Madspeak

Considering the way people protested about the building of new consulate for the USA in Karachi - only shows how fed up people of the city have become with - diplomats of not only the USA but also of other countries, who are demarcating entire city areas as if they are their private turf. It has become irritating. Not only the flow of traffic is affected but also anyone passing by the offices and residences is considered suspect as if everyone in the city is a terrorist. A perfectly law abiding citizen is treated like a common criminal. It would be better if the consulates, all the foreigners who feel insecure in Karachi, would be start living elsewhere. It is a matter to note that as long as the Cold War lasted, the friendly face of all envoys was seen. There were cultural events. But as soon as the Cold War ended the envoys became blatantly obnoxious and hostile. First it was ' How to make friends and influnce people' the opposite 'How take enemies, coerce, irritate

Starting a career in advertising – every advertising agency is one man show. The person who owns the advertising agency – is the only copywriter and creative director. There is no place for anyone who chooses to be a copywriter, there never was and there never ever will be. In all companies whether they are advertising agencies or not have one thing in common the person who is the most incompetent, the most stupid is more likely to be promoted. Promotion is based the heights of incompetence one can rise to. This idea cost the life of the former Prime Minister ZA Bhutto who promoted the apparently the most idiotic generals and who had track record of complete incompetence – to the top ranking position in the army. He was none other than General Zia-ul-Haq. He overthrew ZA Bhutto’s government and had him executed. But the concept of promoting a complete moron is the fear that a smarter person would threaten the position of the person at the top. An incompetent and stup

The junta has done it again, blocking all the roads of Karachi – because of another dubious international fanfare which goes by the name of Expo 2005. The junta is above the law and has no consideration for anyone, causing huge traffic jams where should be none. Entire areas have shut off so that the movement of traffic is curtailed. Not even ambulances are allowed to get through, although have right of way, because they are on a mission to save lives. Just like the previous IDEAS exhibition where the same moronic behaviour was displayed. Whenever the existing ‘prime minister’ and ‘president’ is in the city, the entire city areas are blocked. What is worse the junta has recently increased the price of petrol has been increased by 110% and the ‘prime minister’ says inflation is only 7%. So all the people who waiting forced traffic jams with their engines running were going nowhere at all, waiting for hours before they got anywhere. Be it IDEAS, Expo 2005 or if the ‘prime

It is said that slavery has come to an end in this day and age, but nothing can be further from the truth. The large feudal lords of Sindh and Punjab are above the law in every sense. All the people working on their farms are slaves or serfs. Slavery also exists amongst the tribes, tribesmen are nothing more than slaves of their chiefs, they are not entitled to any pay for their services. What has become a threat to their way of life is industrialisation. The employment of people and paying them salaries on a monthly basis. But it will take a very long time when slavery will ever end. All these slaves have forfeited every bit of their dignity for the singular purpose of survival. Those who can escape to the city, mainly Karachi where the majority of the factories are located do so. But it takes a tremendous amount of courage to do so. The concept of industrialisation and job creation is still an alien one. The existing system can never bring about true democracy when most

When mobile phones were first introduced they were large bulky items, the size of most cordless phones of these days. But now they have shrunk in size and have so many features that fill an entire book. In the beginning they could only be owned by those who very rich, nowadays - almost everyone has them including kids. The original need for these phones was entirely business purposes just like personal computers use to be. Businessmen of large companies found the phones useful to make their deals while on the move in the chauffeur driven cars or were in not in their offices and were elsewhere. Well that was the original idea till their prices dropped and their features increased. In the beginning owning a mobile phone was a symbol of prestige, people would hauling them around in parties as if they were a luxury item. Today only those people make a show of their phones if they are really very expensive and have countless features in them although they may never use them or

What anyone chooses to believe is his (or her) choice. But faith and science canot be mxed up. Faith is a matter of personal choice - one can believe anything one - no one can challenge a belief. Science however is different. It is not a matter of what anyone believes it is a matter of observable information. Science is divided in two the theoretical and the practical. If people choose to believe that Earth is the centre of the Universe or that it is flat, it is entirely their choice. If they choose to believe that human beings did not evolve from some other creature then they have no reason. No one is forcing them to believe otherwise, matters of faith no matter how much overwhelming the evidence is against their collective belief, nothing can change that, they will continue to believe. They do not want to hear or see anything which contradicts their tenets. . Science presents information which has been observed and analysed - it can be challenged provided one has overwhelming evi

