The CREaTIoNist

In any English Medium school in Pakistan - be it the one that people are almost dying to send their child to, or the little one on the corner of the street near your house which thinks that to be really 'acceptable' it's essential to have the word 'Saint' in its name (the one near mine is called "St. Humpty Dumpty's") - there is one common problem: Getting the children interested in reading Urdu books.

There are many reasons, of course.

For one, many parents pay more than they can afford just so their child can get a basic knowledge of English - hoping that, in later years, this will open up better job opportunities. In fact it does, both internationally and locally. So when their child starts reading English books, comics, newspapers and magazines, they feel they are getting a return on their investment and rarely notice (or purposely overlook) the almost total absence of Urdu books around their child. (I live in Karachi so I am basing this on my experience, but friends across the country tell me that books in the national and regional languages share, at best, the same fate everywhere. YMMV.)

For another, the quality of the Urdu books for each age group, though improving slowly now, is still so low in terms of print quality, paper quality, and illustrations (all of which are victims of 'the economies of scale') in comparison to their English counterparts that no child finds them attractive enough to choose from the school library.

One thing that puzzles me, though, is why the 'content', too, is so poor. While English books present adventures and situations that are contemporary and within the direct or indirect (via Films & TV) experience of the child, the Urdu books are often still stuck in another century. Why are there no Enid Blytons, Roald Dahls, J K Rowlings, Shel Silversteins, or even R L Stines? Why did things come to a halt with Toat Batoat and Paesa Library?

A few Urdu books from The Book Group - despite some flaws (I recall Anita Ghulamali fuming at the book that focused on Mohaavraas) - did raise hopes, at least through the production quality and wonderful illustrations.

Some large school systems have brought out their own series that offers shades of improvement over the run of the mill material, as do books from established publishers. But these, too, concentrate primarily on the production quality. Thoughtless editing mars several of them.

For example, instead of actively negating stereotypes - particularly of women - that do so much damage, some actually reinforce them. Often the husband is shown coming home from work in a chauffeur-driven car while children and house-wifey dear run outside to greet him - a rather atypical situation in the home of many children who go to these upper-middle-class and elite schools. In one book mom and kids in such a scenario are even shouting out, in unison, "Hamaaray liyay lya laaé?" Just a few pages later, girls are shown choosing to play with dolls, while boys choose cars ... again a strange representation, today. Stand outside many of these types of schools at drop-time and see how many women (compared to men) drive their children to school or arrive to teach there.

Nationalistic lip-service to Maadaré Millat aside, few stories, if any, are ever centred around working women - except the token nurse or someone on the periphery. This from teaching or publishing organizations that are not just filled with women on their workforce but frequently even headed by them!

Poetry, one of Urdu's greatest pleasures, receives a really rough treatment. Technically wrong lines (especially in the case of mauzooniat) are often found, as are misquoted verses. This passes through not just the Editors but also, unchecked, through Urdu teachers who do not make corrections that their English-teaching counterparts would routinely make in a similar situation in the same school. Why? Because, as products of the same Urdu-rejecting education system, they know no better!

Of course, trying to point out a mistake to the school is even worse. Either - if the teacher is vengeful, and some are - your child has to bear the brunt for having a 'finicky' parent or, if you and your child are lucky, you merely get - as I did - a stupid response.

Glancing at 6-year old Ragni's Urdu notebook I noticed that in the homework given to her a word had been written wrongly (the assignment was in the teacher's hand and a letter of the alphabet in it contained an extra 'shosha').

I sent a separate polite note to her saying that she should be a little more careful as the children would think that the 'shape' was the correct one ... to which the teacher responded that the child in question was too young to read the homework assignment and, obviously, it would be read by a parent who is expected to know the correct form and, so, there really was no problem. O-kayyy....

One problem that poor quality Urdu books (as well as poorly printed pirated English books) published here have created is that schools are hungry for any well-presented books in Urdu and Islamiyaat (the 2nd of the 3 subjects that children find boring for the way it is taught ... the third being Pak Studies.) I shan't even delve into the fact - at least in this post - that Urdu course books have turned almost entirely into 'Islamiyaat plus Pak Studies' books in an obviously failing effort at producing better Muslims or Pakistanis.

Nature abhors a vacuum and gaps are soon filled by matter ... but nature passes no judgement on the quality of the matter that fills the vacuum. Precious stones and bullshit are equally welcome as long as the volume is the same. So, in jump books from that misleading fraud, the phenomenon known as Harun Yahya. After all, they are beautifully published. The quality of the photographs is at par with the kind one sees in NatGeo (some may even have been licensed from that publication). The text is simple (even when it contains distortion or misrepresentation of facts).

The books have in-built protection: The subject is clothed in the magical world of 'beliefs', even the most stupid of which are difficult to challenge today - unless, of course, the view is that of a minority - for fear of offending some highly inflammable weirdo. (Even HY's own belief system does not escape distortion, intelligently 'covered' - at least for legal purposes - by innuendo and the kind of psychological weaknesses that all marketing exploits.) And - a boon in this age of multimedia - there are even videos (again, of very high quality) available that can supplement the text.

Teachers: Just switch them on. Switch yourselves off. Relax. No great damage will be done to the students, who, once the lights go off for 'projection', will either fall asleep or indulge in other productive activities.

So who can resist introducing these gorgeous books into schools? Or who can, at the very least, delete non-factual passages? Better still, who can encourage the students to debate them ... for 'censorship' isn't the best of ideas in a learning environment? Well, I don't know about who can, but I know who should: An 'educated' Principal or Teacher. Recently I said this to a school-owner and she said those are difficult to find. Hmmmm ... I have suggested that (since she is aware of this poor state of affairs and is, to the best of my knowledge, a decent and honest human) her school should carry a warning banner (like cigarette packets do): Beware - Teaching in this school is often done by people who don't know their subject.

