quiz

quiz
cc: knock knock
t: :) bolo
cc: aaj kal sub peace ki baataiN kar rahay haiN
t: nau sO choohay kha ker billi chali haj ko
cc: :)
t: how are you doing on that quiz?
cc: ok....name the colour and model of the white cadillac convertible seen winding the hilly roads in most indian movies circa 50s?
t: blue vespa?
cc: name the two accessories used by most fathers-in-law in those movies
t: pugree and hookah ( taking off pugree meri izzat aap kay qadmouN maiN hay sarkar
cc: nah....dressing gown and an unlit pipe! ...why does that actor who runs up the hills, down the valleys, for hours on feet, sometimes on horseback and who appears in the nick of time to utter the fateful "yeh shaadi nahiN hosakhti hay!"...is never out of breath?
t: good direction?
cc: nope
t: good script?
cc: :)...why does it rain in song sequences?
t: for sound effects?
cc: the average age of the actor who happily yelps "maaN tera beta imtihaan maiN pass ho gaya"
t: 35
cc: ur score is improving
t: my score or my hit rate
cc: i will call M this minute
t: say hello to her:)
cc: am bored...need to challenge myself
t: go talk to the recalcitrant on the sajil board
cc: i said b--o--r--e--d... not s--t--u--p--i--d
t: : bura kyuN maaNti ho...was just a suggestion
cc: what is wrong with you muslims?
t: hunh (there is so much wrong with us...dunno where she is going )
cc: (bura maan gaya hay shayad)...meant why are muslims so defensive?
t: we have the book
cc: but you don’t read it
t: true...but it is still unchanged
cc: then what good is it?
t: it is a torchlight in the right hands
cc: or a carte blanche to kill innocents
t: let’s nip this here, another time?
cc: cya
t: tc
(05/05/31)

***

U.S. keeps moving Mideast goal posts

this is why i deem my friend haroon more balanced in his writing:

Laura Bush, trotted out in times of trouble, as she was during last fall’s presidential election, went to the Middle East to counter the anger at George W.’s policies.

She hailed Hosni Mubarak. The 77-year-old autocrat has won four uncontested referendums but will now allow competition. Opponents, however, must be from a party at least five years old, and get the support of 250 members of the Egyptian parliament and each of the 26 local councils, all of which are controlled by his party.

This is what the mullahs in Iran do during elections — disqualify those they don’t like — and get pilloried by America, rightly so. Yet Mrs. Bush thought he was "bold and wise."

want to read more?

Egypt offers only one of many inconsistencies in the American policy on the Middle East, starting with the two familiar ones:

Iraq must be invaded and Syria squeezed for not adhering to United Nations resolutions but Israel can go on ignoring them.

Israel can keep its reported 200 nuclear bombs but Iran and North Korea can’t have one. (They shouldn’t, on the less-than-perfect theory that those who have can and those who don’t can’t. But coming from Bush, the call rings hollow).

Other contradictions:

The welcome offered Mahmoud Abbas at the White House ended Bush’s boycott of the Palestinian leadership. Yasser Arafat was banned for being corrupt, duplicitous and anti-democratic. By that measure, Bush shouldn’t be seeing almost all his autocratic Arab allies.

more?

Similarly, in Lebanon, the militant Hezbollah must disarm. But the pro-U.S. Kurdish militia in Iraq need not — just as the anti-Tehran terrorist Mujahideen, hiding in Iraq, did not have to.

click for the rest of his column
U.S. keeps moving Mideast goal posts
(05/05/30)
***
am leery of...
do we live in a black and white world?

i do not buy ’you are either with us or against us’ approach...the world will end in one big chaos if everyone subscribed to it...luckily the majority does not:)

look at two potent symbols who publicly subscribe to this with us or against us approach and the havoc they have caused -- OBL and GWB

i am not with you george nor am i with you osama...you are both a side of the same coin...hate mongers, narcissistic, delusional, tunnel-visioned with scant regard for the dignity and right of innocent civilians caught in the spiral of violence unleashed by you...

my world is largely peaceful and i wish to remain uninvolved in your dubious machinations to align man against man...

what irony!... both of you claim to be men of god...both of you hear from Him...but whose Voice do you really hear?...when both of you have no shame or regret killing the innocents....robbing from them the gift of life and liberty sanctified by the same Voice?

am ever leery of anyone who subscribes to ’us or them’ dictums...they are the demented and cursed who would not hesitate to take out innocent men and women and children in what they consider their just cause....

am leery of those who hear voices in thin air and then carry out violence against innocent civilians...i am not with you GWB...and i am not with you OBL...

am leery of those here who talk proud of their religion and flagrantly violate and twist its principles to suit their demonic agenda of hatred…

am leery of those who for ever preach hatred

luckily, my world is not all black and white like theirs…and I thank God for small mercies
(05/05/26)

***

my friend haroon has written another balanced column on

Blaming the victim for Qur’an desecrations by HAROON SIDDIQUI

excerpt:

Even as the Bush administration continues its cover-up for presiding over one of the most shameful chapters in prisoner abuse, here is New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, reprinted in the Toronto Star no less, hectoring the Afghans and others for being stupid enough to take to the streets in dismay.

