The Invisible Men

hain kawakab kuch.............

hmmm.

You were artificially imitating the ``goras`` (mimicking their accent, way of speaking, and dressing etc.) while you were in Pakistan and could not accept what they in fact are as human beings when you came to New York. You didn`t write any specific incident in New York so it is difficult to understand your angst against the goras. Many of them keep to themselves or to their own kind as many of us do in our normal life. Many of us are still daunted by the image of goras and ``gora shahi`` and find things to criticize where they don`t even exist.
Many of the immigrants from the subcontinent do socialize with the whites quite normally. I think the problem of adjustment mainly laid in your court. Why should any one embrace you at the first sight? The saying of ``nah teetar nah bater`` seems to apply to you.
You`ll probably not fit in the Pakistan social milieu again after your brief `pilgrimage` to `the dreamland.` You seem to take pleasure in self-pity.
Be well,

Mohammad Gill

Accurate observations about the the ``little men (and women)`` trapped as cogs in the machinery of capital. Their worth being determined by their position in the marketplace. Having only ``use value`` and not human value, lost in worlds they have not made, where leisure as well as work is rationalized to benefit others, where the personality is saturated by nonsense making it blase` and impersonal. The vast majority of Goras themselves are victims of it, as were you and I. WE could escape the belly of the beast and we did, many are still trapped there, chasing dreams that they wont attain, living narrow lives that attain meaning only vicariously through the world of movies and fake entertainment. Since memories are narrow, life passes fast and before you know it it has gone, gone the narrow way.

The beast`s web is vast it has entrapped in its fictional dreams people of far flung lands, pulling them in for the purpose sucking their blood, breaking their families and killing their children in the process. Like the Matrix, they live in an artificial world, and they worship it even as it drains them of every semblance of their humanity.

Those that cannot integrate into this bs, those that refuse to integrate to this BS, even though they suffer materialistically back home, are the blessed who have seen the beast and escaped from its belly. Congratulations on your liberation...BE strong for the stamp of the beast on the mind wont let you go that easily, he will show you images of starbucks and blondes and organized traffic, and fake politeness of the people and other such nonsense to lure you back in, so that he can control your life....don`t give in

I hope that it was a light hearted attempt at explaining your desire to leave the west.

You remind me a lot of People in Pakistan (known in Karachi as `Pull kay uss paar rehnay walay`) who think that they were not meant to be born in Pakistan. I heard a long discussion on the radio when I was driving to the office between Karachi Grammar School students and students from rest of A level schools. According to the poor chaps of St. Paul, Avicenna etc. The latter were complaining that the former consider themselves as higher beings and the rest of the crowd as lesser mortals. For my part, I was oblivious to these undercurrents having studied in St. Yellow (Peela School _ public school for th un-initiated).

I think what bothered you abroad was that from a pedestal of higher being, you became an ordinary mortal in that city and you just can`t bear being treated at an equal level. It had nothing to do with morality, religiousity, secularity or any other aspect of western culture. The only thing that bothered you was that from always being a somebody you became a nobody.

A poignant, deep narrative of the futility (some say, utter dishonesty) of trying to integrate the unintegrateables. Take Gill sahib`s post as cautionary advice, and dedicate yourself to being who you really are. Best wishes.

bizarre, very bizarre. I haven`t run into this kind of individual too much, probably because I am just a worker-type, tho` I recall that indian aristocrats also tend to move back to india as as soon as possible after maybe taking a degree or spending a year in the west.

I guess this clown thinks that because he speaks english and has read a few books he is some kind of god. Maybe in pakistan buddy, elsewhere you are just another working guy...

I have lived in a different New York City for the last 20 years than storied here. Living outside of one’s comfort zone can be challenging no matter what, but overseas Desis, as a group, tend to be very insular (although not as much as Chinese) the transition shouldn’t be that hard, specially in places like NYC.

If the writer had taken some time to explore the city, walked the Coney Island boardwalk, ate Nathan’s, explored ethnic enclaves such as Brighton Beach, Bensonhearst, Chinatown 2, Sunset Park, Willie, Washington Heights, Redhook, and so on, he would have learnt that he is not the ONLY one, there are millions “un-integrated” New Yorkers happy going about what they do, be it vending hotdogs or playing chess, working on the Street (i.e. Wall St if you didn’t know) or selling crack.