Harun Yahya fans may be angered by my putting down someone so respected among people who, when confronted with specifics, have a question that always drives me up the wall: "Aap itnay deep mayñ kyooñ jaa rahay haeñ?"

For those who may not be aware of HY's "mistakes" (if one is feeling charitable) or "intentional fraudulent manipulation" (if one is willing to call a spade a spade - for it is unlikly that an author, with a veritable fundo-funded publishing industry behind him, would not have researched matters better), here's a link that should clarify why I feel so strongly against the use of these books in schools.

A more recent and frightening phenomena is the showing of his videos as in-flight entertainment. This, too, must stop ... unless, in the interest of fairness, the films are followed immediately by this video.

Any ideas?

Zore hua kis par?

Whether it's Obama using it in a speech or Annie Leonard in The Story of Stuff, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address resurfaces almost daily to contradict "The world will little note nor long remember what we say here ...".

Strangely, the vast majority of the people quoting it - from the 2 mentioned above, to hundreds more, including teachers who should know better - recite "government of the people, by the people, for the people" with the emphases on the wrong words.

Raymond Massey, after his great success on stage (late 1930s) and film (1940) often made guest appearances playing a scene or two as Lincoln on numerous stages. There's a story that on one such occasion, in 1943, when he got to those words, he too said in his booming dramatic voice "government OF the people, BY the people, FOR the people".

As the speech ended, over the cheers was heard the voice of an old man from the audience. "That's not what Abe said. He said 'government of the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE' ..."

The 98-year old man was just 18 when he'd heard Lincoln deliver the speech at Gettysburg, on 19th November 1863 (almost exactly one hundred years before the day when JFK was killed).

I don't know if this incident actually happened or if it's just a story, but the old man's claim sure makes better linguistic sense. (Many actors, since that day, do use this intonation while playing the part. Listen to this recording.)

There is, however, one real Massey-Lincoln story that I recall from Kermit Schafer's collectible album, Pardon My Blooper. In Abe Lincoln In Illinois, Abe, played by Raymond Massey, is leaving and standing at the back of a railroad car while the "crowd" yells good-bye. One young 'extra', overcome by being in the same room with the great actor, can clearly be heard above the others: "Good-bye, Mr. Massey."

Ten years on!

When my company, Enabling Technologies,

(later owned and run by Jehan Ara)

developed and launched the internationally acclaimed

Interactive CD-ROM: Faiz - Aaj Kay Naam

the main members of the team were

Sabeen, Jehan, Nuzhat & myself.

Sabeen has also posted an earlier picture

of this foursome!

This was the same team that

had produced Pakistan's first-ever

Interactive CD-ROM for IBM Pakistan

(ironically developed on Macs)

on Pakistan's 50th Birthday.

For the same occasion

we had also developed another CD-ROM

50 Years of Art in Pakistan

(featuring 112 Artists, Sculptors, and Ceramists)

for ABN-AMRO Bank.

None of us are formally qualified
IT or Business specialists and have learnt everything
about both these fields on our own ...
so it's rather interesting to see how our lives
have revolved around Technology and Business.

Nuzhat is an Education Technology Consultant
and has facilitated the development of many
school IT programs and in-service training.

Jehan Ara is the President of P@SHA
(Pakistan Software Houses Association).

Sabeen is the President of the Karachi Chapter
of TIE (The Indus Entrepreneurs).

And I am a blogger!

:-)

Full Circle

Around 40 years ago, a couple of years before we were married, I introduced Nuzhat to the Sellar & Yeatman classic, 1066 & All That - a book I had discovered in Abi's library and had spent hours ROTFL.

As I mentioned - in an earlier post (where there are links to some interesting aspects of it) - the book was lost and I had been unable to find a copy.

In 2005 a 75th Anniversary edition was published and sold out pretty fast. So I missed it again. And while Amazon did offer some used copies through affiliates, I wanted a spanking crispy new book. Another printing had been promised and I have been eagerly awaiting the announcement.

Last week Nuzhat walked miles in Edinburgh, looking for it in numerous bookshops, and found possibly the last available copy in that city. What a birthday and homecoming gift!

While the book is more likely to appeal to those familiar with British History (which is what my generation studied), there are several things in it that are timeless, such as this analysis.

Just sharing a comment ...

George Orwell - "This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse."

Naeem 'Warrior' Sadiq - "But then how do you get funding from the donor agencies?"

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

And while we are on the subject ...

If Apostasy didn't carry a (disputed) Death Penalty

... I'd have switched to FSMism and become a Pastafarian. Yes, that's not a typo. I said Pastafarian!

Who, after all, can resist such clear-headed thinking as that of Bobby Henderson, Founder and Prophet of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The Gospel of FSM, which Bobby also authored at the peak of the Evolution vs. Intelligent Design debates, is one of the most hilarious spoofs of the generally unspoofable. Here's an excerpt from the section Towards a New Science:

... [S]houldn't we endeavor to give scientists the largest collection of tools possible? No one is saying that they have to apply a supernatural explanation to any particular phenomenon. Only that the supernatural be available if nothing else works, or if it is convenient for deceptive political purposes. And remember, this is not a radical new idea. In terms of years in use, supernatural science - SuperScience if you will - has the edge on conventional science. Conventional, or empirical, science has been in use for only a few hundred years. Obviously there must be a reason supernatural science lasted so long, before this empirical-science fad began. Could it be that supernatural science is more productive than empirical science?

For those skeptics demanding evidence in support of such a seemingly outlandish assumption, the Gospel offers many examples. Here's one!

The book is hilarious - but, not too deep under the surface, it offers a scathing criticism of the kind of crap that the ID proponents resort to. What else, after all, would you expect from a book that starts with this disclaimer:

The Shards of Memory

Among the books that I almost always have at hand - copies of a couple of them are occasionally spotted in the office, in the car, in the loo, even in my travel bag on long trips - is one called Sarodé Ghalib, a collection of Mirza Sahab's couplets compiled by Yusuf Bukhari Dehlavi. It is indexed by theme/topic - a tricky and never totally 'complete-able' task as people continue to find new meanings and shades in his verses that existing indexes have not considered. Such re-interpretations are natural for a work about which many concur with a thought expressed by Ghalib himself - Aatay haeñ ghaeb say yeh mazaameeñ khayaal mayñ -  a view that adds even more dimensions to each phrase and reference.

