Author: Abez

Since 10 this evening, I have:

Washed dishes

Made two coffee cakes

Baked bread

Burnt my thumb

Smashed my thumb

Dyed my thumb black

All I have left to do is:

Clean the house

Wash my baking pans

Press my Eid clothes with a non-functioning iron

Ice my thumb

Wash my thumb

Bandage my thumb

And it’s only midnight. And Eid prayer is only at 8 am tomorrow morning. And there are only 15 people coming over. So I only have enough time to say:

Eid Mubarak! 🙂

-Ring-

-click-

The blog you have dialed is not in service. Please try again later, once Sensei has finished the work she was supposed to do two hours ago when she was busy eating brownies and watching Samurai Jack. Thank you.

-click-

At

Seven in the morning there came

Six men to load innumerable boxes

Five laborers and a painter who asked for

Four cups of tea and carried

Three major appliances, filling the truck with

Two tons of weight resulting in

One cracked driveway

(wah wah wah)

I have a good excuse for not updating my blog on time. And the excuse in itself may even pass for a blog entry. Here I go. I could not update my blog because…my dog ate it. Whoops. Wrong excuse. Let me try again.

I could not update my blog because…my house was in a state of bedlam. Well, more specifically because of the way in which the furniture here in bedlam was moved to make way for boxes- the computer was unplugged. Now that the relatives have gone home, the house has been put back together, the floors have been mopped of giant, muddy manfootprints, and the layer of dust we disturbed has settled, I can blog properly again.

As I was blasting…errr..breezing down Jinnah road today I saw a hijabi standing in the median a few dozen meters away. I looked at her. She looked at me. Then she stepped directly out in front of my car. Tires squealed, the car swerved, and by the Grace of God she was spared from turning into an asphalt waffle.

Later today there was this man with the red sweater who made eye contact with me and then stepped jauntily off of the curb, nearly embedding himself in the front grill of my car. And then there was that cute kid near my house who stood patiently by the side of the road as I approached, and then just as I began to pass him, threw his ball in front of my tires and then ran after it.

The number of pedestrians I could’ve knocked the legs out from under staggers me each day. I’m shocked every time someone looks directly at my car and then steps out in front of it. I can’t explain it. It’s hard for me to accept that a large number of pedestrians have severe vision impairments. It’s even harder for me to assume that they’re all suicidal. I’ve tried to believe that they’re all suffering from delusions of immortality, but it just doesn’t work. The sanest, most logical explanation I can come up with is that there’s something wrong with my car. It must be invisible.

At first I didn’t think it was possible, since as far as I know, Suzuki doesn’t make a Mehran Stealth, but I have no choice but to believe it. The theory fits too, and very nicely explains why other cars, mostly gargantuan SUV’s, are always trying to merge into my lane even before I’m done using it. I know my car is small, but it’s not microscopic. It would show quite clearly in the SUV’s rear-view mirror. It would, that is, if it weren’t invisible.

And you know, the problem with owning an invisible car is that sometimes I can’t find where I’ve parked it. I come out of a shop and wander around the parking lot, trying to find a car that can’t be found. I check and double-check the place that I was sure of, and can’t find it. I peer uncertainly into other silver Mehrans, since there are always at least a dozen wherever I go, and head dejectedly back towards the shop once I’ve confirmed that none of them are mine. (Sometimes I peer into BMW’s too. You can’t stop a body from hoping…) Then, when I get back to the shop, Lo and Behold, there’s my car, and it’s visible again, right where I left it.

The other day I was standing in a line waiting for my turn at the supermarket counter when a man stepped in front of me and plunked his purchases down. After everything had been rung up and he was being handed his receipt, he turned around and said , “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there!” This leads me to wonder if the car’s invisibility isn’t contagious. Aniraz seems to be catching it too. Today we were standing in a bakery when a woman began walking straight for the bakery counter, the one that Aniraz was standing in front of. Luckily, Aniraz leapt out of the way, otherwise there might have been a head-on collision. The woman’s young son followed, and brushed past Aniraz so closely that he passed under one of her arms and came out by way of the other.

But this invisibility thing could be useful. Next time I’m in the bakery, I’m going to sneak behind the counter and help myself to some cookies.

Not only do we have relatives over, but we also have a painter and about a hundred boxes of various sizes strewn all over the house. This is the precurser to moving. No big change, we’re just moving up the road. But anyway, no time to blog right now. Have some shameless self-promotion instead. :p

oooh, aaaah, Mystery Link!

(be patient, it might take a few minutes to load)

Eeek! Eeek! Eeek! The beginning of another week!

In exactly 30 minutes, it will be Monday again. I’m pretending to be dealing with it rationally, but sometimes Mondays just catch you off guard. Everything’s going all nice and smooth, you haven’t changed out of your pajamas since Saturday morning and then –BAM!- Monday hits you in the side of the head like a fast-flying chapal. And then you go to work rubbing your head all the way till Friday.

Ok, maybe that’s not you, maybe it’s just me. But this Monday ambushed me and I’m not ready for it. My lesson plans aren’t done, I have appointments that need to be made and clothes that have to be washed before I can even think about wearing them out of the house, let alone to class. *sniff sniff* Okay, so they don’t smell, it’s just that the ice-cream in the lap of one of my favorite jilbs isn’t the most professional of accessories on an English teacher. But then, I’m not the most professional of English teachers, so maybe I won’t have to wash it after all…

I should just stop griping and do what I need to do, specifically- print out my lessons and lick errr…wash the ice-cream off of my jilb. I also have to drag my sorry self to bed and manage to brush my teeth at some point on the way there. Well, at least I’ve already prayed Isha.

Who knew English teachers could be such losers. :p

Fingers recovered, blogs away!

Yasmine asked me about the book I had listed in the column to the left, Peace Like a River. In case you’re still wondering Yasmine, it’s a really nice book. It has an intelligent plot, a satisfying even if tragic conclusion, and best of all, it’s got a G rating. I don’t know if movies all over the world are rated the same way, but a G rating means that a movie is suitable for all viewing ages. Either way, I really enjoyed Peace Like a River and I highly recommend it. I also highly thank Chai and Apple Pie (who’s no longer blogging) who gave me the book to begin with.

