Mother Teresa’s Moment of Truth Re: # 1

masadi

Masadi got inflamed like his revengeful Salfi concept of Allah which he pretends to take care of with his dagger drawn or a suicide jacket in place; otherwise the truth is "Every angel has his past and every devil his future" and vice verse, of course.

I wonder what Shariah would say about a son born without father? In fact all Muslims claim to be 'Farzandaane Touheed' (offspring of Oneness). Any how: Why is it so baffling when an unmarried mother assigns her birth to God's doing?

And, question of questions: Is not 'Truth' above God. As it is, has not Mother Teresa became all the more respectable by speaking the truth about herself?


Morality is doing what is right, regardless what we are told.
Religious dogma is doing what we are told, no matter what is right."

Musharraf\'s Options: Time Running Out Re: # 14

Echo

"Who among us is not familiar with the stampede which occurs at Desi parties when announcement for food is made. This phenomena is unique ONLY to Indians & Pakistanis."

This is the 'Commando culture', moderate and enlightened!

A commando trying to don a mantle of civilized human being? How can it be possible as Ghalib had said:

"Saraapa rehn-e-ishq wa naaguzeere-e-ulfat-e-hasti
Ibaadat barq ki karta hoon aur afsos haasil ka"

The Pakies worship the Holy Atom Bomb (I actually saw them offering 'namaaz' before the replica of Chaagai on the Islamabad Highway) can get only a Commando to rule them. The Mullah-military rule is the natural result of the Paky Jingoism-cum-obscurantism.

Lage raho echo bhaai!

Musharraf\'s Options: Time Running Out Does any body know how much investment was made in this a.bomb business from the public account?

This Is For The Men Who\'ll Roll Their Eyes Re: # 144

Thank you dear for agreeing with me. In fact we all, if not presently, would be old people, if life permits.

I am sad to learn that your mother is seriously ill and that you are now living apart from your husband and children. I am passing through a somewhat similar situation, rather verse. My wife has become my worst enemy, but I have sometimes to live with her to look after a mentally disabled daughter who loves me very much and is just now sleeping in a chair by my bed. O, God, help us all. Young or old, we all need sympathy and help.

Please back off, Benazir! Re: # 221

"It was a victory for the feudal-fundo-fauji nexus/TRINITY of the West Pakistan elite who could now offset the challenges by eliminating 90% of the middle class vote".

Very well said dear Rozaiba!

The hope of the middle class lies today with the lawyers' movement for restoration of rule of law, justice and the constitution.

Please back off, Benazir! Re: # 182

You know he is sher but a Kashmiri one, whereas Javed Hashmi is an ethnic Arab as his very name indicates.

Interestingly, Shujaat has tendered him a good advice that he should perform Umra before coming to Pakistan. The catch in it is too obvious. I don't think Nawaz will ever go that way despite his show of religionism.

This Is For The Men Who\'ll Roll Their Eyes Re: # 142

guarana

Your friend's: why; I will tell a story of a mother. An old widowed lady living in our neighbourhood in Lahore came to our home one day and told the following story.

"I have two sons, both married and with families, one living in France and the other in America. First I went to America to live with my elder son there. I did not know English and no body knew Punjabi there, except my son who had seldom time to give company to me. So I got bored there.

Then I went to France to live with my younger son, but the same story was repeated there.

So I came back to Lahore to reside in a house purchased by my sons wherein every facility was provided, but there too I felt lonely, depressed and bored. At last I came to stay with a former servant of ours who had a big family where I found everything and am happy now."

So dear gaurana; you may not need the help of your parents but they may need your help, and, certainly, your company and it is your moral duty to take care of them.

Please back off, Benazir! Re: # 14

Mush and his lackeys are giving an inkling that he would doff wardi off after having been re-elected as a president in uniform. He had lied on doffing wardi once before will he not do so again when he has not even promised this time so openly? But they say 'everything is fair in love and war' and more so in politics indeed. These power-seekers are all trying to cheat one another, as well as, the people who see the dirty game helplessly.