Along with Aziz-ur-Rahman Sahab's 8-volume(!) Ilmé Majlisee (my 12th birthday gift from Ummi, who purchased it from Kitab Mahal - Qizilibash Chacha's unforgettable bookshop that was an institution in Karachi), it serves well as a reference book when one needs a shayree quotation, specially in these days of rapidly failing memory.

Today, as I mourn with many of you the passing of Ahmad Faraz, Sarodé Ghalib takes on a special significance as it was given to me by him in 1969 - on the occasion of Ghalib's 100th death anniversary - and bears on its first page, at my request, the 3 shayrs that I had first heard Faraz recite. (The reference in the couplets is to the 'de-throning' of the great dictator, Ayub Khan.)

Rest in Peace, Faraz. I can only modify your words and say: Ham ko ghamé hastee bhi gavaara tha keh tüm thay ...

And now hear this ...

A couple of years ago a visiting friend (who has asked to remain anonymous) played me a 'boot-leg' copy of a speech. As far as I could make out - the recording was an excerpt that was missing the beginning an the ending - the theme was was Liberal Education . It was a delightful lecture and I always wished we could have heard the whole thing. Unfortunately, we knew not where the speech was given nor, even more of a plight, who the speaker was ... such is the tragedy of poorly pirated material ;-) I even took a sentence or two from the speech, at random, and tried to Google it ... but nothing was found at that time.

Last week I was gifted "The Philosophy of Religion", a course recorded by Professor John Hall for The Teaching Company (TTC). Impressed by the simple lucidity and tone of the very first of the 36 lectures), I searched for him on the internet and was delighted to be led to his homepage, which, in turn, led me to the Convocation Address delivered by him at The University of Richmond in 2005. And that's the one we'd heard!

While I suggest that you download and read the entire lecture (it's only 3 pages long), along with the Collegian piece, I would like to quote one of its sections here with permission from Professor Hall.

Liberal Education and Impracticality

One of the hallmarks of liberal education is that it is does not have immediate applications, results, or investment returns. This is what people mean when they say that it is impractical. But is liberal education really impractical?

If the desired outcome of schooling is job-skill, then Strayer would be the model school. My wrestling with the ambiguities of Ionesco, studying the complexities of natural selection, trying to figure out what the American Civil War was really about, and exploring the mathematics of musical key transposition, are not likely to increase the GNP or lower the CPI overnight, if at all. On the other hand, my learning to keyboard data into a computer, take accurate telephone messages, keep a double-entry ledger, and figure profit margins, might. Indeed, I could measurably increase my disposable income simply by addressing envelopes at home in my spare time. (Many matchbook covers tell me so, and I believe them.) But who will write the programs for me to keyboard? Who will leave a message worth my taking down? Who will create the business that needs me to keep its books? Who will invent a product that will generate profits for me to calculate? Indeed, who will create something worthwhile to put in the envelopes I address?

For individuals and their communities to thrive, people need to know more than the answers to familiar questions. They need to know what questions to ask, and that means that they need to be inventive enough to come up with new ones. They need to be able to make judgments without bright-line criteria, and that means that they must be able to wrestle with ambiguity without having a panic attack. They need to be able to make informed political decisions, and that means that they need to understand historical connections and the difference between appearance and reality. And they need to be able to function in a complex society that divides its labor, which means that they need to have some understanding of what everyone else is doing, even if they don’t have to do everything everyone else does themselves.

And this is where a liberal education is most liberating. By freeing us from the expectation of an immediate payoff for each thing we learn or do, it opens us up to learn and do things that, while they may lack an immediate payoff, may have long-term potentials that we cannot even imagine in advance. This is why a highly placed corporate officer once told me “when we want worker bees, send us trained technicians; but when we want leadership send us people who have studied history and literature and science. We can train new hires to run the machinery if we need to; but we are not equipped to teach them how to use their minds.” So the “impracticality” of liberal education is not necessarily impractical at all. By allowing students to go beyond job training, it encourages them to stretch themselves to the absolute limit of their potentials and, unhampered by external or artificial constraints, to be flexible and to grow.

[I am not sure if the good professor will be willing to talk to a T2F audience in far away Pakistan via Skype - but I'd love for him to spend a few minutes with us during a Science Ka Adda evening on another topic he enjoys: Pseudoscience and the Paranormal.]

I had, very recently, finished listening on my iPod - overflowing with several audiobooks and brilliant podcasts - to Professor Esposito delivering his balanced and very informative TTC lectures on Islam (as a part of The World's Great Religions series). The Philosophy of Religion course promises to be an even more enjoyable learning experience.

The range of subjects that TTC courses cover is extremely vast. I wish Dr Atta ur Rahman (HEC) or Dr Naveed Malik (VU) would strike a deal with those guys and make several of these courses available locally at subsidized rates. I'd be willing to enroll, even at my age (and with the way I feel about educational institutions), in a college to take advantage of such a deal, if it was required.

Postscript: Lest some of you worry, no, I am not about to be 'born again'. Religion has always been a subject of great interest to me and the current revival (in its worst forms, I might add) and its political impact, globally, has just re-kindled that. But next on my course list - if I can raise the money (HEC/VU are unlikely to even consider this one) - is Professor Greenberg's How to Listen to and Understand Great Music. 48 lectures of 45 minutes each. I can't stop drooling.

Subs and Eds (& Contributors): Take note!

When I got back from a week-long trip to India last Monday, I planned to write several posts about the trip, but a bout of food-poisoning (caught here ... and furthering my resolve to stay away from 5-Star Cuisine) has laid me low. So, until I am back in action - in a couple of days at most - I thought I'd share a particularly delightful piece from the Guardian.

