Whats happening?

In the background I hear Bilqees Khanum's ghazal, Anokha Ladla Khelan Ko Mange Chaand.

Oops... There are some 180 million of these "anokhe ladle". They want trains to play but there aren't any. They wanted airplanes bu there is not one in sight... They want energy -- nothing doing! Some want more gas; it's scarce. They need government with power... but handicapped, it is. What is left? Allama sahab's dream. Did he see a circus in his dream? Another no.

So what is this? Lets see... Laughter the best medicine!

Ojhri Camp Disaster

How can I forget that fateful day when I went to Islamabad for the engagement ceremony of my elder brother: April 10 1988. My brother, his to-be brother-in-law and I started to set out to the bus stand for Rawalpindi, do some shopping and make arrangements for the engagement event for that evening. It was 9 am, as I recall it, and we had not moved more than few meters from the house -- and boom! -- we heard the sound of some kind of blast that may not have been heard ever before, and what followed afterwards was smoke or fire flames; sky high.

We felt stunned and shocked by that sound and what we were watching high on sky, and all the people of that area started running here and there. Some feared that the Kahota atomic plant had been attacked by enemy planes. That wasn’t the case. The blast was at Faizabad heavy arms and artillery depot at Rawalpindi. Missiles were flying and falling all over the Islamabad and nearby mountains. It was just mayhem we never could have imagined and within few minutes, we witnessed the stinger missile from US smash a window of a house, hit the kitchen first, destroy all and then some how rotate all over sitting area, damaging the ceiling fan. Another missile we saw had entered the ground and gone deep.

I don’t remember much of the engagement ceremony. All I recall now is the tragic and horrific scenes at PIMS, those were the starting days of that health institute and hundreds of injured were being brought one after another. I did my part and stayed all night, helping out with the emergency work but I fully remember that child whose leg had to be amputated and was running with high grade fever. I shall never hope to witness something like that in my life. Some 4-5 thousand people had died that same day and Mr. Khaqan Abbasi was among them too.

The detail is meant to narrate something which none of my colleagues had witnessed and shared that disaster with the people of twin city.

The ammunition had came or was sent by US for the proxy war against Russian invasion and was being used by Afghan Mujahideens -- as they were called at that time -- they were the friends of later years, and they became Taliban. It was their country and they got it back by pushing one superpower back into their boundary and… later disintegrate.

The US of America is the encroacher, on one or the other pretext, its another western power , invading a sovereign nation, which was already had been badly bruised by earlier Russian adventurism.

It is high time (before it's too late) for the US to back out from this total chaotic and fruitless, exercise, which is destroying their own integrity as a nation as well as their cracking economy.

Let the Afghan people have a chance to rebuild themselves, which they didn't get even after the Russian left -- they surely taught them a lesson!

Taliban or no Taliban, Afghanistan is for Afghans... Just leave US!, under the cover of NATO.

Barking dogs do not bite.

Since few blast years ago, after each blast, we watched a shameless face in front of the exposed camera, doing a lot of hand exercise, and uttering the words of authority, "We will tackle all with iron/steel/brass and all kind of metallic hand," and keeps on going to, "... we will not rest until all terrorists are finished." Yet boom boom it goes... And not a statement before any... surprise! They just keep doing the same. The incompetent keep uttering threats.

This time it was Defense... Left unprotected... And the shameless face was Chaudhry of another variety, with a haggard look, the SSP CID, gives the statement in a manner not much different than earlier big claims, but getting carried away, "Mein in ki naslon ko ab nahi choroon ga!" TTP called -- as they promptly do -- and all their calls untraceable, claiming the responsibility, yet again, and see? Within 24 hours, another tragedy hit this time at Mastung, Quetta where 26 innocents were lined up and shot in cold blood. Not threat beforehand. They just do what they want to do. On the other side of law, they say a lot!

Life stops when it cries...

People say life must go on... and I wonder how can this be? When so much around you is standing still, for so many... can you ignore, and if you can, for how long? Some start singing, even though so many can be seen crying. How can that be? What is not real... the singing or the cries? For me, a happy song appears fake amidst all the cries but a sad situation makes tears trickle down spontaneously and feels so real... Stop singing and start sharing the sadness. Grief and sufferings of someone -- anyone -- you see close or remote to you. This is what is real life about.

Somehow, from a scale of 1-10, it is the sadness, which has been dominating, broken promises, natural calamities, hunger, disease epidemics, personal failures and social injustice. Chose something that you can share into, and you may justify singing once again.

Hope.

