Gift of gall or permanent lapse of reason?

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On September 14^th 2009, 19 women were killed in a stampede in Karachi. New York Times reported that the stampede occurred when a local trader was distributing food – flour, lentils and other goods – in the southern part of the city. Hundreds of women and children had gathered in the narrow lanes, and according to the witnesses; the women tumbled over one another trying to enter a building in an attempt to collect the food first. 25 people were reportedly injured in the incident.

The event was sad and a lot has been said and written about the incident. A couple of the people who have discussed this tragic incident on tv are Aamir Liaquat Hussian and good ol’ Junaid Jamshed in a program which was aired on the eve of the aforementioned horrific incident.

While Aamir Liaquat was busy reading out from what can only be called excerpts from Urdu thesaurus and acting all humble and modest in response to the words of praises from his female fan brigade, Junaid Jamshed came up with a very interesting theory about class differences, hunger, stampede, self respect and religion.

According to Maulana Junaid Jamshed, it is ok if rich Muslims do not follow the religion, but if poor Muslims let go of the sacred religious teachings, the whole society would collapse. He repeatedly made references to “Ghareeb ka Imaan” (poor people’s faith) and “Ameer ka Imaan” (rich people’s faith) as if your class is responsible for your levels of faith and piety. He further went on and said that when poor people embrace the true values of Islam, they are endowed with the gift of self respect, restrain and integrity. His theory was that even if people are poor and hungry, their self respect – endowed only through strict adherence to Islam – will not allow them to go beg for food and consequently, they will be saved from such incidents and death by stampede. Around minute 16.20 in the video, Junaid Jamshed further said that if poor people just practice restraint and stay hungry for three days, Allah will provide food for them for one whole year. This is from a man who probably never had to stay hungry in his life and charges Rs. 2000 for a shalwar (loose Pakistani trousers) that actually costs Rs 200 in his clothing store? He even had the cheek to ask if staying hungry for three days and then waiting for manna from heavens for one whole year (I have absolutely no idea how he arrived at the exact time range of 3 days of hunger and one year warranty of food supply from heavens) is an easier option or getting in line for free food and risking death by stampede?

Mr Jamshed has four children, if they are hungry and crying for food, would he rather stay cooped up in his house telling his children to stay hungry so that Allah will send manna from heaven or will he run all over the place to feed his children? A man who was paid a cool 2 million rupees for half an hour’s work (he shot a tv commercial for Lays Chips also known as Lays chips fatwa) will probably never know what hunger is and how devastating it can be? Self respect, privacy and integrity are things that only rich and well off people can afford, the rest are busy making out a living for themselves and their children.

I am astounded at the cheek of the man. Not only did he blame the victims for begging for flour, he was annoyed at the beggars who knock on his car windows for alms and blamed them for making the likes of him more indifferent to their plight by constantly banging on their air conditioned car windows. I would never condone beggary but one must also take into consideration the recession, loss of jobs for so many people and government’s apathy towards employment generation schemes for its populace. According to the World Food Program, 24 per cent of the population of Pakistan is under noursihed and 38 per cent of Pakistani children under the age of five are under weight. It calls the state of hunger in Pakistan, "alarming." Imagine, if everyone takes the advice of Junaid Jamshed to heart and and sit on their ass and do nothing and wait for the manna, how will the situation of hunger exacerbate in the country.

What is a bigger tragedy that none of the live callers to the program were intelligent enough to point out what a fraud people like JJ and Ammir Liaquat are. Everyone sang their praises to death and one of the callers even called Junaid jamshed an angel (I am not sure angels would be as big a sartorial disaster as Junaid Jamshed was in his burgady red kurta).

PS: Its a very long video, if you are short of time, just catch the bit from 11th minute to18th minute in the video.

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...and the halalness saga continues ...

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Honestly, I never thought that my blog posts would be taken seriously by anyone, let alone makers of a halal search engine.

A few weeks back, PTI reviewed one of my previous posts about a halal browser and commented that although the post was in good humour, it was taken very seriously by the more pious readers. That report was carried by Pune Mirror, Yahoo India and The American Conservative to name a few.