Surprisingly, there are very few good books that would get a G rating if they were turned into movies, and you have no idea how hard that makes my job as an English teacher. I try to select books that are interesting, preferably classics, for my students. Any book I select has to be proper too, because I take responsibility for what I recommend to my students. There can be no vulgarity and no obscenity, because we read all the books out loud and define any new words and discuss what things mean.

Diplomat: And then Mr. Smith umm, Miss Khan, what is this word? (pointing to word on page)

Sensei: That word? Oh, uh… it’s means, uh…(starts sweating) hey look, a spy! (yanks book out of hand and runs out of room)

I can’t tell you guys how many awkward situations I’ve really been in while trying to answer my student’s innocent vocabulary questions. One of my Irani students very innocently asked me one day: “What is the meaning of the word hoar, h-o-a-r?”

“Hoar?” I asked her, confused. “It’s an old word for mold, that stuff that sometimes grows on old bread. And hoary means grayish or whitish. Why do you ask? Where did you read that word?”

“I know mold, but are you sure that is the meaning, or maybe I am spelling it wrong.” my student said, “Because that seems very strange.”

“Was it in a book?” I asked, trying to figure out where she had read it.

“No, I was watching a show, I can’t remember the name, and one woman said to another, You hoar. Ah yes,” my student said brightening, “The show was called, “Jerry Springer!”

We cleared that one up shortly. I’ve also been in weird situations where students have told me that their handwriting was illicit, when they meant illegible. One student told me he liked bees in his tea. He meant honey. It takes everything I’ve got to keep a straight face sometimes, and I don’t always succeed. I’m trying though, honest I am.

Who said teaching wasn’t a high-stress job? Hmmph.

I was offered a job today. (Never mind that I already have one, that ruins the story.) Anyway, a friend of mine informed me that a foreign NGO was looking for administrative personnel, and she knew the woman (we’ll call her Ms. X) who was hiring. The position came with room for promotion, a dynamic and challenging work environment and, most importantly, a very good salary- 35,000 rupees just to start.

$-chaching!-$

With a 6,000 rupee bonus every three months.

But the job came with a catch. Since the position was in a foreign NGO dedicated to establishing freedom and democracy in Pakistan (this is a nice name for regime change) it would require a bit of confidentiality on my part. But that wasn’t the catch though. Nope, the catch was: I couldn’t wear my scarf.

(This is where Sensei’s eyebrow raised in polite amusement.)

I asked how my scarf could possibly interfere with my ability to work. My friend said she didn’t know, but was told that the job required a lot of going out and meeting and greeting people, and that somehow it didn’t seem to go with the job. She I had a good laugh though, over the irony of said NGO (struggling to establish freedom and democracy and liberty and justice for all) refusing to allow a scarf in the workplace. This, dear blogistanis, is good old-fashioned irony, and please make note of it.

I would like to report Ms. X to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty Against Hijabis (if any), or maybe the Anti-Hypocrisy Squad or anyone who can see that a piece of cloth on my head doesn’t impair my work ethic, my social skills, or my brain. Not unless I’ve pinned it too tight or poked one of the straight pins into my scalp. Which I usually don’t. But I sometimes do. But anyway.

I remember this Ms. X, I met her last year at a national-day party, and as we stood around the tables shmoozing, the discussion inevitably came to my scarf, and what modesty meant, and what the whole point was. I came away from that conversation with the distinct impression that Ms. X did not like my scarf, not in the least.

I wish I could meet her again, and tell her that I already have a job (even in spite of my scarf!) and point to my head and clarify that it does not actually cut off blood circulation up there. I would like to show her how a little extra effort can put people at ease and help dispel any awkwardness they may feel when meeting you for the first time. This extra effort can even make valuable friends, because the discussions begun by the conversation piece on your head (ie: scarf) are a deeper level of interaction than you would ordinarily have with a colleague or business contact.

I would also like to ask Ms. X whether she actually expected me to accept the position in exchange for giving up my scarf. Yeah, the salary was good, but you’d have to tack on a helluva lot more zeros before I would even jokingly consider trading my morals for it. I don’t want to be melodramatic and talk about selling my soul for a monthly salary, but I do want to say that this is the equivalent of Darth Vader telling Luke to join the dark side.

Ok, so that analogy wasn’t melodramatic, just dorky. You know what I mean though. I’m not going to sell my modesty. God forbid that I should ever have to trade it for my life, or worse- have it taken from me, but I would not give it up freely. Not for any price. Some people sneer that hijab takes away a woman’s self-worth, but you know what? Right now I have 35,000 rupees a month worth of it.

$-chaching!-$

With a 6,000 rupee bonus every three months. :p

The quest to fix Aniraz’s layout is still ongoing. For those of you who are interested, the template at www.degrouchyowl.blogspot.com and www.abeztestblog.blogspot.com are one and the same. However, the template at the test blog is fine, where the template at Aniraz’s blog is wonky. Or manky. Or whatever the British would say on such an occasion. A lot of very kind people have volunteered their help, but so far, no solution has been reached. If anyone else is interested in trying their hand at this template, they are most welcome to, I can be emailed and the html can be obtained. We now return you to your normally scheduled blog.

***

I’m going to make myself stand in the corner. Right after I finish typing this blog anyway. I’ve been bad. I’ve been a lazy but happy bum in a dirty room who’s running out of clean laundry. :p (Hi Mom! Have I mentioned lately how much I miss you? And not just because you used to do the laundry?)

Speaking of mommas, Yasmine had a lovely post on her blog the other day about why she loved her momma. I think my momma is splendiferous enough to deserve one too (even though she hasn’t updated her blog in forever!) so here I go, Sensei Presents:

Why I love my Momma

I love my mother immensely, and appreciate that when we were growing up she took us to the museum, to the library, to the beach, and then took us home and made us write up what we saw. My mother read to us when we were children, not See Spot Run, but the entire series of the Chronicles of Narnia. She gave us paper and crayons too, to put pictures into a book that didn’t have nearly enough.