He is not alone, and he and the other new Orientalists are entitled to their views, as also their logical contortions to continue rationalizing the war on Iraq. But their myopia does cause concern.
Here are their arguments, with one person’s response:

*Political opportunists in Pakistan and elsewhere hijacked the Qur’an incidents to whip up public fury.

Don’t our politicians exploit every chance to advance their agenda and themselves, often at the expense of the common good? Aren’t George W. Bush and other Republicans particularly adept at using religious and moral wedge issues?

* Muslims should be up in arms about the killing of 17 fellow Muslims in the Qur’an protests.

Unlike the impression left of crowds lynching one another, most of those who died were killed in police shootings ordered by the pro-American governments of Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Hamid Karzai.
There has been plenty of criticism of that, which is not what Messrs. Friedman and others, shedding crocodile tears, are looking for. What they want is for Muslims to berate Muslims for being Muslim in a way not acceptable to America.

*Muslims must condemn "their culture of death," as demonstrated in the Qur’an protests and in suicide bombings, lately in Iraq.

Sure. But as a recent study by Robert Pape, professor at the University of Chicago, has shown, suicide bombings are not the exclusive preserve of Muslims. The Tamil Tigers, who happen to be Hindu, have been the leading user of that dastardly weapon.

More importantly, the Arab and Muslim world has had much to say, and with good reason, about America’s "culture of death," as seen in the killing of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis in the last three years, and in the earlier deaths of an estimated 500,000 children in the American-led economic sanctions, and in American complicity by silence in Russia’s butchering of more than 100,000 Chechens.
Why the soft-pedalling of such mass deaths but the frothy denunciations of the Muslim mayhem, which is minuscule by comparison?

All killings must be condemned. But honesty demands context and perspective.

* Nobody mounts deadly demonstrations when the Bible or other sacred texts are violated.

This point has drawn two responses: the Qur’an plays a far more central role in the lives of Muslims than do the sacred texts for others, and, secondly, it’s not the fault of Muslims if other believers, especially in the West, have lost their sense of the sacred (something the new Pope also complains about).

But that misses the greater principle: Having guaranteed freedom of religion, it is not for us to dictate how strongly some people might feel about their faith, so long as they operate within the rule of law.
The protests over the Qur’an episodes have been presented as the utterly incomprehensible actions of illiterate and irrational mobs. They are at one level. But on another, they are understandable — not justifiable but understandable — given the scandalous mistreatment of Muslims in America, Iraq and in Afghanistan, day after day, for more than three years.

***

insecuristas

cc: buzzzz
t: bolo
cc: r u proud
t: proud of what
cc: proud to be whatever you profess to be
t: guess more thankful than proud to be alive....breathin’...aware...unlike them insecuristas
cc: insecuristas?
t: gimme 2? let me look for it and paste it here:
insecurista n: singular
a person who displays one or more of the following symptoms:

a person who is insecure about his/her world view, mental outlook, physical self, who froth easily, provoke unnecessarily, have deep seated complexes camouflaged with righteous indignation, think s/he knows the value of everything when in reality s/he knows only the price, henpecked, in lousy relationships with their spouse and children, and a menace and a danger to themselves if left untreated e.g. most abdul-hates

cc: perplexing... how can anyone survive with so much insecurity and hatred
t: simple...by spreading their misery all around:) ... beginning at home, office, city...
cc: i have an aversion to anyone who is not modest
t: ..there ..u just about eliminated most desi males:)
cc: serious!...i know so many very talented people...and the common thing i find is the more talented they are the more modest and humble they are...
t: a variation
cc: variation?
t:... of the less one knows the hotter one gets...the more one knows the humbler one gets
cc: yes O wise one
t: yeh kis say bat kar rahi ho?
cc: aap say
t:.. then cut the crap pls.
cc: :)
t: sunil dutt died
cc: ismail merchant too
t: did ur mother teach you to speak ill of the dead ?
cc: u referring to that insecurista abdul hate?...the one who called ismail a muslim and then abused him on UP?
t: he almost did it once b4…when malika pukhraj died…he baited me…i declined and he acknowledged his mistake re: speaking ill of the dead
cc: the depth of degradation
t: that is why i say my God and my Muhammed (saw) is not the same as his..and it burn his pseudo self no end;)
cc: yeah that proud me – proud u fallacy
t: we are all God’s children
cc: ignore him….let him rot in his hell
t: chalo bhago:)

