Respecting sovereignty - ours and theirs

Pakistan won the title of champions in a closely contested Asia Cup final against Bangladesh at Dhaka and what a match it was; fortunes fluctuated throughout the match and the Pakistani team scraped through by holding on to their nerves. It was a game that kept you glued to the TV screens and at the edge of your seats. Both teams deserve all the kudos for entertaining the cricket followers across the world.

There is no bad blood in cricket between Pakistan and Bangladesh so the rivalry is only of sporting nature and both, the Pakistani cricket team captain, Misbahul Haq, and the Man of the Match winner, Shahid Afridi, paid respect to the efforts of the Bangladeshi cricket team. What left a sour taste was the callous behaviour of some Pakistani fans. In the run up to the final and during the match, Pakistani social media chatter was abuzz with memes like ‘East or West, Pakistan is the best’, ‘kyunki Bangladesh bhi kabhi Pakistan tha’ (because Bangladesh was once Pakistan) and ‘Hum jeetain ya woh, jeet tau Pakistan ki hi hogee’ (whether they win or us, the victory is Pakistan’s). Making a mockery of a country’s sovereignty is in extremely bad taste. Anyone with a modicum of decency would find such blatant discount of a country’s identity as a separate entity objectionable — throw in the atrocities committed by the state of Pakistan against its own people in former East Pakistan and it is downright offensive. To do so just before the Bangladeshi Independence Day is downright odious.

Around forty-one years ago, when General Yahya Khan asked his commander of the Eastern Command to “sort out the Bengalis”, Operation Searchlight was launched on March 25, 1971. The “sorting out” in Yahya’s speech meant brutally crushing a popular uprising. The operation started with an attack on the dormitories of Dhaka University where heavy artillery was used against students and citizens of the country. Though it took another nine months for the transformation of East Pakistan into Bangladesh, many say it was the last night of a united Pakistan. The following day, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of the Awami League and Major Ziaur Rahman in Chittagong separately declared Bangladesh to be an independent state and all hell broke loose. The operation that was ostensibly launched to save Pakistan, accomplished anything but that and left death, destruction, loot, plunder, rape and genocide of the Bengali people in its wake.

As a nation, we are good at brushing the nasty collective memories under the carpet. We do not mention incidents like Operation Searchlight or the dismemberment of the country in our history books or national narratives. We shy away from admitting that our state has systematically used rape as an instrument of war against its own people. We do not talk about how the state machinery was and continues to stay involved in the brutal murders of the very citizens it is mandated to protect. However, our collective ignorance should not lessen the intensity of turmoil that they have faced. The Bengalis have fought a hard war for independence and such disregard of their feelings is distasteful.

Every other day, we see one political leader or the other foaming at the mouth, wanting other countries, especially the United States of America, to respect the sovereignty of Pakistan. It is about time we accord the same courtesy to other countries.

First published in The Express Tribune

Bright lights and Shahid Afridi’s adoring fans at NSK

I have spent many a memorable days at National Stadium in Karachi where I, with friends, family and all the other spectators, have rejoiced our wins, bemoaned our losses, have beaten down the water bottles on the chairs, screamed for every wicket taken and every boundary scored and always came home with a sore throat and broken down voice. Though needless, I would say it anyways; National Stadium has been an amazing part of my life in Karachi and I am sad that it has been three years since international cricket has not come to Pakistan.

If we talk about NSK, we have to talk about Shahid Afridi who has become an integral part of the proceedings at NSK for past so many years. Before anyone cast doubts over Shahid Afridi’s total pwnage of the crowds, s/he should at least once go to a stadium to see how Lala has millions of adoring fans wrapped around his little finger and how they wait for a wave from the showman and then cherish it with unmatched fervor. Last week, the  visit to NSK reminded me of the kind of effect Lala has over his millions of fans. At least I have never seen anything like that and I have seen international cricket in four different countries.

I was in Karachi last weekend and am grateful to Sana Kazmi for taking Summaiya and I for an exhibition match held at NSK. It was a perfect breezy March evening for cricket and National Stadium looked beautiful in floodlights. Though the match was not publicized, but there were quite a few cricket fanatics who were there to see their heroes and there is no cricketing hero bigger than Shahid Afridi in Pakistan.

