Water, the source for Prices

It's a little strange hearing folks from different countries citing drought as a reason for poor crops or lack of output.  It highlights the benefits Pakistani farmers have in many cases with the irrigation system. 

When I was farming, I'd worry about the tube well breaking down and the lack of electricity exacerbated the poor corn crops of 2011, but by and large, the availability of water was certain. 

When I speak to farmers or traders from Argentina or Southwest United States, drought/lack of water is not an unheard of phenomenon.  In fact, it's almost expected.  Prices for different products shoot up.  The lack of water still moves the world, like in many ways it did the ancient Egyptians and Harrapans.  

On the other hand, I recently read about the Swarna variety of rice - it's cheap and whats more, a new breed is capable of growing even after being submerged in flood waters for 15 days.  

Hazaras and Turis Australia Bound

There are a lot of cab drivers from Kurram Agency in Dubai, specifically from Parachinar.  Being Turi Shia, they tend to be quite 'pro-Pakistan Army' as they've been at the receiving end of sectarian violence.  For them, the enemy and dangers won't go away after NATO leaves.  Their enemies are people who speak their own language, read their own Koran and pray in the same direction.

Like the Hazaras of Quetta, they have also begun seeking safer pastures.  One of the cab drivers said that the first 200 Parachinaris have made it to Australia after heading to an Indonesian island close by and illegally entering Aussie waters.  They are lured by dreams of jobs, a passport in 3 years and more importantly living in a place where they will not be open targets for believing in a different form of religion.  He expects droves of his fellows to follow suit.

Thirst for oil

The power crisis reflects how the traditional political forces have used up all the possibilities to delay the inevitable:  switching to hydro-based or locally generated options to generate electricity.  The economics has caught up with them.  The thirst for commissions through a preference to import oil will be punished come election time.

Bol: A Review and a Thank You to Shoman

Sometimes the prevalent brutality of reality subdues our senses for long enough to declare barbaric actions as legitimate.  Barbaric laws as legal necessities.  Allow this status quo to brew and grow for generations and centuries and it results in a stymied populace perpetually terrorizing itself through doctrinal teachings that classify and rank human beings.  Bol not only rejects the age-old foundations for grading humans based on gender, but provides inspiration to a self-terrorized society about the beautiful possibilities that emerge if we choose to speak up and break the shackles inherited from the past. 

Shoaib Mansoor (Shoman) knows how to paint a story in all its hues without losing the end picture if you will.  His previous works are a homage, a reverence and a celebration of dance, poetry, music and art.  His foray into film with Khuda Kay Liyay gave the impression that Shoman was not content with making great music or entertaining television serials.  He wanted to take on a society that was increasingly duplicitous and constantly bending to the whims of obscurantism and willing to bury its beautiful heritage.  With Bol he has again come out all guns blazing.  Shoman isn't merely showing the mirror to society but goes for the jugular in a nihilist barrage against a decadent order represented by Hakim Syed Shafaatullah played by Manzar Sehbai. 

Shafaatullah's inherited but hopelessly dwindling business in herbal medicine in an era where exposure to medical science had won over the sick contrasts with his attempts to maintain a secluded, pure existence at home.  His daughters cannot leave home much less work.  However, his unmet desire to father a male child infuriates him and the frustration is taken out against the females of his household. 

In many ways it is a reflection of contemporary Pakistani Muslim society which cannot cope with the brutal truths of science and seeks remedies in the shrubs of faith.  When that doesn't work economically weak individuals, groups and minorities are made scapegoats and used to create a mirage of power for the majority. 

But this is a movie, not a post-modern feminist narrative.  Furthermore, it is a Pakistani movie in an era when desperate attempts to resuscitate the film industry have yet to deliver results.  Shoman continues to carry this national burden along with his socio-political message inserted in an entertainment medium.  How does a single director take up these challenges within a three hour time frame while not losing the audience? Enter Shafqat Cheema playing the role of Saqa Kanjar from the Old Lahore red light district where moral standards are turned head over heals with female children valued and males seen as a burden.  Apart from infusing the film with heavy doses of comical entertainment, the character simultaneously sets up as the foil to Hakim Shafaatullah.  While the preference for female children as future money earning prostitutes offer a resounding contrast, it also highlights the middle-class urban religious moral standards where women are only be perceived in two categories: either as heavenly pure or slutty whores.  These extreme ends give comfort to morals of mortals.  So Syed Shafaatullah can digest sleeping with a dancing girl but refuses to allow his daughters to find a clerical job since that would be morally confusing.

