Please get over Veena Malik’s marriage.
Thank you.
ps While you’re at it, how about writing actual stories about local artists, not conspiracy theories, things that just aren’t true, email interviews and random things about Bollywood.
Dishoom Dishoom has a best of 2010 music collection that’s pretty cool. The comments are really interesting, highly recommended.
Also, Varun Soni writes about music as a bond between India and Pakistan in the Huffington Post, especially in the Punjab as another public diplomacy method. Brings to mind cricket diplomacy methods employed at the beginning of this decade and earlier for similar purposes. They in fact helped spark a whole new series of governmental diplomatic ties. Soni wants both governments to build on the legacy of legends AR Rahman and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan who came together to sing ‘Gurus of Peace’, embedded below.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuEYQgh3-b8
And so is completed another round of my geekery. Sheesh.
Hopefully the website looks better and is easier to read and comment on.
The Globe and Mail has a really good piece on Zeb and Haniya, the Pashtun funk/jazz/blues/rock-pop duo.
While the war trucks on in Pakistan, citizens are trying to go about their daily business. And some, such as two young women named Zebunnisa Bangash and Haniya Aslam, are even making bold moves outside their gender and ethnic boundaries.
Zeb and Haniya, as they are known, are Pathan, part of the Pashtun culture. To people in the Western world and even to those in Pakistan, the Pashtun are inextricably linked with the Taliban, and hence often demonized. The two women from Lahore, both 30, have chosen […]
Some minor changes to the blog are now complete. Those that accessed the blog in the last half a day or so have probably seen some weird layouts and frantic posts from me.
The editing is done for the moment, and I’ll keep you updated if I’m onto some more code.
For now, it is time to read and write.
You might have noticed that the New York Times At War Blog is no longer in my blogroll. I think any journalism student would know the New York Times as a standard that many look up to, and while their blogs are more free form than regular stories, one expects them to be well informed and perhaps somewhat neutral.
This recent blog post about the Osama bin Laden ‘bounty hunter’ bugs me. I quote some parts below.
Before you chuckle, let me just say: Whatever else we might conclude about Gary Faulkner, our arrested American bounty hunter, we should give him this: He was looking in the right place.
Or at least the place where many intelligence analysts think he is: the mountainous high-altitude district of Chitral. For me, the mere mention of the place evokes the image of the Saudi terrorist.
I hope the mention of Chitral does not yield the same reaction from other Americans, even non Americans. I’m not sure what to say other than that. The author mentions his story of how he heard of Chitral being Laden’s hiding place but the view still irks me a bit.
Until Mr. bin Laden was thought to be hiding there, Chitral was famous for only one thing: Every July, tourists from all over gather in a town called Shandur to watch a polo match between the Chitralis and a team from nearby Gilgit. They called it “the world’s highest polo match.” At 12,000 feet, it probably is.
Not many tourists go to Shandur or the rest of Chitral anymore, on account of the spread of Islamic militancy.
There’s no bias here but I just think the post is again woefully misinformed. Like other recent articles by the Times on Pakistan, mostly those written by non Pakistani writers, I feel this too is following a trend of not looking at the entire picture.
While the polo match is definitely a highlight, Chitral has been a tourist spot for a long time for not just that. Its famous for its scenic beauty, its remote location (which the article identifies), as well as the unique Kailash culture of the inhabitants of the area. The Kailash culture is a long celebrated culture of heterogeneous Pakistan. While tourists still go to Chitral, the numbers have dwindled a bit, but not because people are afraid they’ll run into Osama. The view that this is his hiding place is not rampant in Pakistan, and what has perhaps put people off in recent times has been some apprehension of the remains of the Nizam-e-Adl regulations put on the area some time ago. Also in the mix is the fact that Balakot, a bustling town used as rest stop on the long drive to Chitral, was completely brought to the ground by the earthquake of October 8, 2005.
Sana Arjumand is an emerging artist I just read about in Dawn. The article introduces her as follows:
An edgy mix of fantasy and reality, young Sana Arjumand’s solo, ‘Lets fly first class’ at Aicon Gallery, New York, affirms her ability to temper critical social, political and gender concerns with whimsical, quirky funniness. Speaking about her work, she sheds light on the motivations behind her parodist, often radical content. Other than a showing at VM, Karachi and two solos at Canvas, Karachi, she has also exhibited abroad at Aicon Gallery and Flux Festival, London, Broadway Gallery, East West Centre, Honolulu and availed notable residencies, such as Art Omi in New York. The artist currently lives and works in Islamabad.
In the interview that followed she talks about an inspiration behind her artwork that I find very interesting.
The level and intensity of visual excitement in Pakistan that comes from the chaotic energy gives birth to ideas that are impossible in other environments or in other societies. Developed societies have a sort of neatness to them; they have lost a kind of chaotic creativity. At the same time, the visuals that I make are very global, in the sense that they’re comprehendible cross-culturally.
Her analysis strikes a deep chord with me. The lack of surface organization, chaotic creativity/energy as she puts it, is something very apparent over South Asia, including Pakistan.
The rest of the interview is similarly interesting. Do check out her work.
