tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35950410390198894912024-02-21T05:26:24.252+05:00Incoherent ramblings of an absurdistSahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-1396784994901558962013-01-13T22:14:00.001+05:002013-01-13T22:16:44.575+05:00Delhi gang rape: a case for the death penalty<span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In the
Goddess-worshipping nation of India, a gang rape took place last month. On the
night of 16th December 2012, a paramedical student, Jyoti Singh Pandey
(pseudonym Damini) and her friend after watching a movie boarded a bus in South
Delhi, when they were beaten by a group of six males (5 adults, 1 minor), after
which the female victim was raped.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;">When her
friend tried to intervene, he was gagged and then hit mercilessly with an iron
rod. Five men then hit the woman with the same rod and gang-raped her while the
driver kept the bus moving. At about 11 p.m., the couple was thrown semi-naked
onto the road. A passer-by phoned the police who collected the couple and
moved the pair to the hospital. The girl had been hit with the iron rod for
nearly forty five minutes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;">“It appears
to be that a rod was inserted into her and it was pulled out with so much force
that the act brought out her intestines… That is probably the only thing that
explains such severe damage to her intestines,” said a doctor at Safdarjung
Hospital where the victim was being treated before being shifted to the Mount
Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore where she breathed her last.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;">When news of
the rape went viral, the first questions asked were not ‘Who could commit such
a violent and inhumane act?’ or ‘How did the offenders manage to escape?’ but
instead<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;">- What was
the girl wearing?<br />
- Why was she out post 9 p.m. in the night?<br />
- Why was she alone with a boy?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;">Spiritual
guru <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Asaram-Bapu">Asaram
Bapu</a> remarked, "Only 5-6 people
are not the culprits. The victim is as guilty as her rapists... She should have
called the culprits brothers and begged before them to stop... This could have
saved her dignity and life. Can one hand clap? I don't think so".
According to media reports, the self-proclaimed godman further said that he is
against harsher punishments for the accused as the law could be misutilised.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;">There are
pictures of Dimini floating on the internet where she is dressed in a
sleeveless blouse and a sari and people have commented saying ‘Look at the
clothes she’s wearing. She’s inviting men to stare at her and to commit such
acts’. So apparently wearing sleeveless or not calling your rapists ‘brother’ justifies
rape – what a perfectly logical and rational argument!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;">We live in a
society where daughters are asked not to get raped. As if it were an
option they have the discretion of avoiding. We are told to hide our faces in
shame, if we were to be abused, eve-teased, harassed and sweared at. It
is “culture” to be tolerant and toil away as a woman, as it is testimony to
your femininity. And this is equally applicable to Pakistan as it is to
India, if not more. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;">Something an
acquaintance posted on Facebook got me thinking. He wrote, ‘I'm very curious to
learn what course of justice people on my friend's list think should be served
to tried and convicted rapists. In light of the recent gang rape in Delhi,
which is fast becoming a watershed rape case in India, what shall be done
with/to/about perpetrators? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;">I'm
addressing everyone, but women in particular, seeing as it is women, globally,
who bear the brunt of this assault on their bodies and person.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;">Capital
punishment? Chemical castration? I hear both these options are being considered
and propositioned in the Delhi case. There are lawyers who are going as far as
to say they won't represent the accused. I myself am inclined to feel that
criminals so depraved should be denied the right to life and liberty.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;">Really, what
can be a befitting punishment for a crime this heinous? I feel, even the death
penalty falls short for a grotesque act of this magnitude. The objections
against capital punishment are plentiful and relevant. Capital punishment is
barbaric and cruel. It is inhuman and the mark of repressive, bloodthirsty
societies. Countries around the world are looking to do away with it,
preferring to focus on rehabilitation, treatment or simply life in prison. No
crime warrants human annihilation. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Violence to
repay violence is morally indefensible. The poor get the scaffold, but the rich
escape punishment. And what if you convict and execute the wrong man? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;">Let us
consider the flip side of the coin. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;">The laws
against rape in India are inadequate to the point of being shameful. If a man
rapes his wife, he faces no more than two years in jail. Others face
comparatively little time in prison. The women, meanwhile, could face ostracism
from their families and villages, scorn from the people around them, and
possibly death at the hands of their own family, in the name of ‘honour’. Swift
and harsh penalties against rapists, including the death penalty, would prevent
people from seeing the crime as just one more infraction to overcome. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;">The laws are
inadequate also because of the definition of rape. Section 375 of the Indian
Penal Code specifies that sexual intercourse comprises rape. What about
fingers? Fists? Bottles? Iron rods? Broomsticks? All of these have penetrated
women and men in acts of violent aggression. Are these not rape? Are these not
enough to cause injury or death? They do constitute rape, and they are enough
to cause injury or death. This kind of assault should include the death penalty
as a government reprisal.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;">Finally,
assaults like the one on the bus are enough to leave the victim as good as
dead, psychologically and physically. The victim does not have to die to justify a
penalty of death. India allows death penalty for other non-lethal crimes:
large-scale narcotics trafficking and treason are enough to get the noose. But
rape – the ultimate mental and psychological violation of another human being –
is not? The death penalty should be considered because of the severity and
callousness of the crime committed. The barbarity of what the men allegedly did
to Damini lies in the intent to defile her, not just the way that they did it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;">India and
Pakistan are countries where girls are neither safe inside the womb nor
outside. The patriarchal animal we call society needs to be castrated and the
most severe form of punishment must be meted out in order to deter others from
ever committing such atrocities in the future.</span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: white;">*Written for 'Legal Eye' - January edition</span></span></div>
<br />Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-58258623829622023882012-10-09T20:44:00.000+05:002014-05-09T12:07:25.980+05:00The Pillowman - Review<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">‘When art
inspires violence, what responsibility does the artist bear for the fruits of
his work?’ This provocative question is raised in Martin McDonagh's </span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">"The
Pillowman"</i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">. At one point in the play, the protagonist tells his
interrogators ''A great man once said, 'The only duty of a storyteller is to
tell a story,’ and I believe in that wholeheartedly.” He might as well be
speaking for the playwright - Mr. McDonagh's view of theater is all about the
medium, not the message. Therefore, it is no surprise that The Pillowman is
about storytelling — both on the page and in “real life” — and the ways we
interpret the stories of others. In one sense, it's about a writer's nightmare
that people might assume his or her most grotesque ideas and stories represent,
say, wish fulfillment or, even worse, a diaristic account of crimes committed.
