Psalm E Pakistan

The climax of the movie border always leaves a warm fuzzy hangover. Though it’s about a war, the song at the end does make you feel that the war was a mistake and both of us have so much more to worry about than fighting over boundaries or anything for that matter. I was always interested in Pakistan, and writing about Pakistan. Any Indian or Pakistani of the Present day or at least the youth would have strong feelings about the whole partition of India episode. Some objective and some perspective, but all of us have views, bends, feelings and a stance. 

India was one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement in the 50s and 60s while the USA and the USSR were busy making pacts and treaties to make their respective power blocs bigger and stronger. Now one might say the Non-Aligned Movement was started by poor or the then 3^rd world nations because they just couldn’t risk supporting one and be the target of the other’s fury. As it is, the Non-Aligned Movement is based on a bigger idea. Its about Believing that it is possible to remain neutral at any time by anyone. And being an advocate of being objective I support this theory and hence have always held an objective view over Pakistan. 

A few months ago, say 2 or 3 maybe I picked up Shashi Tharoor’s Pax Indica. It basically talks about India’s foreign policies, foreign relations and India’s place on a global setup. He spoke extensively about Pakistan and India. The chapter was rightly caller Brother Enemy. Pakistan is after all born out of India and the people are more or less Indian. They always have. 

Mr. Tharoor speaks of partition, Kashmir, the different wars we’ve had and finally talks emphatically about terrorism. His points are straight and precise, and so yet sensitively carved live the curves of Megan fox. (Sorry whenever someone says curve I think of her :D)

He talks at length about the gaps between the INTELLIGENCE and the civilian government of Pakistan. Its a known fact that the INTELLIGENCE is sitting on tones of cash. In fact the INTELLIGENCE gets almost or more than half the total budget of 1 fiscal year. So in a situation where there is a serious lack of schools, hospitals, or in general amenities of life the army and INTELLIGENCE suck all the money out of the people of Pakistan. The army isn’t too keen on listening to the will of the civilian govt. and caters to its own goals, which may not always be intended at the best of India, and in turn resulting in the bad of Pakistan it self.

I was torn in half when I read these. Of course I knew that the army or Pakistan and the civilian govt. don’t always see eye to eye, but the revelation of the fact that the govt has limited hold on the army did raise my brows, like my eye brows was one with my hair.

Another question boiled into me was who’s gonna tend to the people?  The politicians made a lot of noise and puffed up the people that theres a need to end Musharraf’s rein as president and there a need for proper democracy and what not. So the people did get excited and come out on streets and after a lot of crazy things (beyond my comprehension) there were elections and Muhammad Mian Soomro was elected president.  And after Benazir Bhutto’s murder, the PPP was elected to power and Asif Ali Zardari became the President. All this is fine but what are these people doing? 

Pakistani people are still struggling against the terrorists, there are criminals hiding in Pakistan thanks to the INTELLIGENCE’s invitation and reformers and socially responsible civilians are killed in broad day light.  And if you’ve been complaining about the raise of fuel prices in India, the fuel price is way over a hundred rupees in Pakistan, and its gets worse, price determination happens every week! 

So is the democracy drama and all the things these politicians did to overthrow Musharraf an eye wash? I asked my Pakistani Orkut friend of 3 years. 

Yes! 

The one answer with an exclamation mark was like a gun shot at point black.

He went on to say, 

Things were very good in Musharraf regime, call him a dictator or whatever you want to but he is the man who supported freedom of media. Even pak's economy was boosting. And now things are pathetic. You know, he was the one who set Pak before Islam. That’s what a country needs. 

It felt nice to listen to him. I probed more and asked,

Ok what do see for Pakistan in the Future?

I can not say anything here. If you see the history of pak, there have been some good times. But when they start building up they falter somewhere. so I can only hope that future is bright; which is only possible by imparting proper education. There is a dearth of rationality among masses and one simply CANNOT understand religion without education. Thats my opinion yours can differ obviously.

I definitely had no reason to differ there. I was also stunned at his strong emphasis on improving education. I liked that. I had never spoken much about national politics with this guy. It had always been about Harry Potter and cricket. Except one odd day when he’d told me he wanted to be a computer engineer. 

So I bit the bullet and finally threw a tough ball at him. 

Me:

cool... one big question thats really been eating me

your cool right?

