A conversation that is haunting me

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Everything that can go wrong is going wrong with my life right now and I honestly do not notice/read/watch much these days except for what’s going on around me, but there is one news item that kinda caught my eye. The Taliban in Orakzai Agency have razed 11 houses belonging to the local Sikh community after they refused to pay jizya (a tax that early Islamic rulers demanded from their non-Muslim subjects to live in Muslim countries).



It reminded me of a conversation I had approximately 8 years ago with a ten-year-old boy. I was working as a research assistant to a professor working on Madressahs along Pakistan Afghan border and I was assisting him in the field research. I used to take field notes, record the proceedings of focus group discussions and community debates and made sure that everything is stored and recorded in chronological order. As we had to speak with a lot of kids, we made sure that we take, along with us, a lot of sweets and some cheap toys from Karachi for madressah students and it helped tremendously in breaking the ice. Zar Wali was that ten-year-old boy I mentioned earlier; he grew quite fond of me and would always tag along asking me a million questions about the camera I was using, my ancient recording equipment and a laptop that weighed just a little less than the CPU of a desktop.

One afternoon after a meeting with administrators of two madressahs, I was writing my observations and Zar Wali was sitting by me when we had this conversation, here is a brief part of that conversation.

Zar Wali (ZW): Will you see me if I come to Karachi.
Me: Sure, do you plan to come to Karachi?
ZW: May be I will get a job there when I finish with the madressah.
Me: (although I knew about the curriculum, I just wanted to know what he thinks about his education and asked.) So what is it that you study at the madressah that will get you a job in Karachi?
ZW: I only memorize Quran and learn to use some light weapon, but you know that already, you ask everyone the same question.
Me: So you don’t study Mathematics or Science, right?
ZW: Of course not. They are the teachings of infidels.
Me: Really? Who told you that?
ZW: My teacher at the madressah, who else?
Me: Do you know that there is a branch of mathematics called Algebra and it owes a lot to a Muslim scientist called Ibn-e-Musa al-Khwarizmi? He was a mathematician and a Muslim.
ZW: I don’t know, I just know that my teacher says that it is for infidels only.
Me: So what will you do when you graduate from the madressah?
ZW: I will go for jihad.
Me: Where?
ZW: I don’t know? Afghanistan or Kashmir.
Me: If you have Islamic governments in both, Afghanistan and Kashmir, then what will you do, you can’t fight jihad all your life?
ZW: I don’t know, I guess they will send me to fight somewhere else.
Me: Ok, suppose you have conquered the whole world and everyone is living under Muslim rule, then what? You have no money making skills and you will not be able to land a job. What will you do then, should you not learn something other than learning to use light weapons?
ZW: No, I will continue with jihad.
Me: (Exasperated) But who will you fight against?
ZW: Men who do not keep beards and women who do not observe purdah.
Me: I do not observe purdah; will you kill me as well?
ZW: If I am told, yes, I will do it.

I was laughing when I asked this question and was expecting a vehement head shake with a “No, I will never kill you” kind of response. Imagine how I felt when the little boy who told me, repeatedly, that I am best girl in the world apart from his mother because I gave him a plastic scooter would feel no compunction in killing me if instructed. I did not take the extent of his indoctrination that seriously in 2001 but now, this conversation keeps haunting me. Every time a school got blown, every time a man was beheaded or a girl was flogged, Zar Wali comes back to haunt me and ask me, “What were we all doing when they were training our children to become terror mongers and killers.

Speechless

I just want to thank all the people who extended good wishes to me. My dad is still hospitalized but he is hanging in there and is determined to get better and I am sure that he will get better with his resolve.

While most people send nothing but good wishes for my dad’s health and commiserated over my loss due to robbery, there are some who take pleasure in other people’s misery, even though they have never met them.

I got this comment last night where a guy (curiously named Talib) I never met is actually happy at my loss; here is what he had to say to me:

Well, I don't know if you administer the comments on your blog or not, but I hope you will let it go.

Haven't you heard of the word back up? If you haven't then u r not that smart you pretend to be and you totally deserve this

and if you had and you were too lazy or arrogant to think that if would not happen to you, then u also deserve this

Anyways, I am happy at your lost. Sick thing to say but that's what you deserve for saying things against Taliban by the way which also makes you a infidel.

Another email that I got from someone called samzrulez said this:

Pahle tou main yeh clear kar doon kah mujhe tumhare posts kabhi achay nahin lage, however tumhare friends tumheen hamesha support kartay rahe but i never liked it....aur tum jis tarah religious issues ko deal karti ho main disagree karta ho

specially woh waali post jis main tum nai aik old man kah baare main likhe tha kah you refused to help him sirf is leye kah woh apni daughters ko kaam karta hoa nahin dekhna chahta...

tum nai needy logon kah leye aik parameter set keya hoa hai kah jo tumhare standard ka ho tum sirf usi ki help karo gi.

tum main aik cheez aur bhi hai jo shayed tum nai khud kabhi notice nahin ki kah har jagah apni financial independence ka shoor machana aur is cheez ko highlight karna acha nahin hota kaun tumhare kis information ko kis tarah use kare no one knows....

