Innocence, Loss and Nagan Chowrangi

hp,

....... i did not miss the double standard - but standards, by definition, are liable to change ......... today, god forbid, if i insisted on following the standards of our prophet, not only would i be in big trouble with mrs hamidm, i would also end up in jail with a bunch of horny guys from utah ........

........... i agree that the fact that the ``west is an equal opportunity society`` when it comes to sexual matters is admirable, but it was not always the case ............. even today strip bars for men outnumber those for women by a 100 to 1 - i have conducted a survey in four counties .........

...............and let us not forget that before george bush opened up his ranch in texas there was the famous `chicken ranch` outside le grange that got a lot of attention in the 1990 gubernatorial race in which clayton lwilliams ost narrowly to ms big-hair ............. if you remember, the good ole boy proudly stated that in his time most fathers would take their sons down to the chicken ranch for the rite of passage into manhood ........... here is what zz top had to say :

Rumour sprendin` a-`round in that Texas town
`bout that shack outside La Grange
and you know what I`m talkin` about.
Just let me know if you wanna go
to that home out on the range.
They gotta lotta nice girls.

Have mercy.

A haw, haw, haw, haw, a haw.
A haw, haw, haw.

Well, I hear it`s fine if you got the time
and the ten to get yourself in.
A hmm, hmm.
And I hear it`s tight most ev`ry night,
but now I might be mistaken.
hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm.

Have mercy.

First Shandana then Nadia followed by ana have touched upon something that stands out so clearly in this article still our learned commentators like Hamidm and Tahmed missed it completely.

We are from a society where a boy, as soon as he is able to hold it in hands and think, wants to lose his virginity as fast as he could but a girl of about the same age is forced into saving her virginity until it is legal for her to lose it.

If someone were to ask me what I like about the West, I would say that the west is an equal opportunity society in at least this regard. Girls want to and can lose virginity as fast as boys can. This is the kind of parity which saves young boys from traveling to Nagin Chowrangi, Buffer zone or Ancholy Society from Defense society and encounter the lowlifes that live in those lower Middleclass areas.

This is a story of a boy desperate to lose his virginity for some bragging rights. And brag he did. This is also a story of how obsessive a boy can get about losing his virginity to anyone who can provide a castle for a few minutes of frantic actions which always turn out to be anticlimactic.

I can relate to the story as I have been in similar situations when you get someone with an ugly mom after a few drinks to put a handle on your booming libido. I have been to homes where you find a lower middleclass family using girls to make a living. This is life in our society and I guess those who still live there have to live with this.

Despite putting the best face, I clearly see Moe’s disappointment on losing something he thought was precious. Isn’t it ridiculous that young men in their twenties become so obsessive abt losing it and some taking the matter in their hands to seek anything that helps them?

I wonder if some female writer on this forum would be bold enough to write what goes on in girls minds when hormones start acting up but they don’t have some males with ugly mothers to go and lose it for just a few bucks and not worry about being pregnant or deal with a furious brother who wants to protect the family honor.

Mind you, it could be the same brother who lost it to some castle but would die of shame if his sister provides the castle to some male for the same reasons.

urstruly,

``sadest of all people on this planet are mostly fornicators and homosexual perverts``........... okay, but what about homosexuals who are not perverts ?

# 13

``Racket of Self-discovry``

Well said. Indeed it is a racket and it is sold by those who promote zina, fornication and adultery in the society. These people represent satan and want human society to devolve into society of primates. I think author should have used more discretion even though the message at the end is that of disgust and disappointment. I wonder why sin always make human beings sad. I have seen that sadest of all people on this planet are mostly fornicators and homosexual perverts.

At the risk of being nitpicky and being told to lighten up, here`s what I`ve noticed.

-- I think you could have left some of the similies out, particularly the one about the bloated stomach and stick legs looking like he could have been kicked off a flight from Ethiopia. Why go to Africa for that particular image when there are enough children who look like that in Pakistan? the ``invisible`` ones?

