Madspeak

The begging racket is one of the most common which plagues the city and it involves the police. Traffic signals are rented out to the beggar gangs, the police collects the rent. Beggars are everywhere, not a single place is spared. In shopping areas, wearing dirty clothes, standing in the sun, exposing disabilities. Stories abound of finding out that beggars actually multimillionaires living lavishly, owning several buildings. On days of  religious events gather around at churches, temples and mosques. Many of the beggars are spies "hiding in plain sight". That does not work anymore, because everyone suspects that behind the guise of a beggar they really are someone else. They act insane and pretend to be so many other things, all of them are really very rich with huge bank accounts. If they are exposed, either they move to some other part of the city or they kill the people who know the truth about them. The really destitute and extremely poor people never dare beg becaus...

Turkey lost its empire after World War I. The empire comprised of the entire Arab world and some European countries. The Khilafat Movement essentially was to help Turkey in World War I because they were fighting the British - as the saying goes the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  Turkey never got back its empire, it was occupied by the Allies who had won the war. The Arabs never forgave the Muslims of India because they were supporting their oppressors.  This has had a long term impact on Pakistan in its relationship with Arab countries. Yasser Arafat the  late Palestinian leader never made an official visit to Pakistan, he simply stopped over on his way to India. The Arabs saw Islam as a threat to their freedom, which is why they made the Arab league. They saw the Allies as their liberators.  They much rather be ruled by non-Muslims than by Muslims The Arabs hated the term Muslim Ummah, For them it meant being ruled by some non-Arab Muslim country. The Arabs mad...

The cellphone has become an integral part of Pakistani life, it is hard to imagine life without it anymore.  Every single person is using them, particularly people by those who have a great deal of free time and lots of people to talk to. Gossip gets around fairly fast. I was in a bus, there was this lady who had this phone stuck to her ear and she was asking virtually about everyone in her family and group of friends and telling them all kinds of stories. No sooner she was diconnected because she used up the credit, she added credit resumed her gossiping. All kinds of people, many who are doing fairly menial jobs are busy receiving and making calls. People love staying connected with anyone they know. There are others who have few friends and want to talk, I received one and that unknown person simply wanted to hear me talk about anything. He even went so far as to ask me to lie to him,  because there was really nothing to talk about. He simply wanted to hear a voice. Lonel...