An open letter to Gen. Kayani

 

Dear Sir,

Being a Pakistani, I have great confidence in you, and your force. I have tried to put “our” in here, but I have some stupid friends, and they wont let me do that, and rather insisted on calling it “your” force. My friends are stupid, but I can depend upon them, so can’t risk annoying them. I hope you understand my situation.

It was a great relief to know that the biggest terrorist on the face of earth has been dealt with, and that too on the Land of the Pure. I have always been a great fan of action movies, and I used to wonder if such things, as shown in the movies, do happen in real world? That a bunch of gunmen from an army can get into another country’s land, more than 200 kilometers in, without being noticed, completing their “mission“, without any hurdle, and then calling that country’s government after reaching their bases, only to inform they were there. I used to wonder. But I appreciate you and your force, for helping me overcome my amusement.

My stupid friends still think you knew about it, and because of some complications involved, are unable to acknowledge it, and I want to believe that, but my non-Pakistani friends, here in United Kingdom, expect a more reasonable explaination from me. For them, it was not that big a deal that Osama was hiding in Pakistan, what shocked them more was the news that US Army operated inside Pakistan. The problem is the difference in values in Pakistan and in the United Kingdom. Although not a noteworthy issue in Pakistan, over here people are frightened when a foriegn Army operates in their country. So they are still unable to digest this.

Sir, I know your secret service, ISI, is one of the best in the world. I cant believe them to be unaware of any such operation coming, but they, themselves, are contradicting me, by staying silent. When my friend called me to break this news to me, I was not very hopeful of the civilian leadership, but I thought, never mind, we have General Kayani, and he would be really furios about all this, and he will assume a strong position on this. Yes right, I was not expecting you to retaliate or anything, we already dont expect that, but at the least a strong stance, few harsh words, something to qoute for when my non-Pakistani friends ask me ‘what do you have to say about this?’.

But you, my last hope, disappointed me. I have nothing to say. Its not that I have stopped going to office, or meeting my friends, its just that I sometime feel the absence of a thing called “self-respect”. Yes, you are right, thats not the end of life, one doesn’t need self-respect to breath. Its all about Oxygen, I’m sure you’ll advise. But, somehow, probably because its his death aniversary today, I can’t get rid of Tipu Sultan’s words:

“One days’s life of a lion is preferable to hundred years’ existence of a jackal.”

He probably didn’t know it was all about Oxygen. Science hadn’t been that advanced as yet.

Poor Tipu!

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Yours faithfully,
A humiliated Pakistani.

Pakistan – a small fact sheet

I was reading through the Wikipedia page for Pakistan, and I was amazed at how low we see Pakistan. We are wrong. Pakistan is, on the other hand, a high flyer, if you look at the stats that is.

I am qouting a small glimpse here:

1. Pakistan is the sixth most populus country of the world.

2. Pakistan is the second largest Muslim population of the world after Indonesia.

3. Pakistan has the seventh largest standing armed force in the world.

4. Pakistan is the only Muslim-majority nation to possess nuclear weapons, and seventh nation of the world in this regards.



5. The economy of Pakistan is the 25th largest economy in the world in terms of purchasing power, and the 45th largest in absolute dollar terms. This makes us better than Sweden, Malaysia, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Israel, Denmark, UAE, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway to name a few.

6. We have a rich culture and a rich heritage.

7. We have gold & copper mines. We have coal mines. We have natural gas.

8. We have 4 seasons of weather. We have mountains. We have fields. We have forests. We have rivers.

9. Our doctors and engineers are among the best in the world. Our human resource in general is rated very high in every field. I can tell this from personal experience.

10. We are among the most generous nations of the world.

Just look at this list of 10 items, and you will see all the reasons for us to progress, and excel as a country, as a nation.

Yes, there are many bad things going on, but that is because of us, the people of Pakistan. If only we are able to do something, Pakistan has all the resources to flourish, and develop itself to any level. And probably that is what our enemies are afraid of. They know, this nation, if given the right direction, and right leaders, can do wonders.

And we will do wonders. Insha’Allah !!!

The Lunar Problem

It was Shabb-e-Meraj a couple of days back.

As you kknow, Shabb-e-Meraj is one of the nights known to have significance, in Islamic calendar, among others such as Shabb-e-Baraat and Shabb-e-Qaddar.

