THE CULT OF THE EARTH MOTHER
13 January 2019
Grasses, sere and brown in late September, sway and bend in the stiff cold breeze, their movement frenzied as if trying to escape the chill and only failing. The solitary green is a lone bush that looks like buckthorn but its leaves are all but gone and identification is impossible for a layman. Other than that, the wind-scoured whaleback peak, 2,710 metres above the sea, is strewn with nodules of limestone.
Stretching north-south, Khawaja Amran lies some 25 kilometres due south of Chaman town in Balochistan and has long been a site of pilgrimage. There, they say, a saint of old is buried who answers prayers of childless parents to bequeath upon them progeny to their heart’s desire. In Chaman, about two decades ago, I asked about the provenance of the saint, but the man who said he periodically went up the hill to offer gratitude, because his own children were the saint’s gift, had no idea.
Read more »Labels: Balochistan, Society
posted by Salman Rashid @ 10:35,
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Our invisible trains
03 December 2017
The thing was that a bicyclist or a rehra driver knew their respective limitations and they never crossed speeding trains. But by the mid-1990s, motor vehicles and drivers had grown exponentially. In fact, their numbers grew so fast that our industrious traffic police being unable to cope with the rush of applicants simply dispensed with the driver’s licence formality.
Men who earlier had to pedal hard to get around or trundle along slowly as their emaciated, ill-fed nags towed their carts were now capable of speed with the twist of the handle bar or a little pressure of the right foot. With the help of the phrase ‘Allah malik hai’ – God is my Preserver – our trains suddenly became invisible to fatalistic man who relies equally on God as on the power of his rickety machine.
Read more »
posted by Salman Rashid @ 10:32,
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Killer Trains, Petrol Looters and Darwin Awards
22 July 2017
‘Train Kills Three at Level Crossing.’ This was a newspaper item some days ago. Semi-literate journalists who have never read a book in their lives and will never amount to anything in life write such headlines. Having got an MA (Journalism) by cramming three worthless pamphlets – and they are indeed worthless and nothing more than rags – their heads are so full of themselves that there is no room for anything else to get into those emptinesses. Least of all any real knowledge.
These pea-brained specimens belong to a race that should by the theory of Natural Selection have gone extinct centuries ago, but Pakistan being a country where only such pieces survive and indeed get to the top of the heap, they have thrived. These morons do not understand that a train travelling at, say, 60 km/h has such huge momentum that if the driver slams on the brakes upon seeing a moron on a motorcycle rickshaw trying to dash across the line, it is impossible to stop the train. It’s the train’s momentum that cannot, simply not, make it stop.
posted by Salman Rashid @ 12:48,
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Out of One's Depth
19 July 2017
For close to seventeen years, a Peanuts comic strip has been taped to the wood panelling in my study. I just love it. It shows Frieda, the curly-haired girl, come running to Snoopy’s doghouse shouting ‘Awake, awake!’ In the second panel she says to Snoopy lying on his back on top of his doghouse, ‘There’s a herd of rabbits heading this way!’
And then, with Snoopy now on his stomach looking at her, Frieda with her hands folded in front begs, ‘You’re the only one in the world who can save us!’ And Snoopy, the one person in the world who knows what he is and what he can do or not do, turns around on his back and, the very picture of nonchalance, says, ‘We’re in trouble.’
That’s it.
Labels: Governance, Life, Society
posted by Salman Rashid @ 13:02,
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JIT
06 July 2017
One thing I fail to understand is how so many educated, smart, well-read persons having seen the world and having lived all their lives in Pakistan can yet be fooled by the staged tragi-comic farces thrown at us from time to time. And these shows are gratis, I may add, for if they who toss them in our direction were to demand money and extract it from us by the powers invested in them by the State, there would be little we could do.
The latest such drama, ongoing and promising to be entertaining us to tears even in the year 2022, is the Joint Investigation Team investigating the Sharif family. Although from the statements of the brats of the family it seems they are investigating the JIT and not vice versa. Without delving in the statements of the previous two brats, the outpourings of the female over the last two days are telling.
Read more »Labels: Governance, Life, Society
posted by Salman Rashid @ 10:05,
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Plaat he Plaat
05 June 2017
Many years ago, driving along Waris Road, I noticed they were tearing down the nearly one hundred year-old Birdwood Barracks. BTW, does anyone remember who Colonel Birdwood was? Anyways I stopped to ask the uniformed subedar what was happening and he said aador (order) hai.