My mother was a teacher, and when we were children she taught us the read and write and imagine, and when we got older, she taught us to cook and sew. She made fudge, we rolled cookies, she sent us sledding with a thermos of hot chocolate and had more of it waiting for us when we got back.

I love my mother because she has always cared, and she has always showed love through service. A few years ago I had my appendix out, and my momma stayed with me in the hospital the whole time. She snuck in chocolates, kept me company and ignored the aghast nurses who saw us both crowded into the same bed watching cartoons and eating contraband. We split the hospital meals, I drank the tea and she ate the desserts. Nothing else was worth consuming. She read to me and put my hair in two braids so that I would still look like a well-kept human being even with tubes in my arms and blood on my sheets from where the nurses frequently had to search for my veins. (they’re notoriously sneaky and difficult to pin down)

She kissed me good-bye when I went into surgery, and when I came out and woke up, the first thing I remember was my mother gently removing the tape that was left on my face from the breathing tube. It doesn’t sound very sweet, but seeing my mother’s tender, smiling face leaning over me and realizing that she was taking care of me even when I was unconscious was something that will stay with me forever.

Momma Zindabad!

3 am, it’s that time again. What time would that be? To sleep? Nope. 3 am is the time to eat a tangerine, write a letter to my grandmother, tip-toe around the house and then hog the computer. As my momma can testify, I’ve always been a nocturnal beastie, even as a wee babe my mother found me sitting up in my crib in the middle of the night, playing by myself. When I learned how to walk, I often wandered the house in the dark and scared my mother to death.

It used to be that at times like this, I could grab my older brother, who was nocturnal too, and we’d sneak out of the house and drive down to 7-11 for slurpees and junk food at 2:30 am. Then when I got my own car, I’d grab my little brother or sister and we’d go out for the same, sometimes donuts. (mom, don’t read this) In the summer, we’d sit on the front porch all night and just revel in the sneakiness of being out of the house (but not technically OUT of the house) in the middle of the night.

I don’t know why the middle of the night is so magical, why the emptiness that would be called loneliness in the daytime is suddenly transformed into something deliciously sneaky once night falls. When the lights go out, when more sensible people go to bed, then the world and all that’s in it is mine. There’s no one else on the computer, it’s mine. The whole street is empty, I own that too. I stand on the balcony by myself and assert my ownership of the night sky. Of course, Allah is the true owner of everything, but as far as the human concept of ownership is concerned, with no one to contest it, my 3 am rights stand unchallenged. And they don’t just extend to the road and the sky, my rights also extend over the refrigerator, and the half-empty bag of chips that’s sitting on top of it. I couldn’t eaten the chips at any other time today, but you know what? They just taste better at 3 am.

I’m just a weird one I guess, because as much as I love people, and laughing with my family and coffee in crowded booth with too many friends, I love the peace and the simplicity of a world asleep while I alone dance quietly on the rooftop.

You guys, I have a confession to make, I’ve become…a layout junkie! *sob* Seriously, I’ve been spending more time on FrontPage than is healthy, and as Binje, Sahar and Ahmed can testify, I’m probably going to give myself an aneurysm, and them too.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

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It’s funny how time can change a landscape. Forests become fields, fields become farms, a group of farms becomes a village, a hillside becomes the village graveyard and then the Capital Development Authority comes along and the graveyard is paved over and becomes a road.

I learned a long time ago, actually, that the dead aren’t given much consideration when it comes to property rights. The Chicago Historical society was built over a graveyard, a fact eerily told to me as I sat picnicking in the lush green grass one day. I wouldn’t have known except that had I turned and noticed a small stone building on the premises- a large mausoleum that was on the grounds but not in the way of the building itself. “But they moved all the coffins, right?,” I asked queasily with a bite of sandwich turning dry in my mouth.

No, they didn’t move the coffins. Just the gravestones. It occurred to me that I was sitting on someone’s grave, on the dirt over someone’s face, and we moved the picnic. I remembered that picnic as I was driving through town today, and noticed two small marble platforms in the median in the center of a road. They were graves, not more than thirty years old, and they are all that’s left of the village graveyard that was once here. A man we know from the village across the street has told us that this was once a large graveyard, but the stones were removed, a road was laid on the faces of the dead and the rest of it was divided up into housing plots.

I wonder, when I die, and I am buried in a cemetery, how long will it be before they lay tarmac and cars begin driving over me? How long before my stone is knocked down and my resting place is demeaned with a house or a store- like the strip-mall in front of Rosehill cemetery near my old house in Chicago. That whole area was once a graveyard, now it’s a K-Mart and a Payless shoes.

I’m sure that the whole earth is packed with the bones of the dead, that there isn’t a place anywhere where someone fell and died a long time ago. This whole planet is a giant graveyard. But that’s different. We can’t account for what we don’t know, we can’t respect resting places that we don’t know exist. We can, however, do our best to respect the limits of the graveyards we DO know about. I think we should at least avoid bulldozing them and building houses on top of them.

I don’t care what people say about the city expanding and there being a lack of space. The earth is a big place. It’s not that we’re overcrowded, it’s just that we’re crowding together too densely, and the property values of these graveyards in prime real-estate locations are the real excuses behind these desecrations.

I know this is a weird blog, and I know that it’s morbid and pointless at the same time. But I can’t get over those two lonely graves in the median of the road, turning grey from traffic exhaust. I’m thinking about those graves that are under the road, and it makes me shudder to think of being buried there, not even getting ‘AssalamuAlaikum Ya Ahlal’Quboor’ because no one knows you’re even there. And I think of myself, driving, living, and sitting on the faces of the dead, and I wonder what kind of monumental insult I’m doing to my brothers and sisters who have passed before me.

Astaghfirullah

Alright you guys, here’s what’s new in Abezistan.

