A trip on the Pakistani Motorway via Daewoo

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A HUMOUROUS PIECE, NOT INTENDED TO OFFEND ALL PEOPLE WITH BEARDS, JUST THE ONES WHO ANNOY ME. 



 A trip on the Pakistani motorway via bus tends to be marred by the Daewoo Company’s unceasing proclivity towards profit maximization by serving sub standard food and charging increasingly higher fares. The month of Ramzan however, does bring with it a welcome departure from convention. Though one cannot eat, drink, smoke or even curse in public till dusk, the good people at Daewoo Bus Co. feel generous enough to feed their customers a stale samosa and a whole sandwich. On a non-Ramzan day, traveling by the Daewoo Bus Co. seems to entail being given a dry piece of bread and being told one can spread mayonnaise on said dry object by using the tiny single-serving packet provided without the use of any utensils. 


 One’s journey can become arduous and tiresome when one discovers that the passenger seated next to one is keen to talk. Weary of talking to people who like to scratch their privates in public, one can feign sleep or use the I-am-an-important-writer/teacher/researcher-who-cannot-put-down-his-laptop-for-lack-of-time excuse. The former is a classic all time winner that people may just have used during partition to ignore their future neighbours. “Oh dear, is s/he going to be living in the same city as me when I get to Pakistan/India? And this person likes to talk. I shall feign sleep and therefore shall not have to partake in annoying banter. Oh look, I'm already asleep. No wait, I'm awake now and it seems someone stopped the train and killed us all. We're a ghost train now. So I won't have to live in the same city as that bugger anymore. Well that all ended quite splendidly!" While this can work out rather well, the latter is a bit harder to get away with. If the neighbouring passenger has the slightest of social graces, s/he will realize that the person next to him/her is busy and should not be disturbed. However, one often comes across those who feel compelled to ask what one does for a living and how much one earns. It is as if the rules that govern polite society and social discourse are forgotten and done away with. “Hello, I don’t know you but because you seem to be working, I feel compelled to interrupt you ask you how much money you make. After all, if we are sharing a bus together, we must become bosom buddies”. 


 Unlike Edward Norton’s character Tyler Durden in Fight Club, not everyone is willing to befriend whoever is sitting next to him (even if the friend is a single serving friend on a single serving flight filled with little single serving whiskey bottles and single serving little pats of butter). There are times on the bus when one might want to murder the person sitting next to him in a fit of anger and/or revulsion. 


Suppose one does have a genuine deadline to meet and one keeps being distracted by strange sounds of which the source is the strange bearded creature next to him. As the creature tries unsuccessfully to clean its teeth using only its tongue, strange sucking sounds are made with the organ that resonate from from the creature's frontal orifice. One emits a loud dramatic sigh and resigns oneself to life. In this particular case, the creature refused to accept defeat for the better part of an hour. Oral efforts having failed, the creature decided to use its fingernails to pull out the offending piece of cow/spinich from betwixt its teeth which thankfully stopped the offending noise. However, as the first rule of traveling goes, when one is in a public confined space, a baby must start crying. Since throwing a child out of the bus seems a bit excessive and might amount to attempted murder, one refrains from harming little-junior *expletive deleted* and goes on with life trying to pretend that the few sane brain cells he had left before the bus trip are still alive. And just as one makes peace with the fact that he will not go insane on the bus or commit harakiri with a pen, the bearded creature decides to make that horrid sucking-cow-flesh-stuck-in-teeth-noise again. *Expletive deleted*!

Angry Mobs and the Pakistani state

Recently, a Pakistani lower court judge agreed with a petition stating that it is okay to rule against Americans who have committed blasphemy in America because it is within "judge saab's" jurisdiction. I would politely like to ask this little magistrate with delusions of international grandeur what kind of drugs he has been burning in his crack pipe. A Pakistani FIR has been filed against the likes of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Pastor Terry Jones and the President of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority which is in charge of blocking "blasphemous material".

Angry mobs in Pakistan, many which constitute of highly educated lawyers (ergo people quite familiar with the concept of the rule of law) keep channelizing their hatred on the basis of one thing, xenophobia. From the 1953 Lahore riots against Ahmadis to the state giving into the demands of extremists in the Zufiqar Bhutto era, the xenophobic angry mob has gained the kind of momentum in Pakistan from which there may be no turning back. The constitution of Pakistan promises to protect the rights of all religions and sects and yet the second amendment states that Ahmadis are not Muslims. to apply for a passport, one has to agree officially to a statement that once again asserts that Ahmadis are not Muslims. We can establish that angry mobs hate it when people have beliefs contrary to those of Sunnis (those people who usually constitute angry mobs in Pakistan). We can also establish these mobs are angry enough to make the state discriminate against its own citizens if pushed to it.