On another level, the play is a ripping black comedy, full of terrific
allusions (My personal favorite being ‘The Pied Piper of Hamlin’) and playful
stereotypes: the hard-boiled detectives who toy with their suspect and each
other; the writer who MUST suffer to write well.</span><br />
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">While the
audience takes its seats, a man sits blindfolded in a dark, bare room. He turns
out to be Katurian K. Katurian (played by Rouvan Mahmud), a writer of short
stories who is brought into the interrogation room because children are being
murdered in the same fashion as the children in his bizarre fairy tale/fables -
forced to eat razor blade embedded dolls carved from apples (from the story
"The Little Apple Men"), toes cut off (from the story "The Tale
of the Town on the River") and perhaps even beaten, crucified
and buried (from the story "The Little Jesus"). Since all of
Katurian’s stories run in this vein, it is easy to assume that he must be the
murderer. He is, therefore, being interrogated for two murders and under
suspicion of a third. But very little is as it appears in a McDonagh play; and,
as we learn slowly, the truth is stranger than the fiction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Though almost
all the stories Katurian has written contain sadistic violence against
children, he insists that they are only stories, without political or moral
significance. However, as the story unfolds, Michal, Katurian's brain-damaged,
spastic brother, confesses to having murdered three children in grotesque
rituals inspired by Katurian's lurid tales.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">You could
make an argument that McDonagh sees writing as an act of displacement, a
liberation from the endless cycle of trauma, in which a child victim of abuse
becomes the adult perpetrator. After all, Michal and Katurian have had a most
unfortunate childhood. On discovering that young Katurian had a yen for
writing, his parents performed an experiment designed to develop his precocious
talent. They showered him with love and attention, while chaining his brother
to a bed in an adjoining room and subjecting him to nightly torture with
drills, sharpening Katurian's gift by exposing him to a nightly chorus of human
suffering. Whatever the case, the parental experiment works, and their son
becomes a twisted - but, of course, brilliant - writer. When, after seven years
of listening to the torture of his brother, Katurian breaks down the door and
discovers what has been happening (perhaps he too is somewhat simple-minded),
he is horrified. He smothers his parents with a pillow, and rescues his now
brain-damaged brother from his life of torment.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">They then
live happily while Katurian finds a job at Express Tribune and Michal attends
school near the Parsi Colony. And in his spare time, Katurian does what he
knows best – he writes short stories. One of his best stories is about the
Pillowman, a creature made of fluffy pink pillows who visits children ‘who lead
horrific lives’ and offers them the choice of killing themselves at that point,
and avoiding pain and ‘horrific lives’ of the future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In his
depiction of a man whose terror-haunted childhood turned him into a prolific
fantasist with a need to transmute his pain into fiction, Mr. McDonagh seems to
be exploring the connection between suffering and creativity. Examining the
power of our stories and their affects on our own self perception as well as the
real world consequences of telling stories, McDonagh takes us down a dark
rabbit hole and places stories within stories and, the best thing about them is
that these are stories that amaze and repulse, confuse and reveal.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“The
Pillowman” is an uncomfortable story, to put it mildly. Not for the
squeamish, torture and gore is depicted on stage and stories of child murder
and molestation are often described in gruesome detail. It’s not an easy show
to enjoy by any means, but McDonagh takes care to slip in some small humorous
moments into “Pillowman.” He laughs at the ridiculousness of the
characters’ circumstances, the absurdity of the blood spilled or described on
stage. The mood switches between laughter and darkness in sometimes millisecond
intervals, the audience unsure when to laugh and when to watch in nervous
silence. It’s a difficult combination to manage and the tone often feels
uneven.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There is a
reason why violence is so prevalent. Much of the show is set up to debate what
responsibility the supposedly brilliant writer, Katurian, has over the actions
his stories may or may not cause. It’s a good argument. “The Pillowman” embraces
moral ambiguity bravely and bloodily but, while McDonagh manages to push the
audience out of themselves and consider real life consequences of fiction, not
every viewer will be able to stomach the stark world offered to them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
responsibilities of the writer to society and himself, the dangerous power of
literature, and the idea that writers are damaged - all are casually tossed
into the cauldron until, two hours later, McDonagh smugly informs us that
fiction and storytellers are very good things and worth getting your hands
dirty for. It is as helpful as being offered a rosy apple with a razor blade
secreted inside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">A fairly
decent cast endows each character with ambiguity. Rouvan Mahmud's Katurian is a
hapless writer and beloved brother — or is he a lethal psychopath? Rafeh
Mahmud's Michal is a sweet and harmless man-child — or is he, as Katurian, in
an angry moment, calls him, "a sadistic, retarded little pervert"?
Momin Zafar and Imam Syed as the detectives were convincing, though at times
mumbling. Syed played the bad cop a bit too stereotypically to make
us believe him when he departed from that stereotype; Zafar as Gibrael was often funny as
the better, if not quite good, cop of the duo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The scenes of
Katurian interacting with his brother were beautifully performed. Rafeh
Mahmud captured the innocence of a tortured soul who did not understand the
reality of what he was doing. Rouvan succeeded in portraying the
anguished conflict between his love for his brother and his horror of what
transpired, all the while questioning his own culpability in the horrific
events.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The Pillowman is
possibly the vainest piece of self-propaganda that I have seen penned by a
writer. Its complex plot and
"dark" themes serve to disguise a determined superficiality, and it
presents a justification of literature that's breathtakingly callous and
self-serving. McDonagh’s story is too outlandish and synthetic to carry the
weight of any larger meanings, and so the play has a hollow, inhuman quality.
His nihilistic vision seems as if it has been put on to spook us, like the
cheap thrill a plastic Halloween mask may give.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">*The
Pillowman will be playing at MAD school on Halloween (i.e. 31st October). <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Excerpts on the storyline taken from various articles online. Can't be bothered to search for them and insert them as bibliography. </span></div>
Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-53129928529207017792012-07-24T13:25:00.000+05:002014-05-09T12:08:54.699+05:00So You Want To Be A Writer<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">if it doesn’t come bursting out of you</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">in spite of everything,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">don’t do it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">unless it comes unasked out of your</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">heart and your mind and your mouth</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">and your gut,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">don’t do it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">if you have to sit for hours</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">staring at your computer screen</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">or hunched over your</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">typewriter</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">searching for words,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">don’t do it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">if you’re doing it for money or</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">fame,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">don’t do it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">if you’re doing it because you want</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">women in your bed,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">don’t do it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">if you have to sit there and</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">rewrite it again and again,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">don’t do it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">don’t do it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">if you’re trying to write like somebody</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">else,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">forget about it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">if you have to wait for it to roar out of</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">you,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">then wait patiently.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">if it never does roar out of you,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">do something else.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">if you first have to read it to your wife</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">or your girlfriend or your boyfriend</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">or your parents or to anybody at all,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">you’re not ready.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">don’t be like so many writers,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">don’t be like so many thousands of</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">people who call themselves writers,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">don’t be dull and boring and</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">love.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">the libraries of the world have</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">yawned themselves to</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">sleep</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">over your kind.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">don’t add to that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">don’t do it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">unless it comes out of</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">your soul like a rocket,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">unless being still would</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">drive you to madness or</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">suicide or murder,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">don’t do it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">unless the sun inside you is</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">burning your gut,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">don’t do it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">when it is truly time,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">and if you have been chosen,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">it will do it by</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">itself and it will keep on doing it</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">until you die or it dies in you.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">there is no other way.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">and there never was.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br />
Note: Charles Browski is an evil genius. </div>
Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-92014322200973884902012-06-29T01:22:00.002+05:002012-06-29T01:34:48.125+05:00Obscure sorrows<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I’m back to the blogosphere after a three month hiatus!
Honestly, I am bewildered at the number of people who continue to read and
follow my blog, despite the frequent sabbaticals and sheer inconsistency of
posting anything half decent here. A big
shout out and genuine thank you to everyone in Russia, United States, Saudi
Arabia and Latvia (I don’t even know where that is on the map) who read, follow
and re-blog my posts. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I stumbled upon something interesting lately- the dictionary
of obscure sorrows. Ever experience the moment when you are overcome with a
flurry of feelings and a contrariety of emotions but somehow, can’t put your
finger on them? Or at a loss of words as to how to articulate a particular
emotion? The dictionary of obscure sorrows is the solution to your problem. My
personal favourite and the one most pertinent to me is:</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘<a href="http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/22019547629/kairosclerosis">Kairosclerosis</a>
- <i>n</i>. the moment you realize that
you’re currently happy—consciously trying to savor the feeling—which prompts
your intellect to identify it, pick it apart and put it in context, where it
will slowly dissolve until it’s little more than an aftertaste.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I tend to do this every so often. For the longest time, I
have maintained there is something sad about happiness. It’s like a breath of
air – you can’t hold it in your mouth for too long. Try as you will, it will
eventually escape, leaving behind a void that craves to be filled. The moment I
realize I am happy, I try to give context to it, try to savor the feeling, try
to cling as long as I possibly can to the cliff hanger we like to call ‘happiness’.
