3 million people made destitute in a minute; no amount of money, not even the five billion dollars the authorities say are required to rebuild the devastated areas and their people’s lives, can heal the scars left by crashing ceilings and crushing losses.
The money is only one factor, just the begining, what is required are lasting love, timeless devotion, and above all sustained sacrifice. Because it will be love and devotion for our people which will enable us to empty our pockets for these people, but it will be the spirit of sacrifice that will keep us from putting this tragedy behind us in a few weeks, or months, and getting on with our lives. Today, we need to decide to sacrifice our relatively secure and carefree future for the betterment of our brethren affected by this earthquake. Today, we need to realize that our people will need our dedication and attention for a longtime, they will need our support until the time they are stable themselves.
We cannot absolve ourselves of all responsibility once we have made our donations. The money sent today will be spent tomorrow, and might not be there day after, but it will be required for months after that. What happens then? Today, we need to set aside a portion of our incomes for a long time to come for the victims of this earthquake. Today, we need to own up, and take responsibility for specific people, specific children, or families until they no longer need their brethren’s help. We are a nation of a 150 million people, which means there are a fifty people to take care of each person affected by this tragedy. Essentally, every person needs to take care of his designated person for one week every year. It is a simplistic calculation, but it should become the premise for a large scale initiative. Yes, any such initiative will need thinking out of the box, but we must realize that after 7.6 on the Richter scale there cannot be a box - all boxes get demolished in a 7.6!
A tragedy that eliminates all structures in a society, a calamity that wipes out an area’s civilization cannot just be grappled with by money. It requires a structured approach, and a sustained effort until new strcutures are developed.
So, let us take stock of our lives, do we have a week?
-->
9 Responses to 'Test - theirs and ours.'
1sh_gufOctober 23rd, 2005 at 6:38 am
…with all my little very little potential and energy (…I know that bhai), not a week but the whole stock of my life
2BaptizedLuciferOctober 25th, 2005 at 6:16 am
hate the mullahs especially since they are goin around saying all those ppl deserved to be punished. Great. now mullahs will play god and tlel us who is going ot hell and hw isnt. I rem reading a sahih bukhari hadith that the wrathe ofallah comes on all, even tho its meant for a few. And that each one ffected by it is judged accordingly when they are raised. So how come th emullas are deeming everyone a sinner? including innocent kids? None of em seem to be talkin about the test it is for all of us. The whole nation has united, magar in mullahs ko hain nahin, its a perfect chance for them to market themselves again. retards! :S
3BaptizedLuciferOctober 25th, 2005 at 6:17 am
im tired of collecting relief. ineed away from it for a while. before i go insane thinking of all those going insane over there.
4FelicityOctober 25th, 2005 at 12:42 pm
And someone should ask those mullahs if the Pakistani’s were greater sinners than the ido-worshipping hindu’s across the border. I thought God could forgive anything and everything except shirk. Not so, apparently, if you go by the mullahs.
This is just thier chance to revive the religious fanaticism that Musharraf has been attempting to put an end to. But it’s not as if their goals are noble and they really wish to see people follow the golden path of Islam… this is just their chance to rile the people against Musharraf’s governement and regain power. This is political propaganda more than it is a religious call. Had they an ounce of purity in thier cause,God would have helped them make something of it by now.
5SaeedOctober 25th, 2005 at 4:59 pm
if u were to believe my flatmate(who’s from isb,btw), d quakes were a result of subterranean nuclear tests.So were the tsunamis (US behind those,obviously),as for the quake in india in bhuj,last time’round, well those can be credited to pak!!!Oh, he even mentioned the illuminati somewhere in there…
6BaptizedLuciferOctober 25th, 2005 at 8:19 pm
saeed, u have some interesting company lol
7knicqOctober 26th, 2005 at 9:44 am
Sh-guf: Your spirit is uplifting…hope most of our country men feel that way…and you should under estimate the potential and energy a scholar like you possesses.
B.Lucifer, (as in Lucifer Baji )It isn’t just the Mullahs who are going around saying that kind of thing. It is most people who look at it that way. How are you channelizing the relief you collect. Perhaps, we can combine your efforts with another team that I know is working on it.
Felicity: Coming from that part of the land, I must point out that shirk is a way of life in these parts, actually it is so in the whole country. Idol-worshipping is not the only kind of shirk.
Shirk and bid’at characterize the Islam of Pakistan, what else is all that thronging to mazaars, dargaahs and peer dhakoslas. This is not to say however that I believe this earthquake was the wrath of Allah, and not an aazmaish/test. But, come to think of it, who can know? Maybe it is somewhere between the two…a warning of sorts for the rest, and an azaab for some and an aazmaish for others. Allah works in mysterious ways…
I do realize that I seem to be contradicting my own thoughts in the post, but after the sort of disturbing reports that have started trickling in along with those uplifting stories, one just never knows.
As for Musharraf, while it is a given that those fanatics and extremists were the bane of our society, and needed to be weeded out before they destroyed the whole nation, let us be under no illusions that the methods Musharraf had resorted to were anything but counter-productive.
Moreover, by presenting a westernized Islam, and egging on a westernized culture not in line with our own cultural, and religious values he has himself underlined what the ignorant Mullahs had been trying to say unsuccesfully all along- that the mullahs way is the only alternative, the real Islam, to the onslaught of the west. He started out well, and lost direction along the way.
As an average Muslim Pakistani, I am left as frustrated as before at the wrong depiction and promotion of Islam.
Musharraf has just taken us from one extreme to the other extreme, paving the way for the first extreme to return with a vangeance. Before long, a Khomeini will rise, and the people of Pakistan disgusted with the westernized and watered down Islam Musharraf and his cronies have been propogating will carry him to the “throne” on their shoulders - only to suffer under him until they carry the next Musharraf to the throne. It is a vicious cycle.
People need to understand that Pakistanis are a people who define themselves as Muslims, and because of the regional as well as religious influences will always be a conservative lot, which is to be differentiated greatly from an intolerant, oppressive and extremist lot. Their way of life aligns greatly with Islam in its true form, but varies infinitely from the extremist or the “moderated” Islam the Mullahs and Musharraf respectively are trying to force down their throats. The one thing that needs to be got across to our people, the one thing they actually need to be educated about is avoiding shirk. Nobody seems to be doing that.
I digress, out of habit. Its just that the Mullahs and Musharraf are the two faces of the same coin - the khota coin. The ounce of purity is missing in either agenda.
Saeed: I’d like to hear what your friend has to say about the hurricanes….what are the chances of him attributing it all to the construction of those Palm Projects off the coast of Dubai?
8FelicityOctober 26th, 2005 at 1:34 pm
You’re right about the shirk, and also that we really don’t know if this really was or wasn’t God’s retribution.
However, I don’t think you can ultimately blame the president for forcing the Pakistani public down a more westernized road. Pre-Musharaf Pakistan was already walking that route. We would be where we are today culturally, Musharraf or no Musharraf. It’s just easier to point a finger and put the blame on someone. It provides for a more convenient solution: get rid of the guy to get rid of the problem. It’s what we’ve been doing all along, blaming a person. We don’t realize that it’s not one person changing our culture. It’s all of us.
Back during the Zia-ul-Haq days when the Hadood Ordinance was introduced and when, essentially, these Mullah’s really gained power, assisted of course by the US-cause west of our border; it wasn’t as if things were really in control. We had a government advocating a very conservative Islam, but that didn’t keep our youth from still being fascinated with the west, or at the very least, the Indian culture, the movies etc, long before cable or ssatellite television was around. Where we are now culturally is where we would have been regardless of what government propogated what kind of religion. The allure of the open, less conservative western ideology is far too great. Protectionism wouldn’t have held us back. It DIDN’T hold us back. The only thing that could keep us rooted would be good parenting, good schooling, where we would learn of the virtues of what we believe in and then make that conscious choice to follow along that path.
My point is, lets not blame the mullahs or the Musharrafs for who we are. We are a nation of fingerpointers. We love blaming somone else for our misfortunes. In fact even reading through what I have said, given nothing else, I put the blame on parents for not doing a good enough job. We talk about our culture as if we’re the exceptions to the rule, as if we aren’t a part of it. We forget that we have our own job to do. We need to do our own soul searching and go beyond making heartfelt statements and having intellectual discussions. We need to act. We need to change ourselves and become better human beings, become more God-fearing. That’s the biggest charity we can give the world right now, by starting with ourselves and our own children and giving the world and our country better citizens.
This is the test. It’s a test of our spirituality, our intellect, our hearts and our ideologies. This isn’t just about how we can materially help others. This about how we can help ourselves.
Ignorance is not stupidity. Knowing what is right and still doing the wrong thing is. By that definition, we’re a nation of idiots, and if this earthquake doesn’t slap us into our senses, nothing will.
9knicqOctober 27th, 2005 at 3:08 am
You are so right Felicity, as always.
However, I would like to add that the leaders of a nation have a bearing on where the nation heads, politically, as well as culturally, and a responsibility to ensure that the nation heads in the right direction. You will note I often club Musharraf with his cronies. The captain must stay the boat, and where the boat heads eventually, does bear on his captainship.
Zia’s regime turned a blind eye to the monster of extremism, and look where it got us. Musharraf’s regime, by endorsing the handful who stray miles from the path of Islam in their pursuit of westernized way of life, is allowing the other extremism to take root.
Zia and subsequently Nawaz Sharrif’s era had their fair share of modernists, as you rightly pointed out. It is the nature of a people - they will resent, denounce and when opportunity presents itself go against what is forced down their throats.
Taking what you pointed out further, I would say that protectionism, of either kind, can never be the answer. “Amr bil maroof wa nahi anil munkar” is the answer.
At the end of the day, people should be provided with positive atmosphere conducive to making the right choice. None of our Governments has ever made that provision.
Here is hoping and praying that we all do change ourselves, do become more God-fearing, and give the world the biggest charity we can give. Here is praying that we be rid of our idiocy. Ameen. ¶ 1/26/2006 02:22:00 AM
“155. Be sure we shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods or lives or the fruits (of your toil), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere,
156. Who say, when afflicted with calamity: “To Allah We belong, and to Him is our return”:-
157. They are those on whom (Descend) blessings from Allah, and Mercy, and they are the ones that receive guidance. ”
Why do our people not understand that life in the world is not a fairy tale affair, where the princesses are pretty, princes handsome, and villians ugly. If it were that simple, everyone would be a believer, save the Abu Jahal’s of this world. No, faith is just that - faith, and it is tested by bounty as well as by tragedy, and it is not easy to fare well in these tests.
The earthquake that shattered much of Azad Kashmir, and parts of Frontier (Pakhtoonkhwa?) on the 8th of October is the biggest test we as a nation have had to face. It is a test of faith, and of character. It is a great test for those who have lost loved ones in an instant, and must now come to terms with injuries, hostile weather, hunger, disease, and uncertainty. “Sabr” according to the Quran is where they must find solace, in Sabr and in Salaat, in patience and in prayer. For in these times of suffering, in these times of weakness, shaitan will attack them from all sides, and create in their hearts doubts of all kinds, raise questions in their minds as to why did Allah choose them to be victims of this tragedy. He will remind them of their good deeds, and make them skeptic of their value and importance. He will ask them if those good deeds were all of any good at all? Through patient and perseverant belief in Allah’s mercy alone will the people be able to stand up to these devious attacks, and I know it is not going to be easy for them.
It is not easy to hold on to one’s sanity after a calamity of this scale, and under such circumstances, to hold on to one’s belief is all the more demanding, all the more daunting. It is much easier said than done, and I am aware of that. We, who start complaining at the slightest inconveniences that hinder our daily lives, can have no idea of how much faith, and how much strength of character this task requires. One can only pray that Allah’s unlimited mercy arrives for them from all sides, and brings them comfort, relief, and reassurance.
It is an equally great test for the rest of us, who have been spared the horrifics of the earthquake. While, those affected must delve deep into their hearts to find the belief and the strength to come to terms with the after math of the earthquake, we must realize that just as their response to this collossal test could bring them the rewards of heaven or more misery from hell, so will our response determine our place in this world and in the hereafter. As Muslims, and as fellow humans, it is binding on us to reach out to our brethren in need, to do all in our power, and more, to lessen the impact of this catastrophe on their lives. This entails not just opening our wallets and digging deep in our pockets to donate, but it calls for us to open our hearts and dig deep in our souls to sacrifice. Donations alone cannot and will not help 3 million people made destitute in a minute; no amount of money, not even the five billion dollars the authorities say are required to rebuild the devastated areas and their people’s lives, can heal the scars left by crashing ceilings and crushing losses.
The money is only one factor, just the begining, what is required are lasting love, timeless devotion, and above all sustained sacrifice. Because it will be love and devotion for our people which will enable us to empty our pockets for these people, but it will be the spirit of sacrifice that will keep us from putting this tragedy behind us in a few weeks, or months, and getting on with our lives. Today, we need to decide to sacrifice our relatively secure and carefree future for the betterment of our brethren affected by this earthquake. Today, we need to realize that our people will need our dedication and attention for a longtime, they will need our support until the time they are stable themselves.
We cannot absolve ourselves of all responsibility once we have made our donations. The money sent today will be spent tomorrow, and might not be there day after, but it will be required for months after that. What happens then? Today, we need to set aside a portion of our incomes for a long time to come for the victims of this earthquake. Today, we need to own up, and take responsibility for specific people, specific children, or families until they no longer need their brethren’s help. We are a nation of a 150 million people, which means there are a fifty people to take care of each person affected by this tragedy. Essentally, every person needs to take care of his designated person for one week every year. It is a simplistic calculation, but it should become the premise for a large scale initiative. Yes, any such initiative will need thinking out of the box, but we must realize that after 7.6 on the Richter scale there cannot be a box - all boxes get demolished in a 7.6!
A tragedy that eliminates all structures in a society, a calamity that wipes out an area’s civilization cannot just be grappled with by money. It requires a structured approach, and a sustained effort until new strcutures are developed.
So, let us take stock of our lives, do we have a week?
-->
9 Responses to 'Test - theirs and ours.'
1sh_gufOctober 23rd, 2005 at 6:38 am
…with all my little very little potential and energy (…I know that bhai), not a week but the whole stock of my life
2BaptizedLuciferOctober 25th, 2005 at 6:16 am
hate the mullahs especially since they are goin around saying all those ppl deserved to be punished. Great. now mullahs will play god and tlel us who is going ot hell and hw isnt. I rem reading a sahih bukhari hadith that the wrathe ofallah comes on all, even tho its meant for a few. And that each one ffected by it is judged accordingly when they are raised. So how come th emullas are deeming everyone a sinner? including innocent kids? None of em seem to be talkin about the test it is for all of us. The whole nation has united, magar in mullahs ko hain nahin, its a perfect chance for them to market themselves again. retards! :S
3BaptizedLuciferOctober 25th, 2005 at 6:17 am
im tired of collecting relief. ineed away from it for a while. before i go insane thinking of all those going insane over there.
4FelicityOctober 25th, 2005 at 12:42 pm
And someone should ask those mullahs if the Pakistani’s were greater sinners than the ido-worshipping hindu’s across the border. I thought God could forgive anything and everything except shirk. Not so, apparently, if you go by the mullahs.
This is just thier chance to revive the religious fanaticism that Musharraf has been attempting to put an end to. But it’s not as if their goals are noble and they really wish to see people follow the golden path of Islam… this is just their chance to rile the people against Musharraf’s governement and regain power. This is political propaganda more than it is a religious call. Had they an ounce of purity in thier cause,God would have helped them make something of it by now.
5SaeedOctober 25th, 2005 at 4:59 pm
if u were to believe my flatmate(who’s from isb,btw), d quakes were a result of subterranean nuclear tests.So were the tsunamis (US behind those,obviously),as for the quake in india in bhuj,last time’round, well those can be credited to pak!!!Oh, he even mentioned the illuminati somewhere in there…
6BaptizedLuciferOctober 25th, 2005 at 8:19 pm
saeed, u have some interesting company lol
7knicqOctober 26th, 2005 at 9:44 am
Sh-guf: Your spirit is uplifting…hope most of our country men feel that way…and you should under estimate the potential and energy a scholar like you possesses.
B.Lucifer, (as in Lucifer Baji )It isn’t just the Mullahs who are going around saying that kind of thing. It is most people who look at it that way. How are you channelizing the relief you collect. Perhaps, we can combine your efforts with another team that I know is working on it.
Felicity: Coming from that part of the land, I must point out that shirk is a way of life in these parts, actually it is so in the whole country. Idol-worshipping is not the only kind of shirk.
Shirk and bid’at characterize the Islam of Pakistan, what else is all that thronging to mazaars, dargaahs and peer dhakoslas. This is not to say however that I believe this earthquake was the wrath of Allah, and not an aazmaish/test. But, come to think of it, who can know? Maybe it is somewhere between the two…a warning of sorts for the rest, and an azaab for some and an aazmaish for others. Allah works in mysterious ways…
I do realize that I seem to be contradicting my own thoughts in the post, but after the sort of disturbing reports that have started trickling in along with those uplifting stories, one just never knows.
As for Musharraf, while it is a given that those fanatics and extremists were the bane of our society, and needed to be weeded out before they destroyed the whole nation, let us be under no illusions that the methods Musharraf had resorted to were anything but counter-productive.