I hurried home to grab my camera and take pictures of the building that would soon vanish from human memory. Back at the demolition site the subedar refused to let me. He told me it was ‘army area’ and taap seecrot. (You guessed it, the man was from Hazara.) I said what was secret about a few buildings that would soon bite the dust, but the moron refused to see the sense in my words.
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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The funny side of… monkey business
02 June 2017
Old Mr Darwin said something about all life evolving to higher forms, which we take to mean that we were monkeys at one time. On the other hand, the Quran has a line about some Jewish miscreants being turned into monkeys. (Aside: With only a few date trees in Arabia, I wonder where the poor newly-evolved simians would have lived in that desert land.)
Here in merry old Lahore, we have our own bunch of folks struggling to return to the primate shape of their forefathers. And it all started about four years ago. An errant Qingqi (oh, who wretch invented this monster?) driver was booked by a traffic warden. Leaving his machine in the middle of the road, the driver quickly clambered up a power pylon that happened to be at hand. There, from ten metres high, he threatened to jump if the warden did not cancel his ticket.
Read more »Labels: Herald, Humour, Society
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Kirkit Again
01 May 2017
The man’s name in its uncorrupted form is actually لاڑا which means bridegroom in Punjabi. I don’t know when this blighter got married – or even if he ever did – but it’s a bit of an overkill to continue to call himself bridegroom all the time. If he is not married, I suspect a deep longing for the event to occur in his life. And if he is married the man is bloody suicidal. I suppose he has converted to the one and only true faith.
Read more »
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Sincerity
12 April 2017
This piece appears in the January 2015 issue of Herald
Going by his name, this Glyme cannot possibly be a Pakistani. I therefore suspect this piece of very useful wisdom so much in use in Pakistani politics, as well as in daily life, was actually thought up by a local sage who put it into practice without taking out a patent on it. Unprotected by law, the formula was filched by smart aleck Glyme whose name then stuck to it. I suspect it was fear of legal action from Pakistan that kept old Glyme from passing on his full name to Bloch.
Read more »Labels: Herald, Humour, Society
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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نصیب اپنا اپنا
04 February 2017
رحمت خان بزدار سے میری ملاقات 2003 میں ہوئی۔ وہ ڈیرہ غازی خان میں کوہ سلیمان پر بیل پتھر کی چوٹی (اونچائی 2328 میٹر) کو جانے والے راستے پر ہمارے رہنما کے فرائض انجام دے رہا تھا۔
اگرچہ اسے پہلے ہی بتا دیا گیا تھا کہ ہم سبزی خور ہیں تاہم اس کے باوجود اس نے میرے اور میرے دوست راحیل کے لیے دنبے کی سجی تیار کر لی۔ جب راحیل نے ہمارے کھانے کے لیے اپنے تھیلے سے تازہ بھنڈی نکال کر اسے پکانے کو دی تو اس کی ناراضگی بجا تھی۔