Sui the area in Balochistan from where natural gas is provided to the rest of Pakistan has been facing troubles. The trouble of the rights of Balochistan over its supply to the rest of the country have been ignored for too long. As long as there was a political solution to this issue and civilian management – the differences did not exist. If any arose they were resolved to the mutual benefit to all. But troubles have been mounting since the military took over the top management of the company. Things have become worse because the military in its ham handed way started undoing all the arrangements made which keep the peace in Balochistan. The always think guns and bullets are the answer to all the issues. Never in the history of the country has there been stoppage in the supply of natural gas to the country, but this has under happened under a military management. Wherever the military controls anything, things are bound to go to be problems. Some of the classic e

At one time the results of the examination boards of any given area was good enough for admission in any college (or university). Now the results of examination boards results are no longer considered a worthwhile qualification on the basis of which one can get an admission in a college - now college has started having entrance exams. Only if the candidates can clear the entrance exams will be they are admitted in a college. It is obvious that board examinations are no longer trusted by colleges – one of the reasons is that for every given area – the standard of education varies. It can be very poor in some parts and very high in others, the concept of a uniform standard does not exist. So if a student clears an exam of particular class from a specific examination board, it will not be the same as a student qualifying from the same class from another examination board. The owners of colleges are well aware of the rampant corruption, which exists in examination boards and their affi

There was a time scrabble use to be a board game. Of course it had all kinds of rules how it should be played. But after getting tired of the rules, we (my friends and I) would buy more scrabble games and break every rule the game had. We would have twenty blocks and come up with crazy words, which did not exist in the dictionary and some which no one used in polite company. We would laugh our heads off at the bizarre words, sometimes they would not be words instead entire phrases and even sentences. We would put several boards together and the game would never end. But coming to this day and age - the video game age - there is no flexibility no way you can make your rules - so rigid. Leave alone scrabble, we would make hash of chess. We buy as many chess games as we could and play the entire game with queens and no other pieces, the person who could wipe out the other's chess pieces would win. There was no check or checkmate, it was our version coming in with all the big

If all that we imagine were true would it not be bizarre? If all fantasies were not fantasies but very very real - then we would not have TV shows, movies and stories about them. Everything which is banned gets into the realm of fantasy. Fantasy has a price and we all love to pay for it. This one strange aspect of human nature

My brother owns a small business in USA - I tried phoning him up at his house, but he was not there - then I later I tried getting hold of him at his office. Either he or my sister-in-law. It was an educational experience. The telephone operator picked up the phone and I asked for my brother. Although both, the telephone operator and I were both speaking English - it seemed as if we were speaking two completely different languages. She, or perhaps it was a he, I could not tell, could not follow my request to let me talk to my brother or my sister-in-law. The telephone operator banged the phone, then I changed my accent made it sound very American - thanks to my exposure American TV shows - after three attempts, I was successful. The telephone operator transferred the call to my sister-in-law. Some months afterwards my brother arrived and I noticed a very marked difference in his accent and style of talking. This was not the case when he was just doing a job and before that when

The average monthly salary of a newspaper employee is US$170 (around US$ 5 per day) and there is a 1% annual increase in the salary – although the annual inflation rate of the country is 30%. Making it increasingly impossible for newspaper employees to continue working with such a low income because the raise is just simply not enough. A dismal future lies ahead for newspaper employees they are going from rags to tatters and eventually will become absolutely dirt poor. Things are very grim and judging from the attitude of the newspaper owners the situation will only get much worse as time goes by. Strangely enough, newspaper owners hire people in very senior positions who have nothing at all to do with running a newspaper, these people earn a monthly salary which is around US$7000 (almost US$240 per day) they have company maintained cars and many other perk and benefits. It is the strangest fact that those who have nothing to do with taking out the newspaper everyday are bein

General Musharraf our present dictator – (in the tradition of all preceding dictators), after having ensured that they he has consolidated his hold over the country; with the help of his traitorous cronies – he is now regularly on a world tour with an entire aircraft exclusively meant for his use and is packed with an entourage (read toadies and hangers-on) they are on ‘official trips’. The taxpayers are bearing the cost of these extremely expensive pleasure trips. As long as the general feels his job is secure, he will keep on doing this and much worse. The same money could be very well spent on so many other things, which the country desperately needs. But the money is being spent by the general and his entourage to stay in the best places and go on shopping sprees and do sightseeing. None of these trips benefit the country in any way - although the impression is given that they do. The public relations officer assigned to the entourage sends the news that the general had ‘import

Dictators have ruled Pakistan since 1958 - it is not that democracy cannot work here, it is simply not allowed to. Those who held tremendous influence and power prior to the creation of Pakistan in 1947 were the feudal lords, the tribal chieftains and later on the militant mullahs. In India the first thing which was done was to get rid of feudalism, because feudal lords because of the control over acres of land would always be in a position to get the support of those on their lands - the people would not have a choice but to vote for the person on the lands they live on. In the absence of feudalism the people had greater freedom to choose whom they wanted vote for. In Pakistan the feudal lords had insidious influence on the country's politics. Democracy was and could never be in their interest. What they did not factor in was the subsequent industrialisation of the country - this meant movement of labour off the lands into the cities. As factory workers they discovered that at th