First of all, props and thanks to JazakAllah’s to Ahmed and Serenity who helped me with my new layout. 🙂

Second: I’m looking for someone who knows CSS and can help me tweak my tagboard into something that matches this layout more reasonably. Help?

Third: And now, the results of the poultry…errr…poetry competition!

In the category of Best Limerick with a Pakistani Flavor (specifically salan), the award goes to…Arshad! For “Gobi and Aloo!” :::applause:::

My friends call me bhaloo,

I eat gobi and aloo,

l like to blog,

even in the fog

and that’s what i do, yahoo!

In the category of Best Poem Remotely Related to Nature and Ennui, the award goes to….Uzer! For ‘God, I wish it would snow’ :::applause:::

This night I see,

with boredom and malarky,

lack of imagination,

and a distinctly silly word situation,

for what I write, I do not know,

Still you read? God I wish it would snow…

The winner for the Best Poem Related to Abez was a very, very tough decision between Bushra and BAQ, but in the end, the award went to….Bushra! Regardless of the fact that the engagement mentioned in the poem has been broken, you can’t deny that it’s good verse. :::applause:::

When Abez opened an account with blogspot

Did anyone forsee the hotshot?

She wrote, she scribbled, she dazzled them all

They’d check her blog in the cafe, the PC, the mall!

The rest, as they say, is history you know

Times go on, people come and go

The Abezminator as we know him has made his mark

And the couple wait their lives together, happy as larks.

And now, the award for the Best Overall Poem goes to… -click link for result!-

Aniraz and I were watching BBC today. Or rather, we were trying to watch BBC, but the program kept getting interrupted with a commercial that was rather carelessly thrown in, the same one every time. In it, a man and a woman walked purposefully closer and closer to the camera as they extolled the virtues of said cable provider.

They didn’t even wait for the commercial breaks, they just threw their poor-quality, badly-scripted commercial right into a perfectly good episode of Top Gear. And they did it precisely every five minutes.

“And the Lamborghini doesn’t at all compare to the…:::static::: Now! New cable service, 50 channels…:::static:::…car is an absolute beast, uglier than a camel with gingivitis and…:::static:::…First time, for you. Music, entertainment, and much more…:::static:::…But at only 75,000 pounds, is this car not a bargain?””

We patiently glared at the TV the first time it happened.

The second time it happened, Aniraz said, “Boy, that’s irritating.”

The third time it happened, I said, “I don’t care how many channels this cable company has, I’m going to boycott it.”

The fourth time it happened, Aniraz and I looked at each other and unanimously decided that if we ever met the people in the commercial, we were going to kick them. Really. Right in the teeth. And when we were done kicking them, we were going to kick whoever had hired them, and when that said kicking was done, we were going to kick the cameraman over and call it a day.

Then, somewhere in Islamabad, lightning flashed, a black-cat yowled, someone walked under a ladder and our doorbell rang. And the woman from the commercial appeared in our living room.

I am not joking. I am not even artfully fibbing. I went down the stairs to see who my father had let in, and it was the same woman that I had just vowed to kick. I bit my lip, stifled my heart attack and served tea and pleasantries. When I slunk back into the kitchen for teaspoons, I heard my father call Aniraz downstairs. From my vantage point behind the kitchen door, I saw Aniraz come down the stairs with hand extended and ready for a shake, and then go pale and wide-eyed as she shook the woman’s hand, the same woman’s hand from the same commercial that had been irritating the holy-heck out of us for the last half hour. (“I thought the people from the commercial heard us through the TV, and they were coming to get us!” she told me fearfully in the kitchen.)

I cautiously introduced the subject of the commercial, asking her whether she had cable tv? If so, had she seen the commercial? Yes. Was that her? Yes. It was. I swallowed my tea and nervously asked if the other person in the commercial, the man in the suit with the excessive hand-motions who seemed so disturbingly enthusiastic about digital cable, could he be the husband of hers that was standing outside of our gate at that very second? *gasp!* No. Thank God, it wasn’t. I breathed a sigh of relief. I might have been able to take her, her being petite and not so brawny looking, but that other guy, I wouldn’t want to try kicking him. You never know if all that hand-waving in the commercial was the product of years of King-Fu training.

As it turns out, she’s our next-door neighbor. She’s a legal consultant in the cable company, and when they decided to do the commercial, they just grabbed her and a man from a department downstairs and told her to say her lines and walk towards the camera. And unlike her TV persona, she doesn’t interrupt you every five minutes and talk about cable. Which is a pleasant. And she’s a very sweet lady, and not at all as seen on TV. I must shamefully admit that when Aniraz and I grew tired of seeing her face every five minutes, we started saying un-nice things about it. Which is back-biting, but we tend to forget that the people inside that little electronic box are actually people. (What can I say, we’re too stupid to handle home electronics.)

Seeing as how she’s just left, and I’ve given myself a severe headache from suppressing tears of laughter, amazement, and disbelief, I’m going to wind this up with a moral. Be careful who you vow to kick on TV. They may actually be nice people, they could even be your next-door neighbors. Or even worse, they could hear you through the TV, and then they’d come to get you!

The comments that people have been leaving for yesterday’s post have brought up some interesting questions and ideas, and one thing that’s come up several times is Shariah. I’m all for it, btw. Why? Man’s proven that he’s a loser, that the he doesn’t know best, and that the systems he invents are flawed. Just look at Communism, at Socialism, at Dictatorship (waves in the direction Parliament building). Read up on Anarchy, Monarchy, Plutocracy, Oligarchy and all the other crazy systems that man has tried to govern society with. They all have their pros, and they all have cons too, and some of them have holes in their logic that you could drive a semi through. Take, for example, my favorite form of government. I call it Populocracy.

In Populocracy, the laws of society are not decided by the society’s educated or qualified, or by people of understanding, they are decided on according to popular support. What this means is that if 80% of the common citizens were in favor of legalizing something like, say…child molestation, it would happen. In countries where Populocracy is practiced, child-murder (abortion), pornography and homosexuality are already legal, and it’s assumed that drugs will soon be too. After all, anything with enough popular support goes, regardless of whether it’s a benefit or a detriment to the society. Similarly, a law that is of obvious benefit to a society, like many conservation and environmental acts, will go unpassed simply due to lack of popular support. There is no right or wrong, there is only popular and unpopular.