(05/05/25)
***

Hatred Intolerance bonding: Allah, Qur’an Dividing

in the KU seminar room an inquirer wanted to know
’is your Allah and your Muhammed* same or different?’
the hijabs and the beards looked askance at each other
’my Muhammed* said…’ quoted one brother breathlessly
’my Nabi* said…’ counter-thundered another brother
’but the Qur’an says…’ a sister vainly interjected
pandemonium reigned amidst chorus of ’qaal ar rasul…’**
we who practice submission to the will of the Unseen
united we are today in hatred and intolerance

II
kalashnikovs separated bodies and souls amidst
proclamations testifying to the Greatness of Him
’inna lillah e…’ too bad bhai, you know they were shias
too bad ...they’re sunnis…ahmedis…barelvis…deobandis
’laikin woh tO bhai tha mera…woh tO beh’n thee meri’
we who practice submission to the will of the Unseen
united we are today in hatred and intolerance

III
returning to the frozen north marvel i at the irony
the very religion that divides brother and sisters
is held in scorn as an evil force for west’s voodoo wrath
and for all of them here, all of them there are bad, very bad
hatred-intolerance bonding: Allah-Muhammed* dividing

* peace be upon him
** thus spoke the prophet…
(05/05/23)-re-titled/re-written

***

bs & aj
cc: u there
t: momento?
cc: read bs?
t: that nt fellow’s?
cc: no not that bs
t: phir kaunsi?
cc: bina shah
t: binoo?...nah ..let me check it out
cc: k..am here
(later)
t: shandy
cc: what is shandana got to do with this?
t: nothing
cc: then why you mentioned her?
t: hmmm...why?...perhaps there is a linkage somewhere...or the wires are crossed;)
cc: ah, you mean when bina shah writes on main page shandana follows soon
t: tum chalaak ho
cc: what do you think of angelina?
t: i don’t know much about her
cc: always obfuscating
t: always truthful
cc: chalo jhootay
t: :) gtg
(05/05/24)

***

rehab
cc: kaisay ho
t: breathin’
cc: woh tO pata hay…can see ur moving fingers
t: am in rehab
cc: since yesterday
t: since leaving the womb
cc: (kabhi kabhi iski baatain ooper say guzar jaati haiN)
t: am i losing you? we’re in rehab...as it were since we left the protective womb
cc: a’haan (kuch smajah nahiN aa raha hay)
t: look try to see life on earth as a transient stop between the womb and the grave
cc: that is the life between birth and death (maiN kitni hoshiar hooN)
t: yes. this is the journey of rehabilitating our selves
cc: with scriptures?
t: with uses of faculties
cc: aaj kya hay
t: victoria day
cc: oof hoh…i meant aaj kya baat hay jo itna falsafa baghaar rahay ho?
t: aisay hee kal raat yeh ’rehab’ wala khayal aaya tha
cc: hmmmm
t: friedman, dimanno, my friend siddiqui
cc: who? what
t: google toronto star...read their op-ed and page 3 pieces…thomas, rosie and haroon
cc: what about
t: islam, qur’an, desecration
cc: what is your take
t: respect for the word of God should translate into deeds by the followers...most muslims do not understand…are shallow, emotional and maneuverable…those who read with understanding do not speak up ..often and enough…gtg…rehab:)
(05/05/22)

***

IMs on reasoning and prayng
cc: busy ho
t: nahin bolo
cc: why r some people so hateful
t: traumatic psychosis
cc: leading to neurosis?
t: sometimes
cc: is it genetic?
t: hmmm…dunno for sure…could be acquired….could be programmed
cc: hmmmm …that explains it
t: explains what?
cc: reasoning with them
t: why would u be reasoning?...cross the street and move on
cc: my programming :)
t: :)…you are programmed to talk to stone sculptures
cc: hey don’t go there…u have ur stone cube too
t: good point:)..tho to be fair i meant the laughing buddha statue on ur coffee table
cc: badmash
t: :)
cc: so reasoning is futile
t: reasoning is not futile…praying is
cc: will come to praying later…so reasoning can work
t: hard work… the blinkers on their minds are set with crazy glue…
cc: but nothing is impossible
t: :)
cc: why r u smiling
t: how long a list u want?..of people u cannot reason with?
cc: ok what about praying
t: praying? cricket and kashmir
cc: cricket and kashmir?
t: yup, millions pray for a victory;)
cc: :) have a nice long victoria weekend
t: will survive:)
(05/05/21)

***

gathering laughter
high noon lethargy and sunday’s quiet
clothes -- an strewn sartorial necklace
all around the bed
timorous light cascading through the shades
a do-not-disturb smile on her face
torpor soaked in slugguish langour
with a heavy head and lumbering limbs
stealthily eased out of her embrace
to quench the thirst dragged the clumsy feet
to the kitchen - glasses, dinner and
quarter plates cups and cutlery
all over the counter, sink and table
thirst unabated, glasses galore
but not one clean
finally a clean mug quenched thirst
surreptitiously started gathering
remnants of last eve’s
dormant mirth and laughter
anaesthesised by the piercing sunrays
revised 05/05/20