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)
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.
Never have I experienced a more fervent anti-state up-roaring by the elitists. For all the vehement, simple-minded, cute Facebookers, bloggers and stand-up comedians, let me tell you this; you'd only get 'Facebook Likes' by writing an article that starts off with "Mr. President, first of all, fuck you" and then goes on to continue it as a venomous, spiteful Zaradari-biography. Some stand-up comedians follow suit and write a badgering research paper-length article on a seven word sentence uttered by the president. Perhaps, these are your biggest guns against the great Zardari.
I'd have to agree though. These Facebook petitions and fuck-you-articles about him possess great entertainment value. The petitions inviting your entire friends list to unite against, sometimes, his exorbitant spending trips amidst floods and sometimes his habitual corruption, wouldn't change the situation slightly, not even an inch. If anything, it's going to make you a bigger Facebook whore, more interestingly, this time, a Zardari-loathing whore.
These are the people that are taken aback every fucking time, at every news item associating Zardari with evil, as though he spent the first fifty-five years of his life as a fucking saint. And now, a saint gone bad. Come on. It's been two decades now, since his first claim to fame and exactly two years as our leader. And still , a nation with a president like ours, we wonder why Mohammad Amir and Asif are so expensive when it comes to bowling no-balls. Funny. Now, you dare not flinch in surprise if Scotland Yard find those same series pound-notes at the Zardari Villa. Amir and Asif wouldn't have survived this day, had they not given Zardari his legit share.
Mohammad Amir is in the eye of the storm after the weekend revelations
As a nation, we have indeed learnt the art of making great punching-bags. Our penchant for the popular Pakistani blame-game has led us into buying a handful of cheap, sastay punching-bags, usually called 'Zardari', and other times, could take the name as innocent as 'Meera'. The Sialkot culprits, the jahil-online Amir Liaqat, Mohammad Amir, and the green-lipped Akmal lie somewhere along the bag punching, hate-level continuum. These have actually done us some good. These have helped us distract ourselves from the ugly man in the mirror, the hideous looking fuck that we choose to ignore.
A Zardari lives inside me, a lynching Sialkoti lives inside you, a breathing caricature of Amir lives inside each on of us. It came on to the surface last week when I shook hands with a traffic 'tulla' and gave him two red notes for taking a wrong u-turn. It comes on to the surface every time somebody gets his/her driving license made in an hour, every time we go to the beach on the election holiday. We have upheld the punching bag tradition brilliantly for the past six decades. Not a thing has changed, except the names of these punching bags. It's about time that we stop accusing Zardari of stealing our candy.
I wouldnt lie. I do have alot of time even after work to update the blog, its just sheer laziness that I have just managed two posts in four months. I'm working on that.
She comes as a breath of fresh air for our lower-middle class and as a direct, cut-throat competition to Meera Jee. She will also soon out-do Meera in all walks of life.
Interestingly, a post on somebody else's blog made me write this one. I wanted to to be the first to write about this but XYZ at Cafepyala beat me by a few days and still did a lousy job. Here is the link to the post and the comment thread, high in entertainment value, more than the psot itself.
Whats astonishing is that considering the local blog scene and how it has an opinion about the most trivial issues, updates news and issues almost in real time, still has nothing to say about the Vibe princess. Are the local bloggers completely oblivious to the issue or just choose to ignore it because they have more to write about Ali Zafar's new movie- 'Tere Bin Laden'?
Cafepyala wrote a post about Mathira so I finally thought that atleast people are noticing it. Only to find out that the post provided good entertainment to its readers with Mathira's video and a few lame comments which I will be posting here. Its primarily because of these comments that I sat down to write.
I can guarantee you that more than half the people reading this post would know about Mathira by now. She's everywhere. She comes live on the channel Vibe from 12 am till 2 am and she's also everywhere on-demand on Youtube and Facebook. The day is not far when DVDs of her show will be available at Home Video. Or maybe they're already in the market- the infamous Rainbow Centre. I also tried googling her to find out where she's come from ( her accent is certainly not local, unless she worked in a call centre here) and I found entire blogs dedicated to her pictures and posts describing her body parts in intricate detail, brilliantly. Whatever I know about her or I've heard is that she's originally from Kenya so basically she's African. She made her debut with a yoga show on Vibe in early 2008. Back then, her real talent had not been discovered or capitalised upon so she was usually seen teaching yoga, wearing pretty decent clothes at that time. I had the opportunity of watching her in that show, and I clearly remember her talking about 'curvatures', 'yoga for a voluptuous body', 'protruding butts'.