پہاڑ کی چوٹی پر تاروں بھری شاندار رات بسر کرنے کے بعد جب ہم نیچے اس کے گاؤں گئے تو رحمت نے دسویں مرتبہ مجھے یہ کہہ کر قائل کرنے کی کوشش کی کہ خاطر مدارت کوئی بری چیز نہیں ہوتی۔ جواباً دسویں مرتبہ میں نے اسے کہا کہ سبزی خوروں کے لیے بھیڑ ذبح کرنا کوئی اچھا خیال نہیں ہے۔ اگر وہ اور اس کے لوگ اپنے مویشی اسی طرح ذبح کرتے رہے تو بہت جلد ان کے قبیلے (بز کا مطلب بکری ہے جبکہ دار مالک کو کہتے ہیں) کا نام بے معنی ہو کر رہ جائے گا۔
میں نے اسے کہا کہ عمدگی سے بنی سبزی یا دال سے بھی تواضع ہو سکتی ہے۔ مگر اس کا اصرار تھا کہ اس سے بلوچی میزبانی کا تصور پورا نہیں ہوتا۔ تب اس نے مجھے ایک داستان سنائی۔
کسی زمانے میں ایک رحم دل اور فیاض بلوچ ہوا کرتا تھا جس کے دروازے مہمانوں کے لیے ہر وقت کھلے رہتے تھے۔ اس کے دسترخوان پر بہت سے لوگ کھانا کھاتے تھے اور ایسا کبھی کبھار ہی ایسا ہوتا جب اسے اکیلے کھانا پڑا ہو۔ وہاں سے گزرنے والے مسافر بھی اس کے دسترخوان سے ماحضر تناول کیا کرتے تھے۔
مگر بلوچ کی بیوی اس جیسی نہیں تھی۔ وہ لڑاکا مزاج اور بخیل طبعیت کی مالک تھی۔ اسے اپنے باورچی خانے سے لوگوں کو کھانا کھلایا جانا بالکل پسند نہیں تھا اور وہ اس پر اکثر کڑھتی رہتی تھی۔
ایک دن وہ گھر کے دروازے پر کھڑی تھی جہاں اس نے دو افراد کو اپنی جانب آتے دیکھا۔ اس نے گھر کے اندر جا کر اپنے شوہر کو یہ اطلاع کچھ یوں دی جیسے کوئی مصیبت گھر پر نازل ہونے لگی ہو۔
اس شام جب اس کے شوہر نے تمام لوگوں کے لیے کھانا لانے کو کہا تو اس نے انکار کر دیا۔ وہ صرف ایک آدمی کا کھانا دستر خوان پر لائی اور کہنے لگی کہ یا تو وہ یہ کھانا خود کھا لے یا اپنے مہمانوں کو پیش کر دے۔ اگلی صبح اسے تین افراد گھر سے نکل کر بیابان کو جاتے دکھائی دیے۔ وہ چکرا گئی اور شوہر سے پوچھا کہ ایک شخص کے کھانے سے چار افراد کیونکر سیر ہو گئے؟
بلوچ نے بیوی کو جواب دیا کہ مہمان تین نہیں بلکہ ایک تھا۔ شام کے وقت مہمان کے ساتھ نظر آنے والا دوسرا شخص اس کا نصیب تھا کہ دنیا میں کوئی شخص اپنے نصیب کے بغیر نہیں آتا اور ہر ایک کا مقدر پہلے سے طے ہے۔ جب کوئی چلتا ہے تو اس کا نصیب بھی ساتھ چلتا ہے۔ انسان کا کھانا، پینا، کمانا، لٹانا، خوشی اور غم سمیت سب باتیں اس کے مقدر میں پہلے سے لکھ دی گئی ہوتی ہیں۔ کوئی شخص اپنے نصیب سے ذرا برابر زیادہ یا کم نہیں پاتا۔ اس دن مہمان نے اسی قدر کھایا جو اس کے نصیب میں لکھا تھا۔ اس دن اس کے لیے آدھا کھانا کم تھا۔
اس کی بیوی نے پوچھا کہ علی الصبح مہمان اور اس کے نصیب کے ساتھ باہر جانے والا تیسرا شخص کون تھا؟ بلوچ نے جواب دیا 'بھولی عورت! خدا کے کام بھی نرالے ہیں، ہمارے گھر میں ایک آفت آنے کو تھی۔ اسی دوران مہمان نے ہمارے ہاں کھانا کھایا، اگرچہ یہ میزبانی اعلیٰ درجے کی نہ تھی مگر اس سے خدا خوش ہو گیا اور مصیبت ٹل گئی۔ ہمارے گھر سے مہمان کے ہمراہ جانے والا تیسرا فرد دراصل وہی آفت تھی۔
رحمت خان کہنے لگا کہ ممکن ہے فیاض شخص اور اس کی کنجوس بیوی کی کہانی سچی نہ ہو مگر اسے یقین ہے کہ اس میں ایک نکتہ ضرور پایا جاتا ہے۔ اگر لوگ میزبانی نہ کرتے تو کوئی ایسے علاقوں میں کیونکر سفر کر پاتا جہاں کوئی سرائے بھی نہیں ملتی؟ مسافر کو خوش آمدید کہنے والوں کو بھی ویران راہوں پر ایسے ہی حالات کا سامنا ہوتا ہے اور انہیں بھی اسی طرح خوش آمدید کہا جاتا ہے۔
رحمت خان بزدار کا کہنا تھا کہ مسافروں کے لیے ذبح کی جانے والی بھیڑبکریاں گلے سے کم نہیں ہوتیں۔ اس کے گھر میں داخل ہونے سے پہلے ہی حسب توقع بھنے ہوئے گوشت کی مہک ہمارے نتھنوں سے ٹکرائی اور ہم اپنی بھنڈیوں اور پیٹھے سے محروم ہو گئے۔
Labels: Balochistan, Society, Urdu
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Tauheen!
