A Desi Dilemma

good story but kind of predictable and uninteresting the way it`s written.


paindupastry bhai: would you care to tell, how did you come up with this nick? .. it sounds deep !.....

simmilar to the Osama movie.....where the mullah and old dog rescues the girl to `marry` her...

A very good narration......good story.

An Afghan woman living here, used to call all Jews very bad and evil.....when asked WHY she said because that is what is told to her and she believes her elders without a doubt....

nice reading.

adam khan,

..... thanks for a good read ... very nice ! ....

..........it is a shame that the pathans, specially in the rural and tribal areas, have not changed much in the last thousand years - and from what i can see they have managed to get even worse in the last twenty .......... two years ago my uncle could not attend my father`s funeral because his nephews had been in a shooting match with their `tarboors` and managed to kill two people - the feud has been going on for many generations ........... but here is the kicker - the uncle is a retired general and one of the nephews is a police officer ! .......... the pathans are simply incorrigible ........

..... on a happier note, inspite of protestations to the contrary, they tell me that the girls in peshawar are a lot `easier` than their sisters in lahore .......

I loved this piece. especially the details and the way Darya Khan`s brother rationalised everything. This was definitly an eye-opener in how people get brain-washed into becoming so-called extremists.

Great! At least the moulvis are as libral as lesbians.

Good narration, nonethelesss.

Re: # 15
whats the source on the burton story..

as for finding boy love....its on every street of most developing countries...what do you think happens in the slums of most major cities of the developing world

Re: # 12

hmm...i re read my observation and you are right. i did sound as if the subjects in your essay are some distant countrymen of ours. such mindsets and sick ideologies are a part of most pakistani`s anywhere in the world.

Red paindupastry #7

[reality check for us pakistani`s
i personally dont care what these people in the tribal ideas do or want, just as long as they keep to themselves....]

Richard Burton (no, not the 20th century actor but the 19th century explorer/adventurer) found Karachi in 1850 (no, that is NOT a typo, I mean 1850) to have a brothel with 4,000 (again not a typo, the number is four thousand) boys. At that time, Karachi was a dusty little town.

I wonder about today`s Karachi.

Ama Adam Khan yaar,

(Do Pakistanis have any last lames other than Khan?)

This is a bit long but a brilliantly funny story, well written!

It may not be atom bum (it only releases laughing gas), but it certainly makes a lot of current FP stuff appear like THEKHAR BACHIYA!

Bay Shuck!!

Subhan Allah, Subhan Allah!!

Indeed, what is a man without his “gun”?!!! And who does not wish to go to “janat”? (Except perhaps Manto who thinks he is already there.)

(Note: I also personally think the story would have perhaps been better if you would have ended it with the discussions at the gathering. The rest of it is okay too, but does not add much to the effect already produced!)

majumdar and wasif2:

No they are not ``par for the course``, if this story was real the molvi would have most probably died a painful death in the Hujra of Khan Lala. Homosexually isn’t THAT prevalent in the N.W.F.P. as some of you expect it to be. The thing is that one has to take jokes as jokes and nothing more.

Thank you guys, thanks for all the praise. But what surprised me the most is the reaction of some of the readers, first of all I wrote this story as a Pakistani and I am in no way ashamed of the fact that I am one. But the reaction that came for paindupastry sounded as if the N.W.F.P. is part of Afghanistan. It is not! I write about Peshawar and Pathans because I am a part of this society, and I can create stronger characters if I concentrate within its sphere.

But that doesn’t mean that the N.W.F.P. is the source of all the sexual perversions in Pakistan, the stories coming from across the Attock don’t paint a rosy picture either for instance, “Mukhtaran mai’s” assailants were not pathan. “Javaid Iqbal” Pakistan’s first known serial killer of children was also not a pathan, the brothels of Lahore are overflowing with abducted girls being forced into sexual slavery, there had been numerous stories on GEO tv about serial rapists of little girls who are thriving down south, the list goes on.

As a nation we are plagued by “pedophilia” and “rape” and we have to admit to that. To make matters worse the Hudood ordinance gives ample hope and protection to any would-be rapist, such is the shame full state of affairs in this Mumlikat a Khuda-daad.

I do not have any western biases all I am trying to say in this piece is that before we shout “shame” and point a finger at the hippie nudists of the west and call them perverts, we should admit to our own disturbing sexual perversions.

Adam Khan! Keep writing these...wonderful insight you got!

Yaar Adam, this is brilliant and by far one of the best stories on Chowk. Keep it going!!

Adam Khan,

Fantastic. But why should the moulvi`s activities make it to a newspaper. I thought young boys are par for the course in NWFP.

Regards