It was assumed that humanity would eventually become much more peaceful and kinder - but the opposite is more than apparent. There are civil wars, secret wars (covert operations) there all out invasions and attempts of occupation (the reasons for them are irrelevant, those have been discussed to deathby almost everyone). There is no doubt that human beings are so violent and dangerous that not only does every country in the world have soldiers but also a police force. Although the pace of development in science and technology of humanity is formidable, but human nature has not changed in any way. The 20th Century was full of wars, the killing, the maiming and torture went on and continues to this day. Some wars are reported intensely others are not given equal attention. The idea behind international sports events was to take people off the battlefield and bring them on the sports ground. International sports has done nothing at all – there are no easy solutions and perhaps there n

It was heartbreaking to see so many infants crying because their parents had them circumcised. It is generally assumed that the pain will go away and the child would eventually forget, this is an absolutely wrong assumption the memory of such an extremely painful experience does not go away that easily– it is only suppressed, No one bothers or cares to ask the child if he wanted to have an intricate part of his body removed. This is done when the child has not even started speaking leave alone, there is really he can do anything to prevent something like this to happen. By all medical and ethical standards, it is the person who is fully aware of the implications of any kind operation, should be the one to decide if he would like it to be done or not. When an intricate part body is sliced off – at such time it is surprising parents do not feel never realise the tremendous physical pain they inflicted and the possible psychologicall harm they have caused. The child may stop crying b

They left and years later they returned - these are ex-Pakistanis. A weird bunch they are. No matter what, nothing will ever make them happy. They were miserable when they had gone, found fault in virtually everything - made no attempt to put in their share to fix those things - they just went away. The country called Pakistan was like the child they had once left - those memories were etched in their minds. Years later when they returned - they imagined they would be coming to the same country they had left behind. They had abandoned everything when they went away so they had nothing left to stay back. They are angry because everything has changed - everything is bigger - perhaps not necessarily better. Its like the story of the villager Raju who left his village Katchi to start living in the town called Neker. Raju struggled for years, lived in the slum of Neker after years of struggling and having made some money to show off how successful he his to the people in Katchi. But much t

Life as it is, is extremely dull and boring so it is only natural that people should do things to amuse themselves, this is the case here as muchs as it is in the rest of the world. But here, because of the existing 'religious fanaticism' policy of the junta, nearly everything which is fun or which makes people happy – is for all intents and purposes cursed. There is a spring festival in which people fly kites, it is called Basant and lots of people participate in it. There are other things which are perfectly normal form of entertainment in other parts of the world such as music concerts, plays and stage shows - the junta and its lackeys have made it point to give these things a bad name. Discos and night clubs were shut down when General Zia-ul-Haq was heading the martial law - those options simply do not exist. Theatres and auditoriums are regularly raided while these shows are going on. Some performers are banned. A few days back the military controlled Supreme Court up

The system of lies, damn lies and propaganda started when General Ayub Khan was the first military dictator of the country. He could not tolerate any kind of comment or criticism of his handling of things. He did not want any of his decisions challenged. He thought he literally was a god and could do no wrong (just like all the military dictators who have come after him). General Yahya Khan who took over from him was no different. ZA Bhutto a civilian prime minister, was foreign minister when General Ayub Khan’s reign of terror. Although he claimed to be a politician and ‘a man of the people’ he did whatever General Ayub Khan did – because he was a completely unprincipled man (he would never have been in General Ayub Khan’s regime). Just like General Ayub Khan he too could not tolerate any kind of criticism leave alone a free press. Only those newspapers were allowed to survive which toed the party line. All that filled newspapers were press notifications and advices about anything

Once Pakistan American Cultural Centre (PACC) and the the American Center people loved to visit. The PACC was a place where everyone would go to see plays and other cultural activities..The American Centre had a very popular library it even had a small cinema hall. In that small cinema hall a movie 'Citizen Kane' was shown amongst others. Occasionally American Advertising Awards films were shown. The American Centre in Karachi use to issue visas - now everyone has to go to Islamabad. - for me it makes no difference to me one way or another because I never planned to and do not intend to visit the United States of America. After all there are so many other countries in the world which I much rather visit, the only reason I mentioned this is because there use long lines for people in front of the visa section - it must be a 'tremendous inconvenience' for them - now not one person leave a line of people can stand in front of the American Centre. The road on which PACC i