Moreover, by presenting a westernized Islam, and egging on a westernized culture not in line with our own cultural, and religious values he has himself underlined what the ignorant Mullahs had been trying to say unsuccesfully all along- that the mullahs way is the only alternative, the real Islam, to the onslaught of the west. He started out well, and lost direction along the way.
As an average Muslim Pakistani, I am left as frustrated as before at the wrong depiction and promotion of Islam.
Musharraf has just taken us from one extreme to the other extreme, paving the way for the first extreme to return with a vangeance. Before long, a Khomeini will rise, and the people of Pakistan disgusted with the westernized and watered down Islam Musharraf and his cronies have been propogating will carry him to the “throne” on their shoulders - only to suffer under him until they carry the next Musharraf to the throne. It is a vicious cycle.
People need to understand that Pakistanis are a people who define themselves as Muslims, and because of the regional as well as religious influences will always be a conservative lot, which is to be differentiated greatly from an intolerant, oppressive and extremist lot. Their way of life aligns greatly with Islam in its true form, but varies infinitely from the extremist or the “moderated” Islam the Mullahs and Musharraf respectively are trying to force down their throats. The one thing that needs to be got across to our people, the one thing they actually need to be educated about is avoiding shirk. Nobody seems to be doing that.
I digress, out of habit. Its just that the Mullahs and Musharraf are the two faces of the same coin - the khota coin. The ounce of purity is missing in either agenda.
Saeed: I’d like to hear what your friend has to say about the hurricanes….what are the chances of him attributing it all to the construction of those Palm Projects off the coast of Dubai?
8FelicityOctober 26th, 2005 at 1:34 pm
You’re right about the shirk, and also that we really don’t know if this really was or wasn’t God’s retribution.
However, I don’t think you can ultimately blame the president for forcing the Pakistani public down a more westernized road. Pre-Musharaf Pakistan was already walking that route. We would be where we are today culturally, Musharraf or no Musharraf. It’s just easier to point a finger and put the blame on someone. It provides for a more convenient solution: get rid of the guy to get rid of the problem. It’s what we’ve been doing all along, blaming a person. We don’t realize that it’s not one person changing our culture. It’s all of us.
Back during the Zia-ul-Haq days when the Hadood Ordinance was introduced and when, essentially, these Mullah’s really gained power, assisted of course by the US-cause west of our border; it wasn’t as if things were really in control. We had a government advocating a very conservative Islam, but that didn’t keep our youth from still being fascinated with the west, or at the very least, the Indian culture, the movies etc, long before cable or ssatellite television was around. Where we are now culturally is where we would have been regardless of what government propogated what kind of religion. The allure of the open, less conservative western ideology is far too great. Protectionism wouldn’t have held us back. It DIDN’T hold us back. The only thing that could keep us rooted would be good parenting, good schooling, where we would learn of the virtues of what we believe in and then make that conscious choice to follow along that path.
My point is, lets not blame the mullahs or the Musharrafs for who we are. We are a nation of fingerpointers. We love blaming somone else for our misfortunes. In fact even reading through what I have said, given nothing else, I put the blame on parents for not doing a good enough job. We talk about our culture as if we’re the exceptions to the rule, as if we aren’t a part of it. We forget that we have our own job to do. We need to do our own soul searching and go beyond making heartfelt statements and having intellectual discussions. We need to act. We need to change ourselves and become better human beings, become more God-fearing. That’s the biggest charity we can give the world right now, by starting with ourselves and our own children and giving the world and our country better citizens.
This is the test. It’s a test of our spirituality, our intellect, our hearts and our ideologies. This isn’t just about how we can materially help others. This about how we can help ourselves.
Ignorance is not stupidity. Knowing what is right and still doing the wrong thing is. By that definition, we’re a nation of idiots, and if this earthquake doesn’t slap us into our senses, nothing will.
9knicqOctober 27th, 2005 at 3:08 am
You are so right Felicity, as always.
However, I would like to add that the leaders of a nation have a bearing on where the nation heads, politically, as well as culturally, and a responsibility to ensure that the nation heads in the right direction. You will note I often club Musharraf with his cronies. The captain must stay the boat, and where the boat heads eventually, does bear on his captainship.
Zia’s regime turned a blind eye to the monster of extremism, and look where it got us. Musharraf’s regime, by endorsing the handful who stray miles from the path of Islam in their pursuit of westernized way of life, is allowing the other extremism to take root.
Zia and subsequently Nawaz Sharrif’s era had their fair share of modernists, as you rightly pointed out. It is the nature of a people - they will resent, denounce and when opportunity presents itself go against what is forced down their throats.
Taking what you pointed out further, I would say that protectionism, of either kind, can never be the answer. “Amr bil maroof wa nahi anil munkar” is the answer.
At the end of the day, people should be provided with positive atmosphere conducive to making the right choice. None of our Governments has ever made that provision.
Here is hoping and praying that we all do change ourselves, do become more God-fearing, and give the world the biggest charity we can give. Here is praying that we be rid of our idiocy. Ameen. ¶ 1/26/2006 02:22:00 AM
7.6!
I learnt about the earthquake, when Madi sent me an SMS from Karachi asking me to check on my folks back in Mirpur and Islamabad. Ironically, I got the SMS as I sat with the morning paper, reading about the tragedies of the day before.
Understandably, my reflex action was to start calling home, but all lines were jammed, and I could get through to niether home, nor my sibling based in Islamabad. There were moments of despair, and frantic praying, as attempt after attempt at calling home failed. Finally, I got through to both places, and was relieved to know that everyone in my family was safe and sound, and that our city Mirpur had been spared the severity which had jolted Muzaffarabad, Rawlakot, Baagh, Mansehra, Abbotabad, and so many other cities of the country.
Friends started calling in, and the duo M&K were the first two people to call, one after the other, may Allah bless them for their kindness, generosity, love and affection. I went about checking on the few other people I knew from the affected areas, and thankfully, no-one I knew was affected directly by this catastrophe. When I say affected directly, I mean no-one had lost any of their near and dear ones to the earthquake.
Quite a few people reported damage to property, and when at 10:00 p.m. here, I met Shah Saab, who hails from Abbotabad, and has family residing there, he told me that his folks were sitting out in the cold, under pouring skies, because till about half an hour ago, they had been getting the tremors at regular intervals. Abbotabad is up in north, and winter has already set in there. Nightime temperatures hover around zero degree centigrade, which makes sitting under the rain at night no mean feat. It was only then that the true magnitude of the catastrophe began to sink in. May Allah have mercy on people trapped in these conditions, and may He make the ordeal easy for them.
Fact is, I am still over whelmed by the tragedy, and the challenges it poses for the people affected by it. After the initial shock of casualties is overcome, and it is not a shock easy to overcome, thousands and thousands of people must muster the courage, and find the resilience to set out on the uphill task of rebuilding their lives - a task easier said than done, especially so for those people, who even before they were pulled into misery by the loss of their loved ones, and their homes and places of work, had little to celebrate. People, who after a lifetime of toiling and suffering had mudbrick houses for their ‘property’, and a change of clothes for wardrobe.
The live coverage beamed by the Pakistani channels had me under the impression that the worst consequence of the earthquake had been the crumbling of the Margalla Towers’ block. I can understand that MT was the easiest to access site of damage, and of course there is no undermining the tragedy that has struck the families residing in those 60 apartments. However, Margalla Towers was singled out in the coverage in such a way that it pretty much seemed like the epicentre of the earthquake had been the MT rather than an area 90 miles away. The President and the Prime Minister issued statements standing in the rubble of what was once the prestigious MT, and every newschannel telecast pictures of MT as it covered the earthquake. Sure, there were footages from the Muzaffarabad hospitals, and other places, but it would all come back to MT as if all else was secondary and the primary scene of destruction was MT. Perhaps, the coverage could have been more spread out.
The people living in those mud houses in villages are affected as much by this calamity as are the people of MT, and in times like these it is the poor who need additional coverage so there plight cab be brought to fore, and aid and assistance can be mobilized for them. Hopefully, the survivors from those luxury apartments, will have some sort of financial cushioning to fall back on, while people who lived in mudhouses might just have lost everything, and may need to start from scratch. Both these people, the poor and not so poor, have lost loved ones, and any surity of tomorrow they might have had prior to this tragedy, and in these times will need their fellow countrymen, their fellow Muslim brethren to stand fast by them, and to reach out to them with a helping hand.
This Ramadan, more than ever before, we need to exhibit the spirit of Ramadan - the spririt that requires us to empathise with those who have lost, and those who do not have enough, the spirit that needs us to sacrifice our comforts to bring comfort to those who have not seen it or lost it. This Ramadan our cause, and that of the affectees of this earthquake, will be better served if we make an even more concerted effort to stop our excesses, excesses that unfortunately have become synonymous with Ramadan, contrary to the very spirit of this holy month, and pour our resources in to help our brethren in need.
The morning newspapers today put the death toll from the earthquake at close to 20,000, and counting. There are four times as many injured. The sheer numbers are heart breaking. However, for those brothers and sisters, who are blessed with the means to donate, and/or the will to sacrifice, these numbers also represent the number of opportunities we have of redeeming ourselves - so let us stop and think, do we really need that extra pair of clothes we are about to spend money on? Must we wear new clothes this Eid? Is there a blanket in our house that would do better keeping a brother or sister back home warm? Are there any warm clothes in your wardrobe you can do without, but your brother or sister affected by the earthquake can’t?
From today onwards, we must realize that every penny that we plan spending might just have a better use in the earthquake areas, and that every dirham spent unnecesarilyt has an opportunity cost, our brothers and sisters in our country cannot afford.
May Allah guide us all, and give us all the strength and conviction to perform our duties.
-->
19 Responses to '7.6!'
1SaadatOctober 10th, 2005 at 7:28 am
It is so good to hear that your loved ones are safe, alhamdulillah.
And I agree, the collapse of Margalla Towers is sad, but people in the northern areas are the ones who are affected the worst. Rescue teams have started working in those areas, although they are late, but I hope that the people who survived the accident don’t have to suffer any more.
May Allah have mercy on us all. Ameen.
2knicqOctober 10th, 2005 at 7:38 am
Assalam U Alaikum Chotey Bhai,
And it is wonderful to know you and your family are all safe and sound. I have been trying to post a comment on your blog for ages now, but it just disappears everytime. I try thrice and move on. f5 does not help.
We have just got pictures of Balakot, the whole town flattened with hardly a building intact. It is all so heart-wrenching.
On the other hand, international aid has started ‘pouring in’ with the US pledging USD 100,000! They spend billions on destroying countries and nations, and when it comes to humaitarian aid, they cough up a measly 100,000, which is a fraction of what the UAE Expat Pakistani community alone is pledging.
Ireland on the other hand has pledged a million euros!
I wish our government could have appreciated the US government’s gesture, but politely declined the peanuts…I am sure the US can use this 100,000 in rebuilding New Orleans.
I am disgusted.
3SaadieOctober 10th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
Yea good to hear that your family is safe, alhamdulillah. But seriously I totally agreewith every word you have said, this is the time we need to do a lot. I think MT was covered more because first of all it was in the capital and secondly there was no easy access to northern areas specially in first few hours but yea scenes from northern area are quite devastating
4JBOctober 10th, 2005 at 2:34 pm
Furthermore, MT kinda reminds one of another smashed down with a powerful prez consoling his people, hence provides a really great photo-op.
When the helicopters of the govt bigwigs were hoovering over Muzzafarabad, Abbotabad e.t.c people below were still waiting for blankets/ medicens e.t.c. I wonder what stopped Mushi and Shoki to send a copule of balnkets and supplies by thier helicopters insted of flying around aimlessly and posing for the TV crew inside the chopper. Finally they were able to send 2000 blankets and 6000 kafans to muzafafrabad by PST:2200
5knicqOctober 10th, 2005 at 5:22 pm
Saadie: May Allah have mercy on all those affected by this devastating catastrophe. Thanks for your comment.
JB: The thought of those TV crews taken along so they could show the President and the PM glancing down at the affected areas is disgusting. Mushy, much like his retarded Bushy Bhai, seems to have lost it all…didn’t Bush ask his plane to fly a few thousand feet lower so h could catch a glimpse of New Orleans?
Mushy must be proud of himself - he got the coverage that Bushy had got in two calamities in one calamity.
Once again let me suggest a shift in focus here. Mushy and Bushy are inherent challenges the world must face as it goes about its business - for everything that Mushy has not done, there’s a hundred that an average Pakistani is doing or is trying to do. Let us take our motivation from there.
6yasmineOctober 11th, 2005 at 3:00 am
Knicq bhai, I hadn’t realized you had family in Islamabad, but alhamdulillah I’m glad to hear they’re safe. JazakAllah khayr for this post - you wrote so much of what I wanted to say, but so much better than I could have put it.
7UsmanOctober 11th, 2005 at 3:04 am
Assalaam Alaikum baray bhai….
Alhamdulillah good to hear everyone on your side is safe. I cant add anythign more to what you’ve said except its time we dug in deep into our pockets and did what we should. Donate whatever and however much we can.
May Allah have mercy on us all.
8SaadieOctober 11th, 2005 at 10:39 am
“Once again let me suggest a shift in focus here. Mushy and Bushy are inherent challenges the world must face as it goes about its business - for everything that Mushy has not done, there’s a hundred that an average Pakistani is doing or is trying to do. Let us take our motivation from there.” Agreed
9FelicityOctober 11th, 2005 at 2:21 pm
Forgive me for not partaking in the Musharaf/Bush Bashing. Just to update…. the US revised it’s aid pledge to USD$50 Million.
Personally I think the initial reports did not accurately depict the extensive damage and loss of life that occurred simply because those northern areas were inaccessible, landlines were brought down and in general communication had broken-down. I don’t think that anyone had thought that things would get this bad.
Camera crews follow along the president not just to document him… but because his was the first helicopter flight they could actually get on to document the damage that had occurred. Once the news got out, people have been giving like crazy and oh so generously… but the problem so far remains that getting relief to those areas remains a logistical nightmare. What good would a couple of blankets do to a hundred people besides encourage a fight? That has happened…. as the relief effort finally got through, people fought with each other over rice bags. And before any relief could have gone underway… a survey was necessary.
So far the only means we had to get the appropriate amount of relief to those areas were by road. Those roads are treacherous. They showed a picture of one of the army trucks that the BBC correspondent says “tried to rush it” to get to the relief goods it was carrying to those mountainous locations…. the truck had a rollover on it’s way.
Lets not be naive. Lets judge the relief effort by the ground conditions that exist there right now. The terrain is deadly with all the landslides… not helped by heavy thunderstorms and rain in the area which quite possibly may make visibility poor. Lets judge it by the means we have or lack thereof to tackle it. The prez went on CNN practically begging for heavy-lift Cargo helicopters to transport aid to those damage hit regions. I know when things are bad people get emotional and especially when you’re under a make-shift tent, injured, have lost everything and possibly also family members and loved ones and having to spend the night in freezing temperatures and rain, nothing seems fast enough. But we must realize that the government is doing all it can. I came across a blog by an Islamabad resident who documented the time of tremors and the damage info he would hear about. For almost half the day, the info was sketchy and while there were some reports of villages being wiped out, initially it was thought these were the scantily populated localities. Initial reports did estimate the death toll to only be in the hundreds…. by nightfall they estimated it would near a thousand. I don’t think that anyone had figured it might reach tens of thousands.
We have friends here whose family home in Muzzafarbad is completely totaled. His grandmother and some other family members are injured and their house is reduced to rubble.This guy has an uncle in the military and for two days he has been trying to get two trucks filled with aid to Muzzafarbad and possibly get some people out of there but the roads are so bad it hasn’t been possible so far. I tell you this just to show that even those who have relatives in those remote areas and who have the means to do something about it haven’t been able to help them as fast as they would like. Unlike the failure of the US government to provide relief to the New Orleans victims, the failure to respond we face in our country is not a result of complacency or bureaucracy. It is a result of not having enough means or money. The president said he had enough manpower, he needed the equipment and he needed the money. The guy took advantage of being the Chief of army to immediately mobilize and utilize army resources.
Think of it this way, the President has accomplished more in the past three days in the way of clearing road obstructions and reaching the affected northern locations than the US had for it’s own people in New Orleans, considering New Orleans was waaaay more accessible than most of the earthquake hit regions of Pakistan, and the US had all the means in the world at it’s disposal to use… after all, it owns them. Lets give the President some credit. Lets not bash him simply for being a US ally, which, lets face it, is perhaps what most motivates this president bashing.
Why must we be a nation of finger pointers and bad-mouthers? Right now, even our neighboring enemy has offered us aid. It’s a time when the world is coming together, when all differences and lines of contention are forgotten and forgone, and here we are pointing fingers and bad-mouthing our own. I am one for raising our voices against injustices and frauds committed by higher authorities at the expense of the general public, but I firmly believe this is not the time, mostly because I don’t think the president deserves this right now. This has nothing to do with my opinion of his alliance with the US… it has everything to do with how I think he is fairing in providing relief given the country’s existing limitations. I spoke to my mother-in-law in Karachi and she says people are giving like never before. Lets indulge in the spirit of giving rather than in this finger-pointing game.