With that, probably the response was insanely overwhelming and the result was the next season of 'Curvacious Yoga' with Mathira in a sports bra.
Way more than what Pakistani audience could handle. And I am sure they were not able to, but since the show wasn't interactive, it stayed in peoples' pants. Thats the point when the Peoples' Meter went abnormally high and Vibe stumbled upon a lucrative business model. Finally. They came up with 'Love Indicator'.
The channel Vibe descrivbes the show as "Is it really love? Find out from the professional" The word 'professional' here is a little unclear, ambiguous and questionable for me. The show was initially designed so that people could call in and get 'love advice' from Mathira. I am not sure if that ever happened. Mind you, I am an ardent follower of the show. If you've gotten to know Mathira thorugh on-demand videos on Youtube, then you'd be having some idea about what her show has turned into. Have a look.
I fail to understand how PEMRA is allowing this show to be aired. Some people would give the argument of Lollywood movies being worse than this. I completely agree, but again they're not being thrown at you on national television. Not just the nature of the show is questionable, but also the way she is dressed, the reaction she is getting from live-callers and the way she is slowly creating a niche for her show. The niche consisting of thoses masses who would call in, flirt with her and tell her who 'refreshed' they feel after watching her show on mute (this happened on her show last night). Besides this niche are those female viewers who are genuinely impressed by her, her clothes, not to mention her body too. People have told me about little girls calling on her show and asking her 'mujhe aap apne jaisa bana dein'. Now, should'nt this be a little alarming or am I just over-reacting?
Lets not get into the debate of 'she bringing it onto herself' and 'the callers are all perverts'. With a show of this nature and target market, these screw-ups are inevitable. Sometimes the cleavage isaa bit too loud for the callers to handle and sometimes they'd do it because they're twice as muslims as other muslim and they want to 'teach her a lesson'. Read the comments on the videos I have posted and you'd know exactly what I mean. My point being, this would happen for one reason or some other. It doesnt stop here. The reprecussions this would have on our already-fucked society are beyond comprehension. Following the great business model, KTN, Sindh Tv, Dhoom, Zam tv, Ujala Tv and Rung tv would start a show along the same lines and finally start breaking-even. And yes, there is absolutely no justification of these kind of shows representing 'open-media'. This is certainly not open-media, nor does it represent liberalism and 'live-and-let-live' philosophy by any definition. Possibly, the only advantage of this show is the social service this show could be doing to our Pakistani men of a platform being given to let their frustration out. Yes, Mathira. One for the team.
Now coming to Cafepyala's post. One major issue I had with his post was that, he suggested a solution to the problems I just discussed. According to XYZ, a five second delay would solve the issues to an extent and the show could be censored. Thats what we've gotten used to. Its because of censorship that we won the 1965 war (which we actually and politically lost). Cafepyala's post failed to identify the real issue and gave a superficial, transient cover-up, sweeping Mathira and her Love indicator under the carpet.
These are the comments on that post.
Vagabond said... Wait a second, XYZ. Its like saying, suicide bombings can happen if it must but it shouldnt be shown on tv.
Maybe a little exaggerated, but my point is that why show such programmes on tv anyway. How the hell is PEMRA allowing such explicit stuff on tv. Whats left is that the rest of the failed channels would follow suit and Vibe's lucrative business model and hire a glorified, street girl as a host and make money out of it.
I dint understand why your emphasis was on time-delay rather than the show itself. I'd be writing post about it soon. Do read.
Mackers said... What kind of dumbass analogy is that. A little exaggerated? The reason a time delay works is because on any show you will always have the odd utpatang batein by a certain section. You will always have some saying inappropriate things, whether it be to Mathira or Nadia Khan. As long as a girl isn't wearing dupatta, they are open game for closet taliban. What will you ask PEMRA to do then, ban all girls without dupattas? Then the spectrum will further shift right and anyone not wearing dupatta 'appropriately' will be open game.