Leaders in the populocratic system are picked very much the same way. Instead of putting the question of leadership to who is most qualified, or most experienced, or brilliant enough to be in a position of office, it is put to who is most popular. In some populocratic countries, actors and actresses with no previous experience in civil administration or even leadership are put into positions of power and great responsibility. Just this year, an actor, Arnold Schwarzenegar, was elected to govern millions of people in the fifth largest economy in the world, California.

It’s interesting that populocratic principles apply not only to law, but to justice as well. Innocence or guilt in a populocratic court are not decided by a panel of judges trained in criminology and judicial proceedings, rather, the trial is decided by a group of the defendant’s peers, while a single judge plays the role of referee. Regardless of whether these peers have any knowledge of pathology, or criminal psychology, or any field of knowledge that would help them make the best decision possible, they are still given the task of deciding a defendant’s guilt. In their uninformed, inexperienced hands, they hold the power of life and death. Cases have shown that results can vary when a single case is given two trials (OJ Simpson: Acquitted in a criminal court and guilty in a civil court), and sometimes, the group of peers can be emotionally swayed to make decisions that go against evidence, and sometimes against the very grain of logic. It’s interesting to note that this panel of peers is picked at random, and ones with any prior knowledge of the case are exempted from taking in part of it.

What country of fools, you would ask, what kind of morons would put their country into the hands of mob mentality when popular opinion is by no means a valid indicator of the rightness or wrongness of an action or a law? Were Jim-Crow laws in the southern US not put in place by popular opinion? Never mind that the enlightened, the brilliant, the men of understanding of the time knew that racial discrimination and segregation were baseless and inexcusable, because they had no power. In a Populocracy, there is no power except in numbers, and the might of these superior numbers means right.

It is often minorities who suffer the most in a Populocracy, because they simply lack the numbers it would take to swing laws in their favor. In some populocratic countries, religious groups are marginalized and their religious practices banned by a hostile majority, regardless of the fact that religious discrimination of any sort is inexcusable. There have been instances in populocratic history where ethnic and religious minorities have lost their properties, their civil rights, even their human rights legally and with the government’s blessing, because popular opinion at the time was in favor of such laws and the government acted accordingly.

And you know what’s sad? This illogical system is one of the most popular in the world, and there are people and governments who are currently in the process of waging war and placing embargoes on non-populocratic countries simply because they refuse to implement Populocracy. And this isn’t the first time, in the 1960’s a militant Populocracy invaded Vietnam for the sole purpose of installing a populocratic government to prevent the spread of Communism, a system highly opposed to Populocracy while simultaneously being just as foolish. This same country also staged a failed invasion of Cuba and a half-takeover in Korea that has split the country between populocratic and non-populocratic governments in a bloody civil war, solely for the purpose of spreading Populocracy in the world, even if by force.

In case no one’s noticed yet, Democr- err, Populocracy is nothing but mob mentality loosely housed within an administrative structure. And people wonder why I, born, raised, and college-educated in a populocratic country (though currently living in a dictatorship) am so in favor of Shariah.

I don’t know who nominated me, and even more mysteriously, who even voted for me? Whackos. But I do know this, I NEED MORE VOTES! MWAHAAAAAAHAAA!

(“now there’s a shameless self-promotion if I ever saw one“- Aniraz)

Pictures removed, I’ll be putting them up one at day at my fotolog instead, because people were having probs. Well, the probs were with villagephotos, but you know what I’m saying. 🙂 Yep. Right, so a pic a day at the fotolog. Peace!

Back from fishing! Today is our last day in Khandaanville since we’re flying back to ISB tomorrow afternoon. It is also the 35th consecutive computer game free day. I swore off computer games for Ramadan (see Oct 28th post) and I think I’ll stay off of them for as long as I can. I still play Playstation, but only when I’m working out, and I find it almost impossible for me to zone out. In fact, it’s almost impossible to even play properly let alone become engrossed, because you’re trying to jog, stay balanced, maintain a speed of at least 3 miles an hour with level 2 resistance, and yet not trip over the controller cable and die.

However, with computer games, you’re sitting in the comfy chair, your speed is zero miles an hour and there is nothing to distract you from playing, so after five minutes it feels like my brain has been replaced with cream filling, and the minutes turn into hours sometimes. Actually I should be using the past tense here, the minutes USED to turn into hours, because I don’t plan on letting that happen anymore. Having not gone into cream-filling mode for a while, I find that my brain feels more up to thinking creatively. It’s easier for me to concentrate, and I keep having these brilliant ideas. Like how to build my own catapult.

One of my uncles has a cannon, actually. It may surprise you to know that he’s one of my American uncles, not one of the Pathan ones here. (Hi Uncles Les!) He built it himself, and he uses it to launch rolls of toilet paper across the riverbank that his cabin stands on. The trees on the other side of the river take on a kind of ghostly appearance when the toilet paper trailing from their branches catches the moonlight, but still, it’s good clean fun. And impressive, too.

Another one of my uncles built an electricity generator from an old 1960’s Datsun engine. (It may surprise you to know that he’s not one of the American uncles, he’s a Pathan. Amir Hassan Chacha Zindabaad!) Initially it ran on diesel, but then he converted it to natural gas, and since the 1970’s, he’s been constantly upgrading it. It still works, it lives on the roof of the house we’re staying in, and when the electricity goes they crank it up (the key still says Datsun) and we’re the only house on the block with power.

The way I see it, if Uncle Les can build a cannon, and Amir Hassan Chacha can build an electricity generator, then I can build a catapult.

Ok, so a catapult is a little hard. I could at least build a small trebuchet. You know, to fire things off the roof. I figure that all I need is some bamboo poles, something heavy for a counter-weight, some rope, and a scabby horse to launch at my foes, just like in the old days of castles and siege warfare. That whole thing with people launching rocks is all just sugar-coated revisionist history. The truth is they saved all their animal carcasses, old horses and sick cattle, to throw at enemies. As my G-ma would say, I kid you not.

