Just another cry in the dark

F_K # 116

Let me return the compliment. I enjoy your postings too.

I have recently started visiting Zeemax`s site [angelfire.com/zine/gomal] and I have enjoyed your and Sameer`s contributions re. Saahir, on it. I am trying to learn romantic and cynical [i.e., attitudinally cynical] poetry. In no time at all I am going to be able to understand the sha`irs you have quoted over a period of time in your posts on the Chowk. And, I am going to understand Sameer!

Now about mankaa: I know of two or three. One is the mankaa in a malaa, a tasbeeh, a rosary. That sounds non-relevant here.

The other has something to do with the serpents, Naags in other words.

The third possibility is the hikmat`s ``munak`aa``, which reminds me of Kafir_Khan`s ``Gulqand``. Maybe that`s what you meant. Perhaps not, although ``uskay lainay say bohtouN ka bhhalla hota``.

So, perhaps in relevance to my username you did mean Naag`s mankaa.

Now, you know that those kind of things used to be found in Lady Abdul Qadir`s (from Chennai) Urdu novels. Sheesh Naag is a much nobler being. You know of the cow/bull stabilizing the earth on its horns. Sheesh Naag according to our (Indu) mythology has the same function. It keeps the earth in balance --although it seems to be failing in Kashmir and Chowk! But...



WASSALAM from the Rajdhani

[What is the return greeting for ``Wassalam``?]

sheeshnaag:# 115

Your sense of humour is S U P E R B.I enjoy your postings.

Can you tell me where to find the best munkaa?

__________________________________________________

WASSALAAM

Present#114

You do yourself in jury. Your English is quite passable.

I understood your English well although I didn`t quite get the reference to it being political; non-sense or otherwise.

A good example of political nonsense, written in atrocious English.

Mohajir #106,107,108

Oh yaar, ab muaff bhi karo. KNOWLEDGE is not in the newspapers. Read some books and discuss. This way you have just relegated yourself to a paper clipper. Somebody reminded you of this and all the brain dead cried, let it be, he is supplying a useful service. But so does a scavanger and our sundaas cleaner. You don`t wish to be placed in that category, do you?

You have as good a brain as anybody`s on the Chowk. Then why waste it and be satisfied with a niche of clipping service? This also indicates laziness of the mind. I doubt that you are only, in a narcisstic manner, in love with seeing your name on the Chowk. Best Wishes.

yj

KuntPatel#110

``che, che,``. This from the beneficiary of the Gandhi`s legacy? Gandhi, who started working with che, che, at the launch of his political career and who had a strange ``fetish-ee`` love for che, che, all his life. The gentleman would regularly have an enema before going to bed!

I love the man but both you and I know that Gandhi had an inexplicable fascination with che, che. Shame on you mocking the endeared fetish of that Maha`tam`aa!

In fact, why talk about others, YOU are full of it.

The famous Sufi poet-philosopher, Baba Bullehé Shah, talked about the external ``Paki`` and internal ``Pleeti``. Clean and Paak outside but full of sit inside! Think about it.

What is a pun? I didn`t see any.

Kant Patel!

No. They leave behind and don`t flush.):

Krashid #109

Rather amusing! Did not know your bio-data includes janitorial fling accross the border. Chhee, Chhee :-)! Pun intended. Cool off kiddo.

Kant...

Mohajir#108

Ayasha Jalal is Pakistani and can have the guts to write all these.

Not like Indian cowards who are numb and mumb on all human right abuses in their country.

Very democratic and secular.

Even their sh-it when it fall in commode is in the form of democracy and secularism alternately and also stinks like that everywhere.

http://www.ishius.com/ayesha.htm

Ayesha Jalal: Taking On Pakistan`s Hero, Then Taking the Heat

By JONATHAN MAHLER

At first glance, Ayesha Jalal seems like an unlikely agitator. She is a tiny, angular woman whose small frame is accentuated by her flowing beige shalwar kameez, a traditional Pakistani outfit consisting of a loose tunic and baggy trousers. Her scholarly credentials -- Wellesley, Oxford, Harvard -- are purebred establishment.