Explicit stuff? glorified street-girl? Hahahaha Maybe glorified mullahs like yourself should stop preaching and not watch, if you have a problem. Guess what, in life there are a host of things you find explicit. Maybe if you want to avoid them, don't go looking for them. See a channel you don't like? Flip channels! And please don't try give me rubbish about how humari youth aur humare bache kharab ho jain gay. There is such a thing as parental control. People that wouldn't think twice if given the chance to move abroad, curse the same things in Pakistan, that they would find overseas.
The fact that you might even try equate suicide bombings to this provides evidence of your lunacy. You know the type of people that make calls to chat shit, they are the very same that believe that yeh toh besharam hai isko kuch bhi kaho. In other words, the mullah type of thinking
Vagabond said... Hey Saad, maybe Mackers could add subtitles to the video since he thinks the spectrum would shift righward if such programmes are banned.
On the flip side what he fails to realise is that the spectrum would also shift leftward if its not taken care of. Then such programmes would set the benchmark and because it sells, other low-budget channels would take a step further.
And then he talks about parental control. It tells alot about his upbringing in a world where all parents know about parental-control. What about not so sensible parents? Somebody also told me about little girls calling on her show and telling her 'Mathira mein apke jaisa banna chati hoon'.
And dude stop giving me this new-age 'live and let live' bullshit. Your comment makes sense for an 18 year old, advocating freedom of media and the utopian let-live philosophy. But if you're older than you need to stop hanging out with people who love to discuss and support the legalise-alcohol and let-live arguments vehemently.
Parents live in Pahar Kanj and Liaqatabad dont know about parental control. Even if they do, they're not sensible enough to stop their children from watching such programmes.
Then you also talk about moving abroad and finding such stuff abroad.
"People that wouldn't think twice if given the chance to move abroad, curse the same things in Pakistan, that they would find overseas."
I detest Paris Hilton and her reality shows as much as I hate Mathira. So, your argument of 'being okay with such stuff abroad' is completely illegitimate. Just because somethings American and screwed up doesnt mean its justified. I
I really hope your're no older than 18 because only then I'd call you sensible for your age.
PS- you also sound like a huge Paris Hilton fan. 'Facebook Like'
Mackers said... Vagabond,
Nobody gives a damn about your notion of 'sensible' parenting. You are not gonna be deciding for anyone what the sensible way for them to parent is. Yeah, alright, my upbringing was at fault. But,if someone like you came along and decided to tell my parents how to be sensible, they would go to work on you with a danda, faster than you can scream 'mommy'
Oh, and somebody also told me about little girls calling on her show and telling her 'Mathira mein apke jaisa banna bilkul nahi chati hoon'. Apparently, one of them was you.
And, 'live and let live' is "new-age"? Maybe if you ventured outside you little nukar in mullahpur, you would realize it's not all about 'kill and kill some more' or even 'don't let live and subjugate'
Anyways, it doesn't even matter, the fact is PEMRA isn't your daddy's jagir. Sad day for you :)
Vagabond said... There is no point have this discussion here. I have gauged from your comments, you have not even hit puberty yet. Have a good day.
Anonymous said... Vagabond,
Admit it, Mackers had a better argument than you did.
Why do you think Mackers hasn't hit puberty yet? Because she/he writes better than you do?
You seem to have some real problems with reality
Vagabond said... Anonymous, seriously. He's talking about parental control. It's beyond hilarious how micro his way of approaching things is.
Writes better than me? Again, thanks for reinforcing my puberty-argument. You seem like one of his legalise-alcohol-legalise-pubs supporting friend.
Wish you all the best in this puberty-to-adolescence transition. Ta Ta.