But how does one even give context to happiness? How does one explain what it
feels like to be ‘happy’? Trying to capture or describe that feeling is like
trying to describe what water tastes like – It is an impossible task. And all
my efforts to let happy times linger are in vain once the law of averages kick
in and a happy spell is followed by a terrible lull.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As follows are other words that are relevant to me (In descending
order of importance):</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/24567910939/astrophe">Astrophe</a>
- <i>n</i>. a hypothetical conversation
that you compulsively play out in your head—a crisp analysis, a
cathartic dialogue, a devastating comeback—which serves as a kind of
psychological batting cage where you can connect more deeply with people
than in the small ball of everyday life, which is a frustratingly cautious game
of change-up pitches, sacrifice bunts, and intentional walks.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/22701147981/anchorage">Anchorage</a>
- <i>n.</i> the desire to hold on to time as
it passes, like trying to keep your grip on a rock in the middle of a river,
feeling the weight of the current against your chest while your elders float on
downstream, calling over the roar of the rapids, “Just let go—it’s okay—let go.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/15127225021/the-bends">The
bends</a> - <i>n.</i> frustration that
you’re not enjoying an experience as much as you should, even something you’ve
worked for years to attain, which prompts you to plug in various thought
combinations to try for anything more than static emotional blankness, as if
your heart had been accidentally demagnetized by a surge of expectations.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/3411357531/apomakrysmenophobia">Apomakrysmenophobia</a>
- <i>n.</i> fear that your connections
with people are ultimately shallow, that although your relationships feel
congenial at the time, an audit of your life would produce an emotional safety
deposit box of low-interest holdings and uninvested windfall profits, which
will indicate you were never really at risk of joy, sacrifice or loss.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/12657305039/slipcast">Slipcast</a>
- <i>n.</i> the default expression that
your face automatically reverts to when idle—amused, melancholic, pissed
off—which occurs when a strong emotion gets buried and forgotten in the
psychological laundry of everyday life, leaving you wearing an unintentional
vibe of pink or blue or gray, or in rare cases, a tie-dye of sheer madness.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/16571284794/xeno">Xeno</a>
- <i>n.</i> the smallest measurable
unit of human connection, typically exchanged between passing strangers—a
flirtatious glance, a sympathetic nod, a shared laugh about some odd
coincidence—moments that are fleeting and random but still contain powerful
emotional nutrients that can alleviate the symptoms of feeling alone.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/6950733136/flashover">Flashover</a>
- <i>n.</i> the moment a conversation
becomes real and alive, which occurs when a spark of trust shorts out the
delicate circuits you keep insulated under layers of irony, momentarily
grounding the static emotional charge you’ve built up through decades of
friction with the world.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/23536922667/sonder">Sonder</a>
- <i>n.</i> the realization that each random
passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their
own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story
that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground,
with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know
existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the
background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at
dusk.</div>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-85351850754677798912012-04-01T00:03:00.001+05:002012-04-01T16:35:09.026+05:00Of Sharmeen’s victory and Fakhra’s tragedy<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The day Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won an Oscar for her documentary, Saving Face, I remember waking up to the sound of my phone buzzing with messages announcing her much anticipated win. I jumped out of bed with euphoria and switched on the television to hear Obaid-Chinoy dedicate her award to "all the heroes working on the ground in Pakistan" and to "all the women in Pakistan who are working for change". Within a matter of minutes, Facebook and Twitter feeds were clogged with overjoyed, patriotic Pakistanis, reposting clips of her <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA4grcE9E-c)" title=""><span style="color: black;">Oscar speech</span></a>, with some even suggesting it was a greater occasion than when Imran Khan raised the cricket World Cup in 1992. I was one of the many who changed their bbm picture to that of Obaid-Chinoy with her Oscar award, uploaded her acceptance speech on their Facebook profile and congratulated the triumphant documentary film-maker on Twitter. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Obaid-Chinoy has done the country tremendously proud. Mohsin Sayeed said it better: “Thank you, Sharmeen. In a country where cinema is dead, you have proved that the country is not, people are not. You have shown that Pakistan is struggling to live a life of dignity, and honour, of normalcy. Thank you, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy for creating history, for showing that if one Pakistani can, there's no reason why hundreds of millions can't, for showing the way that 'We can'. And this is the real, solid, meaningful 'We Can' than any other hollow political slogan as you have said it with action and not merely words. Today is one of the brightest days in our country, let’s celebrate it." And celebrate we did. From Geo’s little dancing mascot right above the tickers to making Saving Face trend on Twitter! Obaid-Chinoy had created history; given us a reason to be proud; a reason to smile and a reason to own Pakistan.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">But in Pakistan, not everyone likes to revel in other people’s success. God knows what insecurities or jealousies overcome them but people tend to take out flaws in others just to put them down. And this was no different. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's Saving Face highlights acid attacks on women, but commentators criticized the documentary, claiming it has brought shame on the country. They complained she is merely reinforcing the west's negative view of Pakistan by making public the country’s dirty linen. As writer Mohsin Hamid <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/mohsin_hamid" title=""><span style="color: black;">tweeted</span></a>: "Upset Pakistan has won its first Oscar for a film 'critical' of the country? Your attitude might explain why it's taken so long." <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The truth is that Pakistan has a ton of dirty laundry and one that we cannot do without brandishing. Not talking about those issues which plague our society is a sign of unhealthy denial and regression - silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Saving Face paints a very real and true portrait of what goes on in Pakistan on a near daily basis. 140 women suffer acid attacks every year in Pakistan; because acid violence is a highly unreported crime in the country, as is rape, this is probably an extremely understated number. Saving Face subjects Ruksana and Zakia are only two of the thousands who are subjected to this inhuman and barbaric practice. Not every acid victim has the opportunity to make their voice be heard; to live to tell their story; to find a Dr. Mohammad Jawwad who labors tirelessly to restore them to normalcy. One such victim was Fakhra Yunus.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In 2001, at the young age of 22, an acid attack by Fakhra’s then husband, Bilal Khar (Former MPA/Son of prominent politician and womanizer, Ghulam Mustafa Khar) left her only marginally alive. The attack rendered her faceless; burning the hair off her head, fusing her lips, completely blinding one eye, obliterating her left ear and melting her breasts. The horrific mutilation disfigured her so completely that she was confronted by open disgust and contempt by everyone who set eyes on her in Pakistan. After 13 years and 38 major surgeries, an emotionally scarred Fakhra, lost hope and committed suicide by jumping out of her sixth floor residence in Rome, Italy where she had been residing for over a decade.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Last Sunday, my Twitter livefeed was swamped with angry tweets against Bilal Khar and acid violence with people demanding justice and a retrial of Khar for attempted murder. A week down the line and Fakhra is out of sight, out of mind. The man accused of putting her through this ordeal, Bilal Khar shared his grief by giving interviews to tv channels and out rightly denying committing the act. He said he was sorry that she was dead but that he wasn’t responsible for it. That she was a sex-worker, a woman whom he had married despite her past but she insisted on returning back to her ‘usual routine’. <a href="http://www.dawn.com/2012/03/26/justice-after-fakhra.html"><span style="color: black;">‘He isn’t responsible for her murder</span></a>. Fakhra used his name to take amnesty in Italy, to make money and it benefited the women who were helping her to ‘cash in’. Because no one would give her amnesty and funds if they had used a Kanjar’s (pimp’s) name, it was his name that gave this case a media trial. He is innocent. If people are so bothered about justice for Fakhra why don’t they go to Napier Road and ask which ‘kanjar’ had done it? It couldn’t have been him, Bilal Khar, son of influential politician and feudal lord. It wasn’t possible because he is from a respectable family, he is Bilal Khar, and only Kanjar’s from Napier Road could commit such atrocious crimes.’<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">It matters not whether Fakhra was a dancing girl or a prostitute or a sex worker or a pimp. Nothing in this world can justify the heinous crime of throwing acid in someone’s face. In a country where justice is a joke and the law, a commodity to bought and sold, I am hoping against hope that Fakhra’s murderers are tried and convicted. Not just for attempted murder but also for constructive act manslaughter – if psychiatric illness can amount to grievous or actual bodily harm, can there be a more vexing psychological injury than an acid attack? One that not only disfigures your face but also mutilates your identity? And if not, how are factual and legal causation not met?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">This is not a question of the law. This is a question of lawlessness and indifference – both of which are rampant in our society. Tehmina Durrani wrote ‘Fakhra is not a new tragedy.. she was always a tragedy. Her life was a parched stretch of hard rock on which nothing bloomed. Her country of birth gave her nothing at all. Her environment of birth condemned her to social unacceptability and disrespect. She was born without any right of choice.’ If people like Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy bring to the forefront people like Zakia and Ruksana, why can’t we just be happy that that’s two less Fakhra’s who may or may not have met with an end as tragic as the latter’s? Why must we turn a source of pride for our country into something that should be disdained and belittled? But more importantly, why must we let a person who deserves disdain and punishment, freely roam the streets of the country when he should be behind the bars?