While Giles Coren - quoted in full below - makes a solid case (and the response from The Time's subs, imho, is a poor effort at one-upmanship), it is to the credit of The Times to have responded in another newspaper and The Guardian to have published Coren's piece, in the first place. It also highlights the maturity of the press in the UK. I doubt if such an exchange could have been possibly published, in a daily of such a vast readership, in the USA or any other part of the Free[Speech] World.

Several friends and I have been victims of sub-editorial misdemeanors, often at the hands of twerps still unweaned, it seems, from their Radiant Way series. I hope this will help both sides of what should not be a divide to start thinking about the process.

(Subs & Eds have my sympathies, too. To those who submit the trash that these poor guys have to wade through daily, Giles offers one helluva lesson on what good, precise writing requires. Learn from it!)

And now to Giles Coren: frequently controversial, as a quick peek at this Wikipedia entry will show, but, in the true Oxbridge tradition, delightfully witty, barbed, and almost always fun to read. Here’s Giles Coren's letter to Times subs: Caution (or Temptation?): Strong Language Ahead! — ZAK

Wednesday July 23 2008

Chaps,

I am mightily pissed off. I have addressed this to Owen, Amanda and Ben because I don't know who I am supposed to be pissed off with (I'm assuming Owen, but I filed to Amanda and Ben, so it's only fair), and also to Tony, who wasn't here - if he had been I'm guessing it wouldn't have happened.

I don't really like people tinkering with my copy for the sake of tinkering. I do not enjoy the suggestion that you have a better ear or eye for how I want my words to read than I do. Owen, we discussed your turning three of my long sentences into six short ones in a single piece, and how that wasn't going to happen anymore, so I'm really hoping it wasn't you that fucked up my review on Saturday.

It was the final sentence. Final sentences are very, very important. A piece builds to them, they are the little jingle that the reader takes with him into the weekend.

I wrote: "I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for a nosh."

It appeared as: "I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for nosh."

There is no length issue. This is someone thinking "I'll just remove this indefinite article because Coren is an illiterate cunt and I know best". Well, you fucking don't.

This was shit, shit sub-editing for three reasons.

1) 'Nosh', as I'm sure you fluent Yiddish speakers know, is a noun formed from a bastardization of the German 'naschen'. It is a verb, and can be construed into two distinct nouns. One, 'nosh', means simply 'food'. You have decided that this is what I meant and removed the 'a'. I am insulted enough that you think you have a better ear for English than me. But a better ear for Yiddish? I doubt it. Because the other noun, 'nosh' means "a session of eating" - in this sense you might think of its dual valency as being similar to that of 'scoff'. You can go for a scoff. or you can buy some scoff. The sentence you left me with is shit, and is not what I meant. Why would you change a sentence so that it meant something I didn't mean? I don't know, but you risk doing it every time you change something. And the way you avoid this kind of fuck up is by not changing a word of my copy without asking me, okay? it's easy. Not. A. Word. Ever.

2) I will now explain why your error is even more shit than it looks. You see, I was making a joke. I do that sometimes. I have set up the street as "sexually-charged". I have described the shenanigans across the road at G.A.Y. I have used the word 'gaily' as a gentle nudge. And "looking for a nosh" has a secondary meaning of looking for a blowjob. Not specifically gay, for this is Soho, and there are plenty of girls there who take money for noshing boys. "Looking for nosh" does not have that ambiguity. The joke is gone. I only wrote that sodding paragraph to make that joke. And you've fucking stripped it out like a pissed Irish plasterer restoring a renaissance fresco and thinking Jesus looks shit with a bear so plastering over it. You might as well have removed the whole paragraph. I mean, fucking christ, don't you read the copy?

3) And worst of all. Dumbest, deafest, shittiest of all, you have removed the unstressed 'a' so that the stress that should have fallen on "nosh" is lost, and my piece ends on an unstressed syllable. When you're winding up a piece of prose, metre is crucial. Can't you hear? Can't you hear that it is wrong? It's not fucking rocket science. It's fucking pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and I have never ended on an unstressed syllable. Fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck.

I am sorry if this looks petty (last time I mailed a Times sub about the change of a single word I got in all sorts of trouble) but I care deeply about my work and I hate to have it fucked up by shit subbing. I have been away, you've been subbing Joe and Hugo and maybe they just file and fuck off and think "hey ho, it's tomorrow's fish and chips" - well, not me. I woke up at three in the morning on Sunday and fucking lay there, furious, for two hours. Weird, maybe. But that's how it is. It strips me of all confidence in writing for the magazine. No exaggeration. I've got a review to write this morning and I really don't feel like doing it, for fear that some nuance is going to be removed from the final line, the pay-off, and I'm going to have another weekend ruined for me.

I've been writing for The Times for 15 years and I have never asked this before - I have never asked it of anyone I have written for - but I must insist, from now on, that I am sent a proof of every review I do, in PDF format, so I can check it for fuck-ups. And I must be sent it in good time in case changes are needed. It is the only way I can carry on in the job.

And, just out of interest, I'd like whoever made that change to email me and tell me why. Tell me the exact reasoning which led you to remove that word from my copy.

Right ... Sorry to go on. Anger, real steaming fucking anger, can make a man verbose.

All the best.

Giles

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2000

The Twain Meet

Waiting for Professor Aslam Farrukhi to show up for what became, in his delightful retelling, a grand - almost visual - tour of Karachi, 1947, I was fortunate to be to be at the same table as Yusufi Sahab, who, with just 4 books pubished, is arguably the finest writer of Urdu prose today. 

Apologizing for a really pita hua question, I asked him whom he read and was influenced by. I am not sure what name[s] I expected ... but without a moment's pause he surprised me by saying "Mark Twain", which - in retrospect - doesn't seem so odd. He also went on (with almost childish awe) to describe his recent visit to Twain's hometown and the house he lived in.