He:

haha

yeah

Me:

yeah.. so

the question is

how does one remain patriotic and try not to be ashamed of his country and not choose to make rash decisions when there are so many figures pointing mistakes from outside and so little action been taken from those responsible?

He:

thats a tough one

and mature people here in pak do think about that

Me:

but good question right? ive been thinking a lot

He:

yeah good question!

but majority satisfies itself by conspiracy theories

it may sound weird to you

but majority here thinks that all these nations are anti Islam

anti pakistan

and that is the reason why all this blame game is being played

Me:

some ppl get high on substance.. some on religion

He:

true

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It was really something. It gives a lot for the Brain and Heart when there are people thinking and acting like this guy. The teenager Malala is a example. She’s another example of the youth wanting rights and education for their people. She was a strong, neutral voice talking of the truth and that offended many a bad man. Too bad the system just won’t let such people run the country. It also reminds me of a beautiful video featuring mid/high school girls from Pakistan talking about how they really feel and how they are made to feel about the Indo-Pak relations.

Rounding up this post, I’m not going make comments on the partition of India or the numerous wars or other difference India has had with Pakistan because this was never a political write, the post was aimed at talking about the people in Pakistan. (I don’t know if they call themselves aam janta :D) I wanted to say that we need empathize with the people of Pakistan. On the one side there is the adamant army and intelligence with its own agenda (no one knows what the army wants) and on the other side there is the helpless civilian govt and politicians fishing for power and money. In this quarrel... what’s to happen of the people of Pakistan? Does anyone care about the people anymore?

 

Strike The Root of Penury, Strike Not the Heart

Crisp Air turned Pungent and rolling wheels stuck. That’s the September of 2012 in Bangalore. Just after the BBMP called an indefinite Strike regarding the garbage clearing problem, five employ unions of the BMTC, KSRTC, NWKRTC and NEKRTC together called for an indefinite strike against the management calls of a 10% hike. The 10% salary Hike was not all that the Strike was based on, but it sure was the tipping point for the men. 

Talking about Strikes, they are not bad things.(in fact very good things for school kids) Strikes, Bandhs and demonstrations are powerful tools in a democracy. But how you use it is the question. Hurling stones and glass buildings, setting old tires on fire and painting walls is all that happens in India. Now I dont want to talk a lot about the ways we Strike in India or why we do them, but lets think of the whats happens when people strike. 

Obviously this article is coming but because of the Bus strike, so Im gonna talk about a few things I saw on tv. The Thousands of buses going off roads, lakhs of people stranded in bus stations. Some angry people throwing stones at buses, streets filled with cars and private vehicles, autos costing more than double or triple the meter price, or In short, everyone was having a bloody hard time. So can we conclude that the purpose of striking is to induce pain and cause damage??

isnt there a better way of striking? 

lemme quote buzzle

"One of the most important Japan facts is that the Japanese are amongst the most hard-working people in the world. Once, the workers of a shoe factory in Japan went on strike. The way they protested, represents certain facts about Japan which are typical of its industrious population. They simply worked on the manufacturing of single shoes (only for one leg). This way the production remained on course, but the company couldn't sell the product. Once the issue was resolved, the other pair was manufactured, resulting in a win-win situation for both company and the workers."

Can’t we do something like that?? 

Bandhs are all too famous in india.. but finally its india losing.. not the govt or some specific group of people. Its Indias growth that gets hampered during bandhs, businesses counting losses when banks call strike, and people lakhs of em suffering when theres a strike by something as important as public transport. 

We can’t be like Japan, we are different people all together. We’re not as hard working as them, and neither do we care if our inaction causes loss to the public. But we’re emotional people, and people like you, me and us built this nation and made what it is today.  We made India as big and powerful as it is. Today, India constitutes upto 80% of the total GDP in all of South East Asia. We’re not as useless as we think, we’re good people. Everyone panics when pushed back to the wall. We just need to know how to think. All of us are the same, and if I don’t care for the greater good, then how could you?  

PS: notepad typing, so spare my spellings pls :D

Anty Life

There is never a hot day in Bangalore, yet there is always hot water from the solar heater. The November of 2009 began with the vengeance of the retreating monsoons. Chennai was under water. Rain god showed all that meant violent love. Flooding roads, crashing trees and lots of tv coverage. 

300 kilometres away on a green patch of higher ground, there was thick cloud cover with an occasional falling drop. Children loved it and others loved for it. It was paradise revisited for Bangaloreans.   