Mackers said... I agree with Vagabond, my way of thinking is "micro." He knows how to solve everyone's problems. He will go 'macro' on us. He will start in Pakistan by banning all the TV programmes, and other stuff, he finds explicit. Then, he will take his jihad global, and teach the world the harms of 'explicit' stuff and the correct ways of parenting. He will make the Orwellian Big Brother look like a weak-sauce jackass. He will start with Asia, and all the surrounding countries including Japan, Korea, Singapore, China, India, and etc. He will continue on to the middle-east: Dubai (UAE), Qatar, and the Gulf, in general. Saudi and Iran, he has already convinced so no problems there. Europe and the Americas will be a bit tough, but he will get there. Any naysayers will be promptly lectured and refuted with the indubitable argument that they are stuck in puberty and should grow up. With such supreme logic, all and sundry will be convinced. From there, global domination is his. Sensible parenting for the world! Muahahahahaha, Vagabond khush hua. Please don't try convincing Vagabond with "new-age" logic such as 'live and let live.' Vagabond "vehemently" opposes that. And please do read his blog, Vagabond has spent many late nights reading the Oxford English Dictionary, and his hard work shouldn't go to waste.
Vagabond said... Listen buddy, you need to take your SouthPark-inspired definition of 'macro', which according to you means sweep-conquering the entire world, somewhere else. Probably to Mathira's show, which might multiply its viewership and earn you some royalty. You could use the money earned to open up more channels, import cheap laboured sex workers from Africa as hosts to provide our country's men some 'Live-Phone-Sex-And-Some-Action'. Ohh yeah, actually you could use this as a name for one of your shows.
And yeah, you schematic kid, where did Jihad come from in this discussion? That was cute-logic. Good one. You thought, just because I support banning of such programmes, I am a Jihadi, with a beard longer than Osama's, holding a danda in my hand and hitting all Burqua-less women. Love your stoner-creativity. You could also try working for Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
Lets address this too. It is not because of any religous opinions I hold that I am of this view, but based on social norms and values that you clearly would'nt know of. I dont blame you. Seriously, I dont. You've spent half your life categorising people and assigning them tags and the rest on Facebook.
Well, I also dont know where Oxford English Dictionary came in in this conversation. Now that you have, let me tell you this. Had you ever read books in your life, you wouldnt have to go to dictionary.com everytime. By watching SouthPark, FamilyGuy, American Dad and LOVE INDICATOR, you can only learn enough English language to come up with illogical, illegitimate cheap shots for lame comments on blogs you stumble upon by mistake, while looking for Love Indicator's official website.
Have a great day.
PS- dont forget to watch Love Indicator tonight.
Fischer said... Although i dont completely agree with vagabond, but still his argument is better. i mean mackers, you dont know how to reason. The jihad reference is irresponsible and ignorant.
I personally think mathira kind of shows are already sweeping the tv industries so they cant be banned. but giving pakistanis a 'life' would be a good thing to do :D
Mackers said... Uncle Jee, you inspired in me such love for cheap shots that I haven't looked back. If you are searching South Park for the definition to macro, then I can only apologize. I didn't mean to confuse you. Try any standard English dictionary and you will be well on your way. However, I still can't understand what the hell "schematic kid" means. Are you suggesting that I resemble a diagram. I don't know whether to be offended or pleased.
Also, I am not the best in mathematics but I am reasonably sure that if I become a viewer of Mathira's show then I will add to and not multiply the viewership. Aur agar aap ko koi tareeka pata hai uss se royalty lehneh ka toh batain. Baron seh kuch seekhnay ko toh mileh. Aur, sir, I really thought you were against "how micro" my "way of approaching things" is. Why think so micro and restrict yourself to "sweep-conquering" Pahar Kanj and Liaqatabad, 'the dens of unsuitable parents.' I know you are so much better than that. Think global uncle jee! I know, with some effort, you can do it. After taking over PEMRA, you can take it worldwide. Our first multinational! Oh the possibilities!
This was the comment thread between me and Mackers. After his last comment, I stopped commenting because it had just come down to disses and offending each other. The entire point had been negated.
"Thand pawaigee kalaijay dildar, pyar ki gandheri chub le"
(It will cool down your liver, if you try the sugarcane of love)
I wonder what the sugarcane of love is.
Now let me tell you how much I want to abhor this
This female friend of mine had her Facebook status "Lets have some fun, this beat is sick, i wanna take a ride on your disco stick" when this song came out. I wonder what this disco stick is. I have a feeling, lady gaga outsourced the translation job to someone in jhang and got the aforementioned lollywood song translated into english and earned millions in revenue. Atleast give some royalty to the humongous poor woman in the video.