I hope that T2F will, one day, be honoured by an evening of Yusufi Sahab's readings. How we'll accommodate the hundreds that will turn up, I don't know. Guess that's reason enough to increase the space, Sab ;-)

As a possible result of our colonization, older readers in this part of the world were traditionally more familiar with writers from Britain, as compared to those from the USA, a legacy they passed on via textbooks and home libraries to their young. Over the years, the one good thing to emerge from the Americanization of Everything, is that we have all become familiar with several new and powerful authors from the other side of the Atlantic. In fact, one has to look really hard for good British, non-desi authors in our bookshops!

However, Samuel Longhorn Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, is still not as commonly read in this part of the world as he should be. Here's a piece by him that is as relevant today (and to us) as when it was first published as part of a short story.

O Lord, Our Father

by Mark Twain

O Lord, our father, 

Our young patriots, idols of our hearts, 

Go forth to battle - be Thou near them! 

With them, in spirit, we also go forth 

From the sweet peace of our beloved firesides

To smite the foe.

O Lord, our God, 

Help us to tear their soldiers 

To bloody shreds with our shells; 

Help us to cover their smiling fields 

With the pale forms of their patriot dead;

Help us to drown the thunder of the guns

With the shrieks of their wounded, 

Writhing in pain.

Help us to lay waste their humble homes 

With a hurricane of fire; 

Help us to wring the hearts of their 

Unoffending widows with unavailing grief;

Help us to turn them out roofless 

With their little children to wander unfriended

The wastes of their desolated land 

In rags and hunger and thirst, 

Sports of the sun flames of summer 

And the icy winds of winter, 

Burdened in spirit, worn with travail, 

Imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, 

Blast their hopes, 

Blight their lives, 

Protract their bitter pilgrimage, 

Make heavy their steps, 

Water their way with their tears, 

Stain the white snow with the blood 

Of their wounded feet!

We ask it in the spirit of love - 

Of Him who is the source of love, 

And Who is the ever-faithful 

Refuge and Friend of all that are sore beset

And seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts.

Amen!

An unforgettable hour

Events at The Second Floor have featured many well-known and some not-so-well-known but exciting personalities. However, some very out-of-the-ordinary people drop in for coffee and conversation on non-event days, too. Ardeshir Cowasjee, Tina Sani, Asif Farrukhi, Attiya Dawood, Sheema Kermani, along with several popular young musicians, writers and artists are frequent visitors. Seated at other tables, the many students who gather here to prepare for their exams and take advantage of the air-conditioning and free wi-fi, get a surprise opportunity to interact more closely with such luminaries than they could at large gatherings.

Yesterday, however, was a really unforgettable treat for me when Asif Farrukhi turned up with Mushtaq Ahmad Yusufi Sahab and Zehra (Nigah) Apa for an hour-long chat over coffee.

My association with the latter (Zehra Apa, not Coffee!) goes way back to my childhood when she was a teenager. This young girl had just exploded into the universe of Mushaeraas, with her scintillating ghazals, coupled with a tarannüm that became the talk of the town. "She has upset many poets who, at her age, used to get their ustaads to write for them ... and especially those who still do", said my father once, naming 2 poets as examples. But I shall disappoint you and refrain from such gossip ...

Zehra Apa has promised not one, but two sessions at T2F ... so, if you have not yet subscribed to its mailing list, the time to do it is now! The first - scheduled for the 18th of June - will focus upon her own works and life. For many it may well be the first experience to enjoy her delightful retelling of anecdotes. The second - at a date to be announced later, when she returns from her trip abroad - will have her reading and reciting her favourite pieces of Urdu prose and poetry, paying homage to works of others - including her contemporaries - something she does with a style all her own. Anyone who has heard her recite Faiz Sahab's Heart Attack on my Aaj Kay Naam CD-ROM, or her stunning unforgettable rendition of Nasir Kazmi's poignant '... kidhar say aaya kidhar gayaa voh', recited to a thoughtful sitar accompaniment by Ustad Kabir Khan  - a far cry from the mauling of recitations by other similar efforts - will vouch for the fact that these examples remain unsurpassed.

Yesterday's hour was spent with Asif, Sabeen and I in guffaws as we heard stories about Saqi Farooqui, Jaun Elia and others and enjoyed the barbed wit of arguably the greatest satirist Urdu prose has ever had. Here's a page of timeless prose from Aabé Güm describing Pakistan's politics. Penned years ago (and sent to me only last week by fellow sea-farer, ANL, from the UAE), this could well have been written today.

While discussing people who 'read' well, the conversation moved to examples of great readers (Gielgud, Guinness, Burton). When I pitched in with my criticism of someone who, generally a brilliant and respected performer, often imbues pieces with unnecessary drama, Yusufi sahab agreed and added: Achchha pa∂hnay kay liyay laazmi hae keh mazmoon iss tarah pa∂ha jaae jaesay müsalmaan Qurãn pa∂htay haeñ ... yaani baghaer samjhay! ("Good reading requires one to recite texts, like Muslims recite the Qurãn: Without understanding!").

Let me end by sharing one anecdote about Jaun Elia that was new for the 3 of us in the 'audience' and embodied that unique man completely (requiring no embellishment on the part of either Zehra Apa or Yusufi Sahab). Sorry about not translating the punch-line ... it just would not work in anything but Urdu:

At the airport, Jaun sahab raised his little finger and excused himself, promising to return in 2 minutes. When he arrived, more than 15 minutes later, a worried friend asked him if all was well and what the cause of the delay was. "Bhai maeñ do minat mayñ aa jaata, laykin vahaañ Urdu Qadamchah daykha to ekhlaaqan küchh dayr aur baeth gayaa", replied the inimitable Jaun.