Anyway, I’ve discussed my plan at length with Aniraz (proud inventor of the oat-meal bolo), whose brain is not cream, but peanut-filled, which may explain why she hasn’t tried to discourage me yet. I figure I’ll just carry all of the stuff to the roof and start tying the rods together and go from there. Or I could tie the horse to the counter-weight first and then build the frame around it. Or, maybe I should tie the counterweight to the frame instead, and position the horse only when it’s ready to fire?

I don’t know. If all else fails, I’ll just throw the counter-weight at Aniraz (for not trying to discourage me) and then eat the scabby horse between two mattresses to keep my strength up for the long journey back to the drawing board.*

* “I’m so hungry I could eat a scabby horse between two mattresses!” –Crayon

Gone fishing. Sensei will be back after Dec 3rd. Till then, love, peace and chikken grease!

Ma’Assalam 🙂

****

By The Steeds

By the steeds and the sparks of their hooves

I am, to my Lord, an ungrateful horse

Here I stand tethered without any rope

Without any harness except that of hope

Free and unbridled I’m told I may roam

With nothing to stop me from running from home

And nothing to stop me from seeing the others

Far horses afield, my long astray brothers

And though there are times that my ungrateful gaze

May lead me to wish I could wander and graze

My heart, it remembers deceptive fair weather

And darkness and fear I found far from my tether

And the poisonous fruit that made me so ill

And the pained journey home on nothing but will

By the steeds.

And their thundering hooves.

To my Lord, I will be, a most patient horse.

For love of him I need no rope

For fear of him I have my hope

Foolish are those who would yet choose to roam

When light and plenty are here and at home

Though still nothing stops me from seeing the others

I’ve no intent to join my lost brothers

From the earth to the heavens I now turn my gaze

And look to this grass only to graze

No matter how lonely, how cold the weather,

By the steeds, I wander no more from my tether.

Ate…tooo….much…haleem….

Can’t…move…

*gasp*

Eid Mubarak!

*passes out*

Once upon a time, thirteen years ago, itty-bitty Sensei was dropped head-first into Pakistan, and therefore, into Urdu. Having previously had an Urdu vocabulary of ZERO, she learned Urdu through what some people would call the ‘immersion method.’ I would call it ‘sink or swim,’ and I would also say that years later, I’m barely keeping my head above the waters of total illiteracy. I’m reminded of my Urdu handicap every time I come and visit the Khandaan and am verbally one-upped by nine-year olds. Take this conversation, for example, which originally occurred in Urdu.

Niece: Do you speak Urdu?

Sensei: (I’m answering in Urdu here folks.) What do you think?

Niece: (grins) Can you READ Urdu?

Sensei: A little.

Niece: (handing me a children’s story book) Here, read me this.

Sensei: (squinting at page one) Umm…

Niece: I thought you could read?

Sensei: I thought I could too, what’s this funny looking letter here?

Niece: That’s a ‘seen’ (letter “s”), they’ve just stretched it out to make it look pretty. You’re a grown-up and you can’t read my book?

Sensei: Well, you know Urdu isn’t my first language.

Niece: (calling other children) Hey you guys! Phupoo can’t read Nonehal! (name of children’s magazine)

Sensei: Well, errr…

Nephew: (in disbelief) You can’t even read Nonehal?

Niece: And she’s a grown-up too! Ha ha! Even Saad can read Nonehal, and he’s six!

(the crowd of children grows. I sigh and pull out a copy of The Professor, by Bronte, which I had been reading)

Sensei: (opening page of book) Here kiddo, can you read?

Niece: Yes!

Sensei: Read this.

Niece: (taking book and sounding out letters) Madame, jay vooz preee, hey I can’t read this, it’s nonsense! What is this?

Sensei: You mean you can’t read French? Even Aniraz Phupoo can read French! Ha ha! Hey Aniraz Phupoo, she can’t even read French!

(the children are duly shamed, so we call it a truce and go play badminton in the back yard)

The fact that my nieces and nephews can’t read French doesn’t excuse me from not being able to read Urdu at a literate level, but it sure it useful. If harassed about my lack of language skills, I can always break out in my preschool French, or into the lyrics of the Russian song ‘Katusha.’ But this only works on children, and thankfully the adults are very gracious about my lame Urdu. So gracious in fact, that they didn’t want to hurt my feelings by correcting me, so for three years, they let me say that I had hide (khaal) instead of skin (jild). They also let me reverse the words for ‘invent’ and ‘prevent.’ I’m still not sure which one is ijaad and which one is ‘nijaad’ so I’m just going to keep my mouth shut here.

I also mixed up the words 1.‘marham’ and 2.‘marammat,’ which meant that I spoke of cars receiving ointment (1.) and certain wounds being repaired (2.). I reduced a shopkeeper to tears once when I tried to ask him for a dozen white beads (motian), and by a twist of the tongue, asked him for a dozen white fat women instead (moTian). I corrected myself right away, but it was too late. The damage was already done. The tears were already running down his face. And I never did get my fat women…errr…beads.

I’ve been reading the Urdu newspaper lately in an attempt to bring my vocabulary up, but I don’t know if it’s appropriate reading material. New words and phrases I have learned this week have been to condemn (muzammat karma), reaction/consequence (radde-amal), to express heartfelt sympathy (dilli afsos ka Izhar karma), extremism (intiha pasandi), and United Nations (Aqwami Mutahidda). So now my brain is full of political jargon that I don’t know how to use. I can just imagine:

Cousin: Oh no, the pakoras have burnt!

Sensei: Main is garam tail ki sakht muzammat karti houn aur aap ki pakoray ki jalnay ki dilli afsos ka Izhar karti houn. Aqwami Mutahidda ko is baat ki itila honai chaihiyay! (I strongly condemn this hot oil and express my heartfelt concern over the burning of your pakoras. The United Nations should be notified of this!)