For people who still didnt get the point, i never said pyar ki gandheri is any better. I wouldnt waste my words arguing over how popular music should have evolved. thats a different story altogether. This post is a little different. Im not more fervid pakistani than you are, still i just put the non-english speakers and english-speakers on the same scale of love, hate or indifference. think about it, we're just promoting imperialism and capitalism and cementing the class divide, arent we. A schismatic society based on shitty values and shittier upbringing. I am not just attacking the parents here but everybody who plays a part till the kid graduates from kgs. Its sad how kids and teenagers in schools these days are taught just snob-ism. Are they actually taught how to ridicule urdu, mock non-english speakers, hate the made-in-pakistan tag? where the fuck is this remotely bilingual, snob-pack coming from then. English is the key to power as far as the modern, employment-based domains of power are concerned. Though i partially agree, I passionately dissent from nigger-ing of urdu speaking monolinguals, ostracizing them completely.
Sprouting of a dozen 'Language Centers' and 'English-medium schools' in every urdu-speaking street of Karachi tell the sad tale of this identity-blurring of our society. Maybe they can guarantee your smooth hobnob with the much desirable social groups. But no, I dont blame you. I blame the Kaala Pul.
I am ending this random blurting with a short poem. I have always been captivated by the simplicity and economy of these words by Tagore.
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake
Isn't blogging so 2008? Well yeah. I didn't want my writing to go through public scrutiny thats why i never bothered creating a blog. Its a painful process for me, im not very fond of publicising my point-blank, bizarre, un-social and highly opinionated opinions. My 'My Documents' was overflowing with random writings of mine and my hard disk had no more space left. Thats when i decided to start a blog.
But no, seriously, when i dint have a blog i used to write about random things, whatever came to my head. well not obviously everything. i used to transform my thoughts electronically through the keyboard, the thoughts i was scared of losing because of shorter-than-goldfish memory i have. the precious ones.
precisely, the point of this blog is to do the same, a little structured this time so its comprehensible for the scanty readership i will be having. the point is to write what i believe in, say the things i otherwise cannot and be much more candid and sometimes overly explicit and bizarre for others. I dont want you to second my opinion and agree with my writing or support my bizarre thoughts vehemently, for that matter. read it, kill your time you would otherwise be spending Facebooking and commenting on others' status, asking them what they had for lunch today which makes them update their status as 'Bloated'. Seriously? I mean why the fuck did Facebook add that feature of status updates? or now as its known as 'What are you doing right now'? its funny how people on an average update this thing atleast twice a day and its funnier how irrelevant 'Friends' comment on it. This reminds me of this news a friend told me about the other day about a couple who while getting married stood in front of each other holding iphones in their hands, as soon as they were pronounced man and wife, they dint kiss each other. yeah, you got it right. those assholes changed their marital status from 'single' to 'married'. All my friends laughed this off. I dont understand, hows that funny? its strange how technology is stagnating humankind. The internet was supposed to set us free, speed up human development, not enslave us. but all it has blessed us with are stalkers' hubs known as social networking sites 24 hour free access to porn. It was supposed to combat elitism, not promote it.
Now, nobody can be blamed for it. Its a bad bad or a good good capitalist world. Im sure Mark Zuckerberg did not come up with Facebook for these pointless status updates or for those studying abroad to tag their pakistani counterparts in the pictures they took at the Dave Mathews' concert . However, things are changing and continually evolving. Facebook evolved , became commercial blue chip, billion dollar company. Its answerable to its shareholders and investors. Idiots love updating their statuses and commenting on others and thats how it makes profit. Bravo Fcaebook, bravo. Thats Marketing 101, give customers what they want and also give them what they dont want so they get hooked to what they dont want until it becomes something they BADLY want.
anyway i have realised one thing, with media and the Internet, you’re looking in a mirror. If you dont like something your seeing in the miror, youre the one with that fault. Ignore it or change it because others cant be blamed for it. Thats what im doing in he case of facebook. I ignore it. still, ironically, im the hater here, hating others for updating their status about how Sonya Batla's new lawn collection is to die for.
I want to write more. Later.
PS. Facebook is a whore, the classiest whore ever.