As far the US is concerned… lets first decide what we think of the US. we continuously bad mouth it. We wish to have nothing to do with it and that it not meddle in our affairs and after all that we expect that it help us out in the time of trouble. Like I said, I do not condone any wrong that the US has committed, and we have every right to express our disagreement, but we do go far beyond expressing our disagreement on to verbal abuse akin to effigy and US flag burning. Disagree by all means, Be angry by all means, but how much would you want to help out a person if he continuously badmouths you.
We’re Muslims and are supposedly to follow in the footsteps of the Prophet (SW) who showed kindness to the lady who would throw trash on him everyday as he passed by her house and went in to see how she was doing when one day she wasn’t there to throw trash on him as usual.But we don’t show any such kindness, but we expect that the “infidel” US should. Why do we expect the US to act more Islamic than ourselves? I’m not defending the US but I can’t join in the verbal bashing by people who themselves cannot claim the higher moral standards that they desire the US to exhibit.
On a personal note, I thought of you as soon as I heard the news… just never got around to writing to you. I’m glad everyone is okay and safe. This is so tragic. Entire communities have vanished. It’s painful to watch. My heart breaks and I cry so much as I watch the news. We cling to so much that’s material and we never realize we can lose it in an instant. I don’t know if this is a test for our nation or if it’s punishment. I don’t know if it’s fair or unfair. I just know it’s painful to know that those who have miraculously managed to survive have lost everything… their homes and their loved ones, and I sometimes wonder if death may have been a greater mercy on them. We take for granted the presence of our loved ones… we don’t know what calamity might fall and take them away from us. When you give to your fellow country men in this time of need, remember to give a call to your loved ones living away from you and a hug to those living with you. You don’t want them to leave this world not knowing how much you really love them. Put aside your differences and give to your loved ones all the love you have in your heart… while you still have the chance.
Take care and be safe.
10FelicityOctober 11th, 2005 at 2:22 pm
Oh… and sorry for taking up so much space in your comment page. I believe my comment is longer than your blog!
11knicqOctober 11th, 2005 at 3:01 pm
Thanks Felicity for your very well written, and very much required comment.
I am too drained emotionally by the footages we have seen on GEO and ARY, to even get started on a debate on whether or not the President has done enough.
But for the record, I agree with everything you have said about the ground realities in Pakistan, and the commendable job, given the circumstances, done by the authorities. My last comment was nothing but a vieled request to move away from this president/government authority bashing.
However, i adisagree with your analysis of our attitude to the US here. I do not expect the US to live up to the higher moral standards - I am just appalled by the disparity in efforts the US puts in in “liberating” oil rich people from ex Allies (Osama and Saddam), and in rescuing “third world” people devastated by natural calamities.
How is it that the US with its world renowned satellite systems that can track WMDs mounted on vehicles, was not aware of the extent of this calamity? USD 100,000, upped to USD 50 Million!!!
The UAE pledged USD 100 Million!
The US did appropriate billions of dollars worth of budgets to liberate the Iraqis, didn’t it? Iraqis, people who were not really in desparate need of that bombing campaign those billions went into orchestrating. They sent out the whole blooming US Airforce to bomb people - and now they could muster 8 helicopters!
I have no ambition of US bashing here…I just intend to underline the reason behind our ‘dissatisfaction’ with the US. I am out of words, short of breath. Hope you can see what I am trying to say here.
Thank you very much for the comment - I wish you would comment more often…you know that. Take all the space you want - your comments make for better reading than the posts anyway.
Remember us all in your prayers.
12knicqOctober 11th, 2005 at 3:07 pm
Yasmine: My sister is based in Islamabad, and the rest of the family in Mirpur AJK. Thank you for your kind words…I doubt there is anything I could write that you, or my friend Felicity here amongst many others, couldn’t write loads better…:)
Usman: Thanks so much for the comment bro. My dial up would not load your blog yesterday, and I was worried about you, and your family. I am so glad to know all’s well at your end too. Ammen to your duas.
Saadie:
13mnmOctober 12th, 2005 at 8:04 am
knicq bhai, glad to know all is well with your family. we have been hearing of ppl here losing several members in muzaffarabad too. may Allah have mercy on them and help those who have survived, and give us the heart and health to help generously.
14knicqOctober 12th, 2005 at 12:51 pm
Baji, many thanks for your kindness. It is a collossal tragedy, the magnitude of which is still unfolding…I am surprised we are still not hearing anything from Rawlakot, which was initially reported to have been severely hit.
Ameen and Thumma Ameen to your prayers.
I have seen acts of such genrosity which are hard to describe in words. e.g. A client of mine, hailing from Karachi, has asked me to refer to him at least one affected family, which has lost the bread winner, and he plans to sponsor them for life, or until the time the children are grown up, educated, and married off. He pleaded with me to revert to him ASAP. If most people bestowewd with Allah’s bounty followed suit, the magnitude of this tragedy could be minimized.
A well-off colleague from Venenzuela emptied her wallet to add to contributions, while a Palestinian sister donated big in cash and blankets both.
There are countless people going about collecting donations, and offering volunteer services.
There’s a Lebanese Christian client/friend of mine, who has asked me to just tell him when and where to contribute.
All of this, in these tragic times, gives one hope that all is still not lost.
15knicqOctober 12th, 2005 at 1:35 pm
On the other hand, just came across this, which was posted by a sister from AJK, residing in UK, I think…
Quote“do u people know wts happening around?at this hour, during so much hype and tension,when everybody has seen that life is so unpredictable.nothing works when HE decides to call u back*one person sold 8 coffins in Islamabad for RS 18000/-*in Karachi one coffin of 100-300 rs are now sold for rs700/- to 1200/-*In Mansehra group of gunned man looted two trucks which were taking goods for relief work,police did come to rescue afterwards to protect the remainig ones but they can’t do everything everywhere*In Muzzafarabad the professionals who bathe the bodies(MAYYATS) have taken away all the gold things of bodies*The buses which used to take Rs32-100/- to take ppl from Mirpur to Muzzafarabad are charging rs500/- and the buses which wud take 300/- to take ppl from Islamabad to Muzzafarabad are taking rs 1400/-Mu frnds they r no rumors as i m only writing down the authentic events which my frnds in Rawlakot and Muzzafabad reported back.I m not trying to hold down ur morale but seriously why don’t we think that the only thing which can save us now is the reward v may earn by helping these people. This is not the sign of QAYAMAT this is QAYAMUTTp bring you all uptodate now v need**Medicines-anti biotics,anti allergics,for TB cure,for fever & cold cure, Vitamins,painkillers,Gkucose drips**manpower to work at different camps and Base Faisal to organise the stuff**trucks to take things will someone please bear the expenses of trucks and make arrangements for the collected things at various camps to be taken awayDONT DONATE MONEY CONCENTRATE ON ABOVE MENTIONED STUFF.MAY ALLAH REWARD YOU BACK FOR ALL THE GOOD U DO AND MAY HE SEND DOWN HIS MERCY AND DIVINE HELP FOR THE VICTIMS AND HELPER”Unquote
Just when we were begining to think we had risen above our petty corruption…this is so sad.
16SaadieOctober 12th, 2005 at 6:38 pm
There are always black sheeps in a society, inshAllah everything will be fine.
17AbezOctober 15th, 2005 at 4:45 pm
HF told me everyone in your family was alright and I was relieved Bhai, and may Allah bless and guide us all to the correct course of action that earns His mercy and helps others in need InshaAllah.
18SaadieOctober 22nd, 2005 at 1:22 pm
updates?
19knicqOctober 22nd, 2005 at 3:22 pm
Saadie: I have been oscillating between hope and despair as on the one hand wonderful stories of selfless dedication have unfolded in front of me or reached me, and as on the other hand we have heard of those black sheep. It takes every ounce of my resolve not to curse those people whose blackened hearts are no touched even by the magnitude of this tragedy…:(
Litle Baji, Ameen to your prayers. ¶ 1/26/2006 02:14:00 AM
Understandably, my reflex action was to start calling home, but all lines were jammed, and I could get through to niether home, nor my sibling based in Islamabad. There were moments of despair, and frantic praying, as attempt after attempt at calling home failed. Finally, I got through to both places, and was relieved to know that everyone in my family was safe and sound, and that our city Mirpur had been spared the severity which had jolted Muzaffarabad, Rawlakot, Baagh, Mansehra, Abbotabad, and so many other cities of the country.
Friends started calling in, and the duo M&K were the first two people to call, one after the other, may Allah bless them for their kindness, generosity, love and affection. I went about checking on the few other people I knew from the affected areas, and thankfully, no-one I knew was affected directly by this catastrophe. When I say affected directly, I mean no-one had lost any of their near and dear ones to the earthquake.
Quite a few people reported damage to property, and when at 10:00 p.m. here, I met Shah Saab, who hails from Abbotabad, and has family residing there, he told me that his folks were sitting out in the cold, under pouring skies, because till about half an hour ago, they had been getting the tremors at regular intervals. Abbotabad is up in north, and winter has already set in there. Nightime temperatures hover around zero degree centigrade, which makes sitting under the rain at night no mean feat. It was only then that the true magnitude of the catastrophe began to sink in. May Allah have mercy on people trapped in these conditions, and may He make the ordeal easy for them.
Fact is, I am still over whelmed by the tragedy, and the challenges it poses for the people affected by it. After the initial shock of casualties is overcome, and it is not a shock easy to overcome, thousands and thousands of people must muster the courage, and find the resilience to set out on the uphill task of rebuilding their lives - a task easier said than done, especially so for those people, who even before they were pulled into misery by the loss of their loved ones, and their homes and places of work, had little to celebrate. People, who after a lifetime of toiling and suffering had mudbrick houses for their ‘property’, and a change of clothes for wardrobe.
The live coverage beamed by the Pakistani channels had me under the impression that the worst consequence of the earthquake had been the crumbling of the Margalla Towers’ block. I can understand that MT was the easiest to access site of damage, and of course there is no undermining the tragedy that has struck the families residing in those 60 apartments. However, Margalla Towers was singled out in the coverage in such a way that it pretty much seemed like the epicentre of the earthquake had been the MT rather than an area 90 miles away. The President and the Prime Minister issued statements standing in the rubble of what was once the prestigious MT, and every newschannel telecast pictures of MT as it covered the earthquake. Sure, there were footages from the Muzaffarabad hospitals, and other places, but it would all come back to MT as if all else was secondary and the primary scene of destruction was MT. Perhaps, the coverage could have been more spread out.
The people living in those mud houses in villages are affected as much by this calamity as are the people of MT, and in times like these it is the poor who need additional coverage so there plight cab be brought to fore, and aid and assistance can be mobilized for them. Hopefully, the survivors from those luxury apartments, will have some sort of financial cushioning to fall back on, while people who lived in mudhouses might just have lost everything, and may need to start from scratch. Both these people, the poor and not so poor, have lost loved ones, and any surity of tomorrow they might have had prior to this tragedy, and in these times will need their fellow countrymen, their fellow Muslim brethren to stand fast by them, and to reach out to them with a helping hand.
This Ramadan, more than ever before, we need to exhibit the spirit of Ramadan - the spririt that requires us to empathise with those who have lost, and those who do not have enough, the spirit that needs us to sacrifice our comforts to bring comfort to those who have not seen it or lost it. This Ramadan our cause, and that of the affectees of this earthquake, will be better served if we make an even more concerted effort to stop our excesses, excesses that unfortunately have become synonymous with Ramadan, contrary to the very spirit of this holy month, and pour our resources in to help our brethren in need.
The morning newspapers today put the death toll from the earthquake at close to 20,000, and counting. There are four times as many injured. The sheer numbers are heart breaking. However, for those brothers and sisters, who are blessed with the means to donate, and/or the will to sacrifice, these numbers also represent the number of opportunities we have of redeeming ourselves - so let us stop and think, do we really need that extra pair of clothes we are about to spend money on? Must we wear new clothes this Eid? Is there a blanket in our house that would do better keeping a brother or sister back home warm? Are there any warm clothes in your wardrobe you can do without, but your brother or sister affected by the earthquake can’t?
From today onwards, we must realize that every penny that we plan spending might just have a better use in the earthquake areas, and that every dirham spent unnecesarilyt has an opportunity cost, our brothers and sisters in our country cannot afford.
May Allah guide us all, and give us all the strength and conviction to perform our duties.
-->
19 Responses to '7.6!'
1SaadatOctober 10th, 2005 at 7:28 am
It is so good to hear that your loved ones are safe, alhamdulillah.
And I agree, the collapse of Margalla Towers is sad, but people in the northern areas are the ones who are affected the worst. Rescue teams have started working in those areas, although they are late, but I hope that the people who survived the accident don’t have to suffer any more.
May Allah have mercy on us all. Ameen.
2knicqOctober 10th, 2005 at 7:38 am
Assalam U Alaikum Chotey Bhai,
And it is wonderful to know you and your family are all safe and sound. I have been trying to post a comment on your blog for ages now, but it just disappears everytime. I try thrice and move on. f5 does not help.
We have just got pictures of Balakot, the whole town flattened with hardly a building intact. It is all so heart-wrenching.
On the other hand, international aid has started ‘pouring in’ with the US pledging USD 100,000! They spend billions on destroying countries and nations, and when it comes to humaitarian aid, they cough up a measly 100,000, which is a fraction of what the UAE Expat Pakistani community alone is pledging.
Ireland on the other hand has pledged a million euros!
I wish our government could have appreciated the US government’s gesture, but politely declined the peanuts…I am sure the US can use this 100,000 in rebuilding New Orleans.
I am disgusted.
3SaadieOctober 10th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
Yea good to hear that your family is safe, alhamdulillah. But seriously I totally agreewith every word you have said, this is the time we need to do a lot. I think MT was covered more because first of all it was in the capital and secondly there was no easy access to northern areas specially in first few hours but yea scenes from northern area are quite devastating
4JBOctober 10th, 2005 at 2:34 pm
Furthermore, MT kinda reminds one of another smashed down with a powerful prez consoling his people, hence provides a really great photo-op.
When the helicopters of the govt bigwigs were hoovering over Muzzafarabad, Abbotabad e.t.c people below were still waiting for blankets/ medicens e.t.c. I wonder what stopped Mushi and Shoki to send a copule of balnkets and supplies by thier helicopters insted of flying around aimlessly and posing for the TV crew inside the chopper. Finally they were able to send 2000 blankets and 6000 kafans to muzafafrabad by PST:2200
5knicqOctober 10th, 2005 at 5:22 pm
Saadie: May Allah have mercy on all those affected by this devastating catastrophe. Thanks for your comment.
JB: The thought of those TV crews taken along so they could show the President and the PM glancing down at the affected areas is disgusting. Mushy, much like his retarded Bushy Bhai, seems to have lost it all…didn’t Bush ask his plane to fly a few thousand feet lower so h could catch a glimpse of New Orleans?
Mushy must be proud of himself - he got the coverage that Bushy had got in two calamities in one calamity.
Once again let me suggest a shift in focus here. Mushy and Bushy are inherent challenges the world must face as it goes about its business - for everything that Mushy has not done, there’s a hundred that an average Pakistani is doing or is trying to do. Let us take our motivation from there.
6yasmineOctober 11th, 2005 at 3:00 am
Knicq bhai, I hadn’t realized you had family in Islamabad, but alhamdulillah I’m glad to hear they’re safe. JazakAllah khayr for this post - you wrote so much of what I wanted to say, but so much better than I could have put it.
7UsmanOctober 11th, 2005 at 3:04 am
Assalaam Alaikum baray bhai….
Alhamdulillah good to hear everyone on your side is safe. I cant add anythign more to what you’ve said except its time we dug in deep into our pockets and did what we should. Donate whatever and however much we can.
May Allah have mercy on us all.
8SaadieOctober 11th, 2005 at 10:39 am
“Once again let me suggest a shift in focus here. Mushy and Bushy are inherent challenges the world must face as it goes about its business - for everything that Mushy has not done, there’s a hundred that an average Pakistani is doing or is trying to do. Let us take our motivation from there.” Agreed
9FelicityOctober 11th, 2005 at 2:21 pm
Forgive me for not partaking in the Musharaf/Bush Bashing. Just to update…. the US revised it’s aid pledge to USD$50 Million.
Personally I think the initial reports did not accurately depict the extensive damage and loss of life that occurred simply because those northern areas were inaccessible, landlines were brought down and in general communication had broken-down. I don’t think that anyone had thought that things would get this bad.
Camera crews follow along the president not just to document him… but because his was the first helicopter flight they could actually get on to document the damage that had occurred. Once the news got out, people have been giving like crazy and oh so generously… but the problem so far remains that getting relief to those areas remains a logistical nightmare. What good would a couple of blankets do to a hundred people besides encourage a fight? That has happened…. as the relief effort finally got through, people fought with each other over rice bags. And before any relief could have gone underway… a survey was necessary.
So far the only means we had to get the appropriate amount of relief to those areas were by road. Those roads are treacherous. They showed a picture of one of the army trucks that the BBC correspondent says “tried to rush it” to get to the relief goods it was carrying to those mountainous locations…. the truck had a rollover on it’s way.
