Scarred (part 2)

we have this tendency of blinking and losing the other person to the meandering, chaotic world.

met somebody, it was an accident. she said one thing, i said another. next, i found myself wishing of spending rest of my life in the middle of our conversation. all of it was too transient. and just like that, she was gone.

she took my heart, i think, she took my soul.

Scarred (part 1)

beware of ides of march and wrath of a jaded woman. Really. The former killed Ceaser, the latter could wipe the entire male specie. Just one of a dozen ides occurring every year, I hear you say? And perhaps just one of many women around. But there was one who had something foreboding working against her. Or maybe for her. She had adopted extreme survival ways without excess thought, masochism inducing ways.

even as a kid, when she knew little about feminine anatomy and it's romanticized worth, she was raised to believe that purpose in life entailed being worthy enough to be picked as a mate by an able hunter of the tribe. Successful mating was all about fair skin, strong legs and ample bosom. That's where it all began.

when she reached of sound mind, she started realizing how the word 'survival' conjured up disturbing imagery for her. She decided to refresh her memory and rewrite the definition of it. Lack of self-efficacy well channelled.

even at this point she did not know much about the norms of the world around her, but she had sharp senses and great intellect, features that outshone her siblings. She moved swiftly through people and left a strange etching every time.

(to be continued)

Holy Voyeurism

The post was originally published in the blog section of The News. It can be accessed Here. Below is a slightly edited version of the same article.

Amir Liaqat devotee or loather, the leaked video was the epitome of voyeurism across the board. Fake, edited, dubbed or real, the man in the video has risen out of this saga as the greatest entertainer of recent times. Not only that, he's also modest enough to attribute his own brilliance to his ex-employers. Unpretentious as a nun. Look what I did here. Ironic?

Ever noticed how ungrateful and unappreciative we are as a nation of gems like him? Neither Meera nor Zohair Toru can even remotely match his talents. Some also go to the extent of saying, he's Chaplin of the speaking-film era. The man is responsible for resurrecting Ghalib and endowing us with what can be described as one of the most novel Pakistani internet memes. Instead of venturing into futile arguments about the authenticity of the video, media intellects should expend all their efforts in creating a much-needed, reality show based around Mathira and the man himself, Aamir Liaqat. Experts are positive that with his signature fist-pumping actions and his catchy euphemism for Viagra (makhan), coupled with Mathira's nefarious sounding Gujji Gujji, the show could break all ratings' records. There are also rumors that his current employers might not be renewing his contract and in the next season the show might be re-branding itself as Aalima-Online, with its new host, Mathira.

Whilst he left the veteran actor Dev Anand mildly irked and offended, it is reported that Aamir Liaqat would be starring in the rendition of Rishi Kapoor's Qawaali, "Hai agar dushman", in the upcoming movie "Nazuk Soorat-e-haal" alongside Veena Malik. According to his manager, just a few minutes after the clip was aired, the prices of all of Aamir’s performing acts were increased by 300%. Another 200% hike was charged to his Bollywood-inspired crying act.

It was initially assumed that the video, testifying his canting hypocrisy, would prove baneful for the channel he currently works for. However, a reverse reaction was observed when the entire nation sat before their television sets, in a state of delirious reverence. Even though Aamir Liaqat has resorted to taking the expected route by claiming that the video was doctored in the same Hindu-Zionist-CIA-Raw lab where AIDS was created, much like his own Doctorate degree, people got slightly confused when he used tongue-twisting, difficult words like "synchronization" in his rebuttal, but eventually bought everything, verbatim.

Original Sin

I am going to flirt here. But unlike many of you, yearning for periodic validation of your virility, this exercise will be carried out, with artless candor, not just for attention but also with intention. I am going to flirt, rather suavely, with a rather sensitive nerve here.

I

Consider this. A long-standing tribal animosity between two families is pacified and brought to an abrupt end when an elderly from one of the tribes resorts to a glorified variant of human trade- nuptial trafficking. He turns his 9 year old grand daughter, Eve, into a sacrificial lamb and fixes her wedding to a 14 year old boy belonging to the adversary, Adam. In case you're wondering what obscure village I'm talking about, it's one of the largest cities in the world - Karachi.

