Mairay Aziz humwatno (dear iLoggers) [augustine, shobig, Tazeen, Goonga]

Dear iLogers,

A few seasons have passed since we last spoke. A tyranny has passed and another has been installed. Now is not the time to speak of politics, of Osama, Obama, Nirvana.

Tis a time to see how we have fared in this odd year of few good tidings and plentiful turmoil.

Here I examine a few kind souls and their trials and tribulations in the year that passed.

Augustine: The namesake of the Saint of War, Saint Augustine, our Augustine has been fighting the good fight for a few years. Some months she seemed to be humbled by defeat, other months, she rose victorious. The battles fell as they may, but the War, it's end, and victory, remained distant and elusive. Till now. Her new iLog states that she has "become". Human "being". To be. Not to always seek or want, but to be, to become. And thus the good Lord has rewarded the humble Augustine for the patience of Job and the courage of David. She has slain Goliath. Amen. Hallelujah.

Shobig_Sifar: This Lothario, this Romeo, this Majnoo, this poor fool. For all romantics are fools. How the romantics fall for the slightest gesture of a fair maiden. How they melt as she bats her eyes. How her words are but like the song of the siren. He reads her words with baited breath. Only to find out that the she was a he. Indeed, Ambee Khatee was a dude. Should he abandon his heart on sleeve nature? Shobig faced the demon head on and realized that there is no enemy, when the trail leads to oneself. Finding peace, he returns, to conquer new hearts, as long as he can confirm that the lady is no ladyboy.

Tazeen: Our world traveller. The intellectual from the city of lights. The conversationalist. The diplomat. Far has she traveled yet the exoticness of being a Pakistani never wears thin. She has confounded and astounded many an orientalists and intellectuals. Alas, she too fell for the lure of cheap indian entertainment in 2008. But where there is a will there is a way, and we all have witnessed, that this lady of culture has seen beyond the mailee dhoti that is bollywood, and bid it farewell. You say goodbye, I say hello.

Goonga: Goonga is neither mute nor quiet. He has stood valiantly in the face of police lathi charge. He has inhaled the sweet aroma of tear gas with delight. He has embraced the fallen, the downtrodden, and championed the case of the penguins. As he went missing on Chowk, we all worried that perhaps he had been incarcerated. But the prodigal son returns, for as wrong as he was in his support of the foul penguins (hello: Has anyone seen Danny DeVito as the penguin in Batman), he has a heart of gold, and is a poet and didn't even know it. Goonga's name is henceforth changed to Maula Jat. A man of few words but plenty lalkaars.

Feel free to suggest other nicks so I may do retrospectives on where they were, the challenges they faced, and where they are now.

thankee