A Dutch company came up with a halal search engine (If there exists a Halal browser, please enlighten me about it) with help of which Muslims will be able to surf the internet without the fear of accidentally encountering sinful material. The site is called www.iamhalal.com and comes with the tagline; I search halal, I am halal (wonder what does that make a bonafide google worshiper like me).

Now, I am not a narcissist nutcase who believes that the whole world is copying her but these guys totally stole my idea of three levels of halalness – or rather haramness.

If you type a word that is deemed inappropriate by the search engine, you will be warned in 3 levels of haram.

A query for the term “Suicide bombings” is considered level 1 haram and came with this warning.

Oops! Your search inquiry has a Haram level of 1 out of 3. This means that the results fetched by ImHalal.com could be haram!

The word “Sex” was deemed level 2 Haram. The warning for it goes something like this:

Oops! Your search inquiry has a Haram level of 2 out of 3. This means that the results fetched by ImHalal.com could be haram!

Searching a word like “Fornication” would put the search engine on red alert (literally) and the warning would come in red letters.

Oops! Your search inquiry has a Haram level of 3 out of 3! I would like to advise you to change your search terms and try again

Honestly, this search engine is in a bad taste. Words like love, kissing and Nazi are level 1 haram and words like gay, lesbian and sexy are level 3 haram but words like fascism, nigger, molester, murder and torture are totally halal.

What kind of weird world we live in where adult Muslims would actively seek an internet nanny to filter stuff for them!

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Three cheers for halal ness.

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Damn the Jews!

They have beaten the more pious Muslims to it again. A new ‘kosher’ search engine called Koogle has been launched for orthodox Jews living in Israel, which will allow them to surf cyberspace without ever encountering unbecoming images or faith wavering text and keep the dangers of subversion and temptation at bay. Koogle will follow the religious standards set by the rabbis and is aimed at helping orthodox Jews stay on the stipulated path.

Apparently a jibe at Google, Koogle will filter out forbidden material and provide its consumers kosher bits and pieces from the net. This provides an impetus to our more religious-minded Muslim brothers to come up with a halal search engine or perhaps something even better: a halal browser. The halal browser could scan the web and act all big brotherly for the benefit of its devout and virtuous users.

Ideally, the halal browser will check out the halal quotient of the content in cyberspace. The browser could also label web content according to different levels of halalness. The varying degrees of halalness could range from barely halal to standard halal and extra or strictly halal and everything in between.

The barely halal version will only let the user know that there is dangerous content ahead and warn that if you want to keep your faith intact, browse no further. The standard halal version will not only warn you about dangerous content ahead, but will also distort the appearance of the browser and scream ‘haram haram!’ Anyone with even a remnant of faith will cease browsing non-halal content and will revert to halal content. The reward for clicking along the righteous path - Ovais Qadri naats in the background.

Meanwhile, the strictly halal version will not warn you about anything; instead, it will just obstruct the material deemed inappropriate by the maulanas. For instance, if you are on Facebook or blogging to your heart’s desire and you see adverts with a semi-nude woman with a lollipop (the ultimate test of your faith) asking you to buy this or that, fear no more. The new and improved halal browser, equipped with halal firewall, will take care of it for you. You can look forward to a situation in which only totally halal adverts for items such as halal chicken, halal chips, halal banking and Umrah tours pop on your browser.

If you are an online shopper and have indulged in shopping taboo items in the past, the new and improved halal browser will even curb your enthusiasm for all things forbidden and halt your purchase before you set up your Paypal account.

The only problem is that we do not have this halal browser right now. For a religious minded businessman, it is the best opportunity since halal foods and Shariah-compliant banking to make some solid dough. If Junaid Jamshed is done with modeling for a commercial in the guise of public service message, which, let’s be honest, is really a fatwa in favour of a commercial product, he can now invest to develop the first-ever Shariah compliant halal browser.

Of course, if you were already using the halal browser, this blog would have been blocked at the get-go.

Originally written for Dawn


PS: Please read the comments at the Dawn blog, you will want to bang your head against a wall.

Sunday in London, when Pakistanis win the T20 championship

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Late last night, after watching an exhilarating T20 world cup final and a crazy facebook status update war, my friend Andrew in London - he is a Canadian by the way - started sending me live updates via text messages about how Pakistani fans have taken over St Johns Wood Road by the Lord’s, the amount of money Pakistani expatriates have with people draping hummers in Pakistani flags and white BMWs with a green Pakistan Zindabad slogan pasted on it. I told him it is all those curry houses owned by Pakistanis across Britain that are responsible for the riches of the desi Diaspora.