Adam is sent to one of the best schools in the country. He gains exposure, becomes substantially urbanized and develops progressive and highly enlightened ideals. He becomes of sound mind and body. Upon arriving his mid-teens, he watches One Tree Hills of his time and sneaks some fun in his life too. In his late teens, he grows up reading Karl Marx and listening to revolutionary libertarians like John Lennon. Later, he goes off to college to foreign lands.

Eve, even long after she's bled, remains completely oblivious to her involuntary propitiation. She becomes painfully beautiful, almost sculpted. Fortunately, she too gets raised by an educated pair and enjoys a liberally-privileged, but a controlled adolescence. Upon discovering tribal skeletons in her family cupboard, things start to get mildly complicated. The liberals around her assume her to be of the prudent lot and her righteous existence is repeatedly romanticized, almost in a way done in idyllic poetry. She likes it, so she plays along and everything remains under control.

In the meanwhile, now at college, Adam becomes a virtuoso with his game. He experiments with altering consciousness and ingests a variety of forbidden fruits, philandering and copulating freely like no tomorrow, passionately committing the original sin in every sense of the word.

"Is it going somewhere with any of them?" a friend asks Adam one day.

"Are you kidding?" Adam says, practically gagging. "Who's going to marry a smoker, anorexic coat-hanger who's gonna make a jug of vodka instead of kids?"

"He makes a valid argument there" someone points out, right before the band bursts into a hysterical laughter fit.

Eve becomes of age and her beauty, inordinately heavenly. She starts gaining visibility within her own demographic sample, consequently, getting tenaciously hounded by the opposite sex. As much as she wants to reciprocate, she is also apprehensive of the 'zaalim samaaj'. And she by now is already, almost willingly, a prude. However, her aspirations remain progressive. Unlike her mother, she wants to pursue her passions, develop herself intellectually and professionally.

Things get berserk when Adam comes back after college and the promise made over a decade ago nears maturity. Finally, the glacier between the two breaks, and Eve realizes that there exists abnormal deviation between Adam and her conception/ideals of companionship. Though, he is profoundly gratified by seen-all-done-all. To hedge the risk of being asked machismo-denting questions, he shackles Eve by his own interpretation of morality, chastity, righteousness and temperance. Ironically, something he remained bereft of all his life.

II

We are highly complex creatures, born and raised in different cultures, inheriting unique sets of norms and morals. Yet the above depiction is vastly, nay universally pervasive in one form or the other. In our society too, it holds true, independent of race, sect and socio-economic class. By altering a few regressands here and there, it can be localized for each stratum of our society. Therefore, the aforementioned ordeal of temperance and original sin can be interpreted as symbolically and as literally as one desires.

Contradicting standards have become man's second nature, the first being expenditure of all his time and resources to maximize and diversify fornication. For the purpose of understanding, let's assume two markets; pre-marriage and post-marriage. We can observe the efficiency of the boy's pre-companion market and his lucrative ventures, characterized by free market and perfect competition. This largely entails, symmetric information possessed by both parties, every individual, irrespective of gender, being a price-taker and homogeneity in terms of the nature of favors being traded.

Now consider the inefficiency of the post-married market where markets are artificially made to fail because of the man's hypocrisy and double standards. The market remains no longer free as the woman gets weighed down by the ideals and norms of her society, the SOPs of temperance and prudeness she has to abide by, whilst performing multi-faceted roles within the said parameters. The instant she steps out of it, she's branded rhapsodic and mono-syllabic W and the S words. Adam on the other hand, sets his own long-radii parameters. Even if he somehow steps out, he's eulogically referred to as being 'free-spirited'.

God fashioned Adam and then Eve from a part of his body. That's the time he disobeys God, gets expelled from Eden in the process of honoring his companionship. And here we have Adam today. Ever thought how he went so astray?