Lets not be naive. Lets judge the relief effort by the ground conditions that exist there right now. The terrain is deadly with all the landslides… not helped by heavy thunderstorms and rain in the area which quite possibly may make visibility poor. Lets judge it by the means we have or lack thereof to tackle it. The prez went on CNN practically begging for heavy-lift Cargo helicopters to transport aid to those damage hit regions. I know when things are bad people get emotional and especially when you’re under a make-shift tent, injured, have lost everything and possibly also family members and loved ones and having to spend the night in freezing temperatures and rain, nothing seems fast enough. But we must realize that the government is doing all it can. I came across a blog by an Islamabad resident who documented the time of tremors and the damage info he would hear about. For almost half the day, the info was sketchy and while there were some reports of villages being wiped out, initially it was thought these were the scantily populated localities. Initial reports did estimate the death toll to only be in the hundreds…. by nightfall they estimated it would near a thousand. I don’t think that anyone had figured it might reach tens of thousands.
We have friends here whose family home in Muzzafarbad is completely totaled. His grandmother and some other family members are injured and their house is reduced to rubble.This guy has an uncle in the military and for two days he has been trying to get two trucks filled with aid to Muzzafarbad and possibly get some people out of there but the roads are so bad it hasn’t been possible so far. I tell you this just to show that even those who have relatives in those remote areas and who have the means to do something about it haven’t been able to help them as fast as they would like. Unlike the failure of the US government to provide relief to the New Orleans victims, the failure to respond we face in our country is not a result of complacency or bureaucracy. It is a result of not having enough means or money. The president said he had enough manpower, he needed the equipment and he needed the money. The guy took advantage of being the Chief of army to immediately mobilize and utilize army resources.
Think of it this way, the President has accomplished more in the past three days in the way of clearing road obstructions and reaching the affected northern locations than the US had for it’s own people in New Orleans, considering New Orleans was waaaay more accessible than most of the earthquake hit regions of Pakistan, and the US had all the means in the world at it’s disposal to use… after all, it owns them. Lets give the President some credit. Lets not bash him simply for being a US ally, which, lets face it, is perhaps what most motivates this president bashing.
Why must we be a nation of finger pointers and bad-mouthers? Right now, even our neighboring enemy has offered us aid. It’s a time when the world is coming together, when all differences and lines of contention are forgotten and forgone, and here we are pointing fingers and bad-mouthing our own. I am one for raising our voices against injustices and frauds committed by higher authorities at the expense of the general public, but I firmly believe this is not the time, mostly because I don’t think the president deserves this right now. This has nothing to do with my opinion of his alliance with the US… it has everything to do with how I think he is fairing in providing relief given the country’s existing limitations. I spoke to my mother-in-law in Karachi and she says people are giving like never before. Lets indulge in the spirit of giving rather than in this finger-pointing game.
As far the US is concerned… lets first decide what we think of the US. we continuously bad mouth it. We wish to have nothing to do with it and that it not meddle in our affairs and after all that we expect that it help us out in the time of trouble. Like I said, I do not condone any wrong that the US has committed, and we have every right to express our disagreement, but we do go far beyond expressing our disagreement on to verbal abuse akin to effigy and US flag burning. Disagree by all means, Be angry by all means, but how much would you want to help out a person if he continuously badmouths you.
We’re Muslims and are supposedly to follow in the footsteps of the Prophet (SW) who showed kindness to the lady who would throw trash on him everyday as he passed by her house and went in to see how she was doing when one day she wasn’t there to throw trash on him as usual.But we don’t show any such kindness, but we expect that the “infidel” US should. Why do we expect the US to act more Islamic than ourselves? I’m not defending the US but I can’t join in the verbal bashing by people who themselves cannot claim the higher moral standards that they desire the US to exhibit.
On a personal note, I thought of you as soon as I heard the news… just never got around to writing to you. I’m glad everyone is okay and safe. This is so tragic. Entire communities have vanished. It’s painful to watch. My heart breaks and I cry so much as I watch the news. We cling to so much that’s material and we never realize we can lose it in an instant. I don’t know if this is a test for our nation or if it’s punishment. I don’t know if it’s fair or unfair. I just know it’s painful to know that those who have miraculously managed to survive have lost everything… their homes and their loved ones, and I sometimes wonder if death may have been a greater mercy on them. We take for granted the presence of our loved ones… we don’t know what calamity might fall and take them away from us. When you give to your fellow country men in this time of need, remember to give a call to your loved ones living away from you and a hug to those living with you. You don’t want them to leave this world not knowing how much you really love them. Put aside your differences and give to your loved ones all the love you have in your heart… while you still have the chance.
Take care and be safe.
10FelicityOctober 11th, 2005 at 2:22 pm
Oh… and sorry for taking up so much space in your comment page. I believe my comment is longer than your blog!
11knicqOctober 11th, 2005 at 3:01 pm
Thanks Felicity for your very well written, and very much required comment.
I am too drained emotionally by the footages we have seen on GEO and ARY, to even get started on a debate on whether or not the President has done enough.
But for the record, I agree with everything you have said about the ground realities in Pakistan, and the commendable job, given the circumstances, done by the authorities. My last comment was nothing but a vieled request to move away from this president/government authority bashing.
However, i adisagree with your analysis of our attitude to the US here. I do not expect the US to live up to the higher moral standards - I am just appalled by the disparity in efforts the US puts in in “liberating” oil rich people from ex Allies (Osama and Saddam), and in rescuing “third world” people devastated by natural calamities.
How is it that the US with its world renowned satellite systems that can track WMDs mounted on vehicles, was not aware of the extent of this calamity? USD 100,000, upped to USD 50 Million!!!
The UAE pledged USD 100 Million!
The US did appropriate billions of dollars worth of budgets to liberate the Iraqis, didn’t it? Iraqis, people who were not really in desparate need of that bombing campaign those billions went into orchestrating. They sent out the whole blooming US Airforce to bomb people - and now they could muster 8 helicopters!
I have no ambition of US bashing here…I just intend to underline the reason behind our ‘dissatisfaction’ with the US. I am out of words, short of breath. Hope you can see what I am trying to say here.
Thank you very much for the comment - I wish you would comment more often…you know that. Take all the space you want - your comments make for better reading than the posts anyway.
Remember us all in your prayers.
12knicqOctober 11th, 2005 at 3:07 pm
Yasmine: My sister is based in Islamabad, and the rest of the family in Mirpur AJK. Thank you for your kind words…I doubt there is anything I could write that you, or my friend Felicity here amongst many others, couldn’t write loads better…:)
Usman: Thanks so much for the comment bro. My dial up would not load your blog yesterday, and I was worried about you, and your family. I am so glad to know all’s well at your end too. Ammen to your duas.
Saadie:
13mnmOctober 12th, 2005 at 8:04 am
knicq bhai, glad to know all is well with your family. we have been hearing of ppl here losing several members in muzaffarabad too. may Allah have mercy on them and help those who have survived, and give us the heart and health to help generously.
14knicqOctober 12th, 2005 at 12:51 pm
Baji, many thanks for your kindness. It is a collossal tragedy, the magnitude of which is still unfolding…I am surprised we are still not hearing anything from Rawlakot, which was initially reported to have been severely hit.
Ameen and Thumma Ameen to your prayers.
I have seen acts of such genrosity which are hard to describe in words. e.g. A client of mine, hailing from Karachi, has asked me to refer to him at least one affected family, which has lost the bread winner, and he plans to sponsor them for life, or until the time the children are grown up, educated, and married off. He pleaded with me to revert to him ASAP. If most people bestowewd with Allah’s bounty followed suit, the magnitude of this tragedy could be minimized.
A well-off colleague from Venenzuela emptied her wallet to add to contributions, while a Palestinian sister donated big in cash and blankets both.
There are countless people going about collecting donations, and offering volunteer services.
There’s a Lebanese Christian client/friend of mine, who has asked me to just tell him when and where to contribute.
All of this, in these tragic times, gives one hope that all is still not lost.
15knicqOctober 12th, 2005 at 1:35 pm
On the other hand, just came across this, which was posted by a sister from AJK, residing in UK, I think…
Quote“do u people know wts happening around?at this hour, during so much hype and tension,when everybody has seen that life is so unpredictable.nothing works when HE decides to call u back*one person sold 8 coffins in Islamabad for RS 18000/-*in Karachi one coffin of 100-300 rs are now sold for rs700/- to 1200/-*In Mansehra group of gunned man looted two trucks which were taking goods for relief work,police did come to rescue afterwards to protect the remainig ones but they can’t do everything everywhere*In Muzzafarabad the professionals who bathe the bodies(MAYYATS) have taken away all the gold things of bodies*The buses which used to take Rs32-100/- to take ppl from Mirpur to Muzzafarabad are charging rs500/- and the buses which wud take 300/- to take ppl from Islamabad to Muzzafarabad are taking rs 1400/-Mu frnds they r no rumors as i m only writing down the authentic events which my frnds in Rawlakot and Muzzafabad reported back.I m not trying to hold down ur morale but seriously why don’t we think that the only thing which can save us now is the reward v may earn by helping these people. This is not the sign of QAYAMAT this is QAYAMUTTp bring you all uptodate now v need**Medicines-anti biotics,anti allergics,for TB cure,for fever & cold cure, Vitamins,painkillers,Gkucose drips**manpower to work at different camps and Base Faisal to organise the stuff**trucks to take things will someone please bear the expenses of trucks and make arrangements for the collected things at various camps to be taken awayDONT DONATE MONEY CONCENTRATE ON ABOVE MENTIONED STUFF.MAY ALLAH REWARD YOU BACK FOR ALL THE GOOD U DO AND MAY HE SEND DOWN HIS MERCY AND DIVINE HELP FOR THE VICTIMS AND HELPER”Unquote
Just when we were begining to think we had risen above our petty corruption…this is so sad.
16SaadieOctober 12th, 2005 at 6:38 pm
There are always black sheeps in a society, inshAllah everything will be fine.
17AbezOctober 15th, 2005 at 4:45 pm
HF told me everyone in your family was alright and I was relieved Bhai, and may Allah bless and guide us all to the correct course of action that earns His mercy and helps others in need InshaAllah.
18SaadieOctober 22nd, 2005 at 1:22 pm
updates?
19knicqOctober 22nd, 2005 at 3:22 pm
Saadie: I have been oscillating between hope and despair as on the one hand wonderful stories of selfless dedication have unfolded in front of me or reached me, and as on the other hand we have heard of those black sheep. It takes every ounce of my resolve not to curse those people whose blackened hearts are no touched even by the magnitude of this tragedy…:(
Litle Baji, Ameen to your prayers. ¶ 1/26/2006 02:14:00 AM
Circumference, Zany JB, and Nostalgia.
1 Meter!
Its official. Knicq has breached the 1M barrier in circumference.
In the past, I have hovered around this barrier, but never really did cross it. My failures, however, were not due to lack of trying. I know now that everything must happen in its own time, and one must continue to strive for excellence in the face of adversity and failures. A 100 cms is a lot of me, and I knew I was on the right track when standing up straight, I could no longer see my size 9 shoes. Jalali Baba has always had reservations about the usage of the word straight here in the context. He believes half moon conveys a much more accurate picture, but I differ on technical grounds. The semi-circular image invoked by the half moon metaphor does not really fit me. As far as imagery goes, Jalali Baba says it is more a case of getting the China wall to stand vertically rather than lying around like a lazy python, and getting it to swallow the half moon just so it comes to rest in the middle. Of course, this is a ridiculous way of putting things. Everyone knows, walls don’t eat half moons, or full moons; and whoever heard of pythons lying around lazily?
Thats Jalali Baba for you. He will be 30 soon, and although he maintains otherwise I have this nagging suspicion that he crossed 1M long ago. It is common knowledge that he is on the wrong side of 100 Kgs. I remain on the right side by about twenty kgs. JB thinks my eating habits add to his weight, and his smoking habits to my girth. The more I evaluate the data available, the more sense this hypothesis makes. I guess, he is pulling me into senilepur along with him. He is senile, this part I have figured out. I have also got to the conclusion that he is fighting old age. You know you are fighting old age when you start believing you are getting old, because most people choose to fight old age rather than age gracefully. Before I tell you why I think he is fighting old age, let me tell you about a small incident that should have alerted me to JB’s condition years ago.
A couple of years ago, wifey and kids had chosen exactly the same time to go on a vacation, when JB’s family was in Pakistan. JB lives in Abu Dhabi, approximately 175 Kms from where I live. He used to drive down with a bundle of wood, and a makeshift tent, in the trunk of Saab-ki-Gaadi, and drive on another 100 kilometers to Dibba; where he would put up the tent in the ‘wilderness’, make a ‘bonfire’ 2 feet in height, spend the night there, and drive back to Abu Dhabi in the morning. This used to qualify for the ultimate adventure out in the open, away from the hustle bustle of cities and towns - the former employed to refer to Abu-Dhabi and Dubai, and the latter used to allude to yours truly’s city of abode.
He did this almost every week, and talked about it to me for the rest of the week. This has to be the explanation for my affirmative nod when he invited me to one such night of adventure. I find no other logical basis for this stupidity of mine. I am not an outdoors person. I am a Dubaiite, and like all fellow-Dubaiites, I would take the air-conditioned malls over the “wilderness” anyday. (After the trip, I would take malls on fire over a trip to the wilderness with JB)
I was ordered to pack in a copy of “Kuliyat-e-Iqbal”, while JB packed in OSK, who has until now been introduced as Fash’s BiL. We set off in Saab Ki Gaadi about midnight on an unusually cold night. Along the way, Jalali Bab tried to educate the lesser mortals on Iqbal, but lost interest when we could not even feign interest. Then came the punishment for this insolence. At two in the morning, with the whole world, including the road ahead plunged in absolute darkness, JB switched off the head lights - only for a few seconds, but for long enough to scare the living daylights out of the two of us. Our screams only encouraged him, and he did it for a second time, and stopped only when the two of us threatened to tell his wife about his smoking excesses(provided, of course, we made it back in one peice, but a provision we chose not to elaborate on at the time).
He finally found a place to stop the car, and put the tent up - a deserted spot between two hills, populated by nothing, save a few shrubs swaying suspiciously in the howling winter wind, and the omnipresent fear of grouchy ghosts woken from their slumber by our cacophony. To JB’s dismay, we decided against spending the night there, and forced him to choose another spot. The spot we did agree on was at the beach, the impracticality of which choice was laid bare when it came time to put the tent up. Somehow, the tent was done, and JB got down to making his ‘bonfire’. Here again was a challenge, since the winds were not conducive to getting the fire going; a challenge that was overcome eventually. We huddled around the fire to keep ourselves warm.
We had barely got comfortable, when a strong gust of wind brought a ton of sand to our fire, and chased on its way out particles of sand with their tails on fire. For a while, the whole place was lit up like the sky; in this while I heard JB scream and run after those fiery particles, it was only later that I realized that he was running after our tent, which had been uprooted by the wind. That put paid to the night under the skies.
A few weeks ago, JB was chastizing me for my reckless driving on blackey about a year ago, when I had done a little swerving and cutting while talking on my cell phone; and I had to bring up his switching off of those head lights. That shut him up. A while later, while sitting down in a traditional Yemeni restaurant for our dinner, I asked him what the dickens did he think he was doing at the time. His reply, ‘Saab, there is no thrill in life anymore’. I had to suppress my murderous instinct, but even the best restraint could also not keep me from going ballistic in his face in two public places - one the afore mentioned traditional restaurant, which refused to serve us food given my outburst; and the other which served us food despite the ballistic me.
I have figured out now though - JB is old, and he is fighting old age - some men resort to cheap thrills in this fight. There are those who switch off head lights while driving on a dark highway, or go bungie jumping, or join a gym; or remarry; and there are those who opt for a more enduring pain- they go nostalgic. The latter crop of fighters is a sad bunch of people; they find something wrong with everything around them, and long for days gone by, the miseries of days gone by, and the joys of days gone by. If they are any good with the pen, they write books about days gone by, and romanticize the past at the expense of present and future.
JB comes from a new breed of fighters though - this is a breed which thinks itself older than it really is, so while the guys resort to some or all of the switching-off-the-headlights thrills, they are disappointed to find that they can’t really get nostaligic because their days gone by are no so far off. They must then do the next best thing - they live in other people’s nostalgia.
It is a way of life elevated to an art form by the likes of JB. The method is simple. You read a few books on genuine nostalgia, and then realizing that what you are living through today, will constitute your nostalgia tomorow, just as the past turned into nostalgia for those writers, you start living your picture perfect nostalgia, for tomorrow’s sake. Am I making any sense?
I do not have to, I will be 30 in a year’s time, and I will be able to think back to today with a touch of nostalgia, think back to days when I used to fight the oncomings of old age with half baked philosophic psychoanalysis of my freinds who were living their nostalgia before they got to the logical age of nostalgia.
For now, I am 1 Meter fat, and JB is a 100 KGS heavy - these will be the days to hark back to!
-->
One Response to 'Circumference, Zany JB, and Nostalgia.'
