Deprivation

Hilarious, Tragic.

At the end of the day, my dear, why bother with men at all (as brutish and cruel as they are)? Perhaps the narrator should find that lovelorn college girl, clasp her to her bosom, and run off to the powerful hand showers together. But I`m afraid she would get bored eventually. Why? Because she finds men irresistable, and she likes to feel superior.

thank you everybody. i wasn`t too sure i should send this piece in but i`m glad i did. thanks bina :)

temporal:

heh! this article was written a while ago, more than a year i think, and definitely before i got married. i wrote it when i was thinking of getting married. and as for the arif article, i have found more blatant (and physically painful) ways of paying him back :)

kamran :

the biggest reason to get married? you`re kidding right?

azizs :

of course i remember romiet and julio. first time i got to die on stage. and i also found something the other day you might remember, a poem from you to me called `friendship`. it read

friendship is niceship
when i look at you
i want to puke

and so on ....:))
we were in class ten at the time. i also found a poem from saad that read

`lovidy love la table tennis
lovidly love and i hit the ball
gonna play table tennis wahoo yeah`

and a letter from amir maskatiya adressed to
`the wierd girl with the crooked nose`

hope you are well.
shandana

I`m thinking of starting the Shandana fan club. Great piece yet again, glad to see you remembered Julio and Romiet. Keep making us think and feel.

Aziz

SameerJB #18

If you are dumb, I am dumber….:)
Spell binding stuff by Ghulam Farid…. Saraiki, by the way, is one of my favorite languages…can’t speak it, but I do understand it a little bit…the reason…. well, you would know anyway….right? saraiki zakirs?

The only thing I have ever heard by pathana khan is mayda ishk ve tooN mayda yaar ve tooN.. also by Ghulam Farid – I think?

sometimes we just need to get over ourselves to be truly good writers.

This is SUPERB writing!

Thank you Shandana.

- Umair

Kamran, Kamran, Kamran
Rubina-esque Kamran:

I would have imagined you to be the last person to enquire about the ``first`` reason. Wake up, yaar, smell the salt. (Hint: Oscar Wilde, commenting on seeing Niagara Falls for the first time, said ``It`s the second biggest disappointment in American matrimonial life``).

Also, perhaps I was not clear. Am not hinting
at trouble in Paradise.

regards

Dear Sir/Madam fhn:

Welcome to the Chowk. FYI, Shandana is married, till the last bulletin came in, to her second love, Arif Abrar, who occassionally sufaces on the Chowk, too.



KAISA PYAR--addendum:

Shandana, despite what you said in the beginning, I have a nagging suspicion that there is more to this than the obvious. Could it be that at least one, possible two statements in Arif`s witty piece irked you?

regards

The experience that is Shandana Minhas...I finally see what all the hype is about. Very dark and very affecting.

Have to agree with Temporal...if art imitates life...then perhaps there is trouble in paradise (if one can call marriage that). I sincerely hope not.

In a response to another article: ``...the loneliness we all feel, which is probably the second greatest reason to want to get married.``

Shandana, what do you think is the first greatest reason?

-!Kamran!-

re: Stateman

i agree that what i said might be a little dismissive and a bit too packed (esp w/ that death of god line which -note to Uncle M- was just a reference to how even religious people have to stucture there lives around the market rather than the wrath of God) but those are the things that came to me when i read this piece, so i blurted out loud.

what i said is not immature. skepticism is a sign of experience not immaturity. i haven`t given up on love...just have a healthier attitude about it ;)

Dear Shandana,

I hope that someone somewhere finally has the sense to cradle the jagged pieces of your soul and give you the security and the love that you deserve. I mean that because there are so few honest people in this snakepit of ours that we call Pakistan, and it takes not only honesty but courage -- very rare courage -- to write the way you do. Our wishes, as always, are with you.

cynical passion and bitter indifference...and I thought the combination wasn`t possible.

I feel like moving back to Karachi.

To Day,mid-night between 14 th & 15th August,52 years earlier Pakistan had already become a nation,while Indians were counting sec. to 12 am.Does that make nation of Pakistan atleast a day older than new nation of India??????I am glad that i never experienced rule by the Brit.So happy independence to Pak. & India!

I am sorry for inadvertantly clicking my Post 7 & 8,causing double post.

Goga,Mubasshir your emphasis on realities & Delusions respectively are scathing ,immature & sound resighined &burnt out.You sound preety young to give up on LOVE.

Bina,being poetic, suave I dont understand you too could call someone ``Jackass`` for asking to write about LOVE.I agree with you about the powerful writing of Shandhana,but she too draws her fire from the treachery of full of slums city.

Unfortunately all of you are scarred (Hopefully temporarily)by harshness that you see around you .

Unhe kaliyon ko haq hai lutfe baharan ka

Jo kaliyan ibtedaye umr se katon me palte hain



Penicillin the most potent at the time of its discovery(Alexander Fleming)didnt grow in a clean,sterile dish but in the rotten mould left overnight.

Chowk has become the meeting place for complainers and for Western minded self-deprecation. Only a homeless would tell the harsh realities of Capitalism who I see in the New York subway everyday. And in the once mighty Russia, people are devouring pig fat to live. There is no perfect solution. Fortune and misfortune coexist everywhere. Accepting the reality might be of some consolation. Going to Rwanda might also have humbling effects before pilgrimages to the ``pristine`` West. Happy Independence Day by the way.

speaking of deprivation; Happy Independence Day to all.