I remember, in good old days, when I used to have time and when I had things to do other than sitting in front of my PC, we friends would stay late in Masjid on such nights. There used to be a Jalsa in the masjid. At the end sweets were distributed. We normally were part of the volunteer group, organizing things like getting sweets from shop to masjid, receiving guests, distributing sweets etc., intazamia as they call it. Normally there used to be 2 scenarios after the distribution; we would either run short of sweets, and nothing would remain for us, or we’ll have plenty of it left. In former case, we’d try to play graceful, as if we dont care , whereas in latter, we’d get lion’s share without looking nadeeda

After jalsa we’d sit in the mosque, offer nawafil, recite Quran and talk.

Those were the days …

Khair … this is not the topic of today’s post.

I was wondering, as we get different lunar dates in different parts of the world, i.e. it might be 27th of Rajab in Pakistan, with 28th in Saudi Arab, and 26th in some other part of the world. So … as we believe these nights are blissful, are all 27ths blissful, or is it just one of them. I hope I am making my point.

This gets particularly significant in case of Shabb-e-Qaddar, as its a special night. So special that it has got a complete surah for it. I might be wrong, but it seems its one night, and cannot be more than one. And as it is one of the odd-numbered nights in last 10 days of Ramdhan, if it is on 25th in Pakistan, it would be on 26th or 24th in some other part of the world, neither of which is an odd number.

Also, as our religious high-ups are notorious for manipulating Shawal‘s moon, if in one calender year, they actually erred, that causes an error of a day in the lunar dates. For example here in UK, they dont base the Ramadhan/Shawal moon on sighting, but with the date announced in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. How does that effect these nights?

I have no answer to this confusion, hence putting it here …

Punjab / 2 = ?

We have a good track record of creating issues from non-issues. Be it Lal-Masjid massacre, TTP, or anything else, we toss an idea, nourish it, and take extreme care to nourish it well, till the time it emerges as a monster, which we, who created it in the first place, are incapable of handling it anymore. Then we let it get to streets, and mourn the fruits it brings & work, dedicatedly, to find & toss another such idea. And the circle continues ….

Its creation of new provinces this time. And the pinnacle of this idea is to bi-sect Punjab, while the bi part is open to debate, as it can easily tranlslate into tri or multi for that matter. Its a different discussion whether its a good idea to go for smaller adminstration units or not, myself being a supporter of the notion, the problem we currently have at hands is “Do we need it?”.

I was commenting on the same issue at another thread, and I qoute here:

While I agree to the idea of smaller administration units; the logics behind and the fruits it may bring, this may not be, the right time to begin the debate.

We are already surrounded by a plethora of problems that our government has proven to be incapable of handling:

- We have more than 2 million IDPs at our hands, and we have no plan for them.
- Our army is at war at more than one fronts, and yet to conclude any single of them. Ironically, all the fronts are internal.
- We have people deciding our matters, who seem to have no clue whatsoever, of what they are talking about.
- We are yet to settle the issues in Balochistan.

and the list continues ….

Amid all this mess, I don’t see any rationale for starting an altogether new issue, which has no urgency of the nature. And I don’t know why, but to me, the way this issue has arisen, or has been made to rise, to national horizon, raises suspicions. I mean from nowhere, it just touched the national headlines.

And thanks to Eidee Man, for pointing out, its not just Saraiki Sooba then. While PPP may be sincere in bisecting Punjab, but then it has stuff to follow, that neither our government, nor us, the public, are prepared, mentally and technically, to absorb. What will immediately follow is Bahawalpur. Then its Karachi. And it will amplify Balochistan’s voice for no reason.

While in essence of the idea of having smaller administration units, Bahawalpur and Karachi should be welcomed, but the prevailing political mindset in the country, and the trend majority of my countrymen follow in their thought process, suggests to the contrary. It will give rise to political instability, as political stakeholders in different areas have conflicting personal/party-level interests, and if they found it ungoing with what they want, they will resist the situation in a manner, quite damaging to the integrity of the country.

As somebody has already said, we already have smaller administration units, districts, and divisions. We should give them more power, if we *have* to handle this stuff on an urgent basis, for which I don’t see any need in current situation.

IMHO, we should stay content with what we have, try (read struggle) to solve the current problems, and once we reach a state where we can find some breathing space, we can think about these administration improvements.