<o:p></o:p></span></div>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-24916083258323632422012-03-14T00:10:00.012+05:002012-03-31T18:57:04.156+05:00The art of sympathy<div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I absolutely deplore physical contact – by that I allude to any form of touching (including hugs, brushing past, patting on the back, a peck on the cheek) by any person I am not comfortable with or to whom I don’t consent doing so. I feel this paranoia largely stems from my childhood; on my mother’s death, long-lost relatives, never-seen-before friends and nothing short of complete strangers felt the compulsion to smother me to their chests and let out heart wrenching wails. For someone who never was too comfortable even shaking hands with unknown people, this unnecessary show of physical affection was enough to make me cringe. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I understand its not easy comforting those who grieve the death of a loved one. Many people are immobilized out of fear they'll do or say the wrong thing. Obviously, there is no one dramatic gesture or pearl of wisdom that will dissolve the heartache, but there are many acts of thoughtfulness that can convey your concern and help to soften the blow that a friend or loved one has suffered.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How exactly can you comfort someone grieving the death of a loved one? What can you say that might adequately offer solace? A mere "I'm sorry" doesn't quite seem to cut it. So what is the right way to comfort someone who is grieving? Here are some suggestions, culled from grief experts and people who have lost a loved one:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Say something simple. "I am sorry to hear the news" will suffice at first. Then, on an ongoing basis, "I am thinking of you."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Don't ask, "What happened?" You are making the bereaved person re-live pain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Don't launch into a detailed account of your loss of a loved one. Give them just enough to let them know that you can relate to their pain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Avoid clichés. That includes, "Good things come from bad," "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and "He/she's at peace now." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Don't claim to know how the grieving person feels. You don't. Don't suggest that the mourner "move on." It would be more appropriate to say something along the lines of, "I can only imagine what you are going through."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Keep your religious beliefs to yourself unless you are sure that the person you are trying to comfort shares them. (It’s okay simply to say that you will keep the family in your prayers.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Whatever you do, please don’t intrude in their personal space. Give them time to come to terms with their loss.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Avoid unnecessary physical contact. A simple pat on the back or a quick hug will suffice.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Don't launch into a long eulogy on the deceased. Saying things like, "he/she was such a good person. So compassionate and kind to the poor..." only makes the grieving person realize his loss a little more.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
The death of a loved one is a devastating emotional loss. But a sincere expression of caring - and sharing - can help us to turn the grief of futility and despair into the grief of faith and hope and release.</span></div></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-7899802419064140982012-01-26T23:32:00.010+05:002012-03-18T00:00:41.771+05:00As iron sharpens iron..<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens the wits of another - Proverbs 27:17 (NRSV)</i><br />
<br />
Some people are easy to get along with. They don't question my motives. If they don't understand what I say, they ask for clarification. They give me the benefit of the doubt. There are virtually no harsh words between us. With other people, especially my closest family and friends, I have occasional clashes. Something is taken the wrong way and brings a defensive response. Or I am labeled as selfish or insensitive. Or my friend/relative speaks frankly about an annoying trait.<br />
<br />
So why choose to associate with people who don't even like me part of the time? The verse from the Book of Proverbs at the top of this post might shed some light on this. Sometimes it takes sparks to sharpen a metal tool, honing it to a sharp edge. If the people around me spoke well of me all the time, how would I become aware of character flaws? How would I work on my ability to handle criticism without falling apart emotionally? Who would challenge my thinking?<br />
<br />
I like comfortable times with comfortable friends. But I also value friendships that have seen hard times and survived. Our friendship has been tested by the winds of adversity and we have chosen to hold on to it because the value we find in it outweighs the pain of the occasional conflicts between us.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>“We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him.” - </i><a href="http://quotationsbook.com/quotes/author/5079/" style="font-style: italic;">Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De</a></span>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-26285083719994873392011-12-30T12:20:00.008+05:002013-01-22T14:50:39.283+05:00Tis the season<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We experienced a late winter in Karachi this year. Just when I had given up on the prospect of nippy weather, I woke up one day and there was a certain air about Karachi. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but my city was beaming. In the time that followed, the mornings were draped with a thin layer of fog, and the evenings shrouded in a slight chill. Winter was here and just like that, life was perfect.<br />
<br />
In Karachi, you know exactly when winter has arrived - the moment when your lips become chapped and your hair feels static. My litany of Karachi winter characteristics runs along the lines of: dry skin; the silence of no fans and no air conditioners; thick, fluffy socks and shawls; Vaseline; peanuts roasted in their shells and bought by the pao in newspaper bags; nivea; random (and frequent) beach plans; oranges; hibiscus flowers; bonanza ads on TV; bonfires; hot chocolate; nihari; cream of tomato soup; hoodies; Christmas trees; countless cups of chai and coffee; lip balms; moisturizers; quilts; comforters; warm, cozy beds; laziness. But really, as Kamila Shamsie so aptly articulated in ‘Kartography’, “For Karachi high society, winter is all about envelopes. Or rather, about the invitations inside those envelopes” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Come November and the invites start pouring in. They appear in ones and twos and soon you have enough wedding cards to start your own business. Though we don’t get the snow most northern regions get, winters in Karachi have a life of its own. The weather isn’t all that cold, but its cold enough for us to enjoy our ice creams, walks in the evening, and eating outdoors. Nobody asks for the AC remote, or reaches for the fan switch, save for a few hardened individuals who still love their fans and ACs even as the mercury drops. We are entertained by the ever cheesy Bonanza ads for sweaters on TV, and bonfires at the beach take special precedence in our weekend plans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Winters in Karachi also bring with it many unwanted guests. Dryness on our skin increases in some as we reach for the chapsticks even more so. The dew in the morning permeates over our cars quickly becoming the bane of drivers/cleaners. There is also increasing susceptibility to flu and other diseases. But cons aside, winter in Karachi has its special place. People still flock to the sea, amid high winds and even higher gatherings. We admire ourselves in our brightly colored sweaters and hoodies, pointing and laughing at scooter drivers wearing funny hats and completely unnecessary earmuffs, and nuzzle within our own blankets as we ever so desperately try to break its embrace in the morning–and fail miserably.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In other news, the New Year is less than 42 hours away. As per tradition, I’ve been drafting this year’s resolutions in my head, attempting and struggling to start 2012 without encumbrances and bad memories of the past year. In retrospect, the last 365 odd days of my life have added some much needed rebellion in me; I have met some wonderful, wonderful people and had some really fun times. Rest assured, I have also had my (more than) fair share of not-so-fun times but I have learnt (albeit later than I should have) that such is life. C'est la vie. Here’s to a new year; a clean slate; a fresh start. Here’s to the beginning of the end. Or the end of the beginning.<br />
<br />
*Refer to last year's post on <a href="http://incoherentramblingsofanabsurdist.blogspot.com/2011/01/another-year-goes-by.html">New Year's</a>.</span></div>
</div>
Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-43972675084128674372011-11-14T14:25:00.001+05:002011-11-14T14:58:38.759+05:00A hell of heaven... or a heaven of hell<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“The mind is its own place, and in it self<br />
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.”<br />
- John Milton, 'Paradise Lost'<br />
<br />
I have been lost in the labyrinthine recesses of my own mind lately, listening to the cacophony of hounding thoughts. Trapped by the inability to halt the ever present nagging of my racing psyche, I have ineffectively searched for a quiet mental corner where I could hide amid the static calm of incessant white noise … the sound of a roaring waterfall or the crashing of ocean waves on an unnamed shore.<br />
<br />
“A thick, black cloud swirled before my eyes, and my mind told me that in this cloud, unseen as yet, but about to spring out upon my appalled senses, lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all that was monstrous and inconceivably wicked in the universe. Vague shapes swirled and swam amid the dark cloud-bank, each a menace and a warning of something coming, the advent of some unspeakable dweller upon the threshold, whose very shadow would blast my soul.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot<o:p></o:p></span></div>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-18515013636473969582011-10-25T00:37:00.003+05:002011-10-25T15:40:27.467+05:00<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">When I was ten years old, I found a paperback copy of Tehmina Durrani’s autobiographical account ‘My Feudal Lord’ in my mother’s collection of books and began reading it. One day when I was conveniently sprawled across the bed, reading, my father walked into the room and ‘caught’ me reading the book. I hadn’t been hiding from him in the first place; I had no reason to. After all, he had always encouraged my love of reading and bought me as many books as my little heart desired. But when he saw me reading this particular book, he looked a little taken aback, annoyed almost, and asked me to hand over the novel to him with a terse question, ‘Where did you find this?’ With childlike innocence I replied to his question and he explained to me gently, ‘This is not a book a child of your age should be reading. It’s all trash anyway. Give this to me and read something else, beta.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">Later that evening I saw him tuck the book deep in his closet. I had understood the gist of the book but had not been too intrigued by it because it was a bit too complicated for someone my age to comprehend, in its entirety. But the fact that my father had chided me for reading something sparked my curiosity, an inexplicable itch that demanded gratification. It is, after all, human nature to be drawn towards the ‘forbidden fruit’ and so, when he left his room I opened his closet and stealthily, took out the book and sneaked away with it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">I finished reading the entire book a day and a half later but for the life of me, could not find anything quite so vulgar or obscene as may compel him to dissuade me from reading it. The book gave a vivid description of Durrani’s traumatic marital life with Mustafa Khar, an important politician in the Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto regime, who later became the Chief Minister of Punjab. Professionally, he appeared to be a charismatic champion of democracy, but on the personal front he was an inveterate wife abuser. In the three sections of her book, Durrani mapped her journey from an ordinary elitist housewife to an emancipated human being contesting for equal rights and women’s empowerment. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">Soon after finishing ‘My Feudal Lord’ I read Durrani’s second book, this time a novel titled ‘Blasphemy.’ The book description at the back cover read, ‘To me, my husband was my son’s murderer. He was also my daughter’s molester; a parasite nibbling on the Holy Book. He was Lucifer; holding me by the throat and driving me to sin every night. He was Bhai’s destroyer; Amma Sain’s tormentor; Ma’s humbler and the people’s exploiter. He was the rapist of orphans and the fiend that fed on the weak but over and above all this... he was known to be the man closest to Allah; the one who could reach Him and save us.’ It sounded rather grotesque and upon reading it, I realized the story was not only grotesque but downright perverse and morbid.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">By the time I turned 11, I was reading Salman Rushdie’s ‘Shame’ and Khaled Hossaini’s ‘The Kite Runner.’ It was one of those days that my school principal caught me reading Fozia Siddiqui’s novel, ‘Taboo’; she was positively livid. I remember the flash of anger in the eyes of a woman who had been a nun and a principal of a Convent school for more than 50 years of her life. She lashed out at me for reading content that was not ‘fit’ for someone my age and snatched the book from my fingers. Needless to say, the rebel that I was, I did not alter my reading habits to suit her or others whims and fancies.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">One of my favorite playwrights of all time, Oscar Wilde, had said,’ It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.’ When I was younger, it seemed like everyone had an opinion about what I should be reading and what I shouldn’t. I believe that whether or not people read, and indeed how much and how often they read, affects their lives in crucial ways. My life, like everyone else’s, has been shaped by a conglomeration of influences. Most of those influences are people. Yet, I cannot point to any one person who has played a “larger than life” role. Each has their place in sculpting me into what I am today, chipping away here and there, changing who and what I am. None that I can think of have stepped beyond their place and prompted a complete change in direction in my life.<br />
<br />
In contrast to people, I can point to several books that had an immediate and lasting influence on my life and personality. Perhaps the strongest entry in the field has been T.S.Eliot’s collection of poems. Though not regarded as a ‘book’ in the constructed sense of the word, Eliot’s work and recurring themes on the disintegration of society, the anguish and barrenness of modern life and the isolation of the individual changed my very outlook and perception towards life and people. There have been others along the way, Harper Lee’s classic ‘To kill a mocking bird’, Kamila Shamsie’s ‘Kartography’ and Charles Dickens ‘A Christmas Carol’ are only a few books that I have read every so often that I have almost memorized them by heart and they have all played a peripheral role in shaping my personality.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">Maybe the difference between people and books is that I can go back to the books I have read and find them unchanged. I can find within the pages the same message that spoke to my soul and prompted change in my living or the same character that warmed my heart or made me weep. I am often surprised to find the headwaters of a stream I now take for granted in a forgotten book. In contrast, for better or worse, people always change and my memory is fallible; I don’t know which of my character traits trace back to a stray comment here or there by a teacher or friend or stranger.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">In an old Dr. Seuss book I used to read as a child, I remember the quote on the back cover, ‘The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.’ People around me tried to suppress my flight; tried to stop me from soaring but armed with my books and an air of indifference, I travelled the world through the eyes of the authors, far and wide, from pre-historic eras to the future – I have seen it all. And what I haven’t and cannot yet fathom the books I read in the years to come will illustrate for me.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-57051479927635852592011-10-01T15:13:00.005+05:002012-03-17T23:58:56.671+05:00Death<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">Last night I dreamt that I had died.</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">But I could see, or rather feel,</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">what was going on around me.</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">...</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">I felt I had no strength or will,</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">I was only capable of witnessing</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">my own death, my own corpse.</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Above all, I could feel in my dream</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">something long forgotten, something</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">that had not happened to me for a long time - </div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">the feeling that it was not a dream but real.</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">It is such a powerful sensation</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">that a wave of sadness fills your soul,</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">of pity for yourself, and a strange,</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">as if it were an aesthetic way of seeing your own life.</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">When you feel compassion for yourself in that way,</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">it is as if your pain were someone else's.</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">and you are looking at it from outside,</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">weighing it up, and you are beyond</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">the bounds of what used to be your life.</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">It was as if my past life was a child's life,</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">without experience, unprotected.</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Time ceases to exist, and fear.</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">An awareness of immortality.</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">Inspiration: Andrei Tarkovsky</div>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-16755671821684486282011-08-27T16:55:00.009+05:002011-08-29T13:11:55.353+05:00For the love of MJ<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><i>"Why not just tell people I'm an alien from Mars? Tell them I eat live chickens and do a voodoo dance at midnight. They'll believe anything you say, because you're a reporter. But if I, Michael Jackson, were to say 'I'm an alien from Mars and I eat live chickens and do a voodoo dance at midnight,' people would say 'Oh, man, that Michael Jackson is nuts. He's cracked up. You can't believe a damn word that comes out of his mouth.'"</i></span><br />
<span class="apple-style-span"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="apple-style-span">People are often bewildered, amused almost at my love affair with Michael Jackson. Most of them immediately respond with a, ‘You like that child molester?’ in incredulity and horror. </span>I try to handle such situations with nonchalance and composure but the truth is, I cannot feign indifference and that manifests itself in my terse replies. Contrary to what most people think, I am not blind to Jackson’s many flaws and imperfections. I realize the horrible atrocities which he was said to have performed have besmirched his reputation, but I also appreciate that they may or may not have occurred; few people know the answer to that part of the story. And therefore, to accuse him so authoritatively and with such unfaltering conviction is both unfair and uncalled-for.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span">More than Jackson’s revolutionary music, his awe-inspiring dance moves or his phenomenal success, what draws me towards him is his incredible life and the aplomb with which he lived it. </span>It is so easy to disparage and sully his reputation, but a deeper and more introspective look yields a glimpse into a deeply troubled individual who not only happened to revolutionize the music and the music video industries but also lived a most extraordinary life. The tragic details of his life are not unknown; he was raised in a tumultuous home, suffered physical and verbal abuse from his father and spent a major part of his life sheltered and lonely for companionship. His circumstances in life caused him to grow up in age, but not in maturity level. He was an adult trapped inside the mind of an adolescent, with a penchant for having a Peter Pan complex. <span class="apple-style-span">Needless to say, there is more to MJ’s story than meets the eye…</span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal">In his last few years, especially the ones following the child molestation allegations, Michael had become a laughingstock. People ridiculed his lifestyle, his appearance, his personality, his mannerisms. He had always been shy and reserved but after the criminal charges were levied on him, he became a recluse. He was ostracized by the media, and hordes of paparazzi hounded him mercilessly. But it is entirely irrelevant what the public perception was and is of this man, and his 'Wacko Jacko' persona. MJ proved his mettle as a singer/performer par excellence; he was an icon who turned the pop industry on its collective ear with his impeccable falsetto and rhythm.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As an entertainer, Jackson was revolutionary. With his trademark single white glove, his sequined red jacket, and his spry agility and lightness of foot, Michael moved with trademark flair, and it was clear that he belonged on the stage, regaling audiences spanning several decades. When MJ would moonwalk across a stage he would send throngs of fans into an unequivocal frenzy. Trying to perfect his elegance caused many a night of unrest for millions, as they endlessly attempted to sashay backwards across their floors, but in vain. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<span class="apple-style-span">Somewhere underneath that collision of figures that is his career - twelve No. 1 records, fifty one million copies sold of Thriller, eighty million copies of the others, thirteen Grammy Awards - there's a man, and one whose achievements are far greater than mere numbers. His '80s success opened up white America to black music in a way never seen before. Without Jackson there is no Prince. No Whitney Houston. No Lenny Kravitz. And the world is a lesser place.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-converted-space"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-converted-space">Such is the magic of MJ…</span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-converted-space"><br />