It was during this match I met with a family who can lay claim for being one of the most dedicated and fervent fans of the man. There are four girls in the family and they all play club cricket and dream of hitting sixes like Shahid Afridi. Their mother takes them to all the practice sessions and matches and is totally supportive of her daughters’ sporting activities, something that we do not see often in Pakistan. They were so adorable, they made a birthday card for Lala and brought flowers and gifts for him and were determined to meet him and give it all to him in person.

I wish more girls get into sports and have parents who are as supportive as the parents of these lucky ones. I wish they get to play for the country and make us as proud as their idol, Shahid Afridi. 

National Stadium under lights

The game at full swing

The guy in that red circle is our Lala, it was the warm up football match before the game

These girls are hardcore Afridi fans

Some more fangurls and a sole fanboy

Birthday greetings for Lala

Every little boy wants to be Shahid Afridi

Another adoring fan

This one is also sporting Lala's number

I mean business

Emulating the star-man pose

Boom Boom fan

The fanatics who would go to any match to enjoy cricket

Waiting for a glimpse

Mirza Iqbal Baig was also there in all his hair dyed glory

Every kid was wearing the number 10 shirt, that is the karishma of our beloved Lala

Overheard in Islamabad

Yes, it’s been over a day and I am still going through the cricket hangover. I won’t go into the result or what might have happened if we did this or that. I just want to share a couple of gems that I overheard in the match screening I went to on March 30th.

When Sehwag was clinically decimating every Umar Gul Delivery, the guy sitting in front of me goes:

“I now get why Indians are winning. They have so many gods to listen to all the prayers, humaray ek Allah mian cannot listen to everyone’s prayers.”

If there ever was a case for not believing, it was one.

The next gem came from an uncle after Wahab Riaz’s five wicket haul:

“Larkey ne apnay jacket pe lagay sab dagh dho diye. ” (I think he was referring to that Mazhar Majeed jacket)

When Hafeez threw his wicket away, a teenage boy swore like a drug dealer from Bronx and said:

“is shot se tau saaf pata lag raha hai ke Misbah ka fan hai”

After Umar akmal’s wicket fell one lady goes:

“Hai Allah, ab Afridi kaheen tension mein bat hi na chaba dalay.”

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Bromances and brokeback !

So Cricinfo tweeted this photo with a “So much love in the Pakistan team” caption earlier today.

and the Pakistani twitteratti responded with this photo saying what about this one?

Pakistani tweeples thought that the picture with Ajmal and Akhtar was more bromance whereas the one with Sachin and Sehwag was more ... errr. Brokeback. 

I asked people to come up with captions and here are some of the more interesting ones.

@shiringul “if I lose my head, it's your ass on the line!”

@a_bong "I got your back ..."

@ammaryasir   Sehwag: "Pedicure?" Tendulkar: "Ahaa, usual preparation for the big match against Pak"

@absarshah   'Sucking the marrow out of life"

@kamranbukhari   “Ass, gas or grass, nobody rides for free”

@alexpressed “baout yaraana lagta ay!”

@fayyazahmed  Tendulkar: "Cover my behind, will ya?"

@Ahmad_Malik  “After an intense batting session, Sehwag helped Sachin take care of his guard problems.”

@Zonk_D  Sehwag "I got your back ! " Sachin - "only if you keep your head in right place " ; )

Haya Fatima came up with “Bum chick chick bum, bum, bum chick chick bum!!”

Nabeel Zuberi came up with "Turn over and do it the Afridi way, Viru."

Ibrahim Muhammed Khalil gets a special mention for double submissions along with Aneela Z Babar.

Ibrahim came up with “jin pe takya hay, wohi hawa daynay lagay” and “CYA - Cover your Ass”

And @AneelaBabar  came up with gems like “The Butt stops here” and “Haseena Atom Bum Part 2”

And winner is @amna_kaleem  who came up with this sterling line “Who needs a shoulder when you have Sachin's bum to lean on.”

Here are some other caption worthy pictures. 

Defying gravity?

An India Pakistan game can make Service Cheetah go all witty

Arrrggghhh! enough with the lecture already...

Somebody get me out of here

Orange is the new black

bach ke jayega tu kahan

To borrow a line from Ali Azmat, bum bum phatta 

Audition for High School Musical 4?