24 January 2017
There will be few people in Pakistan not acquainted with the Persian word tauheen. In English its equivalents could be disrespect, ridicule or derision. In Pakistan it can even mean blasphemy.
Here we have all kinds of tauheens ranging from religion to judiciary to political figures – regardless of how characterless and yellow the last two are. And since some months ago, we also have tauheen e fauj. To be honest this phrase is not used as such and I have invented it for the purpose of this piece. To be second time honest, the army has always been holy and beyond censure perhaps because it defends this ‘Fortress of Islam’. Only now it has been decreed that criticising the uniform can have one branded traitor.
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Traffic Wardens
20 January 2017
The grey-uniformed traffic wardens were a brainchild of Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi when he was chief minister Punjab several years ago. They system came as a breath of fresh air. No longer the ‘Oye! Khlo ja oye, teri tay main etc etc.’ Suddenly road users were treated as humans for the first time since the 1960s. For the first time in many years, a traffic police officer would use his motorcycle to give chase to an errant driver.
Since the 1960s? you ask. That was when those white-clad British-trained traffic sergeants on white Harley-Davidson motorcycles (even tricycles) began to retire. Sadly, for some unknown reason, those well-trained and courteous officers failed to leave behind a legacy. We were left with uncouth yahoos instead.
Read more »Labels: Governance, Life, Society
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Euthanasia
23 November 2016
Euthanasia comes from the Greek eu meaning good and thanatos for death. My Shorter Oxford English Dictionary has three definitions for it. Firstly, ‘a gentle and easy death; secondly, ‘a means of bringing about such a death. Lastly it says, ‘action of bringing about such a death, esp. of a person who requests it as a release from incurable disease’. In plain speak folks call it mercy killing.
The last one clinches it. Plagued as this unfortunate country of Pakistan is at best by deadwood and at worst outright ill-wishers and perpetrators of evil against its very corpus, we could do with mass euthanasia. Going by the third definition of euthanasia, the people of Pakistan should request mercy killing of several hundreds of thousands of miscreants in order to save Pakistan from the sickness that those people are.
Thankfully the bastards who plagued this land in its early and formative years have rotted in their graves. Years ago, beginning in July 1977, every evening as I lay in bed under the high roof of the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters behind Log Area Mess, 45 The Mall, Peshawar, I used to pray for someone to inflict euthanasia on the Incubus of our Eleven Year-Long Night, the Grinning Demon of Islamisation. It is another thing that then I did not know how long the diseased vermin was going to be around.
Read more »Labels: Euthanasia, Life, Society
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Pir Disappeared Ali Shah
24 August 2016
Sitting between PTV Lahore Centre and the offices of the DGPR (Director General Public Relations) on Abbott Road, there is a small shanty. Inside is a sarcophagus with all due trappings of the burial of the spiritually gifted: the green sheet of cheap satin inscribed with religious formulae draped over the hump, a few rosaries, burning joss sticks and some flowers. At all times there are one or two dopey hangers on. If you are lucky you will catch a whiff of hashish; luckier still and you might be invited for a puff or two. At night the little cubicle is garishly lit up with fluorescent tube lights.
There are two padlocked money boxes as well. Outside, on the sidewalk, there is a terracotta kunali containing salt. Passers by mouthing the wishes they want fulfilled by whoever is supposed to be buried under the concrete sarcophagus having silently aired their desires take a pinch or two of the salt. The hangers on do not say how the salt helps the wishes on their way or the wisher on his or her, but woe betide the man who suffers from hypertension, believes in this saint and passes by two or three times daily!
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Serial Groom
11 August 2016
In view of the truth out there (I will not call it rumour); young Manas Upadhyay from Mumbai says our Perpetual Prime Minister in Waiting (PPMiW) is a Serial Groom. Why, for crying out loud, the man has married for the third time. After two divorces even a retard would realise that he is no marriage material. But not our PPMiW. No, sir. It is foolish to expect any sense from this man: he is serially, pathologically sick in the head.