As the weapon show ended, we had a fairly peaceful Eid. Down came the rain... pouring in cats and dogs fashion. Wonder why they say that but somehow, I got to find some explanation for that phrase:

It has also been suggested that cats and dogs were washed from roofs during heavy weather. This is a widely repeated tale. It got a new lease of life with the e-mail message "Life in the 1500s", which began circulating on the Internet in 1999. Here's the relevant part of that:

I'll describe their houses a little. You've heard of thatch roofs, well that's all they were. Thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath. They were the only place for the little animals to get warm. So all the pets; dogs, cats and other small animals, mice, rats, bugs, all lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery so sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Thus the saying, "it's raining cats and dogs."

Whatever the case, that still doesn't satisfy a human mind much. We have to try and find another explanation and we can, and this is open to all. Like one in Urdu: sar mundatey he ooley parey!

So where were we? Yup. The lashing rains turning into floods, and that doesn't take months for the rainwater to drain, whilst the city is so close to sea, but when it rained and it just kept raining in up country, more so in villages of Sindh, it took all with it. Cattle, standing crops, and humans. The aftermath was epidemics of several diseases, mostly concerning benign diarrhea, vomiting to fatal typhoid, malaria and dengue fever.

With all this already taking heavy toll on human sufferings ,comes the ever so popular strikes...and they are in abundance.One self proclaimed leader of poor, who himself is richer by default! gets arrested and the payroll followers call three day strike.What must have gone in those areas ,already hit by natural calamity?

And we are still dreaming that some of the good old peaceful days, when work and business will be uninterrupted shall return. Still no harm in dreaming. They say one day dreams do come true!

Learn and Teach.

Said Rumi...
Come, come whoever you are.
Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
It doesn't matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times
Come, yet again, come, come

Said Ghandi...
You must be the change, you want to see in the world

Said Aveccina...
Those who Know they do not Know that to Know is to Know what they do not Know.

Said Mandela...
For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

Said Ibn Hazm...
If your pride leads you to boast,
you will be doubly guilty,
because your intelligence will have shown
that it is incapable of controlling your pride

Said Beatrice...
Princes and counties! Surely, a princely testimony,
a goodly count, Count Comfect; a sweet gallant,
surely! O that I were a man for his sake! or that I
had any friend would be a man for my sake! But
manhood is melted into courtesies, valour into
compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and
trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules
that only tells a lie and swears it. I cannot be a
man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.

And said Ali ibn Abu Talib (radiAllahu anhu)...
Oh writer! An Angel watches over all you write. Make your writing meaningful for it will eventually return to you and you will be questioned about what you wrote.

And said Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
People are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.

- Ernst Heinrich Haeckel
"The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: 1) To return love for hate; 2) To include the excluded; and 3) To say 'I was wrong.'"

Finally:
When the world has brought you to your knees, you find yourself in the perfect position to pray

Reality.

Bureaucratic monopoly along with intentional continuation of unjust policies adopted by the long run of rulers for 65 years has created a sense of deprivation and alienation among various section of population. Even after the tragic Fall of Dhaka, no one has learnt their lesson. In Sindh, only the rural and urban division has long since been the controversial issue. As I know, when you read job advertisement for public sector, one clearly notices the quota sanctions: Punjab (6) Sindh rural (2). And if and when there are provincial jobs vacancies, it reads like Sindh rural (5) Urban (1).

The big question that arises here is; why the rural-urban divide only for sindh, even after 65 years? Why does this cleavage still exist? If it is on the pretext of being underdeveloped areas then why is it so? Even after more than half a century they are, to me, the only answer. An honest, true and hard to swallow fact is, urban Sindh is mostly populated. In fact, statistically 70% comprises of those who left the Indian part of the Subcontinent, leaving all their wealth and jobs, for the love of being taken into one nation that was to be Pakistan. A nation that was not meant to be. We broke it into pieces for same one reason: injustice to the people of our beloved and beautiful eastern wing, mashriqi Pakistan. On the fast track move, we are watching the dark of history being pushed to be repeated in Balochistan and going on since a long time and suddenly the same picture in Sindh can be clearly seen by one.

You want those who migrated from Indian part of the Subcontinent to merge as Sindhi. Although they do keep trying to make believe but to no avail. Abolish quota system in Sindh at all levels. For once in 65 years, let one of the elected representatives from the urban area be the CM. Revise the seat allocations for both the National and Provincial Assembly according to the fresh population census. Make them -- those who are still being reminded of being the immigrant --believe they are in their home country. They, too, are the sons of the soil because so many have been born here. Some in JMPC and a lot at New Karachi or hospitals at Hyderabad, and from there they are taken to homes close by and not migrated. Only then will the word Muhajir disappear. If we don't call, they will keep uttering and showing fron actions that Muhajirs still exist... like Balochis and past Bengalis!