:::teeth::::

Before I begin I must make a disclaimer. Sensei believes strongly in intellectual property rights, and does not purchase pirated software. However, when Sensei is bored out of her brain, she will occasionally play other peoples.’ Remember kids, always buy original CD’s. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

Adventures in Blogistan Presents: Sensei’s Bootleg PS2 Game Review

Dear readers, if you’ve never dealt with pirated CD’s before, then you probably don’t know that they’re reviewed on a scale that’s totally different from their original counterparts. Where original games are judged only on a few factors, like graphics, gameplay, sound, storyline, etc, bootlegs games are based on a few extra ones, like case content, and the ‘one-death distance.’

Case content is a self-explanatory phrase, whereas the ‘one-death distance,’ or ODD, may take some explaining. ODD represents how far I can get in a game without dying or saving, because I don’t have a memory card. So, in no order at all, here are the games we’ve reviewed this week.

Rygar: The Legendary Adventure

A no-brainer platform game, Rygar is surprisingly attractive (I mean the scenery, not the hero). The backgrounds are nicely rendered, the ancient Greek architecture in which the game has been set comes to life in a way that’s so nice looking that it makes you sad to be knocking it down and breaking it to little pieces. Of course, destroying every Corinthian column you find isn’t part of the plot, but when they give me a game where you’re actually allowed to interact (read: fight) with the scenery, I take advantage of it. I make it a point to destroy every vase and knock over every statue and column, not simply for the fun, but also because they’re hiding secret items in there. Not that I’ve figured out what any of those items do yet. Maybe I’m just destructive. I’m one of those people who spent all of my time in Zelda: Ocarina of Time harassing the little animated chickens in the village, just because they ran from me. Imagine my surprise when they fought back and killed me. Aah, memories.

Unfortunately, as good as Rygar looks (the hero. And the scenery) the game is boring. Dull. 100% plot-free. Rygar serves the princess. The princess is kidnapped, Rygar will save her. Rygar smash. Rygar battles foes from ancient Greek mythology, such as the Cyclops, the Titan…the armored caterpillar? The fire-flinging tulip-face? Anyway, Rygar destroys them all because Rygar is our hero. Yay.

Now the important aspects of the game, ODD (one-death distance) and cover content. Without dying or saving once, I played Rygar only up to the second chapter. I could’ve played longer, but frankly I was bored. I tried to get Rygar killed, but I had already pulverized all my enemies and didn’t have it in me to go forward to find some new ones. So I tried to throw Rygar off one of the beautiful, scenic coliseums, but he wouldn’t jump. I tried run him out of a window, and discovered that golden the sunset hanging outside the window was just a 2-D façade. So I ran Rygar into a wall and then hit the power button. ODD: 45 minutes.

Rygar’s cover content receives a rating of 6 for amusement. Apparently it was copied from a review of Rygar, which the printers failed to read before putting on the back of the game. Here it is, unedited, and in its entirety.

“The legendary adventure shares name if its predecessors, which appeared in arcades and on the Nintendo Entertainment System. But other than a few references and the main character’s yo-yo like weapon, the latest incarnation of Rygar shares very little in common with those to games. Similarly, Rygar: The Legendary Adventure’s thoroughly mediocre storyline & relatively short length are almost antithetical to the epic Greek mythology that the game is loosely based on. But the allure of action platformer that plays reasonably and looks and sounds excellent-“ (end cover. There’ nothing more written after this point.) Should you buy this game? No.

Onimusha: Warlords

Onimusha has the look of an absolutely beautiful game. The animation is simply lovely, and the backgrounds are extremely detailed. The fighting is simple enough to be easily mastered (attack, block, magic, and absorb) but varied enough to provide a challenge and room for expertise skill development (whack whack, absorb, whack, magic thunder thrust, pow!). The fighting is one of the best parts of the game. Character movement is nicely choreographed, and realistic enough to make the whole game look like a one long movie scene. Well, when I say realistic, I mean realistic as far as Japanese warrior zombies can be.

The atmosphere of the game is dark, the blood flies fast and free (who knew skeleton warriors HAD blood?) and the violence is enough to make even me cringe. I wouldn’t recommend this game for little kids. It might give them nightmares. Shoo, it’ll probably give me nightmares, but that won’t stop me from playing anyway.

The plot is intelligently presented enough to overcome the classic clichés, (lone warrior out to save kidnapped princess from zombie hordes with the help of mysterious imbued magical powers) and seriously written without being melodramatic. The ODD on this game was only half an hour, because it really was a challenge, and I was genuinely sad when my warrior-dude bit the dust while running from the first main boss. (run away!)

The game receives a cover content rating of 8 for grammatical correctness, if not originality. “In a world of darkness and magic, power-hungry warlords battle each other for control of feudal Japan. At the height of the chaos, a young princess is kidnapped…” Should you buy this game? Immediately, and buy me one too.

Ghost Vibration:

They say that presentation if everything. Whoever they are, they were right. This game never made it out of the box. It failed the reviewing criterion for cover content so badly that I couldn’t stop laughing long enough to take the CD out of the case. When I was done laughing, I passed it on to Aniraz, who also laughed until she could barely move. You’ll excuse me for not giving this game a proper review as soon as you read this excerpt…

“Shoot the ghost, aim and inhale! The new axis fear action which trembles the prayer. It depends on the elite chestnut thornback tar group Artoon, the work of topic this summer. While inside the Western-style building where many evil spirit wriggles, catching evil spirit the action game which it clears! The fear production with movie camera work, and the ghost capture by the unique weapon “Spear cancer/gun’ is a special feature.”

Should you buy this game? I’m not sure. I’ll let you know when I’m done giggling.

Blood Omen 2:

Having never played Blood Omen 1, I can’t tell you whether this game is better than or worse than the original. I can tell you that the backgrounds are average, and the bad guys are ok. Not great, but ok.

You are the anti-hero, Kain, vampire warrior extraordinaire, who is out to reclaim his dark empire from some mysterious rival vampire who’s taken over things while you spent the last 400 years snoozing.