Taz sab khuch paisa nahin hota kitna dafa zindagi main aik insaan kah pass sab khuch hota hai magar woh qareeebi logoon kah leye un paisa se khuch nahin karsata....shayed kabhi kabhi hameen logoon ki prayers ki bhi zaroorat hoti hai....kabhi aik sajda bhi woh khushi aur sukoon deta hai jis ko shayed hum imagine bhi nahin karskte....

Mujhe tumhare baare main ziada tou nahin maloom haan aik baar main nai khuch link paste keye thay jis kah baare main kaafi yaeen tha kah tum nai un ko parha tak nahin hoga....lakin tumhare aas paas kaun loog hain tum kitoon se apni kitni privcy share karti ho i don't know....magar tumheen khud khayal karna chaye kah tumheen apnay baare main kitni info kis ko deni chaye....

Honestly, I am kinda speechless at that.


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Robbed and broken

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I started blogging precisely two years ago. In the past two years, I have been happy, I have been sad, I have been angry and elated as well, and I have shared all that with my readers – some of you have become friends over a period of time – and basked in the attention I got through your comments and feedback.

I thought I would write a happy post to mark two years of blogging, but my life has gone haywire for the past three weeks. My dad is still in hospital battling it out. He looks good one day but relapses the next. It is extremely frustrating to see the most important person in your life being so fragile and helpless and your inability to do anything about it.

As if this was not enough to cope with, we were robbed by armed robbers on Saturday. I spent the morning in the hospital and came home to have some lunch and take a quick shower. While I was still in there, someone started knocking on my door. I thought it was the boy who helps me with my dad and I asked him to wait. But when he kept on knocking, I assumed the worst and thought he got a phone call from the hospital. When I opened the door of my room, I saw two burly men in their late twenties pointing their pistols at me. They thrust open the door and pushed me in and started asking for cash, gold and dollars. The first thing they picked up in my room was my cell phone and kept asking for those dollars that they thought I had. The other guy spotted both my personal laptop and my office laptops on my table as I was working till 3.00 am the night before to catch up. He picked them up and then broken my cupboard with a tool and started trashing the place. They took all the cash we had at home, another cell phone that I had and the only piece of jewelry I wear – a diamond ring – and twisted my arm in the process. They kept asking for gold while ransacking my room and threatened me with rape every thirty seconds if I do not cooperate. When they were satisfied that I did not have any other valuable stashed somewhere, they locked us in one of the rooms, took my car keys with them and left. We called our neighbours from the windows, but no one listened. Eventually, we broke down the door with the hammer and came out.

The police was polite and courteous but told us that there is no chance that we will get back our stuff. When I asked the SHO to take the finger prints and then match them with NADRA (National Data Registration Authority) records to arrest the culprits, I was told that the police station does not have the equipment to take the finger prints or any other forensic evidence. I was basically told that I should look for a new computer and the ASI suggested that I should keep a guard dog at home because my house is a soft target. Thank you Mr. ASI to let me know that I am soft target because my government, which takes a pretty decent chunk out of my pocket in direct and indirect taxes, has failed me yet again. It failed to provide trained, competent and able law-enforcement officers or institutions that can nab such criminals, it failed to ensure the freedom of its citizens, it has failed to enforce its writ and most of all, it has failed to develop a system where a crime against an individual becomes state’s responsibility.

How am I coping with it? I don’t know, I guess I am surviving somehow. I lost everything I wrote since 2001, over 5000 pieces of music that collected over a period of time, over 5000 photos that chronicled my life in different countries and in different phases of my life. My two dissertations, my numerous academic essays, over 200 published articles, two short stories and three chapters of the novel I was working on, everything was on those two computers and it is all gone. Basically I just lost last 9 years of my life. I was not only robbed, they managed to break something else, the spirit to go on.

Last year, I was chased by crazy Taliban in one of the main roads of the city, now I am robbed in broad day light and the police can only offer me the advice to get a guard dog! Welcome to the land of pure.


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Where is the man of the house?

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I happen to spend the better part of last week in a hospital. No, I am still alive with all body parts intact but abba (my father) was not doing too well and had to stay in the hospital under the vigilant eyes of the doctors and the nursing staff.

Apart from keeping an eye on my dad and his blood pressure and blood sugar levels, the staff at the hospital showed keen interest in everything I did. For instance, every single nurse on the floor wanted to know what I do and why I do it, why I keep working on my laptop and constantly order people through my cell phone (most of the calls were to the maid at home, I don't have a lot of people working under me and as a rule, I don't order people around), whether I am married and why am I not married, if I had any other siblings who can take care of my dad and why in the God’s name I am doing all the running around, why cant men in my family take over and let me be the little woman I should have been in the first place. I was quite surprised by this reaction.