I woke up with a few good text messages from close friends and a nice good morning message from a closer... Yeah alright I had the hots for her...  A hot cup of mom made coffee and exchanging text messages with the girl you have the hots for on a chilly morning with a slight drizzle. (Except for that idling garbage truck) mornings can’t get better.

Owing to the lovely weather and ample time, I ran against my natural instinct and decided to take a bath. Who knows, I might get lucky on a lazy cupid day.  The solar heater was on its off day, so we had to turn to the electric one. I felt a slight chill run down me as I stripped and turned on the taps. My mom told me when I was kid that you must first fill your buckets and then take off your cloths so that you won’t feel cold. I guess after all these years I’m still too eager to get naked. Well, maybe the reasons and places have changed a bit...  but let’s not get into that now. So I was getting ready to bathe and as the solar heater was busted due to the cloud cover, we had to use the electric heater.

I turned on the tap and was greeted with the familiar spurts of hot water as the tap filled my bucket. Just after a minute or so, I saw a few ants come around the tap. I thought they were just some random scout ants looking for food.  

 Huh! Lame ants, what will you find under a bathroom tap?

The bucket was full and I was getting high on the scent of the Mysore sandal soap. Just after I had enough, I placed the soap back on the shelf and turned to wash myself. That’s when it happened! I saw a swarm! There was a huge swarm of black common house ants moving all over the tiles and taps! There were thousands! Or maybe more! Guess what! The seldom used hot water tap had been their nest!  And those poor ants might’ve got too hot under the tap and were swarming out in panic.

The first thing I did was turn off the tap. Then I observed what was happening. A huge mass of slow moving ants were moving in the opposite direction of the heat. A few ants had taken off and were running around looking panicked. That’s when I realised the ants I first saw were indeed scout ants. They had been sent out at the first sight of danger to look out for a new safe place to nest. Only now there were more, maybe a hundred scouts. 

They seemed to enter under other taps, imperfections and holes in the wall. But maybe they were not fit or already occupied.  By then the swarm had moved quite a distance from the hot tap. I noticed that there were three big clusters or three places where ants had formed multiple layers, ant over ant and many layers like that. On closer inspection I saw that two of those clusters had bigger ants in the middle. 1 big ant covered and protected by a thousand others. Those must be the queens I thought. The 3^rd cluster looked slightly coloured, yellow white or off-white. Those were the eggs! So the million ants had formed three hard and impenetrable (or so they might’ve thought) clusters. Two protecting their queens and one protecting their eggs. 

The scout ants were still making their rounds and after a while the swarm slowly started moving, the clusters were dissolved; the queens and eggs were safely moved back to the nest. The scout ants might’ve thought the tap was back to normal. 

I wanted to let hot water out again and see if they do the same drill all over again. But then again, a man’s got to have a heart, plus one can’t spend the whole day in the bathroom right? Just then I realised how I must look, a nude man bent over looking at a slow moving ant swarm.  Hmm... Quite a view.

I did step out of the bath and lived on happily ever after. Until today that is.

It wasn’t until late yester night that I was reminded of this ant experience. I had just finished with a rather communist book and was at a loss of words. The book itself stood by the side of justice and humanity. It might seem clichéd or even retroprogressive to some, but the book dealt with over exploitation of work force by rich capitalists. I’ve always been intrigued by communism. And I just feel common ownership could be really motivating.  

Now communism might seem, as I said, retroprogressive. But isn’t china doing good? Isn’t kerala doing great?? It’s got the best HDI in the country! and not to mention 100% literacy. Why? It’s simply because everyone is given a fair chance. An authority stands up and commands its brothers to do what is right. And goodness prevails. Of course, the authority needs to be on the side of good. Which!! Is the challenge!  

I’m too small and know very less about the complexities of politics; the pits of communism and socialism, the highs of the “free world” and capitalism are also a little blur to me. And my dad would really be worried if I call myself a red, but isn’t keeping it simple the best? 

All I know believe right now is that an ant can move the world. How many times have we been given the ant’s example? Work force? Discipline? Hard work? Always look for alternatives? Always keep your chances open? Never give up?

Well Here’s another, Communism. 

Sadly for your guys, this write has been less about communism and more about what I do in the bathroom, so I’ve thought about reading more about communism vs liberalism or capitalism and maybe... If I find something interesting or at least am able to strike up a good conversation, I would surly put it out here. Thanks for reading... bye