It is another thing that he himself and his camp have gone into overdrive rebutting what they call a rumour. But I hear from a friend in PPMiW’s camp that the valima feast has been feasted upon somewhere in old Blighty – presumably in London. Remember that even after the last fiasco a la Reham Khan had taken place, the man was denying tooth and nail that a wedding had taken place. It is now known that the knot was tied in October whereas it was announced two or three months after with a sham nikah ceremony performed by a mullah made compliant with monetary inducement.
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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The Transformation
20 July 2016
In 1980, I worked in Karachi for a German multi-national engineering firm. This was just when the Soviet Russians had foolishly walked into Afghanistan to destroy not just one country (Afghanistan) and unhinge USSR, but set the entire world on the path of perdition. I know minds much better than mine could see into the future and know where Pakistan would be headed in the changing scenario, but I confess I thought the Soviets’ Afghan adventure would soon be over leaving the rest of us none the worse for wear.
In those days in Karachi, we would from time to time have a couple of young German interns. Since I also managed the company’s guest house, I made friends with these chaps and we used to hang out. One of those interns one day said, ‘Why does the singing man begin so early in the morning?’
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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The typical Pakistani conversation
27 June 2016
Pakistanis are strange people. They ask you a question with no intention of hearing a response. There is a very tiny, very, very tiny, lot of truly educated persons who when they ask mean to be told. The remainder only banter in the course of which when they have to pose a question, they really have no intention of knowing your view on it.
Shortly after I quit the army in 1978, I started out making fun of army officers. When I with my long hair and unkempt beard introduced myself to someone as an ex of their profession the question following my regimental identity usually was where I had served.
‘Five of my six and a half years of commissioned service, I served in Kharian....’ I would begin. That was cue for my interlocutor to cut in: ‘Once I was in Kharian....’ and there would ensue an endless narration of how great Kharian was in antediluvian times. Notice how every fauji will use ‘once’ instead of ‘when’ and notice too how glorious a place as dreary as Kharian seems after one has left it.
Read more »Labels: About, Life, Pakistan, Society
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Fools that Rule
24 May 2016
Every day one reads something in the papers and cannot but wonder what sort of fools and retards rule the various government agencies that mismanage this blighted land. Today (21 May 2016) I am told, ‘The Lahore Ring Road Authority [LRRA] has made a plan to fix iron fencing at various sections of the road to stop pedestrians from crossing the road and causing accidents.’ (Dawn, Metro section).
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| A small bit of steel fence removed from right in front of a narrow street to give free passage |
We are further informed by the blockheads of LRRA that this effort will ‘force’ pedestrians to use overhead bridges meant for them to cross the road. What country do these idiot shitheads live in?
Labels: Governance, Lahore, Life, Society
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Wide Road Do Not Mean Better Traffic
23 May 2016
This started on Twitter this morning, 20 May 2016. I tweeted something about courtesy and discipline on roads making for better traffic. And that wide roads make no difference at all.
Tweeple discuss this here
But let me add sense of responsibility to courtesy and discipline on the roads. My friends Moazzam (@MoazzamSalim) and Rizwan (@rizwarned) took exception to my assertion. Both of them seriously believe wide roads will make for better traffic. The argument went illogical when, in responding to my tweet about narrow streets in central London being happily unclogged – or largely so, Moazzam said something about population and vehicular density. As well as that, he said, there were not so many different types of vehicles in the West.
Labels: About, Lahore, Life, Society
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Living by the Quran
30 April 2016
‘Most Pakistani want legislation to be influenced by Quran: Survey.’ So goes a back page headline in Dawn today, 28 April 2016. It goes on to say that a report issued by Pew Research Centre confirms that there are 78 percent of us 200 million who want it that way. To me this confirms, yet again, that we Pakistanis are the most hypocritical, two-faced, double-dealing bunch of liars and crooks.
And before I go on, let me reiterate what I have long maintained: Religion is the first refuge of the scoundrel.
For starters, why does every scoundrel want a religious law to guide his/her life? Doesn’t every bastard among us know or at least pretend to know what religion ordains? Is it largely not known that to steal, kill, be discourteous and generally be a bloody nuisance is not right and therefore, since Islam is a way of life, anti-Islam? Why does every blackguard want a law to keep him/her from skimming off billions of tax payers’ money and that which foreign financial institutions bestow upon our beggar state as aid? And why does this same rogue of insatiable lust for lucre need a Quranic law to keep him from stashing his ill-gained riches in an off-shore bank is a distant land?
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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