We should learn to prioritize problems as compared to enhancements, and concentrate on top priority issues.

While the legislative thrives with comments from the MPs hailing from different parts of the homeland, I look up to my Lord and pray, “Please save my homeland.” Aameen!

Commercialization ???

I was looking for some literature regarding sufi saint Hazrat Ali Hajveri (RA) and I stumbled upon this site. The site is maintained by some Dr Zia al Hassan. There are just a couple of pages, with no useful information or anything. But what caught my attention was the ads present at every available space. And ads too, a little unsuitable for a saint’s site:

One ad is for Slumdog Millionaire, and others take you to dating websites. And the web master is so blunt that he explicitly asks the visitors to click on ads.

Now if this website is run in good spirit, which it is not, then if you dont have money to run it, dont run it. Such good spirit is uncalled for.

And if you are tying to make money out of it, which you surely are, you better be ashamed of yourself, of being so cheap.

I wonder why an educated individual, who places “Dr.” before his name, has no respect for morals.

We miss you !!!

I was looking for Nadeem Jaafri’s Men Tumhara Hun, Hamesha Sey, no not to dedicate it to anybody, but just to listen to it , I found a video on YouTube but that is mixed with all that indian stuff, and couldn’t find the original video. If you have it, see if you can share.

So I was looking for it, and on my way, I got to see some other oldies-goldies from 80s and 90s as well. For example it was Alamgir’s Men ne tumhari gaggar se, Gaggar ko chorro, Keh Dena Aankhon se, Dekha na tha and all those beautiful songs. Then it was Tumhara aur mera naam by Junaid,  Ajnabi Mujhe Tum Yaad Aate Ho by Aamir Saleem and No Love from Dr aur Billa. And I was thinking, why we don’t have anybody of that class today? If you look around you find many good young singers, but none of them belongs to the class. Why?

And its not just singers. We, me n MUF, were discussing about literature the other day, that we no more have Ahmed Nadeem Qasmis. We no longer have any likes of Faiz. We no longer have Mumtaz Muftis and Ibn-e-Inshas within us. We dont have any more Ahmed Farazs with us who can take the lead on poetry front. And there are no more Asghar Nadeem Saeeds and Amjad Islam Amjads and Anwar Maqsoods coming up to write among the best drama scripts in the world. Why is this so?

May be because the quality of humans has fallen, or lack of training, or lack of interest or lack of infrastructure, or whatever, but something is definitely wrong.

And this is an alarming situation. We are stagnant on our arts front. And nobody is bothered about it, which is even more alarming.

Well if we dont care about life of humans, who cares about the quality of it anyway …

Good Mourning Pakistan

I was talking to a friend , the night BB was assassinated. He is a young businessman, and owns a successful startup. He was in US to meet some investor a week ago and the investor was quite hesitant on the note that the situation in Pakistan is quite fragile. Anything can go wrong without any reason. But they continued with the meeting. I smelled a little worry in his usual laughter. He knew what will follow the assassination, this time with a big reason, and this was just a week after that meeting. And investor is quite justified on his side; why would anybody who has even a little shred of reason with him, invest in a business that can potentially be torched any moment of the day, any day of the year, and that too without prior notice, God forbid.

And if hiss business is not getting investment, why should Zaid & Bakkar be concerned? I hope the office-going islooites would not have yet forgotten the lay-offs at EnterpriseDB and TouchStone. Luckily these were relatively at a smaller scale and the affectees were taken-care-of as other businesses were running just fine enough to accommodate them. So its not just him who will suffer, its us too, if we continued the way we are running the affairs since last three days. God forbid.

We, the people of Pakistan, murdered around 50 humans in last 3 days. We burnt 170 banks. We completely destroyed 18 railway stations. And the list is long. And we say we are mourning. Is this the way to mourn? Its good being emotional, but we should not let the reason get out of our way. Apart from the loss of lives, which cannot be measured for cost, we caused monetary loss to the national exchequer, we have destroyed businesses and private property.

I was talking to another friend last night, who is Systems Engineer at local office of a us-based software development company. Their company was already talking about moving this office in Islamabad to some other country. He is now seriously concerned as his countrymen are providing the guys sitting up there very serious reasons to follow their talks. God forbid.

I don’t know why, we always do, all the things, wrong !!!