Hope Springs Eternal.

A lot has happened since my last post. The Facebook ban has been lifted, as for the precedence it’s set, we’ll just have to wait and see what the long-term repercussions will be. Then there's Israel’s attack on the Gaza Flotilla; something I feel is going to be remembered as a turning point in the history of the world, whether for good or worse, who knows? Then there’s the tragic Ahmedi massacre; something that deserves an entire post on it’s own, but I won’t be writing about purely because I feel it’s been far better covered by Sami Shah and Nadeem Paracha. They’ve written exactly what I would have wanted to write, and much better than what I would’ve managed. The massacre is something that has been a topic of choice (rightly so) for many Pakistani bloggers, however I also feel it’s a topic that no matter how discussed on the blogosphere should have been more talked about through mainstream media, more condemned by the politicians and more protested by the general public. Did I say “more”? Just talking about it publically, at all, would have been a step up. The silence that the TV channels, politicians, and the majority of pakistani citizens have employed in this case sets yet another very terrifying precedence.

And then there was Phet! Yes, another discussed-to-death topic, but one that I want to talk about, simply because for me it felt like a divine sign of hope. I’ve decided to take it as one anyway. It felt like the heavens saying that yeah, things are going to get rough(er), we’ll be faced with even greater difficulties and we’ll be worried and scared, but at the end of the day, things will get better. We’ll make it through and come out the other end, smiling. It felt like Karachi was really truly happy that day. Though, to be fair, Karachiites are generally always excited by the thought of rain. The word cyclone is never really taken seriously by any of us. But I think nothing that I write about it will describe what that day was like better than the pictures below.

They have been taken by a very talented amateur-photographer friend of mine, Huda Ahmed. They are the only set of pictures I’ve seen so far that have been able to capture the emotions and the gorgeousness (is that a word?) of that day. There is heart behind these pictures, and practically the only reason I even felt the need to write this post was because of them and so I could share them here. I love Karachi, I love to write about Karachi, it was my first post, the reason I started this blog, and has been a topic of many posts since. Hence I love the way these pictures are a small symbol of every Karachiites’ eternal optimism. Thanks Huda.

If I never see you again...

Blogger is working. That's quite a shock since everything else seems to be restricted. I don't know how long this will last, so I'm posting fast. I feel like I'm writing from behind enemy lines in a WWII movie or something. Any second now, they'll find my hideout or all communication will be lost, and this might just be my last post before I'm never heard from again. If that's true and Pakistan is on-route to becoming the next China, or more accurately the next Afghanistan, I want this to be out there.

The "everyone draw the prophet" event was insensitive. Every religion in the world has some belief or the other that makes no sense to someone who doesn't belong to it, yet to purposely instigate them and taunt them over it is wrong and unfair. This goes for muslims who behave that way towards other religions as well.

Hence, I felt that the initial idea of not signing into facebook on a specific day to make your point was an intelligent manner of protesting. Yet as per usual in the case of Pakistan, it all spiralled out of control. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but suddenly our govt has banned not just facebook but every other conceivable website ( let's just ban the internet altogether while we're at it). To say that I'm angry as hell, and don't know which wall to bang my head against would be an understatement. What could have been a very valid protest has now lost all credibility and as usual we've become a standing joke.

My freedom of choice has just been taken away; I knew this would happen some day, I was just hoping I wouldn't be alive to see it. In my book this means we're now standing on the precipice of absolute talibanization, whether this ban becomes permanent or whether we see the error of our ways and drop it, will decide where we're headed as a nation. So for all I know this may just be my last post ever.

If so, I hope that over time I've been able to show, how not all pakistanis think exactly alike or are exactly what the media portrays us to be. How many of us are able to see the beauty in other people, other cultures and other worlds, while still loving our own country and religion. For me, and many people like me, it was never an either/or situation.

Life As You See It.

http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2010/04/15/character-of-the-week-henry-miller/

I agree with part of what he says here, but not all of it. I absolutely love what he says about life; to see it as it is. However I also feel that moralities, ethics and laws are important. I personally find nothing miraculous about chaos. Same with security; I see the world exactly as he says one should, through the people and things, literature and music and I do find the world to be an incredibly rich and beautiful place. But I feel that I have the luxury to see it this way entirely because of the relative amount of security that I do enjoy. For someone like me it would become impossible to see the world this way with out it. Which is why I feel that some of what he says here is too generalized. I accept that without death there is no life, and I would never replace the pain that my own arm may give me with an artificial one. However, I would also not go out of my way to risk death or hurt my arm (I'm not a risk taker by nature). Yet I don't feel that this hinders my ability to see the world as it is. For someone like me it just enhances it.
In a way this may also explain how I feel about the Islamic concept of heaven. From what I've always been told about it, we will have anything and everything we could ever want in heaven, but what we won't have is our earthly relationships. We won't even remember the people we knew and loved on earth. It took me a long time to accept how it could be heaven without the people I loved, but in the end I got it. It's the lesser of two evils (figuratively). It's to protect us from the pain we might suffer if one of those we love doesn't make it to heaven. That's the difference between heaven and earth. In heaven we wouldn't sense the loss. I still don't like it, but I understand it now.

PS: Nadia, I hope I've made sense here, this was supposed to be a short comment on your post, but it kinda got away from me, and seemed a little too long to use as a comment :D Now, I have no idea what we learnt in our operative dentistry lecture today. This is what comes of facebook-ing during class!