Looking Back / Looking Ahead

Prof. Niaz Zaman (of Dhaka) and the multifaceted Asif Farrukhi (of Karachi) have jointly edited Fault Lines, a book of excellent short stories centred around 1971. Many of these stories were translated from Bengali, Hindi, and Urdu into English for this publication from Bangladesh, now available at T2F courtesy OUP.

Along with respected Urdu writer Intizar Husain - flown in from Lahore by T2F to attend the launch of the book in Pakistan and a later evening to be devoted to his writings, alone - both Editors, whose own stories also appear in the collection, were present on the evening of the 11th May for an event that was the first of a series of happenings to celebrate T2F's birthday. 

Reading Fault Lines was not easy for me, partly because it brought back so much to mind. Actually, the very first time I opened it to a page at random, I was confronted by a few lines that made me put the book down, numbed.

"Baby, there's blood on your finger. Did you hurt yourself?"

"No ... I did not hurt myself", the little girl says.

"Okay, but let me wash it away."

"NO! I won't let you wash it! It's my mother's blood."

It took me a few days to muster enough courage to start reading it again. And those opening lines from Masood Ashar's Versions of Truth still haunt me.

While Bangladeshi writing is full of references, in works of fact and fiction, to those horrible days Pakistani prose has been very skimpy on the subject - with the occasional story sometimes being treated allegorically (e.g., Forklift 352 by Asad Mohammad Khan - included in this book and read out in the original Urdu by him at the launch). Admittedly, references in poetry from Faiz, Jalib, Faraz and others have been more direct.

The question that is often asked - and was brought up again that evening - is how/why did people in 'West' Pakistan "let it happen" and "not raise a voice". The stock answer has been "We did not know..." (an answer that was also partly supported by Shuja Nawaz during my interview of him about his intriguing book, more about which later in this post). So, Muneeza Shamsie's statement "We knew - and said so to others. But nobody wanted to hear..." came as a twist that led to numerous discussions within smaller groups after the event. (One of many interesting discussions on 1971 by today's youth has been also triggered through Jamash's coverage of the launch.)

There were, as was to be expected, conflicting views. While most of the audience generally felt that the Army had been brutal, there were still a few - including a conscientious objector from the armed forces who had refused to fight and returned to 'West' Pakistan - who believed that events before the 'army action' (what a mild euphemism for a bloody genocide!) had reached a pinnacle with the merciless killings of Biharis (someone suggesting a figure of ten thousand in a single incident). It was this, they held, that had resulted in the violent (though regrettable) reaction of the Army. Khalid Ahmad, of stage and TV fame, was not willing to buy this and countered with an argument: If the lives of Biharis were so important, why has Pakistan not ever considered accepting their repatriation? The reasons, he felt, were entirely different and pre-planned. This view was partially reinforced when Prof. Niaz - a Punjabi who lives in Dhaka with her Bengali husband and, thus, with access to the thinking of both sides - said that contacts in the army had told her, well before that tragic March, that war was on the cards and preparation were in full swing.

•

Will the truth ever be known? The question falsely assumes that there is one single truth. There are, always, several truths - and glimpses of them are found in books safely labeled as Fiction. Truths are rarely, if ever, found in History, which, as Will Durant (and who can be considered more qualified to make a statement on the subject?) says, is 9/10th conjecture and 1/10th bias.

•

Having very close contacts in the army is one of the advantages that Shuja Nawaz holds over many others. His easy access to the military top brass adds dimensions to his research generally not found in other analyses.

A seasoned journalist and member of several Think Tanks in the USA, where he lives, Shuja Nawaz has recently authored Crossed Swords — Pakistan, its Army and the Wars Within, a book that is making waves everywhere even before the launch. Internationally, leading publications are showing exceptional interest in talking to him and in reprinting extracts from the book. A big launch is scheduled in Delhi soon. In Pakistan, the media is battling for time with him to conduct one-to-one interviews during the 2 days he is in Karachi.

OUP is holding a large launch on the 15th - which is also T2F's birthday and where we hope you'll join us on one or more of the sessions scheduled - but, for a more intimate (albeit brief) conversation with Shuja, you can come to T2F on the 16th. If you buy a copy of the book at T2F you will also get a free Audio CD of an interview I conducted with him over Skype.

I am not usually interested in reading books about the Army but, I admit, I couldn't put this one down. The breadth of its scope is matched by its depth - a rare occurrence, indeed. To younger readers I would certainly recommend it strongly since it spans the entire history of the country and is filled with 'inner' anecdotes. You can hear two clips from the interview here: One deals with the MQM and General Asif Nawaz (Shuja's brother, whose controversial death - or was it murder? - is also dealt with in the book). The other shows his current state of optimism.

Excerpts from my interview on other topics, including Kargil, can be heard on the OUP website. Such additions make the book much more interesting than the drab text books that turn Pakistan Studies into an almost detestable subject for many.

On a related note, Shuja Nawaz has been following the dynamic blogging community in Pakistan and has expressed a desire to meet some of its members during his visit. So, fellow Karachi bloggers, do come! 16th / 7 PM. Be on time ... he only has an hour in his very hectic schedule.

Zeeshan Sahil - Lonely no more!

An Evening with Zeeshan Sahil was the event that

launched T2F. Only last week he'd called to say

that he'd be glad to do another reading

there ... and I began thinking of an

event for T2F's first birthday

that would bring him and

other Urdu poets

together.

Yesterday

Asif Farrukhi's call

shattered me completely.

Zeeshan's voice had suddenly been stilled!

He will be missed by everyone

who came into contact with him or

knew him through his verses and books.

Most of all, he will be missed by his love: Karachi.

Only a few days ago,

Fatima Bhutto,

wrote this.

Zeeshan Sahil, an Urdu poet once wrote of our city, our home, "It is a lie that in Karachi, after the rain, the sprouting grass doesn’t have blades deep green and soft. Or that the trees do not give shade without the help of clouds … With us in Karachi live birds who fly from trees through the sound of bullets and bombs; perch on walls; always they gather somewhere to pray. Our books don’t wait inside cupboards for termites. Now our hearts swim these seas where once our eyes searched for golden flowers and our hands tear down the walls that once buried us alive". This, like the calling of Sahil’s birds, is a prayer for us and for our city, our home. Let us await the day that our hands tear down those walls; it won’t be long.

