Imran Khan and the three kids at the rally

It was sometime in 2009.  We were criss-crossing around a vast Lahore metropolis visiting PTI camps put up to begin the party membership drive.  Khan wanted to personally meet the party workers and offers words of encouragement.  Several hours later, only half the camp visits were done and another half still left to go.  It was nearing midnight.  Right after our lone vehicle crossed the Allama Iqbal bridge and entered Chah Miran, the traffic came to a complete halt and remained jam packed and unmoved for over an hour.  Somehow the conversation turned to upcoming political rallies.  Khan chided one of the provincial leaders in the car for not making a greater effort to ensure media coverage of a successful rally recently held.  

Than on a lighter note, Khan began to recount how just a few weeks earlier, a provincial general secretary (GS) of PTI had insisted Khan take part in a rally the GS wanted to showcase.  The GS picked Khan from the airport and all along talked about the event he had organized and how Khan would be impressed with the turn out.  It was a long drive but Khan said he kept patient thinking it must be a massive crowd and the long drive would be worth it.  

"When we got to the venue, there were only three kids waving PTI flags," said Khan shaking his head with a faint smile of disbelief. 

Every time I see a PTI rally today, bursting with crowds that dwarf large open venues, I always remember this story Imran Khan told us.  

For one thing, I do not know of any person anywhere who has nothing more to gain from life but works like he has nothing to lose.  

As a consequence, the guy's wife left him, taking away his kids.  I wondered then, if (at that time) after 14 years of grueling political struggle, of losing his family, with 180 million people mocking him, of all analysts declaring him a failure over and over again, I wondered if, when after all Khan saw at the promised mass rally were those three kids, he questioned his resolve to continue?  Or when he was stuck in traffic that refused to move, did he wonder about the value of his efforts?  

Today when the nation has been infected by Imran Khan's quest to bring change and has captured the nation's imagination singing the mantra of a new country, it is very easy to see it as a validation of all his efforts.  Soon it may even become inconvenient to mention the years of seemingly hopeless struggles.  

But I hope when in the future when his feats are re-told, it will focus not on all the challenges he overcame, but on the battering he took while attempting to win.  

Conventional wisdom may break down the resolve to continue pursuing a struggle after 14 years.  To call it a day.  But I know that when Imran Khan saw those three kids at that rally, the only thought in his mind was:  

"This country is ripe for change!"

Belief in ones self is the most valuable lesson Khan can give to Pakistanis.  Aside from an electoral victory of course! 

Shaheed Bhagat Singh

“The aim of life is no more to control the mind, but to develop it harmoniously; not to achieve salvation here after, but to make the best use of it here below; and not to realise truth, beauty and good only in contemplation, but also in the actual experience of daily life; social progress depends not upon the ennoblement of the few but on the enrichment of democracy; universal brotherhood can be achieved only when there is an equality of opportunity - of opportunity in the social, political and individual life.— from Bhagat Singh's prison diary, p. 124” 
― Bhagat Singh, The Jail Notebook And Other Writings

Here's a guy on the verge of receiving capital punishment, a dead man walking, and instead of destroying his dignity and integrity like so many have done either in old age or on their death bed by shunning all that makes sense in favor of all that doesn't, this 23 year-old man mocks the fabricated fear of the afterlife by celebrating reason as he awaits the hangman's noose while scribbling away in jail in the city of Lahore.  

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.