Diary of A Karachi Vagabond (Part 2)

Sajjawal had disowned his past self. He began with trying the name change, which he couldn't possibly do, so he settled with a non-Paposhi sobriquet. Everybody who met this American Eagle's polo-wearing choot, now called him Saj. He had instructed me to do so too. I even tried, but 'Saj' always came out of my mouth with an inkling of a call-center agent's accent, who sits in an office near Jawed Nehari and fools gooras in Manhattan.

I didn't give a fuck about him, and he followed suit with great vehemence. I would only accompany him to Lighthouse at the end of every month to treasure hunt for used but branded clothes, that only he had developed the eye for. That I attributed to his affluent associations from the better side of Kaala Pull.

Asfand Yar was one of his revered, fresh associations whom he met at Bahadur Shah's dera while scoring charas. I wouldnt lie here. There was certainly an ethereal air about him. Something mysteriously mesmeric. He was then, what every woman wishes her man could be, every Sajjawal would want his wealthy friend to be, and at that point, decidedly, all I ever wanted to be.

Asfand Yar was conditioned to be this way. He was brought up in a feudal household, in a small town near Charshadda. Alone amongst his siblings, he went to a co-educational school system. The experience that Sajjwal chuttu badly yearned and felt strongly about. Dropping out of two colleges in one year, he felt that lazing at home wasn't a good enough leakage for his exponentially accumulating, feudal wealth. He needed better avenues to be wasteful. That when he decided to come down to Karachi in search of Sharaab, Shahbaab and Kabaab.

"Yo listen Ali, ask your brother to send me a few polos too dude" Asfand had finally asked me.

Even after spending two years in this dark city of lights, he wasn't able to discover the branded treasure land of Lighthouse. Honestly, we didn't want him too. It was our only glory. Saying what he just did, he seemed like the biggest chutiya on the planet.

'Let's go to Boat Basin and eat something. This shit makes me really hungry bhenchood' he said, while he neatly wrapped the charas and put it in his pocket.

All three of us walked till the end of the gali and sat in the car silently. I noticed, it wasn't just because we were really stoned. Atleast I was sober enough to talk and had barely smoked. I had just exhaled the smoke without inhaling it properly. It was more because every word that used to come out of Asfand's mouth was taken as a command by Sajjawal. Myself included. I didn't know why though. I hadn't given enough though to it. (To be continued)

Diary of A Karachi vagabond (Part 1)

For them, the dog-eat-dog world idiom seems like an insult to the fittest survivor and overly Darwenian gali ka kutta, who first munches over the uncovered gutter and then snatches sooki hadiyaan from the hands of half-naked children, whilst they play post-dinner kancha-kancha in the corner. And later barks them off.

"Jis thaali mein khaaya, ussi mein chaid kiya"

Spending years around these hedonistic dicks, I have come to realize how adept they've become in the arduous art of constant baatein chodna about their seemingly puritan and righteous ethos. While they're smooth like that, it makes me wonder if actuality really matters. But lets discuss what matters and what doesnt later. Right now whats important is how they all exhibit chutyapa brilliantly, in their own, exclusive ways.

Of them, Sajjawal Soomro is truly a despicable and abhorrent little creature. Well, to be honest he isnt really that little. He's 6'2 but at the same time pretty inept and hopeless lund. Although I know him for quiet some time now, to be able to pick up his grandeur delusions in the uber bullshit, he never forgets to add sublimation of him being in the direct lineage of Alexander the great, whenever he talks.

Sala, chutiya.

As much as I want to hide my jealousy and deny his mojo with women, there is nothing that beguile ladies as much as the feeling that they are with Sajjawal himself. Or so he likes to think. What a choot.

He completed his Matriculation from Paposh Secondary and advanced to Alama Government College later from where he was promptly expelled when he put used sanitary pads in a professors bag. Though, I always knew he belonged somewhere else. He always fondly spoke of, and narrated bachi stories of his not-so-distant cousin who went to Karachi American School. I think he too belonged there. Yes, Karachi American School it was.

Gushti kaheen ka...(To be continued)

Tentative

If there were a party of those who aren’t sure they’re right, I’d be heading it.