</span></div>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-18534851366865287152011-06-19T23:45:00.006+05:002011-07-02T13:30:36.849+05:00An ode to dad<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every year on Father’s Day, I am in a dilemma. I ponder long and hard over what I should buy for the man who means the most to me in this world and every year, I am at a loss of ideas. I know my father is extremely fastidious when it comes to clothes and perfumes’ so buying either of these without his approval is a risk of a very grave sort. To this end, for the last few years now, I have taken the safer road and chosen to pen down my thoughts regarding his importance in my life. This year, I decided to profess my love and appreciation for my father (‘dad’ henceforth) on my blog so I could share my sentiments for him on a public forum.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u1:p></u1:p>As Dad’s youngest child and only daughter, I have been extremely pampered and a (self professed) ‘daddy’s little girl’ in the truest essence of the phrase. But dad’s pampering did not just extend to buying expensive gifts for me; rather he chose to pamper me with knowledge, with his unconditional love, time and patience. I come from a somewhat conservative family; in terms of their thinking, my grandparents are very old school and orthodox. In such an environment, my dad who is both liberal and secular stands out as a rebel. He inculcated the same fighter and never-say-die spirit in me and my brother and taught us to stand up for our rights and principles, even if it meant gaining disapproval from others. On many occasions dad urged us to be stubborn and unrelenting where the situation demanded it and I have a constant, unfaltering reassurance that come what may, one maelstrom after another, I will always have my father’s support and encouragement. He will always stand behind me like the pillar of strength he is in my life and keep nudging me forward.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Speaking of which, I don’t think I have ever seen a father in my life who is as expressive as my father (I may be a little biased but I’m not exaggerating right now). Dad never misses an opportunity to tell my brother and me that he will always support us in whatever we choose to do in life. Day in and day out he reminds us that he loves us and will continue to do so no matter what happens. Every single time either one of us talks to him on the phone, the last thing he says before shutting the phone, is ‘I love you, beta’ and by habit, we reply ‘love you too, dad’, without realizing the effect his three parting words have on our lives. Hearing someone confess their love for you is the most beautiful feeling in the world and I have to thank my dad for making me experience that feeling several times in a day.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u1:p></u1:p>I told my father many years ago that he’s not a ‘cool dad’ – an allegation he has taken to heart and hence, tried his level best to alter my opinion. Today, I am taking this opportunity and clarifying what I really meant when I said that: My dad was never a “cool dad” in the way that fathers often try to be “cool dads.” He’s just a “cool” person whose “coolness” happens to spill over into his dad-ness. I’m not sure I’m able to get the message across, but in a nutshell, all I’m trying to say is that my father is a pretty darn awesome person and he incorporates that into his role as a father.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u2:p></u2:p> </span><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u1:p></u1:p>Honoring a Father on Father’s Day is about more than a Dad who brings home a paycheck, shares a dinner table, and attends school functions, graduations, and weddings. It isn’t even so much about spending time together. It’s more about unconditionally loving children who are snotty and stubborn, who know everything and won’t listen to anyone. It’s about respect and sharing and acceptance and tolerance and giving and taking. It’s about loving someone more than words can say and it’s wishing that it never had to end.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u1:p></u1:p> </span><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u3:p></u3:p>So on this day, I want to thank my hero, my mentor, my inspiration - the one man who always knows how to put a smile on my face. Thank you for everything. Here’s to the best dad anyone could ever wish for.</span></div></div>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-59985144861933744752011-06-14T20:24:00.006+05:002011-07-20T13:55:43.222+05:00A memory trigger<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few days back, a car stopped next to mine at a traffic signal. The girl who was driving did not look a day over thirteen and her lack of control over the car indicated just how inexperienced a driver she was. Her friends who accompanied her, some eight of them stashed in that car like sardines, gave the impression of being squealing, excitable six year olds, sticking their necks out of the windows while four others peeked through from the sun roof. <span class="apple-style-span">I won’t digress by going into the details of what I think of such girls. I’ll save that for another day. The purpose of narrating this story right now is to draw attention to the song that was blaring on full volume from their car. It was a 90’s song by Aqua, popular among the girls at the time for its lyrics ‘I’m a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the moment the song started my attention shifted from the hyperactive girls and I was transported back in time from a grimy Karachi street in Defence to 1997; to the winding, twisting roads of Quetta and the beautiful, coral coloured valleys and Juniper forests of Ziaret. In the summer of ’97, I took a trip with extended family to the western part of Pakistan and this song is one I closely associate with that trip. I still remember the music store I purchased Aqua’s cassette from and have vivid memories of driving for long distances with this song playing on my Walkman (yes, this is pre-Discman, mp3 and IPod) and rewinding the song and re-rewinding it because it was such a hot favourite. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span">Its interesting how sometimes certain sounds and smells instantly remind one of an event or occasion and nostalgia overcomes with such force that one loses track of one’s bearings and surroundings. The realization that a particular sight, sound or smell can have such an overwhelming impact on human memory dawned upon me when I read Sujata Bhatt’s poem ‘Muliebrity’ many years ago. The poet describes a young Indian girl collecting cow dung on the roadside in Maninagar, Ahmedabad while simultaneously evoking a sense of smell with such intense description and dexterity that each smell is a mood to explore for the reader. She talks about ‘</span>the smell of cow-dung and road-dust and wet canna lilies, the smell of monkey breath and freshly washed clothes and the dust from crows’ wings which smells different – and again the smell of cow-dung as the girl scoops.’ Some time later, when I read Elizabeth Brewster’s ‘Where I come from’ , I realized we tend to use negative smells to illustrate a place or situation we find unfavourable. For instance, in Brewter’s poem she conjures smells of<span class="apple-style-span"> ‘smog </span><span class="apple-style-span">or the almost-not-smell of tulips in the spring’ and the ‘smell of work, glue factories maybe, </span><span class="apple-style-span">chromium-plated offices; smell of subways</span> <span class="apple-style-span">crowded at rush hours’ when she talks of city life. But when she talks of her hometown she describes ‘hints of jungles or mountains; acres of pine woods;</span> <span class="apple-style-span">blueberry patches’ - all words with positive connotations.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span">Of all the senses I would say that smell is the sense that is best at bringing back memories. When you smell a certain scent it feels as though you slipped back in time and that you are actually at that scene again. </span>Freshly-cut grass. Cakes just out of the oven. Buttery popcorn. Old, yellowed paper. Laundry fresh out of the dryer. Rain mixed with wet sand. These are some of my favorite smells in the world. And most of them, not coincidentally, automatically bring to mind specific memories or feelings.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Freshly-cut grass reminds me of playing hide-and-seek in my garden when I was little. The smell of butter on popcorn reminds me of the endless nights I have spent watching movies with my brother. <span class="apple-style-span">The smell that whiffs through while flipping old paper reminds me of the used books I would exchange at a bookstore in Boatbasin where I would go with my father when I was a child. </span>Our sense of smell is a powerful thing — and certain smells can often act as triggers to our memories. This works with some of my travel memories, too. There are certain s</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">cents that will forever be associated with specific destinations in my mind. The smell of pine cones always reminds me of a trip to Swat with my friends; the smell of a dust storm always takes me back to the highway where we experienced an angry dust and thunderstorm while driving to Orlando; t<span class="apple-style-span">he smell that comes right before and right after it rains, that fresh, clean smell that brings the earthworms out onto the pavement on a cool summer evening never ceases to remind me of New Jersey. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">When I was much younger my grandparents used to live in Nazimabad; there was a park near their house where the residents would throw their trash and the designated </span><i style="color: white;">kachre wala</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"> would burn it. <span class="apple-style-span">I don’t know whether words can really describe the smell of burning garbage - It’s a strangely intoxicating mixture of wood, ash, burning rubber, dirt, and chemicals. </span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">It’s the smell I most associate with my childhood, and one that immediately transports me there on the now rare occasions when my nostrils are assaulted with that scent. </span>And to this day when I see anyone burning garbage or smell it, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span" style="color: white;">the malodorous scent attacks my synapses and I am carried back to the Saturday’s I would spend at my grandparent’s place. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span">T</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ruly, sometime a whiff or sound is all it takes for one to take an unexpected trip down memory lane.</span></span><br />
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</span></div>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-41519514528653561582011-05-31T00:22:00.000+05:002011-05-31T00:22:16.375+05:00Passion<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, God has been kind to me, and this is what I have found.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">This has been my life. In spite of all the hatred and suffering life brings with itself, I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">Inspiration: Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)</span></span>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-73452218300611624862011-04-21T14:32:00.019+05:002011-04-21T18:31:50.510+05:00Procrastination is the thief of time<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I suffer from chronic procrastination. And for those who think it is not a recognized mental disease – think again. I believe procrastination is a global epidemic, plaguing millions around the globe, driving them to put off their work till the very next day. It is a handicap that affects the psyche of an individual and ultimately leads to the breakdown or demise of the physical. It is the virulent disease that annihilates academic success and curbs productivity, leaving people like me struggling for ‘more time’.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Procrastination has many symptoms, anxiety being one. In many ways, we are addicted to time the way gamblers are to money or alcoholics to liquor. We love time. Why waste it doing something we don’t want to? Our motto is “If you can do it tomorrow, why do it today?” However, one should not confuse indolence or laziness with procrastination. I often tell people that I work best under pressure. It sounds so corporate. I have literally scrubbed my room from top to bottom in order to avoid writing a homework assignment. Procrastination takes a lot of work.