Amen!

John Shelby Spong Re-Visited

I have frequently (including very recently) circulated, among friends, sections from the writings of Bishop Spong whom I hold in extremely high regard not only for the lucidity of his writing, but also for his analytical skills, sincerity, courage of conviction, and genuine compassion.

His bestselling "Jesus for the Non-Religious" requires some basic familiarity with The Bible. Its Audible edition has found a permanent space on my iPod along with Dawkins's "The God Delusion". While one would be inclined to think that a Bishop and an Atheist would make for odd neighbours, even in an iPod, read what Spong once had to say about Dawkins:

I think Professor Dawkins is both brilliant and an incredible communicator. The definition of God that he rejects is the same one I reject. The difference being that he thinks the God he rejects is the western God of Christianity and I believe that deity is a distortion of who and what God is. The Christian Church has made such incredulous claims about who God is and who God hates and how God acts that it is always on the defensive when new learning that challenges old definitions appears.

Traditional Christianity has been buffeted by the insights of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Freud and many others. They have destroyed the credibility of much of our God talk. Richard Dawkins points that out in powerful ways, feeding his conclusion that God is a harmful delusion that ought to be dismissed. I agree that God is in fact a delusion and ought to be dismissed. We disagree on the question of whether that God is the God encountered in Jesus of Nazareth or a gross distortion. I believe it is a distortion.

I met Richard Dawkins some years ago when I gave a lecture at New College, Oxford. I had just that day read his incisive book The Selfish Gene in the Bodleian Library at Oxford so I was pleased to find myself seated next to him at the High Table for dinner.

From among Spong's many shorter pieces, the following paragraphs taken from On Faith (a wonderful Newsweek / Washington Post series) probably explain his amazing qualities and convictions best.

Obsessed with Sex, not Morality

This nation has a strange fetish with sexual sins. The press obsessed on President Clinton’s tawdry sexual behavior, but seems to regard the Bush administration’s distortion of truth about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to justify its military adventure in that land to be of lesser significance. Even the intelligence report on Iran’s efforts to build nuclear weapons reveals that this administration was caught once again in what can only be called deliberate acts of misinformation. President Clinton’s actions, distasteful as they were, did not cost the lives of some 4,000 American military personnel and thousands of innocent Iraqis. Yet the Congress wasted time and money in impeachment procedures on the Lewinsky affair. The far greater, but not sexual, nature of this administration’s crimes has not had a similar response.

We live in a time of changing sexual standards. Premarital sex is almost a universal practice in the developed world against which an “abstinence campaign” is laughably ineffective. The reasons for this are not that we have become an immoral generation, as ecclesiastical leaders like to presume. Rather, it is caused by the fact that we have created a 10-to-15-year gap between puberty and marriage. That is not a reality that contemporary moralists seem to notice. Better health practices have lowered the age of puberty in girls, while the opening of the doors to higher education and thus for career opportunities for young women has postponed the age of marriage to new and more mature age levels. In the Middle Ages when life expectancy was much shorter, females tended to marry within 12 to 18 months of puberty. Today marriage in the late twenties for young women is commonplace. In the past the double standard that governed sexual activity meant that the male was not expected to be chaste until his marriage. Today, not only has that double standard disappeared, but so has the rigid chaperone system we once employed to protect the virginity of upper class females.

Is sex outside of marriage a sin? That is the way religious people still pose the issue, but that question does not address reality. As a pastor I have confronted issues where sex inside marriage was sinful. I have known rape to occur inside marriage. I have seen sex inside marriage used as a weapon in marital disputes. It is not marriage that makes sex holy and good; it is the quality of the relationship. So before answering that question we need to face these facts. Only then can we move on to the question at hand.

Are young people who live together prior to marriage sinful? If they love each other, if they are committed to that relationship and if their life together makes both of them more whole and more deeply human, then I do not think so. If they are merely using each other, then they have turned that relationship into an act of personal diminishment. A relationship that diminishes one or the other of the partners can never be called holy.

I have know post-married people, either divorced or widowed, who have formed bonded and sexually active relationships, some times in old age that are both beautiful and life-giving, though neither person ever planned to get married. I have known gay and lesbian couples whose fidelity to each other is wonderful to behold, but who are told by church and state alike that there is something defective and even evil about their relationships. I find that deeply prejudiced, life-denying and simply wrong [...] The issue is not about sex, either inside or outside marriage, it is about the quality of the relationship [...]

It is God’s business, not the state’s or the church’s, to determine whether any act is forgivable or not. Private morality does not seem to me to be the state’s business unless it compromises the public welfare. The sexual debates that go on in the public arena are to me little more than diversionary attempts to keep the public attention away from the great moral issues of our day such as war and peace, the corruption and exploitation that takes place in business, the environmental degradation that occurs in the name of the bottom line and the manipulation of the market place for private greed. Until the state and church pay attention to these moral issues, their credibility on matters of sexual ethics will have little about it that is worthy of much attention.

Vaah!

--------------

NOTE 1: I had blogged about him earlier, too, and received some flak offline and via email for daring to suggest that we need Muslim Clerics (see note below) with similar skills of analysis and communication. Around the same time, several anti-Spong pieces by Muslims also appeared on the 'Net, egged on particularly because of an NPR program in which he was praised by Irshad Manji, an almost certain way to gain unpopularity among the Ummah.