1SaeedOctober 8th, 2005 at 10:19 am
great to have new posts from u!nice intro to fash.U’ve been blessed with such wonderful friends-& even have them close by…& lol @ big 3-0 now not as older as it used to be…& even U already have that nostalgic psyche & u aren’t even 30 yet!so do u guys still go & spend the night in d wadi/desert/beach?? & btw, i plan on doing the sky dive this summer, so does that make me…???or shud i leave it to be done when i hit d big 3-0?lol ¶ 1/26/2006 02:11:00 AM
Its official. Knicq has breached the 1M barrier in circumference.
In the past, I have hovered around this barrier, but never really did cross it. My failures, however, were not due to lack of trying. I know now that everything must happen in its own time, and one must continue to strive for excellence in the face of adversity and failures. A 100 cms is a lot of me, and I knew I was on the right track when standing up straight, I could no longer see my size 9 shoes. Jalali Baba has always had reservations about the usage of the word straight here in the context. He believes half moon conveys a much more accurate picture, but I differ on technical grounds. The semi-circular image invoked by the half moon metaphor does not really fit me. As far as imagery goes, Jalali Baba says it is more a case of getting the China wall to stand vertically rather than lying around like a lazy python, and getting it to swallow the half moon just so it comes to rest in the middle. Of course, this is a ridiculous way of putting things. Everyone knows, walls don’t eat half moons, or full moons; and whoever heard of pythons lying around lazily?
Thats Jalali Baba for you. He will be 30 soon, and although he maintains otherwise I have this nagging suspicion that he crossed 1M long ago. It is common knowledge that he is on the wrong side of 100 Kgs. I remain on the right side by about twenty kgs. JB thinks my eating habits add to his weight, and his smoking habits to my girth. The more I evaluate the data available, the more sense this hypothesis makes. I guess, he is pulling me into senilepur along with him. He is senile, this part I have figured out. I have also got to the conclusion that he is fighting old age. You know you are fighting old age when you start believing you are getting old, because most people choose to fight old age rather than age gracefully. Before I tell you why I think he is fighting old age, let me tell you about a small incident that should have alerted me to JB’s condition years ago.
A couple of years ago, wifey and kids had chosen exactly the same time to go on a vacation, when JB’s family was in Pakistan. JB lives in Abu Dhabi, approximately 175 Kms from where I live. He used to drive down with a bundle of wood, and a makeshift tent, in the trunk of Saab-ki-Gaadi, and drive on another 100 kilometers to Dibba; where he would put up the tent in the ‘wilderness’, make a ‘bonfire’ 2 feet in height, spend the night there, and drive back to Abu Dhabi in the morning. This used to qualify for the ultimate adventure out in the open, away from the hustle bustle of cities and towns - the former employed to refer to Abu-Dhabi and Dubai, and the latter used to allude to yours truly’s city of abode.
He did this almost every week, and talked about it to me for the rest of the week. This has to be the explanation for my affirmative nod when he invited me to one such night of adventure. I find no other logical basis for this stupidity of mine. I am not an outdoors person. I am a Dubaiite, and like all fellow-Dubaiites, I would take the air-conditioned malls over the “wilderness” anyday. (After the trip, I would take malls on fire over a trip to the wilderness with JB)
I was ordered to pack in a copy of “Kuliyat-e-Iqbal”, while JB packed in OSK, who has until now been introduced as Fash’s BiL. We set off in Saab Ki Gaadi about midnight on an unusually cold night. Along the way, Jalali Bab tried to educate the lesser mortals on Iqbal, but lost interest when we could not even feign interest. Then came the punishment for this insolence. At two in the morning, with the whole world, including the road ahead plunged in absolute darkness, JB switched off the head lights - only for a few seconds, but for long enough to scare the living daylights out of the two of us. Our screams only encouraged him, and he did it for a second time, and stopped only when the two of us threatened to tell his wife about his smoking excesses(provided, of course, we made it back in one peice, but a provision we chose not to elaborate on at the time).
He finally found a place to stop the car, and put the tent up - a deserted spot between two hills, populated by nothing, save a few shrubs swaying suspiciously in the howling winter wind, and the omnipresent fear of grouchy ghosts woken from their slumber by our cacophony. To JB’s dismay, we decided against spending the night there, and forced him to choose another spot. The spot we did agree on was at the beach, the impracticality of which choice was laid bare when it came time to put the tent up. Somehow, the tent was done, and JB got down to making his ‘bonfire’. Here again was a challenge, since the winds were not conducive to getting the fire going; a challenge that was overcome eventually. We huddled around the fire to keep ourselves warm.
We had barely got comfortable, when a strong gust of wind brought a ton of sand to our fire, and chased on its way out particles of sand with their tails on fire. For a while, the whole place was lit up like the sky; in this while I heard JB scream and run after those fiery particles, it was only later that I realized that he was running after our tent, which had been uprooted by the wind. That put paid to the night under the skies.
A few weeks ago, JB was chastizing me for my reckless driving on blackey about a year ago, when I had done a little swerving and cutting while talking on my cell phone; and I had to bring up his switching off of those head lights. That shut him up. A while later, while sitting down in a traditional Yemeni restaurant for our dinner, I asked him what the dickens did he think he was doing at the time. His reply, ‘Saab, there is no thrill in life anymore’. I had to suppress my murderous instinct, but even the best restraint could also not keep me from going ballistic in his face in two public places - one the afore mentioned traditional restaurant, which refused to serve us food given my outburst; and the other which served us food despite the ballistic me.
I have figured out now though - JB is old, and he is fighting old age - some men resort to cheap thrills in this fight. There are those who switch off head lights while driving on a dark highway, or go bungie jumping, or join a gym; or remarry; and there are those who opt for a more enduring pain- they go nostalgic. The latter crop of fighters is a sad bunch of people; they find something wrong with everything around them, and long for days gone by, the miseries of days gone by, and the joys of days gone by. If they are any good with the pen, they write books about days gone by, and romanticize the past at the expense of present and future.
JB comes from a new breed of fighters though - this is a breed which thinks itself older than it really is, so while the guys resort to some or all of the switching-off-the-headlights thrills, they are disappointed to find that they can’t really get nostaligic because their days gone by are no so far off. They must then do the next best thing - they live in other people’s nostalgia.
It is a way of life elevated to an art form by the likes of JB. The method is simple. You read a few books on genuine nostalgia, and then realizing that what you are living through today, will constitute your nostalgia tomorow, just as the past turned into nostalgia for those writers, you start living your picture perfect nostalgia, for tomorrow’s sake. Am I making any sense?
I do not have to, I will be 30 in a year’s time, and I will be able to think back to today with a touch of nostalgia, think back to days when I used to fight the oncomings of old age with half baked philosophic psychoanalysis of my freinds who were living their nostalgia before they got to the logical age of nostalgia.
For now, I am 1 Meter fat, and JB is a 100 KGS heavy - these will be the days to hark back to!
-->
One Response to 'Circumference, Zany JB, and Nostalgia.'
1SaeedOctober 8th, 2005 at 10:19 am
great to have new posts from u!nice intro to fash.U’ve been blessed with such wonderful friends-& even have them close by…& lol @ big 3-0 now not as older as it used to be…& even U already have that nostalgic psyche & u aren’t even 30 yet!so do u guys still go & spend the night in d wadi/desert/beach?? & btw, i plan on doing the sky dive this summer, so does that make me…???or shud i leave it to be done when i hit d big 3-0?lol ¶ 1/26/2006 02:11:00 AM
Fash's 30th!
In just about twenty four hours, Fash will, by the grace of Allah, turn 30 years old. He will be the first one from my friends to cross over into thirties. Not that it is of any consequence, thirty year olds today are so much younger than thirty year olds from my father’s generation. I should know. 30 year olds today are just about a year older than me today - they used to be something like 25 years older than me back then. Those guys used to be so old!
Fash has been a dear dear friend, the dearest, and he is also the oldest friend I have today. We first got to know each other back in 1985, when we started grade four together in school. I had just come back from Pakistan, after being gone for some two years, and he, I think, had come down from Abu-Dhabi. I don’t remember how we came to be friends, and after this long who really cares; one wonders if it really was out of choice since the gender ratio in our class was 26:4 to the disadvantage of the males; besides my memories from those days are rather painful. Fash has maintained a decent four inch vertical superiority over me all along. I used to think he had a superiority complex, until I found out he was the short guy in his cousins. This vertical advantage of his often resulted in horizontal consequences for me, owing to our daily wrestling matches before the morning assembly.
He has often laughed about the time he picked me up, and brought me down on his knee. I still attribute my back problems to that fateful incident. Another time, we were sabre rattling, only mine was a plastic scale, while he had that wooden scale that used to come with a blade - in my enthusiasm, I caught one of his ‘blows’ in my hand, and refused to let go…he just pulled the scale away - left me with four fingers bleeding. We both left that school after seventh grade, and were to meet again a good seven years later in Pakistan. It has been another nine years since, and Fash has introduced me to scores of wonderful new people in these years, amongst them Felicity, Madi and Jalali Baba.
Moral of the story: Great friends come to those who hold on to their first great friend.
I have learnt that the strongest of bonds are formed in the weakest of moments, under the most fragile circumstances. I have also learnt that one of Allah’s greatest blessings is a friend close by in turbulent times.
A few years ago, I was left bruised and battered at the end of a most trying day; Allah had given me the strength to plough through the day’s events, but I did not see it that way at the time. Despair, regret, anguish, and sadness were pulling me into hopelessness, when I found Fash on line. I was fragile, deeply hurt, and very tired at the time, and I am glad it was Fash I had found on line. He comforted me, reassured me, and kept me from completely disintegrating. I did not realize it then, and it was only months later when I came across that same conversation that it dawned upon me just how vulnerable and unwise I had been in those moments, and just how big a blessing of Allah Fash had been that day.
That chapter in my life tested a couple more of my friends, and Alhamdu Lillah each one of them came through. I could not talk to Fash after that, but Madi was with me for the next couple of weeks, and helped me and guided me as a friend must a friend lost in darkness. I got back online, and found an email from Felicity that had just the rigth words saying just the things I needed to be told at the time. After all that turbulence, peace and releif came to me through a precious few lines, written to me by a precious friend. Sure, I suffered, but I also discovered the wonderful joy that friends are.
This is turning into a song of friendship; I had meant for this post to be an introduction of Fash, one of my closest, dearest friends; but it is begining to read like a boring chapter from my biography. My apologies. It is, however, an undeniable fact that no introduction of a great friend is complete unless one elaborates on just what makes that friend great. To Fash’s disadvantage, what makes him great is that he has stuck around despite the boring me - and this he has done for over two decades now!
So, dear friend, here is wishing you a very very happy birthday, and many many happy returns of the day. May Allah shower His blessings on you everyday and every night, and may He reward you with joy, happiness and contentment for bringing joy to so many lives; may He give you the courage and strength to endure being my friend for all years to come.
Ameen.
-->
2 Responses to 'Fash’s 30th!'
1SaadatOctober 7th, 2005 at 3:57 pm
Happy Birthday to Fash!
And yay for good friends! I, on the other hand, need to learn something from the moral you concluded.
And Ramadan Mubarak!
2knicqOctober 8th, 2005 at 2:49 am
Salamz Chotey Bhai, and Ramadan mubarak to you too, and to your family.
So are you telling me, you need to go befriend somone who has held on to a great friend already?
p.s. for the umpteenth time, I cannot comment on your blog. It just does not show my comments, while it does everyone else’s - I try thrice everytime, and leave sulking. ¶ 1/26/2006 02:08:00 AM
Fash has been a dear dear friend, the dearest, and he is also the oldest friend I have today. We first got to know each other back in 1985, when we started grade four together in school. I had just come back from Pakistan, after being gone for some two years, and he, I think, had come down from Abu-Dhabi. I don’t remember how we came to be friends, and after this long who really cares; one wonders if it really was out of choice since the gender ratio in our class was 26:4 to the disadvantage of the males; besides my memories from those days are rather painful. Fash has maintained a decent four inch vertical superiority over me all along. I used to think he had a superiority complex, until I found out he was the short guy in his cousins. This vertical advantage of his often resulted in horizontal consequences for me, owing to our daily wrestling matches before the morning assembly.
He has often laughed about the time he picked me up, and brought me down on his knee. I still attribute my back problems to that fateful incident. Another time, we were sabre rattling, only mine was a plastic scale, while he had that wooden scale that used to come with a blade - in my enthusiasm, I caught one of his ‘blows’ in my hand, and refused to let go…he just pulled the scale away - left me with four fingers bleeding. We both left that school after seventh grade, and were to meet again a good seven years later in Pakistan. It has been another nine years since, and Fash has introduced me to scores of wonderful new people in these years, amongst them Felicity, Madi and Jalali Baba.
Moral of the story: Great friends come to those who hold on to their first great friend.
I have learnt that the strongest of bonds are formed in the weakest of moments, under the most fragile circumstances. I have also learnt that one of Allah’s greatest blessings is a friend close by in turbulent times.
A few years ago, I was left bruised and battered at the end of a most trying day; Allah had given me the strength to plough through the day’s events, but I did not see it that way at the time. Despair, regret, anguish, and sadness were pulling me into hopelessness, when I found Fash on line. I was fragile, deeply hurt, and very tired at the time, and I am glad it was Fash I had found on line. He comforted me, reassured me, and kept me from completely disintegrating. I did not realize it then, and it was only months later when I came across that same conversation that it dawned upon me just how vulnerable and unwise I had been in those moments, and just how big a blessing of Allah Fash had been that day.
That chapter in my life tested a couple more of my friends, and Alhamdu Lillah each one of them came through. I could not talk to Fash after that, but Madi was with me for the next couple of weeks, and helped me and guided me as a friend must a friend lost in darkness. I got back online, and found an email from Felicity that had just the rigth words saying just the things I needed to be told at the time. After all that turbulence, peace and releif came to me through a precious few lines, written to me by a precious friend. Sure, I suffered, but I also discovered the wonderful joy that friends are.
This is turning into a song of friendship; I had meant for this post to be an introduction of Fash, one of my closest, dearest friends; but it is begining to read like a boring chapter from my biography. My apologies. It is, however, an undeniable fact that no introduction of a great friend is complete unless one elaborates on just what makes that friend great. To Fash’s disadvantage, what makes him great is that he has stuck around despite the boring me - and this he has done for over two decades now!
So, dear friend, here is wishing you a very very happy birthday, and many many happy returns of the day. May Allah shower His blessings on you everyday and every night, and may He reward you with joy, happiness and contentment for bringing joy to so many lives; may He give you the courage and strength to endure being my friend for all years to come.
Ameen.
-->
2 Responses to 'Fash’s 30th!'
1SaadatOctober 7th, 2005 at 3:57 pm
Happy Birthday to Fash!
And yay for good friends! I, on the other hand, need to learn something from the moral you concluded.
And Ramadan Mubarak!
2knicqOctober 8th, 2005 at 2:49 am
Salamz Chotey Bhai, and Ramadan mubarak to you too, and to your family.
So are you telling me, you need to go befriend somone who has held on to a great friend already?
p.s. for the umpteenth time, I cannot comment on your blog. It just does not show my comments, while it does everyone else’s - I try thrice everytime, and leave sulking. ¶ 1/26/2006 02:08:00 AM
Dubaiite Frustrated!
Me and my big mouth. For decades, the people of this oil rich country have enjoyed low fuel prices, and the six and eight cylinder auto-mammoths that become but a logical option due to those prices. Then I had to go and spoil it for everyone. I had to declare fuel was cheap here, and someone was listening. Now the government has rectified that anomaly in the general scheme of things. The petrol just got dearer by 30% yesterday.
This can have grave implications in a country, where retailers and their suppliers increased the prices of goods across the board when the Government had announced a 15% increase in the salaries of public servants, so the poor sods could come to terms with rising cost of living; and not just any retailers, it was the Co-Operatives which are supposed to cater to the consumers’ shrinking wallets. What was even more amusing was the fact that this hike was effected right after the announcement of the salary-increase, not after the actual salary increase. Finally, the Government had to step in, and give the greedy rascals a rap on their knuckles. Cost-push inflation is but an economic phenomenon, it will be interesting to see how the retailers respond to this new development. It is generally, and rather less sarcastically than it should be, assumed that the landlords and real estate agents will find an excuse in this fuel-price hike to hike up the rents for the umpteenth time.
The only thing cheap in this country now is labor, which ironically is the one commodity that should not be cheap anyway, and especially not so in Dubai which is ranked higher than Washington D.C and Toronto on the list of the most-expensive, and hence the least desirable to live in, cities of the world. Increasingly, it is becoming a less desirable place to live in for the middle class. It costs an average of USD 1800 per month to rent out a two bedroom apartment in Dubai, which is (un)reasonably higher than the average cost of renting an apartment in more developed and high profile cities like Washington D.C and Toronto*. There are some who take this to be a sign of things to come, and a mark of how prestigious a city Dubai has become. Anyone who thinks Dubai is more prestigious and developed than the capital of the reigning super power is obviously living in a fool’s paradise. The only thing this twisted equation points to is flawed planning, and greedier real estate agents. The yardstick for the prestige and development of a city should be the satisfaction levels of its inhabitants, their lifestyles, and a growing middle class segment.