Ayesha Jalal





But in recent years, Ms. Jalal has taken on the academic and political mainstream in her native Pakistan as well as the administration of Columbia University, where she taught history for seven years. And while her historical work on South Asia has elicited anonymous threats, it also earned her a MacArthur Fellowship (commonly called the genius grant) this year, worth $265,000, no strings attached, and a reputation as one of the most innovative scholars in the history of the region.

What has angered so many Muslims here and in her homeland is Ms. Jalal`s assertion that the revered founding father of Pakistan, the slender, eloquent Mohammed Ali Jinnah, had feet of clay. She argues that the 1947 partition of India -- the event that opened the door for the creation of Pakistan -- was an accident, a colossal miscalculation. What`s more, she says that Jinnah never wanted a separate Muslim state; he was only using the threat of independence as a political bargaining chip to strengthen the voice of the Muslim minority in the soon-to-be sovereign India.

For proof, she maintains, look no further than Jinnah`s reaction to the partition. ``The state-sponsored nationalist attitude seems to suggest that what Jinnah had dismissed as a mutilated, moth-eaten Pakistan is what they were actually fighting for,`` the 42-year-old scholar explained in a recent interview, adding that Jinnah twice rejected what turned out to be the final model for Pakistan.

Contd

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37076-2000Jun21.html

The major mission unifying Pakistan`s army is its rivalry with India, the Hindu-dominated neighbor from which Pakistan was split in 1947 at the end of British colonial rule in the sub-continent. The army strongly backs the ``liberation`` by armed guerrillas of Indian-ruled Kashmir--the only Muslim-majority region in India.

``We have proof that these organizations are promoting specific causes,`` said Maulana Fazlur Rahman Khalil, an Islamic leader, in a recent interview with a Pakistani newspaper. If women are allowed to work and travel, he said, ``it destroys our system, our families. Fathers suspect daughters. Husbands suspect wives.`` In Europe, he asserted, women are ``ruined in the name of freedom`` and ``change husbands every night.``

Rahman said also that he opposes the proliferation of satellite dishes in Pakistan, because they spread ``obscenity and dirt, which is being promoted by the Western world. . . . I say don`t impose the culture of others on my people.`` In some areas of Pakistan, Islamic activists have destroyed satellite dishes and cable TV operations.

Creation of Pakistan on the basis of `Two-Nation theory` (TNT) was wrong.

http://www.dawn.com/2000/06/22/top15.htm

Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain has said that the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 proves that the Two-Nation Theory of Pakistan`s founders was a ``farce`` and ``it was the biggest fraud played with the Muslims of India.``

``Events after the creation of Pakistan have proved that it was a wrong theory,`` he said, adding that if the theory was correct, he would be convinced only when the government agreed to open borders and allow Indian Muslims to settle in Pakistan and repatriated stranded Pakistanis living in Bangladeshi camps.

Talking to a delegation of intellectuals and professors from the Sub-continent, which visited the MQM International Secretariat, Mr Hussain claimed that history had proved that the Two-Nation Theory was wrong.

No name of the delegation members, or from which city they had come, was mentioned in a press release issued on Wednesday from the MQM International Secretariat.

Saying that there was no future of Pakistan, which was disintegrated in 1971 and whose remaining part is ``on the verge of catastrophe,`` the MQM chief said that East Bengal was the first to support the creation of Pakistan based on the Two-Nation Theory.

But the same part rectified its mistake by separating itself in 1971 thus ``proving that the theory was a farce``.

He said the supporters of the theory were now asking the stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh to opt for Bangladeshi citizenship or settle in any Muslim country instead of inviting them back to Pakistan.

``On what ideological basis are you offering such an advice to the stranded Pakistanis? Does this advice relate to the concept of the Two-Nation Theory or does it negate the very concept?,`` he asked.

He said that if we analyse the history of the Pakistan Movement, it emerged that virtually all Muslim majority provinces of the present-day Pakistan had opposed the creation of Pakistan. He said only the Sindh Assembly had supported the creation of Pakistan and that too with a majority of only one vote.