This is the email I later got from him, it would give you an idea how London goes nuts on Sundays, especially when Pakistanis win a major cricket tournament.

Dear All,

A crazy day here in London. I went to the demo at the Iranian Embassy for an hour or so in the late afternoon. Spoke to an Iranian guy for about 20 minutes about what has been going on. Lots of noise and emotion!!

Walked across Hyde Park and headed up towards Lords. Traffic was backed up so I guessed that the final of the 20-20 Cricket World Cup between Pakistan and Srti Lanka had ended. Lots of crazy happy Pakistan fans were running around making noise. A few were drunk as well. Then a group of Sri Lankan Tamils came by in an anti-Sri Lanka protest. "Sri Lanka, terrorist!" You get the idea.

I walked around Lords after a bit and came upon the Western gate where the team buses were to come out. A crowd of a few hundred Pak fans had gathered. They had the largest flag of Pakistan I had ever seen. It must have been 30 feet long and 15 to 20 feet wide. Lots of Anglo-Pakistanis too so the chants were football like: "Are you watching India?!" "Green Army!" "Afridi (the team's star player)!"

Someone had a sign that read: "I got my ticket from an Indian."

After being in Sri Lanka when they won the World Cup in 1996 and following things since then, it is clear that Mike Marquese was right to call his book about the World Cup "War Minus the Shooting".

Great fun!!!

Cheers

Andrew

PS: President Zardari has announced cash award for the team Pakistan and for the first time, I am ok with him spending our tax money like his personal treasure chest. Go Green Army, you made us proud. To quote a blogging buddy, you guys have gone from cricket chumps to T20 Champs.

PPS: Now that Younus Khan has announced his retirement from the shortest form of cricket, would we see Afridi as the new T20 captain?

PPPS: Younus Khan finally revealed his true age. According to cricinfo, he is still 31, but in a post match interview, he said he is 34 and too old to play T20.

PPPPS: Has anyone noticed, this is Intekhab Alam’s second world cup as a coach (the first was in 1992), is he our lucky mascot?



The last photo was added because I just wanted Afridi to be part of this post


Disclaimer: The post does not mean to hurt any Indian reader, I just reproduced Andrew's email.

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From Daddy's girl

Father’s day may be a creation of Hallmark cards to sell their merchandise in times of lull, but it is a beautiful reminder that we need to appreciate our fathers and tell them that we love them, something we often tend to forget. For a country that celebrates births, weddings and birthdays, we do not celebrate relations and our loved ones as much as we should.

When we do acknowledge the people in our lives, we tend to celebrate some relations more than others. Heaven lies at the feet of mothers, but fathers, who usually bankroll our lives and provide immense support throughout, are left out when we express love, gratitude and appreciation. This father’s day, I wanted to take time out to acknowledge fathers and tell them how wonderful they have been through the years. This is something all fathers would love to hear from their children, no matter what their age or relationship might be.

My relationship with my father has been like any other child’s. It started off with me adoring everything he did to indifference to rebellion without cause in my teenage years. Later, I developed the calm appreciation for my father that many people get as their parents get older. Abba, on the other hand, has always loved me, warts and all, and took pride in every little thing I did.

I look a lot like my father, at least that’s what I have been told by friends, family and perfect strangers. I now smile and accept it, but as a little girl I would sulk to no end whenever I was told that I resemble my dad. My argument was simple: I am a girl who braids her hair, my dad is a man with a receding hairline. We cannot possibly look alike. Instead of being hurt, my father was proud of the fact that his daughter could argue so well.

As a little girl, I had a huge, wall-sized map of the world in my room and my dad and I would spend hours in front of that map discussing countries, food, geography and wars. One thing we always discussed while standing in front of that map was traveling. We planned a million and one trips for later and my top three destinations of choice were the coffee plantations of Colombia, Cairo and Venice. Those trips together never materialised because his health deteriorated after my mother’s sudden and untimely demise. But he took great joy when I traveled to these places (I am yet to discover Colombian coffee plantations) and made memories for both of us.