Just the other day, I was visiting a friend who lives on the 27th floor of a high rise tower in the upmarket Dubai Marina ‘enclave’. I stepped out into their balcony, and was mesmerized by the construction work underway at the site of one of the world famous Palm Projects. For those who have been blissfully spared the media frenzy surrounding these projects, the Palm Projects, and there were three of those until the last count, are huge palm shaped residential schemes for the welathiest of the world. The distinguishing thing about these palm shaped schemes is that the “palm” will be completely reclaimed land, protuding out into the sea. The “palms” will be visible from Neptune and Pluto, and aliens from other galaxies will also be able to see them on clear days. A fraction of the amount spent on these projects, if funnelled into constructing residential areas on the sprawling deserts of the country could have easily curbed the menace of rising rents. Ironically, one gets to see that sprawling desert in the other direction from the same point.
This brings me to another aspect of this developing- like- crazy-city that baffles me. Not a day goes by when we the residents of the twin cities of Dubai and Sharjah do not have to grapple with the tiring and frustrating traffic jams here. Part of the problem lies in the fact that when going to work all traffic is headed to the few pockets of high rises which house bulk of the commercial activity, and understandably the same traffic is headed out of these pockets at close of day.
I am no city planner, but tell me this, why do we have high rises? So that we can make optimum use of scarce space, right? Well, someone should get a bird’s eye view of this city, THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF SPACE HERE! There are miles and miles of desert just waiting to be converted into commercial or residential areas. But, skyscrapers we must have, so Dubai can rank amongst the cities of the world that have what the newspapers here refer to as “a skyline”. One of my ex-employers, a Japanese gentlman, used to wonder about the speed with which new towers, buildings and other structures are constructed here. He was quite sure that similar construction projects would take thrice the time to construct in Japan. Again there would be some who would find reason to celebrate the ‘efficiencies’ of Dubai in this statement. What they do not realize is that Japan survived an earthquake last month measuring to the north of 5.0 on the Richter Scale with zero casualties, while a similar seismic phenomenon would leave tens of thousands dead, and losses estimated at upwards of USD 50 billion in this efficient little place…
Coming back to the traffic jams, if you had offices sprawling over a large area, you would not have all these people headed the same way in the mornings, or headed out of the same places in the evenings. There would be lesser, if any, traffic jams. The only thing required to achieve this simplistic solution would be a braoder infrastructure, which is not a cost this rich country cannot bear. Understandably, spreading the commercial activity will require more commuting between offices for salespeople like me, but hey fuel is still cheaper in this part of the world than it is in the rest of the world. Granted with the passage of time, the country will have to resort to sky scrapers, since it is not bestowed with unlimited space, but hey, why experience the agony of a space cramped city decades before it becomes space cramped. Plus, a broader base of infrastructure will only prepare the country better for such growth when the real need for space optimization arises.
I have no pretensions of being a planner, but if I can think of these solutions, surely people trained and qualified to plan cities can think more creatively than they are doing presently.
The people of this blessed country deserve to feel blessed living in it. Practicality, not exhibitionism, will help ensure that feeling.
-->
22 Responses to 'Dubaiite frustrated!'
1FarihaSeptember 4th, 2005 at 6:26 am
Wow… how long have I been missing from the scene??? I seemed to have missed so much, it’s almost overwhelming! I have never been to Dubai and the last time I was in the Emirates was some 16 years ago. Hubby is in Dubai right now, though, for a Schlumberger dog-and-pony show…. a 2 day new technology forum at the Emirates towers. He says the place is bloody expensive, but for 400USD-a-night (company rate), the hotel is just awesome. Leave it to the arabs to define luxury. Leave it to the Arabs to define exhibitionism!
You complain of traffic jams.. hah! You don’t know Cairo. This has got to be one of the most congested cities in the world. There are probably more people per square foot in this city than dust… and this is the desert, you know. And we have the same roads the british built before the 2nd world war… okay so the tarmacs been refreshed, and they’ve added some overpasses here and there but honestly the roads aren’t enough to accomodate the number of cars here. they’re narrow and we’re limited on routes. And high-rises? If you took out all buildings with over 12 floors, there would be hardly anyhting left in Cairo nowadays. Any villas that remained have been turned into either commercial or residential buildings… and they don’t even bother to make them look good because the dust will make them brown anyway. And since there’s no real planning, the Cairo skyline doesn’t look anything like a skyline. A building can pop up anywhere, and traffic can flow in either direction on a narrow two lane road with rampant doubleparking on either side!
Hey thanks… you just gave me a good blog topic. I’ll get to it as soon as I finish my other unfinished blog topic that I have been pursuing for the past month and a half. Baby’s been keeping me busy!
Nice site by the way.
2knicqSeptember 4th, 2005 at 10:42 am
Hey Ol’ friend, great to have you back. You have been away for over eight months now, and sorely missed all the while.
Hubby is here, I have emailed you my cell number, please pass it on to him. My office is a few buildings from Emirates Towers on the same road, I would love to show him around…
Oh, and Salman Gulzar of 18th batch is also visiting Dubai, and is put up in Fairmont right across from Emirates Towers. He is here for a training, which co-incidently is also being held in Novotel. Given that he specializes in Oilfield Finance, they might just find topics of common interest.
How come you guys didn’t accompany him? TQ and AQ would have loved to meet Sheheryar.
More later…gotta run.
3FarihaSeptember 6th, 2005 at 6:37 pm
Hubby’s back. We didn’t accompany him because the trip was on short notice and the stupid thing about Egypt is you never can find seats when you want them. Humair got his seat and for the client accompanying him just a day before, after much crying, pleading and groveling. Not to mention that the price for a ticket to Dubai was the same as a ticket to New York!
Thanks for offering to show hubby around. I realize I have a horrible memory. I honestly can’t put a face to Salman Gulzar’s name. I think I do have a faint recollection of who is, but I can’t be sure. Oilfield finance, eh? What company is he working for?
Yes, i have been missing a very long time. Goodness, I’m usually so busy with baby I can’t even find time to download his photos from our camera and email them to both sets of grandparents. Hope to update my sites very soon.
4knicqSeptember 6th, 2005 at 7:11 pm
Oh, he’s back, is he? Guess I can stop calling out his name in the lobby of Emirates Towers now…
Given the sizeable Egyptian contingent in the UAE expat community, it is easy to see how all flights to UAE would have been booked…people returning from vacations at the start of schools…
The Gulzar brothers, Salman and Osman, were both in Fash’s batch. Do you remember that “Crossfire” thingy where Sohail and I had gone head to head on whether women should work or not, and where I had made you stand up from the audience and share youer point of view from Sultana’s class? (I do remember giving you a great introduction, almost mentioned each of your scholarships separately I did)…Crossfire was a forum Salman Gulzar had started, and he used to moderate it along with Rana Rizwan.
He was also one of the comperes at the Avari function, when I had paired off Madi with you know who…
Even if that does not ring a bell, there’s the small matter of him being the topper in the 18th batch.
Given that he is also a chance visitor to knicqland, perhaps he can introduce himself a little here…
He is with Standard Chartered Qatar.
Our love to the baby…has he started attempting sucking his toes already? Or do they do that at six months? I forget…
Looking forward to those long, and I mean looong over due updates.
5knicqSeptember 6th, 2005 at 7:50 pm
…and hey you must find us all at Orkut…I got out group together….
6AbezSeptember 7th, 2005 at 5:42 pm
I hear you Bhai, the rent is ridiculous, and it’s all artificial inflation. No lack of space at all here, just lack of sense. I wonder how much greater a percentage of their lives UAE residents spend in traffic as compared to the people in those other US and Canadian cities (where it’s cheaper to rent apparently). I wonder if we can sue for damages, do you think they would pay us back in lost time?
7FarihaSeptember 12th, 2005 at 1:19 am
I believe i need an invitation from a member to join… unless I’m missing something. Send me a link.
8knicqSeptember 12th, 2005 at 2:54 pm
Li’ Baji: No lack of space…is a euphemism. To see what I mean just take a look at the aerial shot of the city that came as the property developer’s ad this morning with EVERY newspaper!
Fariha: Invitation sent your way madame…ssfara account.
9BaptizedLuciferSeptember 14th, 2005 at 6:31 pm
sigh. u speak my mind. and that of almost everyday person who’s live din the uae long enuf to know how illogical some things are here. all the signs point towards a failing economy. the govt doesnt want to step in. everyoen knows about the cheap material being used for contruction. the new residential areas… dont have hospitals, police stations or fire stations! oh wait, thats coz we have a sepearet block of the health park! yeay! will we have a separate fire and security park too? idiots.
anyone who’s visited shj would know what crappy town planning is.
and then come in the inter emirate rivalries.. especially dubai/shj,closing down of routes… the entire mamzar park… all done on purpose… uffffffffffffffh.. bunda in sab cheezon kay baaray main sochay to pagal ho jaey! magar… bunda jaey to jaey bhi kahan! :S
10NJSeptember 17th, 2005 at 1:31 pm
NJ’s blog died on 11th september 2005…
11knicqSeptember 18th, 2005 at 3:37 pm
Bunda jaana chahey bhi to traffic main phans jayey ga…behtar yahee hai keh ghar baith ka chain ke bansee bajae, aur Bold and the Beautiful daikhey, ‘cuz that is one program as crappy as the traffic, as confused as traffic, and takes longer finishing a sequence than it takes one getting home….hence one would soon start feeling blessed getting stuck in traffic than getting struck by B&B.
NJ…sis., what is this sad news? Will CPR help? Is there anything we can do to help save such a lovely place?
12SaadatSeptember 19th, 2005 at 12:57 pm
You’ve been tagged, Bhaijan!(Caution: it’s a silly tag! )
13AbezSeptember 20th, 2005 at 10:21 am
Oh Bhai, read in the paper today that there won’t be another price hike in petrol, is it true? *cheers excitedly*
14knicqSeptember 20th, 2005 at 11:00 am
Chotey Bhai: Three failed attempts to comment on your blog, and finally gave up. I have told you before your commenting system does not like me. . Thanks for tagging me. One more reason to blog now…lets see if I can do the decent blogger thing to do, and respond in good time.:)
Salamz Sis. That statement was by ADNOC if I am not wrong, and they had made this statement the last time also when Eppco/ENOC had declared they were bleeding to death because of the very low retail fuel prices. ENOC is still going on record sayig they are losing millions if not billions at the current rate.One just wonders, how is it that ENOC’s counterparts in the other 5 GCC countries survive? Why is it that they are not heard crying…yet anyway, since a precedent has been set and its only a matter of time before they too get their Governments to budge.
One hopes ADNOC’s will be heard this time.
15BaptizedLuciferSeptember 20th, 2005 at 3:16 pm
u watch BnB? LOL! I used to watch that when i was a kid, on 33. the last i remm is when brooke logan took over the company. i saw a glimpse of it a while back, and i stopped to watch.. funny how characters can grow on to u, felt as if i knew that “family”…. wanted ot know whats going on with em… hahaha too many new faces… khair i changed the channel in less than a minute.
ADNOC.. yeah it was them.. besides. abu dhabi’s rates have been lower. are they really losing in billions when they are exporting so much? what with all the tension in the middle east its the oil walay who are benifitting the most.. of course there are also the contruction walay eating away money
16SaadieSeptember 26th, 2005 at 5:47 pm
:) good to find a fellow blogger from UAE and thats thanks to moiz or ziom as u may call him. and yea so true about this frustration, though I am in Al-Ain and traffic has no issues here, but I wasnt planing to stay here for a longer period and yea good to c we got some mutual blogging friends.
17knicqSeptember 29th, 2005 at 8:51 am
Apologies to Baptized Lucifer and Saadie both for the delay in responding…and in the latter case accepting the comment.
Just not been around in blogistan (read connected world) for sometime.
Of course I do NOT watch BnB. I stopped right after I got e-vision. Prior to that I had no option…what with having just the one channel, and nothing else to do while waiting for the sitcom that followed BnB everyday…p.s. you can miss out on a year or two of episodes, and completely understand what’s going on as soon as you tune in….actually in a year or two, there’s actually an outisde chance that at leats one of the conversation that started when you stopped is over!
They are losing billions in unearned income…opportunity cost of selling it lower than they can.
Saadie: Another Al-Aini blogger eh? Wonderful. Thanks for stopping by..do keep visiting.
Whatever happened to our friend Moiz?
18SaadieSeptember 29th, 2005 at 4:23 pm
Its ok dude and will keep visiting , moiz well he is not any more on blogy world but do visits connected world at times. anyhow “another al-aini” blogger ok who else is there, glad to know that .
19knicqOctober 1st, 2005 at 8:15 pm
Oh, did you never hear of www.karrvakarela.blogspot.com?
NJ, and now Moiz, why are people leaving blogistan? …and why aren’t certain others not updating as often as they would like to…?
20ayanOctober 3rd, 2005 at 7:23 pm
mm - personally I feel it is better to keep the land as is than to develop it to an unrecognizable extent. Plus im not sure how much the cost of developing sand is or anything, but I feel it would be a nightmare. Is there a rail system in UAE? I am assuming there is some type of subway - is there a legislature? Maybe they can reduce traffic by reducing parking availability. Just my two rupees
21knicqOctober 3rd, 2005 at 8:47 pm
Ayan, I see completely where you are coming from…unfortunately the developed land in this country, and it is but a small fraction of the total land, is not enough to house the population of this country…
Accomodating these people is however not a priority, and that is what my complaint is. Fleecing those that can be fleeced is quickly becoming the only priority.
The cost of developing sand would be high but would hardly compare with the cost of reclaiming land miles into the ocean…not to mention the fact that it would be a much less ecological disaster than those “palms” and “pearls” are.
There will be a metro/rail service in the UAE in the next couple of years, and your other assumption is false. There is however a legislature that suits the country just fine.
Oh, parking space is a luxury only a blessed few enjoy…the rest have mastered the art of converting saloon cars into 4WDs so they can park in empty plots, and sandy patches where available. Others pay by the hour.
Reducing parking space would help where people once discouraged by lack of parking space would choose other forms of commuting over driving themselves…but there are no other forms of commuting, save walking/cycling, and commute all must.
If anything now we the UAE wallahs have more than one topic for ice breaking purposes - after the traditional soaring ‘heat”, now we have soaring rents, traffic jams, parking scams, and last but not the least schooling expenses of the kids.
The writing is on the wall…and it is a misra by Iqbal:
Hai jurm-e-zaeefi kee saza marg-e-mafajaat.
The punishment for the crime that weakness is, is death.
22AOctober 4th, 2005 at 4:23 pm
Ramadhan Mubarak!Love to me darlings. ¶ 1/26/2006 02:05:00 AM
This can have grave implications in a country, where retailers and their suppliers increased the prices of goods across the board when the Government had announced a 15% increase in the salaries of public servants, so the poor sods could come to terms with rising cost of living; and not just any retailers, it was the Co-Operatives which are supposed to cater to the consumers’ shrinking wallets. What was even more amusing was the fact that this hike was effected right after the announcement of the salary-increase, not after the actual salary increase. Finally, the Government had to step in, and give the greedy rascals a rap on their knuckles. Cost-push inflation is but an economic phenomenon, it will be interesting to see how the retailers respond to this new development. It is generally, and rather less sarcastically than it should be, assumed that the landlords and real estate agents will find an excuse in this fuel-price hike to hike up the rents for the umpteenth time.
The only thing cheap in this country now is labor, which ironically is the one commodity that should not be cheap anyway, and especially not so in Dubai which is ranked higher than Washington D.C and Toronto on the list of the most-expensive, and hence the least desirable to live in, cities of the world. Increasingly, it is becoming a less desirable place to live in for the middle class. It costs an average of USD 1800 per month to rent out a two bedroom apartment in Dubai, which is (un)reasonably higher than the average cost of renting an apartment in more developed and high profile cities like Washington D.C and Toronto*. There are some who take this to be a sign of things to come, and a mark of how prestigious a city Dubai has become. Anyone who thinks Dubai is more prestigious and developed than the capital of the reigning super power is obviously living in a fool’s paradise. The only thing this twisted equation points to is flawed planning, and greedier real estate agents. The yardstick for the prestige and development of a city should be the satisfaction levels of its inhabitants, their lifestyles, and a growing middle class segment.
Just the other day, I was visiting a friend who lives on the 27th floor of a high rise tower in the upmarket Dubai Marina ‘enclave’. I stepped out into their balcony, and was mesmerized by the construction work underway at the site of one of the world famous Palm Projects. For those who have been blissfully spared the media frenzy surrounding these projects, the Palm Projects, and there were three of those until the last count, are huge palm shaped residential schemes for the welathiest of the world. The distinguishing thing about these palm shaped schemes is that the “palm” will be completely reclaimed land, protuding out into the sea. The “palms” will be visible from Neptune and Pluto, and aliens from other galaxies will also be able to see them on clear days. A fraction of the amount spent on these projects, if funnelled into constructing residential areas on the sprawling deserts of the country could have easily curbed the menace of rising rents. Ironically, one gets to see that sprawling desert in the other direction from the same point.
This brings me to another aspect of this developing- like- crazy-city that baffles me. Not a day goes by when we the residents of the twin cities of Dubai and Sharjah do not have to grapple with the tiring and frustrating traffic jams here. Part of the problem lies in the fact that when going to work all traffic is headed to the few pockets of high rises which house bulk of the commercial activity, and understandably the same traffic is headed out of these pockets at close of day.