You want us to get that the protagonist or the narrator is hip to Western pop culture, and we get that. . . a little too much. To me, it gives the story the appearance of being somewhat contrived. That`s just my humble opinion though.

-- If you want us to see that your protagonist is well-read, then the gypsy Esmeralda is of Hugo, pas de Voltaire. Granted this is a fiction, but again, it seems that you`re wanting to push a particular image of the protagonist, and it seems fair to be accurate.

-- You know how to tell a story, this is true, and your descriptions are raw and vivid. You write well, but I guess what my problem is, and I can only speak for myself, is how you describe the encounter at Farah`s. Whose innocence? Whose loss? I think Shandana makes a good point in #27 about one standard being for the men and one for the women. . . .

[...Farah lived in that house with her mother, her children and her whores. The children knew exactly what went on in the locked rooms. I saw the little boy smirk and giggle innocently as Barron shut the door on him. I wonder how that chubby dark kid would deal with his warped childhood when he grew up. Would he buy into the `ghairat` concept and kill Farah? Would he become the Karachi version of Lahore’s Hira Mundi tabla nawaz; progeny of whores and unknown fathers, destined to beat the drum to their womenfolks’ gyrating hips?]

Wow! Things are no different in Karachi/Lahore than in Tamil Nadu!

The children of your prostitutes play the tabla! The male children of our prostitutes end up being the traditional nagaswaram (shehnai-like reed instrument but much bigger) artists.

Have any of your tabla players made it big? The current chief minister of Tamil Nadu -- the object of adoration by Soysauce of Chowk -- Doctor Artist Leader the Fund of Compassion, is descended from the currently gentrified Isai Vellalar community which is a fancy name for the caste of Melakkarans, who are nagaswaram players.

Aisha-sarwari & Nadia:
I wonder if you ever heard this.

and after Bokhari sahib left the premises, this is what sheemi said


and may I say it was no loss of ``innocence`` [ these phrases come in handy and are used unthinkingly belonging to an alien culture].

It was the loss or rather assaging of GUILT..guilt of missing out not yet being part of the gang.....not being like the rest of the ``modern`` , ``liberated`` ``advanced`` ones.

the more i read it..the more i feel enraged that the venom spitted by the ``innocence claimer`` has sharpened the effects of his inner ugly frame of mind to scold off the a matter of fact a whore...

a whore is whore...and why all writers of such prostituted stuff try to find casualism, solace, moral binding in such places, feel desperate and caring towards fatherless kids...is there any heartning stigma attached to it..that there can be their own child in the making after leaving the exit.

And I still failed to understand why innocence is lost with the willing attempt of conquest of known consequences where you dont have any expectations but paid demands...

Why traumatic love affairs seek camoflague from the hounds of war and it takes asylums in the murkiness of brothels..

For Farah he could be a customer of another day or time, she had no description or mindness to featurized his desperate, frustrate image...Her hunger is not for flesh but for the rate she gets..she doesnt believe in admiration but the insanity she goes through each day is enough to keep her as a comodity a need for the blood thirsty maniacs...who just put there case freeze on the shoulders of Farahs not on the characteristics of the real dearths of life...

Reminds me of Faiz where he expressed debauched sensuality so much gloomily..
aaj ke naam
aur
aaj kay gham kay naam
aaj kaa Gham kay hai zindagii ke bharay gulsitaaN se Khafaa
.
.
.
katariyoN aur galiyoN, muhalloN kay naam
jin kii naapaak Khaashaak se chaaNd raatoN
ko aa aa ke kartaa hai aksar wazuu
jin kay saayoN meiN kartii hai aah-o-bukaa
aaNchaloN kii hinaa
chuuRiyoN kii khanak
kaakuloN kii mahak
.
.
.

