Baithak Desi May 16: TV Notes, "Musharraf...Musharraf...Musharraf..." Are we Dumb or Deaf? Painful Past, Asif Farukhi, Bhagwandas, Ayesha, Cartoons

What does society do to a person who repeats only one act or one word all day long? What would you do?

The society would take him away for psychiatric examination and then possibly treat or incarcerate that person. And, to answer my query, I would shun him/her and ensure a healthy distance between that person and my self.

Had the misfortune to watch Zillionaire Sharipov, speaking from his palace with P J Mir. If we take away every fourth word he spoke, this is what one will hear: "Musharraf...Musharraf...Musharraf...Musharraf...
Musharraf...Musharraf...Musharraf...Musharraf...
Musharraf...Musharraf...Musharraf...Musharraf...
Musharraf...Musharraf...Musharraf...."

It is sad to see such a pathetic display of obsession, hatred, and parochiality.

And while am on TV, another digression - am watching Hamid Mir's Capital talk. If you have his cell number please call him and tell him NOT to repeat what his guests has said seconds earlier.

He asked a question of barrister Kasuri, then repeated verbatim what he said to Athar Minallah and asked him to respond. Kasuri and Minallah were sitting beside each other.

Next he turned to his correspondent in Karachi, a Mr. Dogar. And after the correspondent ended his reply, Hamid Mir turns to his studio guests and again repeats verbatim what Dogar had uttered a few seconds earlier.

Are we (or his guests) dumb or deaf?

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I was born almost seven years after the ‘Fall of Dhaka’ No one in my house, school or on TV ever spoke of it. If 1971 was ever spoken of, it was in the context of the lost war with India. Even my aunt, my mother’s sister, who had been in Chittagong in 1971, never spoke of it. I never knew about the conditions in what was then East Pakistan, nor did I know how Bangladeshis felt about the events leading up to the debacle. After all, the only Bengalis I knew were domestic servants in our middle class Karachi houses.I viewed Bangladesh the nation and its inhabitants with the same neutrality that one tends to view any foreigner with whom one does not have much interaction with. My first lesson that this feeling was not mutual came when, in England, a Bengali girl in my revision classes told me the story, apropos of nothing, of the great delight she and all her family and friends felt at her nation’s cricket victory over Pakistan. There was a strange light in her eyes. It was the first indication to me that there were scars in the tribal memory of the nation of Bangladesh, and that these scars were somehow considered by them to be caused by the nation of Pakistan.The painful past Reviewed by Mansoor Murad

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How Fault Lines came about is an interesting story by itself. In 2006 I happened to be in Karachi for a book launch. Thirty-five years after 1971, there was a younger generation, both in Bangladesh and Pakistan, who had not experienced 1971 and knew neither the hopes, the fears, the excitement, the trauma, the loss, nor the despair. I took advantage of my visit to meet Asif Farrukhi whose translations I had come across in various anthologies. I put across my proposal to him of doing a book together on the creative writing that had emerged from 1971. Initially, Asif wanted to include poems as well. I was hesitant. There has been such an outpouring of poetry from Bangladesh on 1971 that it would be impossible to choose just a few poems to represent 1971. I suggested keeping to short fiction. Asif finally agreed and together we set out to collect material which would cover various facets of the events of 1971.It was extremely difficult to choose Bangladeshi stories for Fault Lines. Every fiction writer in Bangladesh has written a story on 1971. How did I decide what to include, what to leave out? To simplify matters, I decided to include some of the most famous Bangladeshi writers, writers who have won national awards for their writings, but also a few writers whose stories were representative of the time, of the varying moods and of the varying aspects of the war. I had initially wanted to restrict the number of stories to 20, but that would have meant leaving out stories that both Asif and I felt gave valuable perspectives on 1971. The choice of writers from Pakistan fell to Asif. However, I knew there were some Urdu fiction writers from East Pakistan/Bangladesh, and I sought the help of Professor Umme Salma from the Department of Urdu and Persian, University of Dhaka, who introduced me to Gholam Mohammad’s story, included in this anthology. In addition to writers from Bangladesh and Pakistan, we wanted to include other writers from the subcontinent and the diaspora. Thus, Asif Farrukhi selected Mohan Kalpana, an Indian writer, whose story ‘Traitor’ is included in this volume. Among diasporic writers we included Bharati Mukherjee with ‘Angela’ and Aamer Hussein with ‘Karima’. I had also wanted to include Jhumpa Lahiri’s story, ‘When Mr Pirzada Came to Dine’, but I failed to get any response from her literary agent. EXCERPT: The making of a book By Niaz Zaman and Asif Farrukhi

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Aur karlo dukaandaari:
RECENTLY, the new prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, tasked the military with defending not only national territory but also the ideological frontiers of the state. The statement was an uncomfortable reminder of the past 60 years during which the armed forces have remained the defenders of the country’s territory and ideology. Ayesha Siddiqa

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KARACHI, May 15: A number of weather-beaten graves in the centuries-old Chawkandi graveyard have been defaced with their beautifully-carved stones either missing or damaged.

The graveyard, located in the city’s outskirts off the national highway, is protected under the Antiquities Act under which stealing or damaging the site is punishable with heavy fines and long prison terms.Chawkandi graves suffering from neglect - Bhagwandas






The battle lines between Nawaz and Zardari camps have already been drawn after the controversial nomination of Salmaan Taseer as the new Punjab governor. He would be a key component of the new game plan unfolded before the party MPs by Zardari.


How Taseer won the race for plum post
When was there a bus? We have missed the bus
Quaid's Residency, Ziarat (in urdu) - Kishwar Nahid
Taseer Appointment exposes fissures in PPP-PML-N coalition
Eminent critic Kashfi dead

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