I am no city planner, but tell me this, why do we have high rises? So that we can make optimum use of scarce space, right? Well, someone should get a bird’s eye view of this city, THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF SPACE HERE! There are miles and miles of desert just waiting to be converted into commercial or residential areas. But, skyscrapers we must have, so Dubai can rank amongst the cities of the world that have what the newspapers here refer to as “a skyline”. One of my ex-employers, a Japanese gentlman, used to wonder about the speed with which new towers, buildings and other structures are constructed here. He was quite sure that similar construction projects would take thrice the time to construct in Japan. Again there would be some who would find reason to celebrate the ‘efficiencies’ of Dubai in this statement. What they do not realize is that Japan survived an earthquake last month measuring to the north of 5.0 on the Richter Scale with zero casualties, while a similar seismic phenomenon would leave tens of thousands dead, and losses estimated at upwards of USD 50 billion in this efficient little place…
Coming back to the traffic jams, if you had offices sprawling over a large area, you would not have all these people headed the same way in the mornings, or headed out of the same places in the evenings. There would be lesser, if any, traffic jams. The only thing required to achieve this simplistic solution would be a braoder infrastructure, which is not a cost this rich country cannot bear. Understandably, spreading the commercial activity will require more commuting between offices for salespeople like me, but hey fuel is still cheaper in this part of the world than it is in the rest of the world. Granted with the passage of time, the country will have to resort to sky scrapers, since it is not bestowed with unlimited space, but hey, why experience the agony of a space cramped city decades before it becomes space cramped. Plus, a broader base of infrastructure will only prepare the country better for such growth when the real need for space optimization arises.
I have no pretensions of being a planner, but if I can think of these solutions, surely people trained and qualified to plan cities can think more creatively than they are doing presently.
The people of this blessed country deserve to feel blessed living in it. Practicality, not exhibitionism, will help ensure that feeling.
-->
22 Responses to 'Dubaiite frustrated!'
1FarihaSeptember 4th, 2005 at 6:26 am
Wow… how long have I been missing from the scene??? I seemed to have missed so much, it’s almost overwhelming! I have never been to Dubai and the last time I was in the Emirates was some 16 years ago. Hubby is in Dubai right now, though, for a Schlumberger dog-and-pony show…. a 2 day new technology forum at the Emirates towers. He says the place is bloody expensive, but for 400USD-a-night (company rate), the hotel is just awesome. Leave it to the arabs to define luxury. Leave it to the Arabs to define exhibitionism!
You complain of traffic jams.. hah! You don’t know Cairo. This has got to be one of the most congested cities in the world. There are probably more people per square foot in this city than dust… and this is the desert, you know. And we have the same roads the british built before the 2nd world war… okay so the tarmacs been refreshed, and they’ve added some overpasses here and there but honestly the roads aren’t enough to accomodate the number of cars here. they’re narrow and we’re limited on routes. And high-rises? If you took out all buildings with over 12 floors, there would be hardly anyhting left in Cairo nowadays. Any villas that remained have been turned into either commercial or residential buildings… and they don’t even bother to make them look good because the dust will make them brown anyway. And since there’s no real planning, the Cairo skyline doesn’t look anything like a skyline. A building can pop up anywhere, and traffic can flow in either direction on a narrow two lane road with rampant doubleparking on either side!
Hey thanks… you just gave me a good blog topic. I’ll get to it as soon as I finish my other unfinished blog topic that I have been pursuing for the past month and a half. Baby’s been keeping me busy!
Nice site by the way.
2knicqSeptember 4th, 2005 at 10:42 am
Hey Ol’ friend, great to have you back. You have been away for over eight months now, and sorely missed all the while.
Hubby is here, I have emailed you my cell number, please pass it on to him. My office is a few buildings from Emirates Towers on the same road, I would love to show him around…
Oh, and Salman Gulzar of 18th batch is also visiting Dubai, and is put up in Fairmont right across from Emirates Towers. He is here for a training, which co-incidently is also being held in Novotel. Given that he specializes in Oilfield Finance, they might just find topics of common interest.
How come you guys didn’t accompany him? TQ and AQ would have loved to meet Sheheryar.
More later…gotta run.
3FarihaSeptember 6th, 2005 at 6:37 pm
Hubby’s back. We didn’t accompany him because the trip was on short notice and the stupid thing about Egypt is you never can find seats when you want them. Humair got his seat and for the client accompanying him just a day before, after much crying, pleading and groveling. Not to mention that the price for a ticket to Dubai was the same as a ticket to New York!
Thanks for offering to show hubby around. I realize I have a horrible memory. I honestly can’t put a face to Salman Gulzar’s name. I think I do have a faint recollection of who is, but I can’t be sure. Oilfield finance, eh? What company is he working for?
Yes, i have been missing a very long time. Goodness, I’m usually so busy with baby I can’t even find time to download his photos from our camera and email them to both sets of grandparents. Hope to update my sites very soon.
4knicqSeptember 6th, 2005 at 7:11 pm
Oh, he’s back, is he? Guess I can stop calling out his name in the lobby of Emirates Towers now…
Given the sizeable Egyptian contingent in the UAE expat community, it is easy to see how all flights to UAE would have been booked…people returning from vacations at the start of schools…
The Gulzar brothers, Salman and Osman, were both in Fash’s batch. Do you remember that “Crossfire” thingy where Sohail and I had gone head to head on whether women should work or not, and where I had made you stand up from the audience and share youer point of view from Sultana’s class? (I do remember giving you a great introduction, almost mentioned each of your scholarships separately I did)…Crossfire was a forum Salman Gulzar had started, and he used to moderate it along with Rana Rizwan.
He was also one of the comperes at the Avari function, when I had paired off Madi with you know who…
Even if that does not ring a bell, there’s the small matter of him being the topper in the 18th batch.
Given that he is also a chance visitor to knicqland, perhaps he can introduce himself a little here…
He is with Standard Chartered Qatar.
Our love to the baby…has he started attempting sucking his toes already? Or do they do that at six months? I forget…
Looking forward to those long, and I mean looong over due updates.
5knicqSeptember 6th, 2005 at 7:50 pm
…and hey you must find us all at Orkut…I got out group together….
6AbezSeptember 7th, 2005 at 5:42 pm
I hear you Bhai, the rent is ridiculous, and it’s all artificial inflation. No lack of space at all here, just lack of sense. I wonder how much greater a percentage of their lives UAE residents spend in traffic as compared to the people in those other US and Canadian cities (where it’s cheaper to rent apparently). I wonder if we can sue for damages, do you think they would pay us back in lost time?
7FarihaSeptember 12th, 2005 at 1:19 am
I believe i need an invitation from a member to join… unless I’m missing something. Send me a link.
8knicqSeptember 12th, 2005 at 2:54 pm
Li’ Baji: No lack of space…is a euphemism. To see what I mean just take a look at the aerial shot of the city that came as the property developer’s ad this morning with EVERY newspaper!
Fariha: Invitation sent your way madame…ssfara account.
9BaptizedLuciferSeptember 14th, 2005 at 6:31 pm
sigh. u speak my mind. and that of almost everyday person who’s live din the uae long enuf to know how illogical some things are here. all the signs point towards a failing economy. the govt doesnt want to step in. everyoen knows about the cheap material being used for contruction. the new residential areas… dont have hospitals, police stations or fire stations! oh wait, thats coz we have a sepearet block of the health park! yeay! will we have a separate fire and security park too? idiots.
anyone who’s visited shj would know what crappy town planning is.
and then come in the inter emirate rivalries.. especially dubai/shj,closing down of routes… the entire mamzar park… all done on purpose… uffffffffffffffh.. bunda in sab cheezon kay baaray main sochay to pagal ho jaey! magar… bunda jaey to jaey bhi kahan! :S
10NJSeptember 17th, 2005 at 1:31 pm
NJ’s blog died on 11th september 2005…
11knicqSeptember 18th, 2005 at 3:37 pm
Bunda jaana chahey bhi to traffic main phans jayey ga…behtar yahee hai keh ghar baith ka chain ke bansee bajae, aur Bold and the Beautiful daikhey, ‘cuz that is one program as crappy as the traffic, as confused as traffic, and takes longer finishing a sequence than it takes one getting home….hence one would soon start feeling blessed getting stuck in traffic than getting struck by B&B.
NJ…sis., what is this sad news? Will CPR help? Is there anything we can do to help save such a lovely place?
12SaadatSeptember 19th, 2005 at 12:57 pm
You’ve been tagged, Bhaijan!(Caution: it’s a silly tag! )
13AbezSeptember 20th, 2005 at 10:21 am
Oh Bhai, read in the paper today that there won’t be another price hike in petrol, is it true? *cheers excitedly*
14knicqSeptember 20th, 2005 at 11:00 am
Chotey Bhai: Three failed attempts to comment on your blog, and finally gave up. I have told you before your commenting system does not like me. . Thanks for tagging me. One more reason to blog now…lets see if I can do the decent blogger thing to do, and respond in good time.:)
Salamz Sis. That statement was by ADNOC if I am not wrong, and they had made this statement the last time also when Eppco/ENOC had declared they were bleeding to death because of the very low retail fuel prices. ENOC is still going on record sayig they are losing millions if not billions at the current rate.One just wonders, how is it that ENOC’s counterparts in the other 5 GCC countries survive? Why is it that they are not heard crying…yet anyway, since a precedent has been set and its only a matter of time before they too get their Governments to budge.
One hopes ADNOC’s will be heard this time.
15BaptizedLuciferSeptember 20th, 2005 at 3:16 pm
u watch BnB? LOL! I used to watch that when i was a kid, on 33. the last i remm is when brooke logan took over the company. i saw a glimpse of it a while back, and i stopped to watch.. funny how characters can grow on to u, felt as if i knew that “family”…. wanted ot know whats going on with em… hahaha too many new faces… khair i changed the channel in less than a minute.
ADNOC.. yeah it was them.. besides. abu dhabi’s rates have been lower. are they really losing in billions when they are exporting so much? what with all the tension in the middle east its the oil walay who are benifitting the most.. of course there are also the contruction walay eating away money
16SaadieSeptember 26th, 2005 at 5:47 pm
:) good to find a fellow blogger from UAE and thats thanks to moiz or ziom as u may call him. and yea so true about this frustration, though I am in Al-Ain and traffic has no issues here, but I wasnt planing to stay here for a longer period and yea good to c we got some mutual blogging friends.
17knicqSeptember 29th, 2005 at 8:51 am
Apologies to Baptized Lucifer and Saadie both for the delay in responding…and in the latter case accepting the comment.
Just not been around in blogistan (read connected world) for sometime.
Of course I do NOT watch BnB. I stopped right after I got e-vision. Prior to that I had no option…what with having just the one channel, and nothing else to do while waiting for the sitcom that followed BnB everyday…p.s. you can miss out on a year or two of episodes, and completely understand what’s going on as soon as you tune in….actually in a year or two, there’s actually an outisde chance that at leats one of the conversation that started when you stopped is over!
They are losing billions in unearned income…opportunity cost of selling it lower than they can.
Saadie: Another Al-Aini blogger eh? Wonderful. Thanks for stopping by..do keep visiting.
Whatever happened to our friend Moiz?
18SaadieSeptember 29th, 2005 at 4:23 pm
Its ok dude and will keep visiting , moiz well he is not any more on blogy world but do visits connected world at times. anyhow “another al-aini” blogger ok who else is there, glad to know that .
19knicqOctober 1st, 2005 at 8:15 pm
Oh, did you never hear of www.karrvakarela.blogspot.com?
NJ, and now Moiz, why are people leaving blogistan? …and why aren’t certain others not updating as often as they would like to…?
20ayanOctober 3rd, 2005 at 7:23 pm
mm - personally I feel it is better to keep the land as is than to develop it to an unrecognizable extent. Plus im not sure how much the cost of developing sand is or anything, but I feel it would be a nightmare. Is there a rail system in UAE? I am assuming there is some type of subway - is there a legislature? Maybe they can reduce traffic by reducing parking availability. Just my two rupees
21knicqOctober 3rd, 2005 at 8:47 pm
Ayan, I see completely where you are coming from…unfortunately the developed land in this country, and it is but a small fraction of the total land, is not enough to house the population of this country…
Accomodating these people is however not a priority, and that is what my complaint is. Fleecing those that can be fleeced is quickly becoming the only priority.
The cost of developing sand would be high but would hardly compare with the cost of reclaiming land miles into the ocean…not to mention the fact that it would be a much less ecological disaster than those “palms” and “pearls” are.
There will be a metro/rail service in the UAE in the next couple of years, and your other assumption is false. There is however a legislature that suits the country just fine.
Oh, parking space is a luxury only a blessed few enjoy…the rest have mastered the art of converting saloon cars into 4WDs so they can park in empty plots, and sandy patches where available. Others pay by the hour.
Reducing parking space would help where people once discouraged by lack of parking space would choose other forms of commuting over driving themselves…but there are no other forms of commuting, save walking/cycling, and commute all must.
If anything now we the UAE wallahs have more than one topic for ice breaking purposes - after the traditional soaring ‘heat”, now we have soaring rents, traffic jams, parking scams, and last but not the least schooling expenses of the kids.
The writing is on the wall…and it is a misra by Iqbal:
Hai jurm-e-zaeefi kee saza marg-e-mafajaat.
The punishment for the crime that weakness is, is death.
22AOctober 4th, 2005 at 4:23 pm
Ramadhan Mubarak!Love to me darlings. ¶ 1/26/2006 02:05:00 AM
August - The Month
I had planned to update on August 14th. It was to be a heartfelt post which would have explored my relationship with my motherland, my love for the green flag, given that I am one, the perspective of an Azad Kashmiri as a Proud Pakistani. However, work happened.
Actually, the day did not start that great, with I getting into a nasty tiff with my boss in the early hours of the day over some trivial stuff, like me not making my targets. It got better eventually though. The highlight of the day was the new radio station 104.4 Awaz, which played some of the best national/patriotic songs on the day. Their playlist included such classics as Tera Pakistan hai, yeh mera Pakistan hai, Is parcham ke sayey tale, the ever green Ae Watan, Pak Watan which has also been the soundtrack of my blog for the longest time, the more recent hits like Ae Jawan, Jazba-e-Junoon, and of course the second National Anthem of the country Dil Dil Pakistan.
I kept my tradition of buying sweets for all the office on the day, and not just any mackintoshi/galaxyic sweets, but authentic Pakistani sweets from Nirala. I was pleasantly surprised though when I found them to be almost sold out at around noon, when I had gone there to pick up a tray of habshi halwa. I had to settle for ladoo motichoor, which no-body had bought but which turned out to be a great choice in the end, since the awam at office devoured them like anything. They showered such praise on them that even a strictly non-ludoo eater like me had to try one, and then some. Hats off to Nirala!
The next day, I happened to saunter into HPN’s office after my day’s work, and we got around to talking about how I could club my posts under pertinent heads, and the ever-enthusiastic, techy-to-the-core, and hyper-enthusiastic-about-all-things-techy HPN ended up getting me a domain, and putting up this lovely lay-out for me. Fact is this place would have looked a lot more interesting, and would have been loads more informative and user friendly (user being me) had it not been for my constant suggestions to the contrary. Kudos to HPN for maintaining a civil and non-violent disposition through-out his ordeal, and props to him for getting it to look like it does despite me. His wife, Lil-Baji, had it easier when she had constructed the lovely and genuinely “me” lay-out for my blog almost a year ago - she did not have me around to find her way around. Subhan-Allah and Alhamdu Lillah for lovely and loving (read restrained and patient) friends.
August 17 is a sobering day every year, and has been so for half a decade now. This was the day five years ago when wifey had actually followed through on her “yes”; and when her parents had actually allowed us to drive away into the horizon in the back seat of a” just-married” car. It was a humbling day too this year, as wifey went ahead and added on to her list of achievements on this day when she got her “Valid UAE Driving License” in her first attempt. For those not residing in this country, allow me to elaborate so that the importance and gravity of this development can be better grasped.
UAE is a country with not much of a public transport system, the state of Dubai being essentially the only state out of the seven with any semblance of a transport system. Fuel is cheap, and so are automobiles. Cabs/Taxis are prohibitively expensive, or are driven by obnoxiously ill-mannered cabbies. The weather is not conducive to walking to any place. To top it all, driving without a license is a criminal offense, as it is in most countries, and the penalties can include hefty fines, and/or deportation for the offenders. (One needs to remember that almost 90% of the country is inhabited by expatriates, let me correct that, almost 90% of the population is comprised of expatriates inhabiting some 25% of the country. Deportation, therefore, is the scariest and hence the most effective penalty in the department of justice’s quiver.) All these factors make the need for what is normally called a “Valid UAE Driving License” most pressing, and the fact that getting one quickly is notoriously impossible gives people like yours truly, who got his in his second attempt, reason to boast about belonging to a superior race. It was a humbling moment. She is the second person and the only lady I know who got her license in her first attempt, and my only wife to do so. I have one - for the record.
Empirical data suggests that August 17th is a good day for my wife. She got me on this day, and she got her V.U.A.E.D.L on the day - both in first attempt. A colleague of mine, one I compete with every day for the elusive corniest-person-alive spot, cornily suggested that perhaps her getting the license in her first attempt on this day was divine compensation for ending up with me on this day. He is unmarried, so far, what does he know? Plus he is only the smartest person in the office, and a very very good friend with an excellent sense of humor, in that he gets my jokes and I do his - really cannot take such people’s comments at face-value.