Living in NYC for one year is like going to a ball game and leaving the stadium after the national anthem is sung.

But it is a funny writeup nonetheless. In pompous kinda way.

Get over it and integrate you over privilaged Paki... otherwise go join the rest of the hoard that is bleeding our country... na idhar ke na udhar ke... i think over privilaged Pakis should just come to the west for shopping trips and holidays... its the rest of us who can actually live in the west and for the most part (barring the fundos) can integrate into it well... no matter where you are you make your life as materialistc or as spiritual as you want... happiness comes from you not from another being or thing... Nirvan can be reached in NYC, London or under some peepal tree... its entirely up to you... `integrate nahii ho saka` a BS excuse if i ever heard one...

Kings do not migrate .... workers do, if they can.

i think it is up to the migrant to integrate; each person integrates as much as he or she wants to. often i have seen spoilt people from pakistan or india come to the UK and, when treated like equals like everyone else, get a shock and spend the rest of their time badmouthing the host culture. when the fox cant get the grapes, they`re sour...

i respect you for coming back to pakistan though. 99.9% of the people who complain never come back. take our friend masadi for example...

of course, until you`ve had your soul sucked out of the end of your dick by a goree* you haven`t really lived...

* gori here means anyone who has grown up in the west from birth or infancy and not just
white skinned folks since culturally and in terms of morally and ethically most of us are indistinguishable from them no matter how much we might fool ourselves or how it may torment our elder generations. i too was in self-denial until i actually lived in the `land of the pure` and couldn`t take it anymore after a few months. then i realised that speaking urdu or being able to quote ghalib doesn`t make you culturally a pakistani. mentally we are a different species...

Re: # 10

one of the profoundest statements ever made on chowk.com. so true.

The articles brilliant honesty is the point at which art starts. Best of luck, dude, you are asking questions and not compromising--that`s intellectual honesty.

Here is my two bits for you:

1. Your identity that inexplicable, indefinable you is up against a huge challenge, fortunately you share that with thousands of others. Left liberals (Indo-Paki and others from all races populate the planet from Alaska to Khatmandu) ask similar questions, whereas the right quickly dons a hijab or a beard. Personally speaking, I prefer questions to voluminous folds of cloth. Open your heart, and you shall find others like yourself. Live as a cog in the corporate world--a world that only cogs inhabit till they cannot, and you won`t find them.
2. There are two things that can happen at that point, you can expand your sense of self, find others who ask such things fearlessly and continue to develop your individual identity, or give up, remaining just another cog, who mistakes livelihood for freedom. The second doesn`t appear to be possible, given that you seem to be a compromising type:). Now that you are here, don`t stop. It gets better, not worse.
3. I feel sad that so many of us in the interacts display an acceptance of the low self-esteem that immigration to the West brings. We all go through what you did--trading status for anonymity, trading identity for a designation (some of us weren`t even lucky enough to get a job), trading self for livelihood. But do we have to? Who decided that? The singular joy of the West is that compromise is neither necessary nor required. There is no rulebook that says you have to follow the rules. So, my friend, stand up tall and look the others straight in the eye. Be a mover and shaker, and the whole world will flock to you: White, yellow, brown, black the whole world looks for leaders. Your country has great intellectual resources, it has art, it has language, you have the education and the creativity to turn the tide. If you have asked such questions then do the next step. Be a leader.

It is called crossing the river .
All the A level defence living snob american immitating deserve to be taught there staus in the world

``And sadly cogs don`t have any social significance or have they? ``

They do. You are just stuck in your granddad`s mindframe where ``GORA`` was his master and he his colonial slave. If you were in North America, you would have found out that it is about ``You`` only and not the entire social hierarchical baggage you bring from the old-world. Isn`t that the whole point to come to the new world anyway? to leave your granddad and his demons on the dusty old streets of lahore/karachi/whatever.

[obviously, knowing who you are and how you want to build your life (on what ideas and mythology) is no easy game.]

integration, assimilation and stuff are details that come later.