So its only logical that when headlines such as "Gunmen shoot dead 16 bus passengers in Pakistan" (regarding the killing of minority Shias by Sunnis) come out in the international press and local press, those constituting angry mobs do not seem remotely angry or mob-like.

By marginalizing a society of people, the Pakistani state is guilty of state terror. By letting xenophobic people dictates the edicts and laws of the state, the people in general have become more ignorant and xenophobic. these measures make it seem as if Pakistan is going out of its way to make life difficult for minorities. The issue just continues to exacerbate and grow even further out of proportion. Currently, a group of lawyers who belong to the Lahore High Court Bar Association have been trying to get the products of a Pakistani business called Shezan banned on court premises because "Shezan is owned by Ahmadis". By that justification, all Sunni Muslims everywhere should close themselves off from the outside world and only deal with other Sunni Muslims. Maybe people who believe this need to make a new state for themselves far away from human civilization (perhaps in Antarctica) and call it "Hermitsitan".

Lastly we have those Muslims in Pakistan who agree things are not going well but say, "beta, yeh sub kuch Allah ke haath main hota hai". my question to them is, "is it just me or does Providence just not give a rat's fart"?


http://tribune.com.pk/story/342763/blasphemy-burning-quran-is-a-form-of-international-terrorism-says-petitioner/


http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-02-28/pakistan-gunmen/53279686/1?fb_ref=.T0zeJSbDNbE.like&fb_source=profile_oneline


http://www.pakistani.org/pakistan/constitution/amendments/2amendment.html


http://www.dawn.com/2012/02/16/bar-denies-drink-ban.html

Mansoor Ijaz and what we know about him

The Pakistani military, The Zardari led Peoples Party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), Iftikhar Chaudhry, your neighbor, the obnoxious guy you saw peeing on a wall - they all seem to have something in common. They all unanimously agree that Mansoor Ijaz is someone who is a very important factor in Pakistani politics and has been so for months. Every Pakistani has at some point at time thought to him or herself, “Hmm… who is this Mansoor fellow and what do we know about him?” The rumors about him have been aplenty, ranging from accusations of him being a CIA/Mossad/RAW or even a (gasp!) ISI agent to being the savior of Pakistan by ridding us of the rule of the “evil Sindhis”. While most of these are not verifiable facts, there are some things we know about him and the situation his memo has created in Pakistan. Using what we know, let us now attempt to piece together the puzzles that are Memogate and Mansoor Ijaz.

List of things we seem to know about the situation:

Hussain Haqqani is probably the scapegoat for people like the president.
Mr. Ijaz claims he was entrusted to give the “Memogate” memo to the Americans.
Memogate says Pak military was considering a coup and that if the military comes to power, there will be a risk of the nuclear weapons that Pakistan possesses falling into the hands of extremists because the ISI funds them.
The military is offended at the allegations, which they claim are untrue and want the memo investigated.
The military leans on the courts to get involved and not only investigate the memo but also put pressure on the government to address the NRO. Seems the military is out for blood but does not want to risk an all out coup when it can control everyone from afar.

List of things we seem to know about the man:

Mr. Ejaz is rich and powerful.
Mr. Ejaz has connections with people like Mike Mullen (or at least that is what he claims).
The man is a major player in the international relations game.
He and Hussain Haqqani know each other.
Mr. Ijaz basks in attention and cannot seem to get enough of it.
He looks like a much lamer version of Lando Calrissian of Star Wars fame.
Lando Calrissian was the guy who initially betrayed Han Solo to Lord Vader. Lord Vader in turn let Jabba the Hutt have Han Solo as a decoration piece after freezing him in Carbonite and giving him to bounty hunters to take to Jabba. This made Lando feel guilty and decide to help the rebels with getting Han back. He was such a good trouper that he even stayed on in the long run to fight the evil Empire.
So, by this reasoning, we know that Ijaz will hurt Haqqani and then later on help save him and then go on to fight the system.
Or will he? Recent evidence http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0QvR1eP2yg seems to suggest he could become spokesperson for the alluring Veena Malik instead. After all, now, we all know that he likes thongs.