Of Fairy Lights And City Nights.

Two years ago, I started this blog in an attempt to explain (to myself and anyone else who may be interested) how I saw the world around me, how I saw love, how I saw life and how I saw me. However, I've never really expected anyone else to see what I see or even understand it. But tonight it felt like someone did, and all it took was 11 directors and 17 writers. What I'm talking about is the movie "New York, I love you". In my previous post I tried to explain what it was that drew me to the various cities of the world, the sense of wonder, possibility and (though it may seem odd) peace that only cities bring me. This movie did that. For me it wasn't just about New York, New york was just the back drop, it was about life, it was about people. How they feel, how they think, how they love and how their lives intersect without them even knowing it. I felt it was about fate, about destiny, about the grand scheme of things, whatever you want to call it. My favourite stories included the Shekhar Kapur segment with Julie Christie and Shia LaBeouf, and the Joshua Marston segment about the old couple. I don't know how others feel about the movie, but I got it and in a way it got me. I hear it's based on an older movie called "Paris, je t'aime", I guess I'll be watching that next.

There Will Be Fairylights As Bright As Any City Night.

There is something amazingly breathtaking about city nights. A city skyline aglow across an inky sky, pinpricks of light drawing out this perfect spiderweb down below, streaks of colour like brush strokes sweeping back and forth. I'm trying to explain that feeling you get when you look out the airplane window, just as it's landing, at the sleeping city down below. When you're standing outside on your roof or your balcony, just breathing in the chilly air and looking out at this sprawling mass of life around you. Specially around dinner time, when things are relatively quieter, when all you hear is the clanking of pots in the kitchen, and mothers calling their kids inside, with the occasional siren wailing in the distance along with the honking of the minibuses and the whooshing of traffic. To me a city signifies millions of people, all with their own separate lives and stories. I love the anonymity of a big city, how you can be entirely alone without ever really being alone. Some people may find that depressing, I find it exciting. Whenever I pass the lit up windows of some house, or people walking on the street, or even people driving in the car along mine, I always wonder what their lives are like. What are they doing, are they happy or unhappy, what are they thinking at this very minute? But that wonder is never more alive than at night. At night every city in the world comes alive, the city shows you it's true character, it's personality, the magic it wields...for every city is magical. I remember sitting on the windowsill of our hotel apartment in Paris, at 4'o'clock in the morning and looking down at the bright empty street and never being more in love with that city than at that precise moment. I remember sitting on the pavement outside my hotel in Edinburgh around 10-11 pm, looking out at the ancient illuminated castle right in front, and never feeling more at peace with the world. In London it was during the walk back to the hotel, late at night after a long day, again the streets were almost empty but the city was still bright. It's been like that with every city that I've ever visited and with the city to which I belong. It's during its' bright silent nights that we bond. I love cities in general and I love Karachi in particular. Even with all the load shedding and its somewhat discontinuous skyline, at the end of the day all that matters is the city's soul, it's life force, and what it says when it speaks to you during it's hushed and enchanted nights.

A Short Love Story In Stop Motion By Carlos Lascano

This is a beautiful video I happened to come across, entirely randomly, on youtube. The animation is sheer genius, while the story reminds me ,somewhat, of the opening 15mins of Disney's 'Up'. 15 mins that had me sobbing my heart out by the way. Anyway, the song playing in the background is also one of my absolute favourites, Hoppipolla by Sigur Ros. The song reinforces the sweet simplicity of the story; the dream of a humble, unaffected and enduring kind of love. The sort of love that many would swear no longer exists, but which I feel many people, including myself, have had the honour of witnessing in their parents and grandparents (mashallah), arranged marriage or not. It is the kind of love which I feel is deceptive in it's simplicity and is achieved only through mutual respect, consideration, understanding and a constant give and take. It is the kind of love that I aspire to, and hope am one day worthy of.

Let Them Eat Cake.

Yesterday, while bombs blew up on Shara-e Faisal and outside the Jinnah Hospital, while people all over the city mourned for their lost loved ones and prayed for the wounded, while one of my friends attempted to make her way back home (she lives in the doctors colony within Jinnah), this is what I was doing:



Yes, I baked a cake, a gorgeous chocolate cake with fresh strawberries in the center. The irony of the situation hit me as I was beating the sugar and eggs together. The greater percentage of our population is finding it difficult to afford enough sugar for their tea and flour for their roti, but here I was making a superfluous cake for no reason other than the fact that there were fresh strawberries in the fridge and I wanted to try out my new cake tins. I am greatfull to God for having blessed me as He has, but they are days when I am excessively ashamed of myself. I feel like I'm two separate people arguing with each other. "What is wrong with you there are people dying, your city's in turmoil, what are you doing here" "No I don't want to hear it, I don't want to know how many people have died, I don't want to watch the news, just leave me alone, let me make my cake in peace". I feel so out of control that I feel it's preferable to just bury my head in the sand. I don't have any other way of dealing with it. They say that as citizens we should try and do something, but how exactly do citizens stop bombs from exploding? Governments are corrupt, people are angry, the extremists running rampant, we're in a downward spiral that no one can find a way out of, so we all just close our eyes and go along for the ride, living each day as normally as we can and to the best of our abilities, contributing in what little way we can. But how much longer could we possibly have before we hit the ground in a deathly splat?