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I also believe there is an inherent link between creativity and procrastination. “Time on Task” is not our maxim. We tend to abhor the mundane and the tedious. I don’t open my textbooks a month before my exams. It’s against my creative, intuitive nature. I now do most of my work by Karma. And it works, more often than not.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I wait with bated breath for the day the American Medical Association or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders will declare procrastination a disease and accord it a proper and legitimate place in the annals of medicine. I’d even settle for psychiatric institutions to classify it a behavioral problem with a possible chemical imbalance in the brain worthy of research and medication.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">With a legitimate stamp of abnormal approval, procrastinators would then be eligible to petition the government for equal-right status. This silent disease would be out of the closet once-and-for-all. And maybe then, people like me will feel less guilty for putting things off till the last moment.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In many ways, us procrastinators are essentially optimists. There is always tomorrow…</span><span style="color: white; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-55192534646115281652011-03-06T19:21:00.000+05:002011-03-06T19:21:12.461+05:00<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is the moment, the exact moment when everything changes and the person you thought you couldn’t live without, leaves without saying so much as a goodbye? That is the moment when everything changes, yet nothing really does. One goes on with life and daily chores and mundane activities, as is the order of the day. This is an idea I seem to have reiterated several times in my blog because I believe it with utter conviction – the person we claim we ‘cannot live without’ is hypothetical – merely a figment of our imagination. No such person exists in the world. There is absolutely NOBODY we need to depend upon for survival.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the words of the truly great and wise, T.S.Eliot, <span class="apple-style-span">"Hell is oneself, hell is alone, the other figures in it merely projections. There is nothing to escape from and nothing to escape to. One is always alone."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Twelve years ago on this day, they buried my mother. I stood there, eight years old, and in complete denial, watching them lower her in the grave. And here I am, twelve years later, twenty years old and possibly still in denial; because somewhere deep in my heart there lives an eight year old who still believes her mother is alive.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-24016903166038862722011-02-09T12:23:00.000+05:002011-02-09T12:23:32.394+05:00Birthday thoughts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">16<sup>th</sup> February, 2011 is the day I celebrate a milestone birthday – one that ends with a zero. <span class="apple-converted-space">Herein onwards all my birthdays will be in the ‘tees’ and somehow that makes me a little sad. </span>For as long as I can remember I wanted to be twenty years old. For some odd, inexplicable reason I thought that when I would turn twenty I would have the solution to all of life’s problems. I believed with full faith and utter conviction that at 20 my life would be perfect; I would be an educated, independent working girl with at least two degrees to her credit. In retrospect a somewhat unrealistic proposition, at age 10, however, as plausible and real as Matilda’s magical powers.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now that my birthday is less than a week away, I seem to be almost dreading it. And that comes as a huge surprise not only to me but to my family as well because I have always awaited and celebrated my birthday with great fervor and exuberance. Perhaps the reluctance and melancholy has to do with the realization that I have been unable to achieve all that I thought I would before I turned 20. For the first time in my life, I am regretting not being able to make use of time to its fullest. On the achievement barometer, I am somewhere close to the bottom – there has been no substantial progress in the last two decades of my existence; <span class="apple-style-span">I let that time pass me by and it makes me so mad at myself. Mad enough to make myself depressed.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am a staunch believer that celebrating birthdays is not merely a convention. Birthdays are occasions to celebrate one's growth, maturity, and development. Birthdays remind us that the gift of life is the most precious and important one. <span class="apple-style-span">Thus, they are generally associated with celebrations; partying, receiving good wishes and gifts, holidaying without any care in the world.</span> However, this particular year I’m feeling pensive; <span class="apple-style-span">my 20<sup>th</sup> birthday is making me pause and think about that gentle nudge of the clock that keeps moving me forward, ever forward. This year it is the catalyst that is making me stop and ask these questions: What have I accomplished over the past year? What have I done that would make me proud? Am I more successful today than I was last year at this time? There is no definite answer to the aforementioned questions. However, I can say with certainty, that the journey from 19 to 20 has made me a better person; it has helped me explore myself; it has made me aware of my strengths and weaknesses and that in itself, is no small feat.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's the start of 2011, a brand new year. I may not have accomplished all that I thought I would by the time I turned 20 but starting today I'm going to do what I can to get closer to my dreams and goals. I'm going to appreciate life more and give it the respect it deserves, not just for me, but for everyone who no longer has this luxury. And when I blow out my candles this year, I'll make a wish that every year that I'm alive is better than the one before – I am going to make my birthday a reason to celebrate. And I'm going to face it the way I have always done, with laughter and excitement at all that I have yet to accomplish and all that I have to look forward to in my life.</span></span></span></div>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-18945895370124858532011-02-01T15:41:00.000+05:002011-02-01T15:49:11.675+05:00Of feminists and opposition*<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Yesterday evening, somebody accused me of being a ‘man-hating, pro-choice, NGO employee feminist.’ By ‘accused’ I most certainly do not mean to allude that the term ‘feminist’ is a derogatory epithet. On the contrary, I hold most feminists in reverence; they wish to end the gender gap and oppose sexism in all shapes and forms. </span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> They work for </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="line-height: 115%;">female empowerment, the recognition of oppression, and the advocation of equality </span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height: 115%;">and the courage with which they do this makes them worthy of praise and appreciation</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">.</span></span></span><br />
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</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The accusation was made by one of the few men I loathe in the world. He runs a so called religious tv show, has a fake degree and supports the man who murdered Salman Taseer. Yet, he has the gall to act like no one more pious and God-fearing than him ever existed. On the live show that he hosts he made tall claims that the ‘liberal and fascist’ feminists of our country are soon forgetting their values and morals and that they are indifferent to Dr. Aafia Siddiqui’s 86 years of imprisonment but condone the treatment lashed out at Bibi Aasiya. He felt the reason for this was that these ‘liberal and fascist’ (his repetition of these words was almost nauseating) feminists will support anything our religion has declared as inappropriate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height: 115%;">He did not stop at that. He went on to state that ‘NGO feminists’ are in essence, atheists and promote the ‘shameless way of life’ of the U.S. And that they seek to give Pakistani women as many rights as the female community in the West has, whereas (and here comes the joke of the century) women in Pakistan have more rights than Western women can even dream of. He asserted that Pakistani women play the role of ‘sister, wife, mother’ whereas Western women are only recognized as ‘partner, girlfriend or call-girl.’ His naiveté (or should I say ignorance?) made my blood boil; his claims were completely ill found; his arguments entirely baseless. </span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="line-height: 115%;">It is rare in Pakistan to hear feminism being described as female empowerment or as an organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests, which is how it is defined in the dictionary. Why has feminism taken on such a negative meaning? In my opinion, any strong and independent woman would want to be labeled as a feminist. Yet many women are cautious, afraid even, of aligning themselves with the word feminist. Fear is part of the equation…the justifiable fear of what lies ahead for any woman boldly proclaiming her commitment to empowerment. Is it because in order to be a feminist, a woman must deal with false assumptions about her sexual preference, cultural beliefs, and general outlook on life? What woman would want to deal with this constant barrage of insults in order to proclaim herself a feminist?</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">*Click</span> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thEIowcE9pY&feature=related">HERE</a> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">to gain access to the aforementioned television programme.</span></span></div></div>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-79698096134319674922011-01-03T13:28:00.002+05:002011-12-30T12:27:14.381+05:00Another year goes by...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">I don't particularly like New Years. I have always been shy of novelties; new books, new faces, in a nutshell, any sort of change - from some mental twist which makes it difficult in me to face the prospective. I have almost ceased to hope; and am sanguine only in the prospects of other (former) years. Many things turn on the New Year. We vow and reminisce; we plan and gather our thoughts towards an action we may not be able to carry out through the following twelve months. Some things end and some start. We get an imagined chance to start afresh, a New Year, a clean slate. The New Year is also a boundary and arbitrary line drawn to enable the world to sort things out. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">From Christmas Day till New Years Eve, I like to plunge into foregone visions and conclusions. I encounter past disappointments. I try to make myself armour-proof against old discouragements. I forgive, or overcome grudgingly, old adversaries. But most importantly, I review my last year’s resolutions, in hope to carry them out in the following year. If anything, each new year teaches me that plot and plan as we will, every month will spring up some completely unexpected surprises on us; people will change for better or for worse – some will come into our lives, others will leave us. Come what may, one maelstrom after the other, life will stop for no one and nothing. With this spirit in mind I begin 2011 and like every year, resolve to make this year, the best one of my life.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">To those who follow my blog and those who don’t, ‘<span class="apple-style-span">May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books, and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art. Write, or draw, or build, or sing, or live, as only you can.</span> <span class="apple-style-span">May your coming year be a wonderful thing, in which you dream both dangerously and outrageously. I hope you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it; that you will be loved, and you will be liked; and you will have people to love and to like in return. And most importantly, because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now, I hope that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind. And I hope that somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.</span>’ – Neil Gaiman</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div></div>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-76002969448453852082010-12-15T15:01:00.000+05:002010-12-15T15:01:50.443+05:00Its funny how all the world exists for the sake of cornering me. Or maybe I exist for the sake of cornering the world? <div>Either way, every day is a struggle to trudge through the questioning stares and hushed whispers of people. Its funny how I can't stop caring about it.</div><div><br />