Before I discovered the Internet, my father was my Google, encyclopedia and Wikipedia – all rolled into one. Whether I would want to know about the Stockholm syndrome, the Crimean wars or Issac Newton, my father was my go-to person and he never disappointed. Abba introduced me to Mumtaz Mufti, Ghalib, Jospeh Conrad and Anton Chekov and inculcated the love for the written word in me. I may have inherited more than just facial features from my dad because my wanderlust, my love for books, my pragmatism and my never-say-die attitude all come from him.

Although Abba has never been very demonstrative about love and affection, and I always thought that he cared about his children in a very casual manner, I know now that we have always been the centre of his life. I only realized how much he loved me when I left to go to college abroad. He never once told me how much he would miss me, but cried for hours after I left and even developed an eye infection as a result. When I got to know about it, I called Abba and said that I would come back if he wanted me to. He told me to stay put and finish my degree and joked that while Prophet Yaqoob lost his eyesight while crying for his lost son Yousuf, he only had conjunctivitis.

It was only after this I remembered all those incidents of quiet fatherly pride he took in everything I did, whether it was my high school results, my sports achievements or my work. I do remember him beaming with pleasure when I first got published. He called everyone when I was not around to make sure that the world knew about the accomplishments of his daughter.

I lost my mother when I was a teenager and never really had a chance to tell her how much I loved her and what she meant to me. My father is not well these days. He is hospitalised and fighting ill health and weakness. This father’s day, I want him to know that he is much loved and appreciated. Whatever I am today is because of my dad, because of his affection, compassion and guidance. He always encouraged me in whatever course of action I took, and never stopped me from doing anything because I am girl. Perhaps his greatest gift is that he never placed barriers to my flight of imagination. I love you Abba, and I want to thank you for enriching my life and being such a wonderful father.






Originally published in Dawn

The ghetto of women's writing

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Back in 2001 during my rookie reporting days, I wrote a piece on the renewed Intifada which was quite well received. One of the senior assistant editors who was at least 75 years old at that point in time (yes, it was the time when Dawn still had its geriatric brigade roaming the Islamabad corridor) called me and asked me why did I choose to write on intifada. Being the super naïve, extra exuberant idiot that I was, I went on and on about how international politics fascinates me and how I want to write political commentary regularly.

After I was done with my tirade, he smiled a benevolent smile and told me in no uncertain terms that I should stop worrying my pretty little head about stuff as gruesome as Intefada and should stick to things bright and shiny – like fashion and pop music. Before I could say that unlike the old gent who had a degree in Persian literature, being a student of International Relations in general and of people’s movement and confidence building measures in particular, I was actually qualified to write on Intifada and Middle East crisis. I was too young and inexperienced to know that assistant editor probably was afraid of a newbie taking over his area of expertise.



Hajrah Mumtaz’s excellent piece ‘The ghetto of ‘women are writing’ in Dawn today reminded me that I too have been pushed to the ghetto of light & fluffy writing at one point in time. Thank heavens that I was too stubborn to listen to the old gent and wrote about everything under the sun.


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Even the last remnant of national integrity is gone

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I admit, I waste time on those crazy facebook quizzes and I do it almost every other day. Last week, I came out with my list of five people I would like to meet and US President Barack Obama was one of them. If someone wants to judge me for my demented groupie-ness, I can live with that but I really would like to meet him before I die.

I was seriously miffed when I saw the picture of President Obama flanked by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and our own much loved President Asif Zardari flashing his newly acquired set of pearlies. Imagine how miffed I must have been to see Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, sitting next to his daddy. Nothing – and I say it with absolute confidence – can either explain or justify the presence of a twenty year old sophomore in an official meeting at the Whitehouse. For heaven’s sake, it was NOT a garden party where President Obama was introducing his little girls to the children of President Zardari, it was a high level tripartite government meeting and a kid gets to attend it because his daddy happens to be running (read ruining) the country?



I thought Asifa Bhutto Zardari’s presence in a meeting with former US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was in absolute bad taste, but at least Asifa had the excuse that Dr. Rice was visiting her home, the Presidency. This, on the other hand, is pampering your child at the expense of not only the national exchequer but also the last remnant of national integrity.




Shame on you President Zardari.
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