Stranger to Wishmakers.

I’ve been meaning to blog. I really, really have.

Then I read Ali Sethi’s The Wishmaker. Not only did I waver between wanting to shoot myself or fall asleep at intervals while reading the book, but at the end of it, I fell into a pit of depression – godawfulbooks always do that to me; the recovery process from reading the first chapter of Aatish Taseer’s Stranger to History was an experience I’d like to forget. The book has no plot to speak of, and is just a collection of random incidents and impressions thrown together. I could go on and on about what I thought of the book, but I will take a shortcut and point you to a great review of Ali Sethi’s book that more or less echoes what I thought of the book, at Ultrabrown.

On the other hand, Baitullah Mehsud can finally be pronounced a dead man. Now we can continue arguing about whether the heir Hakimullah is dead as well, the increasing number of US drone strikes and their effectiveness, Rehman Malik’s mind boggling statements and Marvi Memon’s conspiracy theories [the latest one, via her Twitter feed: "Break in attempts in my office last nite! If govt is so desparate why don't they chek website. It has all documents!"].

Or we can just start placing bets on the Champions Trophy semi-final and start the endless round of questions, to be followed by the usual round of recriminations if Pakistan loses. So will Pakistan win? Will KESC cooperate and not cut off our electricity just as Shahid Afridi’s bowling spell begins? Will there be a kiss, and who will be the lucky recipient? Will we spy Veena Malik [allegedly in South Africa according to a report cited by Cafe Pyala] in the stadium? And lastly, will Wasim Akram calm the fck down in the commentary box!?

if i ever feel better.

I’ve used up all my active brain cells trying to field off questions why I don’t fast and getting suggestions from friends and acquaintances on how to answer such question [my favourite suggestion so far: "when they ask you why you're not fasting, you ask them how their sex life is"]. Khair, I will just post about what I’ve been reading this week and curse myself later about my sheer laziness [I mean, just look at the blog post title, its stolen from a Phoenix song!].

1. Bositive Neuj Bakistan, one of the funniest blogs I’ve come across in a while. While you’re at it, do check out their Calendar-e-Bakstan, their representative on Twitter LalBrofessor is pretty hilarious too.

2. From Foreign Policy: Cheney’s Jihad by Peter Bergen, detailing the CIA interrogation methods and their effectiveness for the United States.

3. Mohammed Hanif on Jaswant Singh’s book being banned, reports of Pakistan’s demise and more in Times of India. My favourite quote: “Pakistan implodes almost on a daily basis, then gets bored with its own miseries and goes to sleep hoping to wake up just fine. That has never quite happened. Someone recently said, what do you expect from a country where the Father of the Nation (M A Jinnah) happens to be a brother to the Mother of the Nation (Fatima Jinnah). So it’s a bit of a dysfunctional family but then we tell ourselves, which family isn’t?” For those who want to read it in Urdu, there’s Hanif’s article on BBC Urdu about the Jaswant Singh controversy, which you can read here

4. Sex education in schools or not is the new debate, at least, it is in my office following this piece of news. Grrr, in a country where girls get married off at age 8 [sickening, I know], people have a problem with sex education for their children. Parents like the ones who are protesting need to realise that their children will benefit from this, not turn into the Pamela Andersons and Tommy Lees of this world. And having scanned through the book, I do understand that its a little advanced in terms of the concepts and terminology used, but if I had a child, I’d rather they read about this in school as opposed to hearing nonsensical concepts from someone else who regularly confuse their arse and brains.

5. Sadequain’s masterpieces are at risk of fading away, says a report in The National. Having had my breath taken away by the beauty of the murals at the Frere Hall and Lahore Museum, and being appalled at their condition, this article makes me wish I was rich enough to fund the restoration work myself. Where are the so-called patrons of art, who have numerous works by Sadequain gracing their walls, when you need them?

6. A Pakistani man died during the recording of a Unilever show in Thailand. Of course, since according to this piece, “Unilever is Pakistan’s biggest advertiser, with spending in 2007 of $20 million, according to Advertising Age’s ranking of top global advertisers,” don’t expect to see this being talked about in the print or electronic media.

A Rainbow Shines Over India and other Fairy Tales.

It has been a very tumultuous week. First up, I would like to say that I have no words to elaborate on how I feel about the King of Pop’s death. The sister has written a very moving piece on her blog, so you can just read that.

Secondly, I am extremely happy about the Delhi (I’ve always wondered, does one say Delhi or Dilli?) High Court verdict on homosexuality in India. Kudos to the DHC for ensuring homosexuals have equal rights, this is really a remarkable achievement for gay rights’ activists in India. Fingers crossed that India’s colourful political parties accept the verdict with dignity.