This Is For The Men Who\'ll Roll Their Eyes Re: # 132

Thank you dear Naqsh: I read only its introduction and found it so thought-proving, surprisingly from a woman's (?) pen.

This Is For The Men Who\'ll Roll Their Eyes Re: # 118

SaimaShah

Excellent analysis! I never thought that a woman can think before I read your posts on this thread. We talk of clash of civilizations, but forget the 'clash of sexes' which the corporations may lead us to, invidiously breaking the very institution of family, the foundation of human civilization.

News just in An excellent satire, inter alia, on 'breaking news' in talk-shows on our TV.

A naked dog! Hahaha! Why not show it live toe-chained with a she-dog, without a burqa, in broad day light: a more entertaining show than Lasi Duffer and the Burqa Bibi, with imami khan sand witched in between, enjoying both ways.

A real break-news: power went off.

This Is For The Men Who\'ll Roll Their Eyes Re: # 107

masadi

It is superb dear masadi. But is woman a human at all as it is clamouring for woman rights and not human rights?

#106 by Rafia87

"it is deplorable 2 c the followers of our beautiful religion ISLAM(which elevated the status of women) continiously hampering the freedom of women..."

Freedom and status: you are mixing up dear.

Think about a pros and a sex-slave. Nothing
hampers a pros from freedom but what is her status in Islam and our culture. On the other hand our prevalent culture does not allow sex-slave, a woman deprived of all human rights.

I don't know what you mean by Islam. As far as Quran is concerned it considers man to be superior (afzal) than the woman and holds him as a soveriegn in the family to whom the wife (or wives) are answerable - vide verse 34 of Soora Nisa.

This Is For The Men Who\'ll Roll Their Eyes Re: # 71

"who happens to have extraneous baggage, their only thinking organ, hanging between legs"

Let me add 'ever ready to land into the thigh-land pressure-cooker...'

This Is For The Men Who\'ll Roll Their Eyes Re: # 38

dawa-i-dill

Excuse me. You seem to have gone wild like Hafsa girls. You forget that the gender relationship and for that matter, the institution of marriage, is purely a cultural function which has nothing to do with religion. As you may be knowing, the Prophet of Islam was nursed in 'baadiah' by Mai Haleemah (?), a baddu woman. The Prophet and all his good companions (Khulfaa-e-Raashidah) were born, probably, of the wed locks which were contracted before advent of Islam under the prevalent Arab culture. Your wishful thinking would not change the culture. So please do not get wild and fill up all the 'chowk' with your 'dawa' with its over dozing.

Btw, what are, in your view, the duties' if any, of the wife prescribed in Shariah when the husband is bound to provide maintenance to her even when she is rebellious (Nashoos, in Koranic terms)?

No offence intended. In fact I appreciate some of your posts on the subject, especially the one at #24.

Regards

This Is For The Men Who\'ll Roll Their Eyes Re: # 31

Dawa-i-dil

"in islam men and women are not equal..women are at top !!!!)....."

Which Islam and which 'top'?

Jinnah and the Islamic State – Setting the Record Straight Re: # 341

montolives

You are right that I have not read much either about Gandhi or Jinnah. As a young boy I had seen Jinnah very close by so much so that I could have touched him, but I had got too overwhelmed by his transcendent personality to do so. In fact I never saw another leader like him all my life. As regards opposition against him and the Pakistan movement by the so called Islamists who can know better than my generation.

I will read your article at leisure. Meanwhile I would like you to read an interesting article by Ehjaz Haider which appeared in the Daily Times a few days back:

"THE OTHER COLUMN: Not enough — Ejaz Haider
What does one do when an entire people decide to become grumpy or Thornapplesque. It is difficult to send millions on a vacation, except perhaps to Antarctica; they can’t all be sent to shrinks either

Growing up, life was simple.