Right, so you, Kain, wake up, grouchy and unhappy, and deign to follow around some saucy vampire tart (with a cape but no pants on) as part of a tutorial that lasts about 45 minutes, supposedly to help you remember the skills you may have forgotten during your 400 year nap. It would be nice if you could skip the tutorial and just read the command buttons from the menu, but there is no escape. So we follow around miss sassy-pants, who reminds us how to bludgeon people on the street to death and drink their blood. (Sensei the school teacher sez: Kain should get a time-out for bad behavior. It isn’t nice to exsanguinate pedestrians)

Once we finish the laborious and torturously long tutorial, we get to run amok somewhere in England, biting people and fighting things. Oh yes, and we get to take the weapons from defeated foes, which is something I appreciate very much. I always wondered why they never let you do that in other games. Cheapskates.

The cover content for this game gets an 8, it too is normal and grammatically correct. The ODD on this game? How long it took me to die the first time? Two seconds. Miss Sassy-pants told me water was deadly to vampires, that falling in would be the death of me, but did I take her advice? No. I ran off the end of a pier and died a horrible and rather effervescent death. Fortunately, this game gives you checkpoints at regular intervals from where you can be reincarnated (sans weapon) and try again. I may have died two or three times, but I did play for about two hours before putting my sleepy thumbs to bed.

As lukewarm as this review sounds, the game isn’t actually bad. Aside from the fighting and biting, you can also jump, climb, and employ a bit of strategy. Kain is a bit like an undead Lara Croft, but pastier. Should you buy this game? I wouldn’t recommend it. I don’t like any games that involve killing innocent people. Once you pull a weapon the people run of screaming too, and when you corner them, they beg for mercy. It’s one thing to slay a whole army of demons and bad guys, but a game that rewards you for killing people, even women walking down the street, is just warped.

The End.

Well, we’re here. We’ve made it to Karachi, and by way of a lawn chair, parked by a CPU on the floor and sitting in front of a monitor that’s perched on someone’s dresser, we’ve also made it back into Blogistan.

Right, so back to blogging.

The flight from Islamabad to Karachi was short, and like all turbulent flights, it was great for restoring the digital clarity on your fear of Allah that you sometimes lose over time. If you’re ever feeling a little disconnected from your Deen, or that you’ve gotten some static interference with you direct link to Allah, just board a plane, take it zillions of feet into the air in cloudy weather, and then let it drop a few times, and maybe do a little pitching. Not only will that put the fear of God, death, Qiyamat, and accountability back into you (Astaghfirullah, I’m not ready to die!) but it will also cure hiccups.

There’s nothing like a little perceived brush with death to remind you of your own mortality. I highly recommend it to everyone. But you know, if you can’t afford to board a plane on a windy day, and if you happen to also live in Karachi, I would recommend this great new chauffer service that not only:

1. Gets you from point A to point B, but also-

2. Dashes any delusions of immortality and-

3. Reacquaints you with the possibility of your own demise.

I call it, “Qasim’s Qiyamat Prequel Tour,” or, “Corolla of Death.”

Here’s how it works. You hop into the car fifteen minutes before Iftar with half an hour of road between you and your destination, and then watch as the driver (Qasim) breaks ever traffic rule known to man, and then makes up some new violations as he goes along. It really is most exciting, and the brushes with death or dismemberment that result from running red-lights and tailgating petrol tankers do wonders for your Taqwa. And for the hundreds of near-misses, we really only hit two cars on the way home from the airport.

Just two.

One smash into a van in the airport parking lot, you know, to raise the adrenaline right at the start of the tour, and then one with another car half-way through the journey to keep that adrenaline rushing. Damage done to other vehicles was ignored (this is Karachi) while the damage done to ours (knocked a head-light out, the whole thing, complete with casing) was easily mended with the supply of spare head-lights kept in the house. Apparently these head-lights fall out easily, and often.

Contrary to common belief, this tour is actually exhilarating and even….fun. Of all the near-death experiences I’ve ever had, these last 57 in the car yesterday were the only ones where I’ve been laughing and seeing my life flash before my eyes at the same time.

Driver: :::Swerving to avoid pedestrian while being squeezed between cement median and truck loaded with sides of beef::: “Who am I to blame if these pedestrians keep trying to jump out at me? I swear, every time I drive all the crazies come out and try to hit me…Hey! Stop clutching at that handle, you want the door to fall off? Ow! Stop hitting me Ma, you want me to crash into something? :::swerve, screeeeeeeech, more swerving::::

This may have been the only time in my life where I was unable to recite Ayatul-Kursi properly due to the fact that I was cracking up. For the heart-attack my cousin’s driving gave me, it also gave me a belly-ache from laughing.

Driver: :::upon hitting another car and watching the head-light fly off into space::: What was that noise? That other guy must have lost a bit of his car then. Just a bit of plastic off of his cheap car. It was falling off anyway, I saw.

His mother, Aunt: Our car made a noise too then. It was our car, we lost something!

Driver: Oh that? Just the engine. You want me to go back and get it?

Unfortunately, even with my cousin’s new and improved driving skills, we didn’t make it home in time for Iftar. We did make it half-way across Karachi in ten minutes, only to be blocked in pre-Iftari traffic five minutes from home. There was then some debate about whether or not the azhan had been called yet, which we tried to resolve based on whether the pedestrians still looked hungry.

Aunt: Look at how far the sun has set already, why don’t you eat one of the samosas I brought?

Driver: No no, it’s not time yet. See that fat guy? If it was Iftar he’d be running. Not walking to wherever he’s going.

Aunt: But he could already have broken his fast and would now be walking to the Masjid for Maghrib.

Driver: That guy would still be eating. No way it’s Iftar time.

Aunt: Those men on the corner were eating dates….

Driver: Shame on them, eating during Roza. Couldn’t they have waited five more minutes until the azhan was called? I swear, people these days… Look, there’s the house! See? I told you guys I would get you home before Iftar.