Byoz offering prayers, the only one missing is good ol' Shoiab Akhtar :)

Electrified!

Poster boy for liposuction!

What's a pressure cooker, we live in Pakistan

Back in 2006, my friends and I went to National stadium Karachi to see a match between West Indies and Pakistan. Though it had nothing to do with the match, for every Boom Boom poster we’ve made, we made one that said Darryl Hair Sucks. For cricket fans in Pakistan, umpire Darryl Hair was the most despised human being that year. Last year, it was the bookie par excellence Mr. Mazhar Majeed (those who are on twitter and want to tell him personally what a ch**t piece he is can do it here). During this world cup, Pakistan cricket team’s number 1 enemy seems to be Mr. Ian Chappell.

Chappel has had problems with everything; from our idiot of a captain to our team huddle to the celebrations by the same captain. Everything we do seem to rile him up. In addition, he thinks we are not capable of winning the world cup because we cannot beat three teams in a row. Mr Chappell is of the opinion that “Mahendra Singh Dhoni is a much calmer leader than Shahid Afridi” and that India under Dhoni is more capable of taking pressure on than Pakistan under Afridi.

Now don’t get me wrong; I think Dhoni is one of the smartest Indian cricketers and he is one hell of a fighter but things are not as stacked against him as they are against our Lala. Lala lost two of his front line bowlers last year to the spot fixing scandal, he has been playing his home series in places as varied as Dubai and England, he has not played a single game in front of his home crowd since March 2009, but he still managed to galvanize a traditionally fractioned team into a cohesive unit where everyone (barring Kamran Akmal) is doing what they are supposed to do to the best of their abilities. Mind you, he does not even have the human resource that some of our past captains have had at their disposal yet he still managed to get team Pakistan in the last four, something that eluded us in the past two world cups. If this is what idiocy is capable of, then I say bring on some more of the same madness – Lala’s brand of madness. Considering the lives we all live and the battles we all fight everyday for mere survival, I think no one can handle pressure better than a Pakistani and our men in green are just as capable of surviving the pressure cooker in Mohali as anyone else, if not more.

Lala's brand of madness

The other person who is being booed by Pakistanis, though with a little less intensity, is ICC chief Haroon Lorgat. To say that Pakistanis have been irked by his wish for a fairy tale ending for Sachin Tendulkar would be putting it mildly. Mr Lorgat wishes/believes that India will win the semi final and that Sachin Tendulkar will get to make his 100^th century in International cricket in Mubai in front of his home crowd which will be an awesome end to the little master’s career. It seems that ICC chief, who should have been impartial, has actually not been impartial and if his words are to be taken seriously, then the whole tournament is organized not to see which team has performed best, but to provide that fairy tale ending to the Indian cricket team in general and to one Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar in particular.

Mr Lorgat sucking up to Indians

I wish team Pakistan goes on to win the Semi final and the final so that we can rub it on Mr Lorgat’s face.

Here is wishing the men in green all the good luck, I hope you bring the cup back with you and give us something to smile about.

The idiot who will do the trick

Some awesome men in green

Awwwww

Two is company ...

For the first time in a very long time, our cricket team looks united and act like a team – considering the fact that we still have elements like Kakmal, it’s a feat. There is no news of factions or back biting and as rumor has it, all is well in the dressing room. Even the captaincy debate did not turn acrimonious and both Misbah and Afridi praised each other and were willing to play under the other. However, just like the animal kingdom where some animals are more equal than the others, there are some relationships which are stronger than the others.

Of late, Shoaib Akhtar and Shahid Afridi seem inseparable. Had they been teenage girls, they would have been certified BFFs. But the very obvious regard they have for each other is very endearing – at least to their fans.


Shoaib Akhtar cannot refuse when Lala calls for him




Akhtar thinks that he and Afridi are the two sartorial wonders in the team

and here is some pictorial evidence

If we were not totally smitten by these two, this one would come across as an odd one.

Back in the day when both Lala and Akhtar were part of the test squads

Akhtar: Not now Fawad, this is between me and Lala

Let's see who roars more ferociously

Is Lala checking out Akhtar's ass?

Two is company, three is crowd.

Yeh Dosti, hum naheen chorain gay