NOTE 2: While not clerics, two scholars do offer cool and clear views that, in general, differ from the views proffered my most hardliners (such as Dr Israr Ahmad) and many accepted historians. One is Dr. Ghamdi - now often seen on TV and the subject of fatvaas, hatemail and threats. The other, the lesser-known Professor Ziauddin Kirmani, whose book ("The Last Messenger with a Lasting Message"), has now been reprinted and is available at T2F. For several people, this rather unconventional study has been a source of great inspiration, while annoying many others for what Kirmani sahab referred to as "the clearing of cobwebs" around Islamic History. (Another Zia - the General - wanted to present him the Seerat of the Year Award, provided he would alter/delete certain parts but he refused to compromise his years of research.)

Howe to Mayke Bukkenade ...

(whatever in hell that is).

Since love is purely an emotion, it isn't really difficult to figure out which of Shakespeare's plays I love the most: Richard II. (No ... that's not a typo. I mean Richard the Second, not the more commonly performed Richard the Third, now forever and completely associated with Sir Laurence Olivier's controversial version featuring the unforgettably haunting "Now is the Winter of our discontent ...")

Less often performed, for many reasons, R-II brings together a host of characters whose traits I can recognize among those around me. And it has some of the most memorable lines, too. But, I guess, that holds good for most of Shakespeare. So why R-II?

For the oddest of reasons: It was in my High School course (SC '56).

Odd, because I'll be the first to admit that books (in fact, entire subjects) taught at school - however wonderful they may be - can be (and, generally, are) ruined for life! This is because they are taught not for giving you pleasure but to be tested and examined in, tortured by, paraphrased, memorised, referenced, and contextualized in a non-contextual kind of way. Finally, subjected to the mind/language/annotations of a teacher who has had her/his (shouldn't 'hir' do for such cases?) fill of it for years and has ceased to see any joy in it (and we are only talking about 'good' teachers, here), they become things to fear and even hate. Pummelled into a shape that the teacher has wrought - rather than letting your own imagination shape things as you'd like or can comprehend - most great texts are never picked up again for pleasure.

I was among those who had the good fortune of being taught this play by a Mr. Stanley D'Souza (nicknamed 'Gunboat' by students well before my time). Here was a man who loved language and made the most mundane of lines come alive. (Strangely, he was also 'used' by the school to teach Geography but could instill no life into that subject. Chirapoonji's annual rainfall figures can't really hold a candle to to good old Will, even when he is just going "hey Nonny...".)

In a senior class, the year before, I'd witnessed Mr. D'Souza (I wonder if today he'd be called 'Gunboat Sir' in this era of artficial camaraderie among the old and young) walk into class, cover the windows with newspapers and - in the dim light - transform into Lady Macbeth right before my eyes. (Fortunately 'beauty' was not a prerequisite for that role.)

That scene remains etched in my mind almost as vividly as the Romeo & Juliet balcony scene that Henry Fonda and the vivacious, sparkling Susan Strasberg (daughter of Lee Strasberg) played out in Sydney Lumet's Stage Struck, a film that also features a young Christopher Plummer, whom many will remember from The Sound of Music and more. (I adore most of Lumet's work, so I may be prejudiced ... but I'd suggest you see the film.)

'WTF', you must be thinking by now - and rightly so - 'has all this got to do with the strange title of this meandering post?' Aah. Not much, really. Except that among my crazy interests are old non-fiction texts, especially those that provide fun views of the days gone by. Recently the search led me to a cook book, "The Forme of Cury", compiled, about A.D. 1390, by the Master-Cooks of King Richard II. In that book I came across the following delightful recipe (quoted verbatim).

(Lunacy isn't easy to explain, but there is a method to my madness. Or maybe it's just I who think so.)

BUKKENADE

Take Hennes o˛er Conynges o˛er Veel o˛er o˛er Flessh an hewe hem to gobettes waische it and hit well. grynde Almandes unblaunched. and drawe hem up with ˛e broth cast o˛er inne raysons of Corance. Sugur. Powdour gyngur erbes ystewed in grees. Oynouns and Salt. If it is to to thynne. alye it up with flour of ryse o˛er with o˛er thyng and colour it with Safroun.

( The 'to to' isn't a 'mistayke'. It's the old form of 'too' ... See how much you learn on this blog? ;-) )

By the way, one film version of R-II featured Sir John Gielgud (more about this favourite of mine in another post) in the role of Richard's uncle, John of Gaunt. What a performance!

Anwar Shaoor at T2F

Poet Anwar Shoor has become synonymous with Sehlé Mumtina'a, a phrase that loosely means as simple as it can possibly get. It is applied to a form of poetry that uses everyday Urdu or simple words to convey a thought that may be much deeper than appears at first glance. And if it is not deep, partaking of the beauty of simplicity, alone, is worth the price of entry.

As you may have guessed, I am a sucker for this form, so here's something I'd like to share with you all.

Incidentally, Anwar learnt to perfect his poetry under the islaah of two great poets of our lifetime and both tremendous favourites of mine: the simplicity loving Masood Tabish (arsh-o-kürsee zaraa sambhal jaaén / pardah ek darmiyaañ say uTh'ta hae) and the incomparable Sirajuddin Zafar (jee chaahta hae bazm meñ ek sham'a-roo ke saath / tasveeré bayqaraarié parvaanah khayñchiyay)

International Women's Day @ T2F

From 2 PM to midnight, T2F had loads of acivities, long and short, with intervals for coffee and change of audience (many were rushing between the numerous other events marking the day in the city).

The afternoon started with the screening of the 2001 telefilm, When Billie Beat Bobby. A turning point in the business side of tennis and a delightful strike for feminism, the match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs was termed The Battle of the Sexes.

The film is often repeated on TV channels and is well worth watching, if you have not seen it already. Billie is played by Holly Hunter, whom many will recall from her Oscar-winning performance in The Piano and also for her role, the same year, in The Firm.

The next session, Sex Sells, was well-attended and attracted many media & advertising personalities and feminists (some were all three!) discussing the exploitation and stereo-typing of women in ads. A short excerpt from Jean Kilbourne's Killing Me Softly 3 (short clips from which can be seen on YouTube) was followed by a few local tv commercials. Fair & Lovely ads seemed to be the most reviled by those pr