Bhutto Sahib had emerged as a Messiah, Punjabi cinema was trying to be erotic and failing only because of lousy production and the size of heroines, people generally considered it bad form to blow themselves up, the Ahmadiyya were still Muslims and bootleggers were unheard of.

In other words, God was in His Heaven and all was right with this country and we didn’t need a Browning to tell us this.

This was also the time when we were confident of being Muslim. In any case, it was easy enough to be one. It didn’t prevent us from smiling, laughing and enjoying all that makes life worth living. The elders would pray for us while we did our own thing; the chidings, when they came, were begotten of affection, and we all said our little prayers at night to a benign and understanding God while smoking on the sly, truanting and generally being naughty.

Then at some point we decided that we were not Muslim-enough, a vexing thought that has since snowballed into an avalanche under which we all lie buried and asphyxiated.

One doesn’t need to be a shrink to know how debilitating the feeling of inadequacy can be. If we are supposed to be Muslim but aren’t Muslim-enough, it must make us irritable and mad.

Indeed, the feeling of not being anything-enough can be killing as Brutus Thornapple, the born loser, will tell anyone. My personal favourite is the one in which Thornapple is on a shrink’s couch and the shrink asks: “So, you think you suffer from feelings of inadequacy. How severe would you say they are?”

Thornapple replies: “They’re so severe... Even my inferiority complex is inadequate!”

Not being enough-anything no one wants to be. Women who think they are not endowed-enough want to change that and are, in most cases, prepared to go through much trouble and pain. For what: to be enough, adequate.

From the emails I get despite all the firewalls and filters, it seems to me that even men have been afflicted with the I-ain’t-adequate syndrome. There are ways and means to enhance the sense of manhood and from the traffic of unwanted mail it appears there is a market for this fraud. Clearly, some men are prepared to take all sorts of risks to become man-enough, adequate. The mind boggles.

But imagine. If the feeling of being not-enough in the secular — by which I mean biological — domain can make people accept so much risk and absorb so much pain, what might man not be capable of doing unto himself and others if he were struck by the thought one day, as we seem to have been, that he is not Muslim-enough?

Such then has been our plight. Add to this the fact that every time we think we are now Muslim-enough, someone stands up and warns, “Damned be him who says enough!”

Such a one is also normally a gentleman who has taken it upon himself to tell us that all our troubles are owed to our remaining inadequate and because there is not enough Islam in this land. If empirical evidence is anything to go by, and by this I mean the legislation, the increased and increasing pieties, the number of mosques and seminaries, the rhetoric, the extremism and a host of other indicators, then I would take the presumption of saying that at no time in this land has there been more Islam than there is now and I include the period right up to the time of Mohammad bin Qasim to which our history textbooks retrace the Two-Nation theory.

And yet, we contest our quantification of how much Islam there already is and how much more of it is needed, an exercise whose absurdity reminds me of the two Sardars on a motorbike fighting for the window seat.

It seems like we have reached a point where God is either not in Heaven or all is not right with us. Since I am not aware of the current position of the Lord, I suspect the trouble is more imminent than transcendent which, translated into plain English means all’s not right with us.

In normal life when someone is agitated or frustrated or unhappy with the state of affairs, we advise him to relax, go on a vacation, let his hair down and so on. But what does one do when an entire people decide to become grumpy or Thornapplesque. It is difficult to send millions on a vacation, except of the kind that was available to people in the former Soviet Union; neither can millions be sent to shrinks. What to do?

It’s a tough one. Those who have brought us to this pass insist that we are suffering because we are inadequate; but the more we try to be adequate the more inadequate we become. The equation is insoluble. Small wonder that some of us have decided to blow themselves and others up than to live with such a great feeling of inadequacy.

Life, downhill, is not simple anymore.

Ejaz Haider is Consulting Editor of The Friday Times and Op-Ed Editor of Daily Times. He can be reached at sapper@dailytimes.com.pk"

"The way to hell is paved with good intentions" as GBS had said.