August is also the month after which I will be left with just four months to deliver my targets, which means I will need to pull my socks up, start working late, and continue braving the heat - which by the way has hovered around 46-48 degrees but has been reported at 42-43 degrees celsius officially, but more about that, if at all, later.
Here is signing off for August - tentatively.
-->
9 Responses to 'August - the month.'
1SaeedAugust 27th, 2005 at 6:53 am
another new hindi/urdu fm??theres 106.2,89.1,(atleast 1 more i cant place) & now 1 more?Mabrook for the driver’s licence!lol @ both at first attempt & divine compensation!
2KNICQAugust 27th, 2005 at 12:19 pm
Yeah, you would be surprised at the rate at which new fm stations are surfacing here. The one you could not remember is 101.6 City fm better than either 106.2 Hum fm or 89.1. The new one is distinctively Urdu, which sort of balances out 89.1 which is often distinctively Hindi, and quite often unkind to Pakistan because it borows its news and views from Zee TV.
101.6 was the happeneing channel because of its more balanced approach, though it has less Urdu than Hindi, and smart and less irritating RJs. 106.2 despite the very irritating RJs is still a preset because it is still the only channel that airs the Adhaan/Azan in this Muslim country.
The new channel despite having a complete Pakistani team does not air Azaan. Pity.
3ShiraziAugust 27th, 2005 at 8:03 pm
Wish to learn more of your prospective on different issues. I am tuned to you!
4doshesAugust 28th, 2005 at 1:11 pm
congrats on the new start..of yet another year of both the journeys…hurray for the first time achievers…
5KNICQAugust 28th, 2005 at 3:53 pm
Shirazi: Thanks for tuning in bro….JB says I don’t have much of a perspective….hope you can convince him otherwise.
Doshes: Thanks for stopping by. Do keep visiting.
6AbezAugust 28th, 2005 at 4:10 pm
Laddoo Motichoor??! My father adores Laddoo Motichoor, and he refers to them as legendary and beautiful creatures that exist somewhere between imagination and bliss. Incidentally, I’ve never had one, and I’m wondering why if they’re so great, how come they were the only thing left at the store? Hmm. Btw, I actually had an excellent time at the YPPF dinner, though for all the wrong reasons apparently, hehe
7KNICQAugust 31st, 2005 at 3:06 pm
Li’l Baji,
I think I should bring you Ladoo Motichoor the next time around…your hubby dearest has brought me that Ajmani Jalebi I love so much so many times, and it is only fair that I return the favor. Lets then leave it for you to place it where you wish to place it on the delicio-meter.
There were so many of them left at the store, because they are apparently an acquired taste amongst the Desi-mithai fanatics.
So, you didn’t like the food, were irritated no-end by JB’s sugar-high induced antics, and loved every minute of those glittering tributes everyone was giving everyone, eh?
8AnjumSeptember 1st, 2005 at 12:23 am
great update knicq - as if we were sitting down and chatting about your last few weeks. i like your (corny ) style (”Plus he is only the smartest person in the office, and a very very good friend with an excellent sense of humor, in that he gets my jokes and I do his - really cannot take such people’s comments at face-value.”)
congrats to your wife, and masha’Allah to her for getting it on the first shot.
9knicqSeptember 3rd, 2005 at 11:31 am
Thanks Anjum for your kind words. It was easier writing two lines about this and three about that, and present it all as an excuse for an update, than it would have been to put up an actual update…:)
About wifey getting it in the first attempt, I have theories of my own, but she says I am just plain jealous….which is not entirely correct, since I had got mine in the second attempt but five years before she did…why would I be jealous eh? ¶ 1/26/2006 01:55:00 AM
Actually, the day did not start that great, with I getting into a nasty tiff with my boss in the early hours of the day over some trivial stuff, like me not making my targets. It got better eventually though. The highlight of the day was the new radio station 104.4 Awaz, which played some of the best national/patriotic songs on the day. Their playlist included such classics as Tera Pakistan hai, yeh mera Pakistan hai, Is parcham ke sayey tale, the ever green Ae Watan, Pak Watan which has also been the soundtrack of my blog for the longest time, the more recent hits like Ae Jawan, Jazba-e-Junoon, and of course the second National Anthem of the country Dil Dil Pakistan.
I kept my tradition of buying sweets for all the office on the day, and not just any mackintoshi/galaxyic sweets, but authentic Pakistani sweets from Nirala. I was pleasantly surprised though when I found them to be almost sold out at around noon, when I had gone there to pick up a tray of habshi halwa. I had to settle for ladoo motichoor, which no-body had bought but which turned out to be a great choice in the end, since the awam at office devoured them like anything. They showered such praise on them that even a strictly non-ludoo eater like me had to try one, and then some. Hats off to Nirala!
The next day, I happened to saunter into HPN’s office after my day’s work, and we got around to talking about how I could club my posts under pertinent heads, and the ever-enthusiastic, techy-to-the-core, and hyper-enthusiastic-about-all-things-techy HPN ended up getting me a domain, and putting up this lovely lay-out for me. Fact is this place would have looked a lot more interesting, and would have been loads more informative and user friendly (user being me) had it not been for my constant suggestions to the contrary. Kudos to HPN for maintaining a civil and non-violent disposition through-out his ordeal, and props to him for getting it to look like it does despite me. His wife, Lil-Baji, had it easier when she had constructed the lovely and genuinely “me” lay-out for my blog almost a year ago - she did not have me around to find her way around. Subhan-Allah and Alhamdu Lillah for lovely and loving (read restrained and patient) friends.
August 17 is a sobering day every year, and has been so for half a decade now. This was the day five years ago when wifey had actually followed through on her “yes”; and when her parents had actually allowed us to drive away into the horizon in the back seat of a” just-married” car. It was a humbling day too this year, as wifey went ahead and added on to her list of achievements on this day when she got her “Valid UAE Driving License” in her first attempt. For those not residing in this country, allow me to elaborate so that the importance and gravity of this development can be better grasped.
UAE is a country with not much of a public transport system, the state of Dubai being essentially the only state out of the seven with any semblance of a transport system. Fuel is cheap, and so are automobiles. Cabs/Taxis are prohibitively expensive, or are driven by obnoxiously ill-mannered cabbies. The weather is not conducive to walking to any place. To top it all, driving without a license is a criminal offense, as it is in most countries, and the penalties can include hefty fines, and/or deportation for the offenders. (One needs to remember that almost 90% of the country is inhabited by expatriates, let me correct that, almost 90% of the population is comprised of expatriates inhabiting some 25% of the country. Deportation, therefore, is the scariest and hence the most effective penalty in the department of justice’s quiver.) All these factors make the need for what is normally called a “Valid UAE Driving License” most pressing, and the fact that getting one quickly is notoriously impossible gives people like yours truly, who got his in his second attempt, reason to boast about belonging to a superior race. It was a humbling moment. She is the second person and the only lady I know who got her license in her first attempt, and my only wife to do so. I have one - for the record.
Empirical data suggests that August 17th is a good day for my wife. She got me on this day, and she got her V.U.A.E.D.L on the day - both in first attempt. A colleague of mine, one I compete with every day for the elusive corniest-person-alive spot, cornily suggested that perhaps her getting the license in her first attempt on this day was divine compensation for ending up with me on this day. He is unmarried, so far, what does he know? Plus he is only the smartest person in the office, and a very very good friend with an excellent sense of humor, in that he gets my jokes and I do his - really cannot take such people’s comments at face-value.
August is also the month after which I will be left with just four months to deliver my targets, which means I will need to pull my socks up, start working late, and continue braving the heat - which by the way has hovered around 46-48 degrees but has been reported at 42-43 degrees celsius officially, but more about that, if at all, later.
Here is signing off for August - tentatively.
-->
9 Responses to 'August - the month.'
1SaeedAugust 27th, 2005 at 6:53 am
another new hindi/urdu fm??theres 106.2,89.1,(atleast 1 more i cant place) & now 1 more?Mabrook for the driver’s licence!lol @ both at first attempt & divine compensation!
2KNICQAugust 27th, 2005 at 12:19 pm
Yeah, you would be surprised at the rate at which new fm stations are surfacing here. The one you could not remember is 101.6 City fm better than either 106.2 Hum fm or 89.1. The new one is distinctively Urdu, which sort of balances out 89.1 which is often distinctively Hindi, and quite often unkind to Pakistan because it borows its news and views from Zee TV.
101.6 was the happeneing channel because of its more balanced approach, though it has less Urdu than Hindi, and smart and less irritating RJs. 106.2 despite the very irritating RJs is still a preset because it is still the only channel that airs the Adhaan/Azan in this Muslim country.
The new channel despite having a complete Pakistani team does not air Azaan. Pity.
3ShiraziAugust 27th, 2005 at 8:03 pm
Wish to learn more of your prospective on different issues. I am tuned to you!
4doshesAugust 28th, 2005 at 1:11 pm
congrats on the new start..of yet another year of both the journeys…hurray for the first time achievers…
5KNICQAugust 28th, 2005 at 3:53 pm
Shirazi: Thanks for tuning in bro….JB says I don’t have much of a perspective….hope you can convince him otherwise.
Doshes: Thanks for stopping by. Do keep visiting.
6AbezAugust 28th, 2005 at 4:10 pm
Laddoo Motichoor??! My father adores Laddoo Motichoor, and he refers to them as legendary and beautiful creatures that exist somewhere between imagination and bliss. Incidentally, I’ve never had one, and I’m wondering why if they’re so great, how come they were the only thing left at the store? Hmm. Btw, I actually had an excellent time at the YPPF dinner, though for all the wrong reasons apparently, hehe
7KNICQAugust 31st, 2005 at 3:06 pm
Li’l Baji,
I think I should bring you Ladoo Motichoor the next time around…your hubby dearest has brought me that Ajmani Jalebi I love so much so many times, and it is only fair that I return the favor. Lets then leave it for you to place it where you wish to place it on the delicio-meter.
There were so many of them left at the store, because they are apparently an acquired taste amongst the Desi-mithai fanatics.
So, you didn’t like the food, were irritated no-end by JB’s sugar-high induced antics, and loved every minute of those glittering tributes everyone was giving everyone, eh?
8AnjumSeptember 1st, 2005 at 12:23 am
great update knicq - as if we were sitting down and chatting about your last few weeks. i like your (corny ) style (”Plus he is only the smartest person in the office, and a very very good friend with an excellent sense of humor, in that he gets my jokes and I do his - really cannot take such people’s comments at face-value.”)
congrats to your wife, and masha’Allah to her for getting it on the first shot.
9knicqSeptember 3rd, 2005 at 11:31 am
Thanks Anjum for your kind words. It was easier writing two lines about this and three about that, and present it all as an excuse for an update, than it would have been to put up an actual update…:)
About wifey getting it in the first attempt, I have theories of my own, but she says I am just plain jealous….which is not entirely correct, since I had got mine in the second attempt but five years before she did…why would I be jealous eh? ¶ 1/26/2006 01:55:00 AM
Friday, August 19, 2005
Moving on...
Well, folks, fact is I have been up to something, not sure if it is something that falls under the 'no-good' category....how 'bout you tell me about it?
Here is what I have been up to (With tons, oodles, and dozens of help from Waleed...)
It has been a wonderful year at blogspot, and it is quite likely that blogspot might continue to mirror knicqisms.
It was a year ago when AWk had initiated me into blogistan. Lil Baji Abez had done a stupendous job on the current layout, and it seems only fitting that her hubby should put up the new place for me. Thank God for the wonderful gifts these great friends are, may Allah reward them manifold for their generosity, love, and friendship.
I must be the only one in blogistan rambling on and on when moving on to a new place...just goes on to show how attached I tend to get to my things. ¶ 8/19/2005 06:14:00 PM
Here is what I have been up to (With tons, oodles, and dozens of help from Waleed...)
It has been a wonderful year at blogspot, and it is quite likely that blogspot might continue to mirror knicqisms.
It was a year ago when AWk had initiated me into blogistan. Lil Baji Abez had done a stupendous job on the current layout, and it seems only fitting that her hubby should put up the new place for me. Thank God for the wonderful gifts these great friends are, may Allah reward them manifold for their generosity, love, and friendship.
I must be the only one in blogistan rambling on and on when moving on to a new place...just goes on to show how attached I tend to get to my things. ¶ 8/19/2005 06:14:00 PM
Thursday, August 18, 2005
News brews tonight
(i'm not supposed to tell but i'll tell you that he's up to something, that no good pumpkin discriminating blue hating rapscallion. -yours twuly, waleed)
¶ 8/18/2005 12:46:00 AM
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Monday, August 08, 2005
Of decisions, eggs, and soap bars!
Some decisions one takes come back to haunt one; others start the haunting from day one.
The more I take stock of the decisions I have taken in my life, the more convinced I am of my extraordinary ability to push through with decisions against my better judgement; that is decisions taken by me against my better judgement, and pushed ahead with, yes! you guessed it, against my better judgement.
This is not to admit, however that I have mostly taken wrong decisions in my life. It just implies that my better judgement is not always the best judgement. It must rank amongst the most sophisticated and evolved defence mechanisms in the history of humans, this extraordinary attribute of mine to withstand, and often stand up to, the folly of my own under-developed intellect. Statistically, the possibilities of my choosing a potentially less hazardous of available options, while exercising my better judgement are minimal. Do not ask me "how?" I was never very good at statistics, but I have seen the term used often enough to know that whatever the possibilities be, and there are always possibilities - minimal or maximum, they are always more reliable and convincing when stated statistically.
One only has to look at the number of my friends to know that even minimal in this regard is a sizeable number.
There are other more tragic times, however, when I have taken decisions against my better judgement, and exercising all my above-mentioned talent have pushed ahead with that decision only to end up with egg in my face. This, however, proves nothing. I know perfectly well that had I taken the decision favored by my better judgement I would still have ended up with egg in my face. It just proves that there are times when there are no right decisions, and one must just wipe the egg off one's face and live with the stink until the faucets have some water to offer, and there is a bar of soap, preferably scented, handy. One must also remember that long after the soap and water have done their job, there will always be the memory of that stink, and of that icky feeling when one had hosted an egg (or two) on one's face.
Just goes on to prove that the chicken had come first. They had to; the annals of history are full of people who had ended up with egg in their face, and if so many eggs were so speedily being used up, the poor chicken would have had a tough time amasing enough numbers to help the chinese with the discovery of drum sticks. It was a survival thing for them; they had to come first.
Having said that, I am sorry for all the wrong decisions I have taken instead of taking the other wrong decisions I should have taken, and the consequent pain I have caused to people; most of all, to myself.
But hey, look at the bright side - the water bills are high, and the soap factories are doing roaring business!
¶ 8/08/2005 02:00:00 AM
The more I take stock of the decisions I have taken in my life, the more convinced I am of my extraordinary ability to push through with decisions against my better judgement; that is decisions taken by me against my better judgement, and pushed ahead with, yes! you guessed it, against my better judgement.
This is not to admit, however that I have mostly taken wrong decisions in my life. It just implies that my better judgement is not always the best judgement. It must rank amongst the most sophisticated and evolved defence mechanisms in the history of humans, this extraordinary attribute of mine to withstand, and often stand up to, the folly of my own under-developed intellect. Statistically, the possibilities of my choosing a potentially less hazardous of available options, while exercising my better judgement are minimal. Do not ask me "how?" I was never very good at statistics, but I have seen the term used often enough to know that whatever the possibilities be, and there are always possibilities - minimal or maximum, they are always more reliable and convincing when stated statistically.
One only has to look at the number of my friends to know that even minimal in this regard is a sizeable number.
There are other more tragic times, however, when I have taken decisions against my better judgement, and exercising all my above-mentioned talent have pushed ahead with that decision only to end up with egg in my face. This, however, proves nothing. I know perfectly well that had I taken the decision favored by my better judgement I would still have ended up with egg in my face. It just proves that there are times when there are no right decisions, and one must just wipe the egg off one's face and live with the stink until the faucets have some water to offer, and there is a bar of soap, preferably scented, handy. One must also remember that long after the soap and water have done their job, there will always be the memory of that stink, and of that icky feeling when one had hosted an egg (or two) on one's face.
Just goes on to prove that the chicken had come first. They had to; the annals of history are full of people who had ended up with egg in their face, and if so many eggs were so speedily being used up, the poor chicken would have had a tough time amasing enough numbers to help the chinese with the discovery of drum sticks. It was a survival thing for them; they had to come first.
Having said that, I am sorry for all the wrong decisions I have taken instead of taking the other wrong decisions I should have taken, and the consequent pain I have caused to people; most of all, to myself.
But hey, look at the bright side - the water bills are high, and the soap factories are doing roaring business!
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Breaking News...
We interrupt the serenity of this blog for an important announcement.
JB has updated. Actually updated this time. Blogistan just got more interesting.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!! ¶ 8/07/2005 10:42:00 PM
JB has updated. Actually updated this time. Blogistan just got more interesting.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!! ¶ 8/07/2005 10:42:00 PM