Life in the war; Its fine.
You know, meeting friends, driving around, avoiding traffic policemen and their chalaan (ticket) books. Life goes.
A few things have either changed or have just hit me now.
For some reason India-Pakistan cultural exchange is at an all time high. This observation is only limited to my TV screen at this point however. Bollywood men and women are interviewed regularly by morning and evening show hosts (may I add here morning shows are now a notorious part of Pakistani television, if ever there was something you either loved or hated). Pakistani musicians must/willingly/proudly travel across the border to record Bollywood soundtracks or do shows, both of which they are currently unable to do this side of the border. Some musicians’ claim to fame remains that they managed to make it big across the border, and then they make it big everywhere, or so it seems.
Indian films, which were once taboo at cinemas and theaters all over the country, are no longer so. Indian music on the radio has been big for quite some time, but now it seems heavily accented radio stations (and here you’ll find both the uber-American accents, and the ultra desi accents, we do love our extremes) have found some sort of balance with English, Indian and Pakistani music. (Note here also that while Indian and Pakistani music, which can usually be clumped in the same language category are separated by nationality, English music is a general term for everything else, even music that is not in English but also not in any Sub Continental language.) While Pakistanis have never claimed Bollywood music as their own, over the past few years people have grown more comfortable with it, listening to it as music and not as music from India (and here India is the arch-enemy India, not just another country).
My apologies for this shameless use of parentheses.
On a more serious note:
The first day I was here, I went around the city with some friends, running errands I’m not sure why we agreed to run for one of us. Anyway. We went to Hafeez Centre, which is a bustling tech complex in the heart of new urban Lahore. It’s the hub for pirated software, computer parts, mobile phones and anything with an on/off button that needs repair, no exaggeration. While everything inside is roughly the same, just outside the plaza, where you’d usually see illegal parking and street vendors, is now a dark colored 8 foot metal fence, and some illegal parking. The security guards, which I guess have been there even before the fence, are now entrusted with the duty of patting down all men for suicide jackets, or so it seemed since he seemed to have no interest in what I had in my pockets.
This sort of checking is second nature for most, as it’s bound to become once it has been there for a while.
At my old high school, which is adjacent to a government research office, the road is blocked twenty feet either way of the entrance. I’m not sure whether the school or the office is more the reason for not letting cars through (which if it is not obvious, is another security measure), but both can legitimately say they are under threat.
The news is depressing as ever, but satirical news is also as popular as ever. Making fun of ourselves is a talent many cherish, and it is very alive at the moment. A few conversations will tell you though, so is the talent of saying that we deserved all of this damage. Some say because we failed in our duties to God, others because we manage to find worse governments every election (or non-election) and others because we’re just plain hypocritical. And in the grand spirit of it all, everybody makes fun of everybody. It is so much fun.
The following was posted as a comment on Chapati Mystery in response to much needed laments about the recent attacks on the Ahmedi minority in Lahore. I was so moved I couldn’t resist posting it here. It’s a poem by a 13 year old, Kamini Masood on how she feels after the attacks.
Wajahat Masood writes: In May 28 attacks, I lost some of my close friends, including the head of Lahore Ahamdiyya Jamaat, Justice (R) Munir Sheikh. He happened to be the elder brother of my life long friend, Jamil Omer, as well. So many families that I have known were personally bereaved. The Model Town attack was just 200 yard from my house…. My 13 year old daughter, Kamini Masood, wrote a poem the day Jinnah Hospital (two days after Mosque attacks) was attacked and I quote:
Today my hope and pride have vanished,
That’s not to be denied
Today I sunk to the floor sobbing
With my arms open wide
The power does not lie with you,
to discuss or decide
who is worthy to be alive, and who
must be made to die
Do not go out to play children,
you may not come back inside
If tear-streaked faces of broken families
begged you to stop killing their sons,
would you reflect and see your wrongs,
or would you still load your guns?
For every girl who lost a father,
every wife now a widow,
I hope you see that you have spilled,
the blood splattered on my window
You do not hear the mourning mothers,
you do not see your father cry
then it is our sons and daughters,
Not your brothers and sisters that die
Do not go out to play children
you may not come back inside
Thanks to Five Rupees for giving us this:
Every article on Pakistan and the Taliban war should have the sentence “In the last five years, 10,000 civilians and nearly 3,000 troops have died.” Every last one. The decontexualization that takes place when these figures are not mentioned is incredibly damaging to all concerned, and the war itself. It elides the very real and indisputable fact that ordinary Pakistanis are victims in all of this.
We keep reminding ourselves of this. Then we need to spend as much time trying to forget it.
I sat with my grandmother a couple of nights ago, and she was sort of speechless at the way things are. She felt sorry, like all of us, for getting used to the deaths in the war, for hearing about so many bomb blasts we had to internalize it, for getting so ready for bad news that we can live. I tried convincing her it was resilience, not numbness (in words I steal from Osman Samiuddin); I don’t think she was totally convinced. No one is.
It is not normal living like this. As many elders would choose to end any such conversation, I too say dua kijiey (Please pray).
In the last five years, 10,000 civilians and nearly 3,000 troops have died.