And while its unfair to compare the two countries’ judicial systems, a recent ruling in one of our courts has left me seeing red all day.

Via Dawn:

Three suspects in the child marriage case were on Wednesday granted bail by a judicial magistrate (south) against a surety bond of Rs5,000 each.

Eight-year-old Zahida was married to 17-year-old Dilshad in Azam Basti in the jurisdiction of the Mehmoodaad police station on June 25. Later, acting on information provided by some neighbours, the police arrested the girl’s father, Abdul Rasool, the bridegroom, Dilshad, and the Qazi, Qari Naqib Ali Shah, under Section 151 of the criminal procedure code.

Rs.5000 is set as bail and they’re free. The would-be bride is EIGHT years old! The father, qari and the boy’s father should be publicly hanged, along with rapists and child molesters. Maybe that would make them stop suggesting that eight is a suitable age to be married.

This week also saw the publication of a report suggesting that the profits from smuggled cigarettes go into the pockets of the Pakistani Taliban. So the next time you’re at the pan wala, think twice before you ask for the ‘Farsi wala Malboro.’

Then there was today: I spent about six hours at the Jinnah International Airport in Karachi while covering an assignment and have had several realisations hit me at the speed of lightning:

1. People still come to the airport to see the sights.

2. There are WAY too many Chinese-looking people who come to Karachi. What are they all doing here!?

3. It is extremely easy to spread a rumour in Karachi. After being asked, for what must have been the 1000th time, what our camera crew was doing there, we joking replied: “Waiting for Shahrukh Khan to come.” That rumour could have gotten way out of hand had we actually kept a straight face when saying it. I do hope there aren’t people at the airport right now holding up placards saying “SRK I <3 U."

4. Karachi's airport shop has no decent food. Except the packet of Lays' I had there was definitely more fresher than what you get in most stores in the city.

5. Wannabe designer/male model should not wear bright green sneakers to match his t-shirt. It reminds one of puke, not grass. And carrying an LV bag (which looked suspiciously like a handbag) does not maketh a model.

6. Sitting on a luggage trolley is not good for the bones.

I'm sure there were more realisations, but I'm ready to crawl into bed and sleep the sleep of the dead. Unless the cat gets to my pillow first, in which case it will be yet another battle of "Move Your Butt Smoky Cat." Stay tuned.

P.S. Fat monkeys in a zoo in Japan are being put on a diet according to a report in The Telegraph. I’m a little scared after seeing the accompanying photo.

20 hours later.

Would have live blogged this, but alas, KESC is the weakest link.

7:00 PM: Get call from sister saying the electricity is off. Have faith in KESC and feel it will come back in an hour. Go home.
8:30 PM: Electricity still not back. V hungry. Oooh, Nihari!
8:45 PM: DHA KESC office phones are constantly busy. Hmm, maybe something’s wrong.
9:00 PM: The News’ website reveals all of Karachi doesnt have electricity. Call office. Assignment editor laughs when I ask him when the electricity is coming back. Oh dear.
10:00 PM: Constant prodding by sister to go to Espresso and charge phones and benefit from airconditioning. Nihari-induced coma coming on.
10:15 PM: Severely low levels of battery power on mobile phone. Start panicking.
10:20 PM: Sleep and electricity deprived zombies on the streets. Karachi looks like something out of 28 Days Later.
10:30 PM: At Espresso in my pyjamas. Other people at the cafe look at me weirdly. My pink pajamas with cows on them are very upset at their condescending stares.
11:30 PM: Overhear random conversations at Espresso. One boy has gone through a bad breakup. Other boy says smoke combined with perfume is a very alluring smell.
12:00 AM: Night has been saved! Friend with industrial-size generator invites me to come spend night at her house.
1:00 AM: Oooh, Scotch! Feel remorse for sister, father and cat stuck at home with no bijli, which is quickly washed down with more amber-coloured liquid.
2:00 AM: Am lying in bed surrounded by stuffed toys and barbies. Friend has not updated decor in decades I fear.
8:45 AM: A/C feels so good. Don’t want to go to no-electricity home.
9:15 AM: At no-electricity home. Find sister crouching in terrace door trying to catch breeze.
10:00 AM: Work! Wait, why is no one here?
10:15 AM: Barely no one has showed up to the office. Reporter with KESC beat has been in office for nearly 20 hours. He is thriving on ‘lets bash the KESC’ induced adrenaline.
10:45 AM: At Civil Hospital. Shalwar has magically unhooked itself. Holding on to shalwar for dear life. Hide in Emergency ward and hook it again.
11:00 AM: Still at Civil Hospital. Patients look ready to pass out. Blood bank has no electricity.
11:30 AM: Run into Chand Nawab. Hear him do first line of PTC..’bijli ke bohran…’. Happinesss. Also, feel like a true celebrity, Chand Nawab came and said hello to yours truly. Muahaha.
12:00 PM: Office. Oooh, cute boy online. Happy streak continues.
12:30 PM: Go for lunch at sister’s office. Friend walks in who looks at A/C with a look of love that one reserves for new born babies, puppies, kittens and bars of Toblerone.
2:00 PM: Hear arrogant, good-for-nothing reporter refusing to go to cover a press conference. Fight back urge to smack her.
2:30 PM: Electricity has apparently returned at home. Wonder if cat is doing dance of happiness in her room.
2:45 PM: People are comparing electricity failure stories like people comparing war wounds.
3:00 PM: Run into scumbag. Ugh. Desperately want exorcism to purge self of bad vibes. Think will go hide under table now. Or maybe do some work. Till the next rant then…