</div><div>What's funnier is I'm not laughing.</div>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-33007781596865682782010-11-11T00:48:00.000+05:002010-11-11T00:51:35.655+05:00Forcing the moment to its crisis*<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 13px;">When I look at my life and the choices I made in retrospect, I am amazed at the length of time I wasted on social niceties. Making small talk, mingling with people I couldn't care less about, passing ostentatious smiles, interacting, socializing, gossiping, climbing the social ladder, some more small talk, some more mingling...</span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 0px !important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">For the most part, this routine and the shenanigans surrounding it define my life. Sometimes I wonder if I ever learnt the art of prioritizing. At other times, I am baffled over whether playing this Machiavellian game of socialites was my priority. Who knows?</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 0px !important;"><br style="text-indent: 0px !important;" /></div><div style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 0px !important;">All I know is that no one can retrieve the time I wasted. No one can suffer for the choices I made, but myself. No one can change my past. Which leads me to the overwhelming question of, 'what led me to make the choices I made?' The answer is conspicuous enough: experience. Experience is a real dampener - it grays us from the inside. We begin to make choices on the basis of rationality and practicality, to put things in perspective, to speak when spoken to. When I was 10 I could make choices on instinct - whether it was between kicking the bucket and leading a life that meant zilch to me. Now at 19, I feel intellectual laxity has taken over me and that is far more deleterious than physical slackness.</div><div style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 0px !important;"><br style="text-indent: 0px !important;" /></div><div style="text-indent: 0px !important;"><div style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 13px;">As the trite expression goes, time and tide wait for none and the only thing that is constant is change. Life gets hold of us by the scruff of our neck and bludgeons it with conformity and docility until it begs for reprieve. With every fleeting moment, to pick and choose no longer remains our prerogative. We try and rationalize taking dictation when in fact, life is the dictator and tyrant. You probably think, I'm going off on a tangent here, but it all connects, really - like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle with the precise irregularity of their edges join in a cohesive form. The irregularity of my stance lies in the paradox: experience taught me to climb the social ladder; conformity made me scurry up again when I fell down. The incongruity of it all is almost comical - I should have thought age and wisdom would have taught me otherwise; to turn a deaf ear to the retorts and criticism of others. But in turn, the years have made me immune to the superficiality and materialism I experience everyday. </div><div style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">*The title is an adaption from a T.S.Eliot poem that dwells on society and its pretensions: 'Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?'</span></span></div>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-69392382136304975132010-10-20T22:34:00.001+05:002010-10-20T22:42:16.673+05:00Karachi bleeds<div class="MsoNormal">My city is bleeding yet again. Like a silent spectator, I watch it from the sidelines. I watch the city that is venomously torn and battered by the wrath and carelessness of certain people. The gashed wounds, the blood stained visage, the carcass-like state of my beloved are all too vivid in front of my eyes. I feel like a mother who is listening to her child’s last incoherent words before he finally succumbs to the last stages of a fatal illness. I feel like a vulnerable and helpless child who doesn’t know where he will go after his guardian, his provider is brutally murdered. I feel like the doctor who can put her fingers on a dying, emaciated patient’s pulse and feel their heartbeats synchronize, yet cannot ignore his heart’s futile struggle to keep the blood pumping.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I remember reading a line somewhere; ‘This is Karachi. We have a good time while we can, ‘cause tomorrow we might not be so lucky.’ A viewpoint that triggered a plethora of emotions inside me and one that took the phrase, stream of consciousness, to new levels. Living in Karachi certainly hasn’t been the clichéd ‘walk in a park.’ In fact, it would be more apt to say, it has been almost, ‘a frantic scurry in a battlefield.’ We wake up in the morning and read the headlines only to be baffled over whether this city will finally implode or not; whether we will manage to make it through the day or not. The uncertainty and contingency surrounding life in Karachi can most certainly be exhaustive.<br />
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But in spite of all the ambivalence, Karachiites share an assurance of birthright. And it is perhaps this conviction of ownership that best defines the contemporary citizen of this distraught city. It is perhaps this love for its soil that will save Karachi from the ravages of circumstances and the brutality of its enemies. It is perhaps futile to be optimistic in the eye of a storm, but it is only what my city has taught me – to hope for the best when no hope remains; to give it my best shot, no matter what the odds; to come out alive and victorious when the world thinks you've breathed your last.</div>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-42226376331099274162010-10-17T19:06:00.001+05:002012-01-07T23:21:27.682+05:00SolitudeEmptiness and loneliness - two words that leave one in a bland madness of angst and trepidation. But life and circumstances can force one to find strength in loneliness, fulfillment in emptiness. If one tries hard enough one can discover independence lies in loneliness and fearlessness in emptiness.<br />
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After all, what fear of loss can cultivate when one's hands are empty? Who can one fear to lose in engulfing solitude? Yes, the key to contentment are loneliness and emptiness. That sliver of pure nothingness. That bizarre detour of freedom. Those evanescent moments where one can hear the staccato bursts of silence.<br />
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There is ownership in loneliness - not possession. No, the two words are not synonymous. Possession is a feeling - it stems from a plethora of emotions. Ownership is a fact. It is an affirmation. It simply is. Loneliness fears no exposure. There is no negotiation. It obeys.<br />
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Loneliness and emptiness are not as negative as we make them out to be. Really. Only the meditator who has found peace within himself, who has made reconciliation with body and soul has the luxury to enjoy solitude; to dialogue with the silence, to embrace loneliness as his friend, to claim emptiness as part of his being.Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3595041039019889491.post-72002572582912440312010-09-29T13:05:00.000+05:002010-10-02T19:10:36.259+05:00The sweeper of dreams<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">After the sun sets in a symphony of suffused pinks and golds, and laborers retire home after a long grueling day, and wives tentatively await the arrival of cantankerous, irascible husbands, and glittering blackness takes over the canvas of the sky – the world comes alive in its true essence.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This is the time when owls, night-guards and lovers reign. Under the camouflage of the brash, glittering night sky, the world of dreams and fantasies comes to life. Night, by the way, isn’t my codeword for child molesters, assassins and whores. You misunderstand me. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">My allusion is to the metamorphosis the world undergoes, once it adorns its black cloak. This is the time when everything is possible – we can be whoever we want to be. We can do whatever we want to do. And after all the dreaming is over, after we wake and leave the world of madness and glory for the mundane day-lit grind, through the wreckage of our abandoned fancies, strolls the sweeper of dreams.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Just as we wake he comes to us, and sweeps up kingdoms and castles, and angels and fairies, mountains and oceans. The sweeper talks little, in his gruff monotone voice, and when he does speak it is mostly about the weather and the prospects, victories and defeats of certain people. He seems to despise everyone that is not him.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">He sweeps up the lust and the love and the lovers, the ambitions and the greed, the hopes and the desires. One by one he sweeps them away; the infant that was wailing, the lover who was cheating, the friend who was drowning, the parent who was dying.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">He will sweep it all – every single dream he considers superfluous. And then he will burn them all. Burn them to leave the stage fresh for our dreams tomorrow.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">If ever you run into him, treat him well. Be polite to him. Ask him no questions for he never gives any answers. Applaud his victories, commiserate with him his losses, agree with him about the weather. Treat him with the respect he feels he is entitled to. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">For there are unfortunate souls he no longer visits, the sweeper of dreams, the arsonist of fantasies.</span><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">You must have seen them. They have mouths that twitch, and eyes that stare, and fingers that fidget, and they babble and they mewl and they whimper. Some of them walk through half deserted streets in ragged, grimy clothes, their belongings clutched tightly under their arms. Others are locked in cells, in places where they can no longer harm themselves or others. Do not mistake them to be mad. In fact, the loss of their sanity is the lesser of their problems. It is far worse than madness. They will tell you, if you ask them, they are the ones who wallow, each day in the wreckage of their dreams.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So fantasize as much as you want, until human voices wake you and force you to face the music. But don’t forget to offer thanks to the sweeper of dreams – for he gave you leave to feel liberated and unrestrained and euphoric for a few hours. Offer him thanks for if the sweeper of dreams leaves you, he will never come back.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Inspiration: Neil Gaiman</span></span></div>Sahar Husainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03411424981065995202noreply@blogger.com4