Mr Hussain said that all those who had supported the concept of the Two-Nation Theory and Pakistan, including Mr GM Syed, had been labelled as ``traitors`` in Pakistan.

``Mr Fazl-i-Haq, the Lion of Bengal, who had presented the Pakistan Resolution, was labelled as a ``traitor,`` the Sindhis were labelled as ``traitors``, the Balochs were labelled as ``traitors``; and now the Mohajirs have also been labelled as ``traitors,`` he said.

The MQM chief said that the Pakistan army had forced the people of East Pakistan to separate by carrying out their massacre in 1970 and raping their women. Similarly, he said, the army had marched against Balochs and Sindhis and now it had been targeting Mohajirs for last eight years.

``The army operation against Mohajirs, which commenced on June 19, 1992, was also a negation of the Two-Nation Theory,`` he said.

Mr Hussain also said that the formation of a nation on the basis of religion was fundamentally wrong because if the religion was the basis for nationhood then more than 45 independent and sovereign Muslim states would not have been the members of the United Nations as separate and independent states.

He said though it was claimed that Pakistan was being created for 100 million Muslims of India, it became the homeland of Muslims of the Muslim majority provinces only.

``Today, if we compare the population of Muslims living in Pakistan with that of the Muslims living in India then we see that the population of Muslims in India is much more than the total Muslim population of Pakistan.

It means that the Two-Nation Theory has failed to provide protection and security to the majority of Muslims of the Sub-continent because the number of Muslims living in India is greater than the total Muslims of Pakistan,`` he said. ``If the Muslims of India were to remain under the Hindu majority then why were they taught the doctrine of the Pakistan Movement and the Two-Nation Theory,?`` he asked.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54456-2000Jun14.html

In view of recent posts, I found the appearance of this news item amusing.

sac #102

Just an afterthought: ``tree-hugging...streets of Seattle`` I sometimes have a suspicion that `mullahs` of all colors in this enlightened land are fundamentally not very different from those we see back home, though I could be wrong.

Sadhana

sac #102

``Iraqi childs` parents``

So judgement is pronounced on whose self-interest is supreme? BTW, the Iraqi child`s parents could well be as close to extinction as the child itself.

``I strongly believe in the ineffectiveness of government or commission controls that trample on the rights of the individual.``

I agree. All these township regulations down to the color of garbage bags, the exact shape and shade of bricks one can use on house fronts, whether the car should be parked facing toward to away from the curb, how loud a pet dog can bark :-(. But the Supreme Court has recently held that all types of trash cannot be prevented from coming on cable TV at any our of the day, now thats a right to be upheld at even the cost of any number of innocent young minds.

Sorry, now you got me started... Since we seem to understand where we each stand, lets agree to meet here after 10 years and compare notes :-).

Sadhana

re sadna #101:

``Is an Iraqi child who has nothing to do with all this deserving of his banishment from the human race?``

Aha but what about the Iraqi Children`s parents? Haven`t they decided for whatever self-interest not to protest against Saddam`s rule for so long at the cost of their and their child`s suffering?

Anyway I agree we are definitely at cross-purposes here :) I am definitely not the heartless Citizen kane denying the postive aspects of `human` societies and you are definitely not the tree-hugging floozy running bleary eyed through the streets of Seattle(now wouldn`t that be funny :). I strongly believe in the ineffectiveness of government or commission controls that trample on the rights of the individual. Period.

re farangi_kush:

Thanks for the link. Here is something you may want to think about. The Chinese discovered America.The electric bulb was invented by the British and laser-eye surgery was performed first by Al-Hazen(made that one up :). In fields of intellectual endeavour people build upon the works of others usually incrementally. Important as it is to acknowledge the contributions of ones predecessors, most of the acclaim is reserved for the individual who has the segacity to cut through the arcane and the obtuse and make something available that is comprehensible to you and I. The solution to most problems exists and odds are that someone has solved them already but if the common man doesn`t understand or relate to it in his own experience it is useless. Hence the importance of people like Adam Smith or Darwin.

later

-sac