Quite obviously, the man of the house was ill and could not have done all the running around. Secondly, I seriously did not expect it from a bunch of professional women. They all do their jobs diligently and earn their living with extremely difficult and hard work yet they have this idea that a woman is not suppose to be making difficult decisions and should not be running around. What kind of indoctrination these girls must have had that years of schooling (I would rather not use the word education), exposure and financial independence did not do much to bring about a change in the way a woman’s role is perceived?


PS: Those of you who are on facebook, please join our group A Voice against Shariah Apologists and post anything that you see relevant to the cause. We, at the group, denounce Mullahs of all denominations.



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Looking for a scapegoat at G20

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At times, one yearns for the good old days when battle lines were clear and one knew who is rooting for whom. Nowadays, if you happen to be a PPP jiyla who bitched about Sharifs a couple of weeks back or a noon-league supporter who thought calling President Zardari a lying cheating whore will grant you a palace in heaven and 72 virgins, you find yourself in a bit of bind. First they were sworn enemies, and then came democracy charter. Then they became friends, then they were not, then they thought they were friends and now even they don’t know where they stand. Shifting loyalties and friendships requires one to keep a lid on emotions and not call your temporary opponent any names; even if it means that you die of political name calling constipation.

The problem is; this is not a just a local affliction. First there were clear lines drawn between Capitalism and Communism, now the bastion of capitalism is home to socialism of sorts and US government is buying banks, insurance companies, equity firms and what not to keep the economy afloat. The former strong house of socialism, Russia, is home to maximum number of new millionaires and billionaires who love to buy football teams and shag as many Wags (that is wives and girlfriends of those footballers who play in those teams) as they can with the help of those little blue pills. Formerly, we just had a G7 (group of rich powerful Western Countries plus Japan) and a G77 (group of middle and lower income countries who were envious of Group 7 countries). Nowadays, one can’t keep a tab on these groups as they are fluid and can transform themselves very quickly from G7 to G6 to G8, from G22 to G33 to its latest variant G20 (mind you, its different from the poor countries' G20 formed in Cancun 2003).

The question is: why am I blogging about G20? Well, why not. For one, I cannot just blog about the doomsday scenarios from Pakistan about Taliban and their not so civil ways of implementing their code. Secondly, my friend Andrew has taken over my inbox sending me minute by minute updates from London – from how choppers are flying all over London carrying the powerful heads of states to the stories of protestors who are squatting over London’s Square Mile and how he wishes that he had taken a couple of days off to show solidarity with protesters (I personally think he wanted to score with the women protesters). Since G20 is all I have been reading about for past 24 hours, it is but natural that I write about it.

G20 usually comprise of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the US and the country holding EU presidency, in this case, Czech Republic, but Gordon Brown seems to be in a generous mood and also invited Spain, the Netherlands, chairs of New Partnership for Africa's Development, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the African Union Commission, and the president of the EU Commission. Heads of the UN, World Bank and International Monetary Fund takes the tally of attendees to 29.

Amidst all the stimulus plans and saving the world promises, Guardian focuses on more important issues surrounding the G20 such as why US all secret service agents wear shades, what will Jamie Oliver be cooking for the G20 delegates, who will sit next to whom at the dinner table (I am assuming that everyone would want a piece of world’s biggest super star President Obama), where picketing protesters throng, what clothes will the partners of heads of states be wearing and why is Obama given the codename Renegade?

How much money is it costing the British Exchequer? A cool £20 million – a bargain if compared with 2008 G8 summit in Japan (cost $285 million). Will it make a difference to the lives of people battling job loss, rising food prices and poverty? Not really, similar meet ups have not changed the world in the past, why should this one be any different?

Why is it convened? It is convened to find a scapegoat for the financial toilet the world is today. Chances are that most of it will be blamed on good ol’ W who is probably enjoying a juicy steak in Crawford and couldn’t care less. It is also rumored that Gordon Brown wanted to have a big party at tax payers’ account and decided to hold the summit as a cover for the party. A less likely rumor is that it is yet another chance to give some more press coverage and air time to Jamie Oliver.

What would have been the most looked for moment of G20 but will not happen any time soon? The meeting of Barack Obama and French First Lady Carla Bruni. It is heard that Sarkozy got a little unnerved by Obama’s message of “Change” and made sure that Carla would not attend the summit. It would have been interesting to see The Saint and the Seductress together.

Who will not bring their partners? Apart from spoilsport Sarkozy who feared the Messiah’s undeniable charms a little too much, Angela Merkel’s Professor hubby will not be there (he is a quantum Physicist and probably has better things to do). Cristina Kirchner’s husband, Néstor Kirchner will also give it a miss, probably because he used to be the President of Argentina before his wife and knows that he would stand out like a sore thumb exchanging floral arrangements and recipes with the wives of Indonesian and Dutch presidents. The infighting between the numerous wives of Saudi King Abdullah to accompany him resulted in him taking his favourite camel for company. They are putting up a special heated tent in London Ritz for the aforementioned camel.


In case anyone is wondering, the men at back are not King Abdullah's wives