On journalism, reading aloud and decoding women.

Its a Saturday, I’m at work (ugh!) and I know Twitter has taken over the sister’s and my life when I was chatting with her on Google Talk:

Me: “I’ve had a terrible day. This happened, that happened and then to top it off, this happened”
Saba: #lifefail

And since Twitter combined with overactive A/Cs that leave your fingers resembling icicles and writing deadlines has sapped my ability to blog for now, I’m going to be utterly lazy and just post my favorite bits and pieces culled from the Web.

The Independent: Robert Fisk’s World: A glimpse of Obama in a Cairo emptied of its people and its poor:

Go into the average newspaper office and you’ll find the reporters staring at Sky News or the BBC or Al-Jazeera International.

But visit the studios of Sky News, the BBC or Al-Jazeera International, and you’ll discover that all the journalists there are reading newspapers. Its an odd form of osmosis which – being an old-fashioned reporter – I’m not very happy about. I still believe, along with an encouraging number of young Arab and Israeli reporters, that we’ve got to be out on the streets, just as I was when I started in journalism in the Blyth office of the Newcastle Evening Chronicle. So Fisk was prowling the streets of Cairo this week, hunting for Obama and Lady Hilary.

From the Guardian Blog: Is anything gained from reading aloud?

What all literary festivals are about, as well as meeting the authors and rummaging through the bookshops (and basking in the sun this year – hooray!) is being read to. Some people can’t hear the written word enough, perhaps because it invokes memories of our earliest literary experience, that of the parent reading to us at bedtime, filling our sleepy heads with Gothic castles and death-defying escapes and Moomins that then swirled about in there after the light went out. Others, though, resent it, possibly for much the same reason, that it seems to return you to a helpless, infantile state where you couldn’t just read books for yourself.

Via the sister, from What A Woman Means When She Says…:

Needed: Leopard Catcher.

Following the sighting of a wild cat in the PM’s House’s lawns, The News publishes this wonderful job opportunity  notice in the Editorial section:

Job opportunity: a vacancy has arisen in the staff of the PM’s residence in Islamabad. We are seeking to appoint a fully-qualified leopard catcher. By ‘fully qualified’ we mean that the applicant has on more than one occasion successfully captured a leopard or similar wild beast and can present photographic evidence to support their claim. Alternatively, if they can display any scars or wounds occasioned by the capture of feral felines this would be acceptable. Simply turning up at the gate and saying ‘I am the best leopard catcher in Pakistan’ is unlikely to convince our skeptical interviewing team. Given that qualified leopard catchers are something of a rarity we may be prepared to consider an unqualified person who is good with animals and does not mind creeping around the prime ministerial lawns at dead of night waving a tin of cat food and whispering “Here kitty-kitty…nice pussycat…good kitty…hop in this bag kitty”.

The successful applicant will have a full set of limbs, both eyes more-or-less in the right place and two ears – which are NOT on the same side of the head. Illiterate candidates will be considered and preference given to those who display an ability to run very fast in the dark without bumping into anything. We accept that there are inherent risks attached to this post, one such being the possibility that the successful applicant will be eaten by his or her quarry. In this event we are prepared to make a one-time payment of Rs200 to the family of the deceased. In the event of a successful capture the post-holder will benefit from TV interview rights, the sale of his or her story to both domestic and foreign news channels and will receive a ‘good service’ letter of recommendation to future employers personally signed by the prime minster. The postholder must understand that this is a ‘one-off’ job and once the cat is in the bag there is no continuity of employment. Letting the cat out of the bag and then claiming that it escaped as a result of sinking its claws into the trapper’s more sensitive regions is unlikely to generate prime ministerial sympathy – or re-employment. The post is open to both men and women; we are an equal-opportunity employer. Interested applicants should form an orderly queue at the gates of the prime ministerial residence no later than 6 am, May 28, 2009. Signed –The Prime Minster’s House, Pakistan