Today's Pakistan is society in a flux where everyday honor killings have become an acceptable norm.  The demonic of codes of honor have become the moral standards which need to be met for living a dignified life.  Thus, Saifi, the eunuch child of Shafaatullah, meets a fate often read in the headlines of daily papers.  Shoman deliberately refuses to grant audience the ease of moral extremes and constantly forces them into the grey unknowns of life where the purity of human emotions and desires prove to be more resilient and worthy of admiration than edicts and mechanical structures of faith.  When Humaima Malik declares she has committed murder, but not sinned, we are forced to question the concepts of crime and punishment in theological jurisprudence.  The sequence of sin equaling a crime necessitating punishment is broken.  A sin may not be a crime, and so negating the need for punishment. 

There are several flaws one can point to in the film.  Atif Aslam's role was under-utilized.  Cinematography was weak.  At times Humaima's dialogue turns preachy and may have been better and more powerful if left unsaid - but then again, the title of the movie suggests otherwise. 

Shoman's ability to hit the nerves sets him apart from from many a famous director and script writer.  He could achieve far greater success and fame if he stuck to merely entertaining audiences.  But Shoman uses cinema with all its potential to plant the seeds of change.  Khuday Kay Liyay was one of the three most successful films of all time.  To this day, its music and message cause headaches as they confront the conservative orders of society.  Bol goes several steps further.  Sometime from now, the National College of Arts or other institutions teaching film studies, will be analyzing these films that carry within them both the analysis of a nation as well as a positive vision for the future. 

Hasan Dars: A poet I never knew

I read about the passing of the poet Hasan Dars and am bewildered by the knowledge that I never came across him or his poetry before. 


I wish I had read him when he was alive.  The sprinkled translations I've read remind of the the modernist persian poets. 

Oothan valay tur jaan gay

Hazrat Umar Khayam understood it the best.  Here it is sung.

A matter of mere perception

Unless the perception of Pakistanis is harnessed in favor of the fight against terrorists and miscreants, no matter how many ‘high value targets’ are killed, the entire exercise to bring law and order will go in vain. Recall how radically the national opinion in Swat changed after Sufi Muhammad rejected the Pakistan Constitution followed by the video of the flogging. The Swat operation was given a chance of success once the it became an issue of Pakistan’s laws vs. a lunatics. Similarly, unless this war is completely perceived to be Pakistan’s – ie between Pakistanis who want the supremacy of the Constitution and those who want their want to prop up a pre-tribal society, no matter how convincing an argument presented against terrorism, it will fail. Like it has miserably failed the past ten years. Rather than seek more of the same, in greater magnitude, a radical break from all previous alliances is necessary to bring about the all important perception that no one can carry a weapon much less use it outside the security forces.

Win the hearts and minds by ridding ourselves of the perception that this war is being fought at behest of someone. We will always be in a better position to tackle terrorism even if turns into a mini-civil war. But what exists now is a war of attrition where the foreign powers have the option to wipe their hands clean without any obligation or much fear of consequences. We have no such option and will always live with the consequences. Better those consequences are determined by our own unilateral action.

A clean break in policy

Mere tweaking of policies in the hope of altering the downward spiral of the nation's trajectory are an exercise in vain. Only a clean break from the past 30 years of policies can offer a way forward.

Pakistan's civilian leadership remains happily passive to a swirl of events.  Perhaps they are waiting for the military to buckle under pressure and willingly agree to become subservient to the civilian leadership.  Or, perhaps the civilian leadership is hoping they will never have to tackle the terrorist onslaught and the military's monster is best left for the military to destroy.

Regardless, a dire situation with no upturn in sight.