Bombay, personally

gujjubania #47
You didnot tell me if you were old enough to vote?

With reference to Gujjubania`s post... it is true that Sadna is quite the enigma ... in person she is one of the nicest sweetest people I have come across... but her posts here on chowk are so hate filled that she stands in league of the people like Gujjubania.

yasser,
i have every intention of responding to your post, but am running late for a meeting. .so it will have to wait until i have more free time on my hands. .perhaps tonight.

until then can we all please hold off on the negative language that is permeating this particular offshoot. .

thanks!
ana

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

A FEW REQUESTS TO THE AUTHOR
(especially since more articles on this topic are promised).

1) Please make the article as original as possible, and not full re-gurgitated comments from secular, chattering folks about shivsena etc. This can be easily done without visiting mumbai.

2) Directly skip how the ``common folk`` like you because you are a pakistani, unless there is a further interesting point to it. This has become cliched by now.

3) Please avoid lazy comparisons of karachi is the same as mumbai. We all know that the Dharavi and Korangi are similar. Do more non-obvious comparison that your visit made possible.

4) Avoid name dropping unless it adds to the value of the article. (And please, khadi-gramodyog commission is so irrelvent..except in writing about why it should be sissolved..have you visited their shop in prime real-estate area of Mumbai? Its like morgue).

5) Reread the article for sentences such as ``visit to what seems to be Karachi`s vibrant, charismatic, long-lost twin``, and ponder... multiple adjectives, why did I do that? Is it becuase it sounds cool? Does it mean anything really?

My aim is to read something great. I cant write well, but you can. So please consider my opinion and maybe you will have better article, (or no article).

And Manto, Nooralain, aisha sadna etc please get off this board, take it elsewhere. Chowk Stafff ought to reject your interacts as per the guidlines.

Ana,

Your post makes perfect sense and I agree with you 100%... but the name calling you were referring to does not exist... and if telling someone to go to a Hindutva Website or calling them sinister when they say things like I am not answerable to Pakistanis is hardly name calling... I suggest you read what some of the people from India have been saying about me and my family on the board in question...

Please acknowledge that I have not responded by making generalizing dismissive comment about the entire Indian population.... nor did I start it here on this board. Sadna`s #25 is indicative of the venomous snakes of hatred and bigotry against Pakistanis that reside in her head.

-YLH

ferozek

I have no desire to continue this...

I suggest you read Sadna`s post #25... the only reason she posted on this board was to vent her own weird suspicions and ideas about Pakistan.

yasser:

here`s what frustrates me about this whole thing: the fact that when you are having a discussion in an academic spirit, or challenging someone in an academic spirit, you temporarily depart from the academic and go for the jugular. and no, this does not apply to you alone.

yes, i have always wished you well, and i will continue to do so. and yes, `i am not answerable to you or any pakistani` (that is the correct wording) is dismissive, but sadna has also replied to pakistanis on occasion. and she has been able to dialogue with us, even IF we don`t agree with each other, and sometimes without rancor. if we think about what mittarji says about the spirit of dosti, is this not what we should be encouraging?

there are plenty of indians and pakistanis at chowk who don`t feel that they are answerable to one another, who dismiss each other or create further distance by what freud refers to as `the narcissism of minor differences`. and this website has always had a diversity of views and people. therefore i think it was unfortunate for you to suggest that sadna take her views to a hindutva website regardless of how anti-pakistan anyone perceived that to be. and it was unfortunate that quite a few of your responses to sadna were challenging not just what she wrote, but her character in such a way that she responded in the manner that she did. which is no less unfortunate.

to question my behavior as curious is fine. i cannot be accused of not being sympathetic or empathetic to pakistanis though. . .there are innumerable occasions when i have questioned those who throw keechar our way, challenged them. and you know a little something of what I am about, my history with pakistan as well as my family`s history in pakistan. . .i can just as well say that i am not answerable to any pakistani as well. i don`t. and there are pakistanis on chowk who feel they are not answerable to each other. should they not go to a website of their own then. .what would that website be called?

if we strive to be in the spirit of dosti, if we want to be in the spirit of peace then it behooves all of us to dialogue towards that direction. if there are those who post inaccurate statistics and information. . .rather than refuting them by attacking their character, refute them with evidence to the contrary. if they stand by their convictions, they stand by them. we can`t change people to how we think on chowk yasser, but telling them to take their talk somewhere else also suggests an intolerance that we accuse them of. it`s those small steps we take that are more meaningful than the big leaps at times.

if pakistan is going to get better. . .it has to begin from the inside rather than the outside. no keechar or whatever someone writing on a website in america or anywhere in the world dishes our way can impede that. they can try to break us, and it hurts, but you can`t let it stop you from moving on. and i continue to wish you well.
love,
ana

re: Mantolives and Sadna

Enough is enough and what is said, is water under the bridge. Both of you are being stubborn for reasons of pride more than any other reason and this whole episode is becoming dogmatic to the point of entering the realm of diminishing returns. Since neither is willing to retract their words or step back from their stated views, this issue has already run its course.

Words are said on Chowk, which cause pain and resentment and we have all suffered through the slights of debate on Chowk, but remember one thing; never personalize the issues for any reason, because when you make the issues personal, you lose your objectivity and the only thing, which suffers as a result is your own argument. Both of you have nothing to gain from verbal behavior and everything to lose. Both of you are intelligent enough to realize that you have walked into a cul-de-sac and now, there is only that far you can move ahead this verbal tete-a-tete.

In time, none of this will matter.

Ciao

#37
No need to be exhausted on my account :). As for `actually talking to each other`, that is largely up to the author. It would be interesting hear her personal impressions(good or bad) of Mumbai/Bombay.

Sadna`s protest is like `Ulta chor kotwal ko dantay`

PPS...

It would be great if Nooralain would point what exactly frustrated her so much ...

PS Please note that Sadna didn`t say : `I am not answerable to Yasser Latif Hamdani` ... or `I am not answerable to Manto`... which she should have if she feels I have wrongly indulged in name calling.

Instead she chose to throw up a bigoted racist comment against the 140 million people who call themselves Pakistanis.

Nooralain,

Thanks for the appreciation of the pic.

Perhaps you should visit the board to see for yourself. There was a general debate about the Muslim League that was going on.... Sadna made a comment... it was challenged in an academic spirit... because she didn`t have an answer... She responded I am not answerable to Pakistanis, they don`t control my voting rights

Because of the sheer nonsense value of that comment... she was told to take her business to a Hindutva website if that indeed is her view. Now she is acting all indignant....

We are all well aware of what she is.

-YLH

#36
and i wanted to make that point, but i failed to do so. i get so weary of this all. . .of challenging this name-calling business and not having dialogue. and i was definitely more frustrated about how yasser responded to you. if you don`t feel answerable to anyone name-calling or not, then that should be the end of it. but i think that considering this is a board where someone from `the other side` is talking about a trip to mumbai, and considering a whole lot of other things, isn`t it time we all actually started talking to each other. i know you do, sadna. even if we don`t always agree.

anyways. . .exhaustion seeps in. . .and miles to go before i sleep.

#35
``one can question what they`re saying though, can`t they. i don`t think that`s wrong is it?but if you are not answerable to us, you aren`t, and that`s that. there was no need for name-calling``

Interacting obviously means answering queries and in my memory I have rarely refused to answer peoples challenges. But when name-calling goes on regardless of whether one is not interacting or not, regardless of the replies one gives or not, regardless of any substantiation one gives for one`s POV, I am certainly not answerable.