Baithak Desi May 11: Zia Mohyeddin, Naeem Bokhari, Mesut Kacmaz, Headlines, Ejaz Haider

I was introduced to Adlai Stevenson by Santha Rama Rau, who knew everyone worth knowing in New York. Santa – as the Americans pronounced her name – short story writer, novelist, dramatist, had adapted Forster’s ‘A Passage to India’ into a play that was about to open on Broadway. I soon found out after my arrival in America that, socially, she was one of the most sought-after authors in New York.

Santa was a handsome, silver-haired woman, unusually tall for an Indian. She had an irrepressible good humour running into gestures and laughter. Her pearl-white teeth glistened as she smiled. During the day she wore Western clothes, but in the evening she was dressed in beautiful Kanjivaram saris. There was hardly an evening when she wasn’t invited out and she somehow persuaded me to accompany her. When I protested that I would be an imposition she assured me that the hosts knew about me and would be delighted with my presence. If I still demurred she insisted that she had to show me off and that she was taking me around for her sake and whether I would mind obliging her. With Santa as my chaperone, Manhattan was an unending glitter.

But for Santa I would not have met Truman Capote, a weasel of a man whose resentment against the world was so deeply ingrained that he wore a permanent sneer as a guard against a hostile universe: Norman Mailer, who held court every evening, demolishing anyone who interrupted him with a choice invective. He had a huge collection of invectives. There were a host of others; Algonquin left-overs, jazz musicians, architects; I wish I had kept a diary.

In my professional career I can think of many people who sheltered me, protected me and rooted for me. I cannot think of anyone other than Vsanthi Rama Ran Bowers, who went so out of her way to lionise me – and with such grace.Zia Mohyeddin column

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Naeem Bokhari: Look, I wrote an open letter just to point out the attitude of Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry as the Chief Justice and, in that letter, I just discussed the legal issues. I am still of the view that his behaviour as chief justice was not correct; he did not clear the backlog and converted the Supreme Court into a trial court. No Supreme Court can work this way. Still, my letter was not the reason for his suspension or the reference against him. I did not make a mention of his son nor did I bring up any other personal matter upon which a reference could be moved against him. The crisis was, in fact, the result of the army chief’s behaviour with Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and, after that, the police really mistreated him that provoked the general public and the lawyers to react. That was the start of the fuss. So I cannot be blamed for this.‘Iftikhar Chaudhry does not represent the entire judiciary’-- Naeem Bokhari, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court

"I am not happy with the way I have been misquoted in The New York Times," says Mesut Kacmaz, Principal of one of the campuses of Turk schools in Karachi. Known as Pak-Turk International Schools and Colleges, this chain of schools in Pakistan has been the talk of world media after the New York Times discussed them in an article recently.

The article titled, "Turkish Schools offer Pakistan a gentler Islam", appeared in the May 4, 2008 edition of the paper and focused primarily on the efforts on part of Turk educationists who were introducing Pakistanis to an alternate system of Islamic education. An education which is supposed to acquaint Pakistanis with religious as well as scientific knowledge - a privilege a majority of schools in Pakistan fail to offer locals. Mesut Kacmaz, Principal of PakTurk International Schools and Colleges isn't happy with The New York Times

Headlines

Let's meet in Washington Next: Zardari now seeks May 20 deadline
Mai Baap ka admi: Boucher to meet Asif, Nawaz?
Did he clear this with Zardari? PM may seek NA dissolution if coalition ends
Jaswant Singh penning down book on Mohammed Ali Jinnah
Ghazal singer Jagjit Singh undergoes heart surgery
Rauf Klasra: Aik Chothi si khushi
Irfan Hussain says it all in one sentence: MY long experience in the bureaucracy has taught me that whenever politicians want to avoid taking a decision, they refer the matter to a committee.
POSTCARD USA: Izzat Majeed hits town — Khalid Hasan
BOOK REVIEW: Partau Rohila and Ghalib’s Persian letters by Khaled Ahmed


"For a poet to translate himself involves not only a change of language but what translation literally means, a crossing to another place, an accommodation of temperament, a shadowing of sensibility as the original poem pauses at the frontier where every proffered credential must be carefully, even cruelly, examined.... What is extraordinary, in fact phenomenal in its effort, is the determination to render, almost to deliver, the poem from its original language into the poetry of the new country. To give the one work, simultaneously, two mother tongues.” Two mother tongues — Ejaz Haider