Did Farah ever had moral pangs? Did she consider her vocation shameful or benign? I know she kept a majlis during Muharram and her establishment went into sleep-mode during Ramadan. How did she reconcile her lifestyle with her religion, two mutually contradictory things? I could understand a white hooker/stripper rationalizing her choices, for sex for them isn’t a taboo but a natural thing. But Farah lived in that house with her mother, her children and her whores. The children knew exactly what went on in the locked rooms. I saw the little boy smirk and giggle innocently as Barron shut the door on him. I wonder how that chubby dark kid would deal with his warped childhood when he grew up. Would he buy into the `ghairat` concept and kill Farah? Would he become the Karachi version of Lahore’s Hira Mundi tabla nawaz; progeny of whores and unknown fathers, destined to beat the drum to their womenfolks’ gyrating hips? I knew I was projecting my own morality on this happy little whore household. I was also subtly conscious of the irony of pondering questions of ethics and morality while waiting for my turn to ride the velvet pony.

Great stuff.

shandana: (hey!)

baron(why not jamrood bhai?) was like a mother-figure from animal planet who is showing him the ways of the big bad world.. i mean..New Karachi..taking him out.. making connections.. setting up preys. That ``lash pash beta`` was the clincher. Brother Zamanov, this could be a great 20-30 minute short.. you`r right about the movie thing.

Re: # 27

shandana,

you ask : ``since the narrator`s sharing of an illicit experience with the baron seems infinitely more exciting to him than sharing one with the bottom, could it be that he`s gay?`` ........

............. no, it is one of the rituals of male bonding - and there are many others like : getting drunk and puking your guts out, sitting in ehtiqaf during ramadhan with ten other smelly men , simulating sex with strippers at bachelor parties, attending koran classes on the weekends, sharing raunchy sex stories - half of them being untrue, lining up to pray with other men and playing footsie with the guy next to you, belching and farting in unison after eating bufallo wings and drinking beer, belching and farting in unison after eating biryani and drinking milk with rooh-afza , etc. etc ......

....... if women knew what men were really like, they would all be lesbians ...... sorry

it has been a long time since i posted a long interact on a chowk article. the effnrt involved in trying to sign in from my new desktop four times, giving up and disconnecting it unplugging wires finding old laptop under mans loothes on the bed connecting it back up turning it on logging on signing in rewriting every line because bloody half the keys dont work half the time etc has drained me. now that i`m here, i feel even more deeply for the pain of moe`s anti climax.
this was a good read, raw, visceral, wryly observed. except for the cliched descriptions at the end (fireworks, levitation, castle...yawn). why i really responded to it was that it had the ring of emotional truth to it. truth, as i hope poor moe finds out one day, is an aprhodisiac guaranteed to negate the killjoy effects of staging and pretence. thats why you should skip the hookers. not because its wrong, or bad or oppresses women, but because its a lie.
the truth in this is also why it disturbs me as a woman. i dont want to kill moe, but i dont want to save him either. good for him...i know that most men here divide women into the sum of their parts and then talk to or about the ones they like best, but when will they stop fixating on some baichari`s ass? the mother whore is castigated for her crudity, but the immature (if intelligent) observer sees no harm in his. one standard for her, another for him, another clue to why some fail to balance the pleasure equation.
since the narrator`s sharing of an illicit experience with the baron seems infinitely more exciting to him than sharing one with the bottom, could it be that he`s gay?

#19 and #21
... i find it hilarious to see two fifty plus old dads fighting about...did he or didn`t he...reminds one of the famous misra...
main jhuk ke dhoondhta hun jawani kidhar gayee...;)

Re: # 21


LOL


...... also we must find out, whether he developed it as a permenant feature or not,

But then for that we will have to wait for his NEXT ecnounter,


Also ...............would then someone REFER him to the

70 Sala TijerbaKar Qibla Mohterram Hazrat Janab Baray Saniyasi Baba Sahib...??

#23 I demand the author back any claims he makes with four eye-witnesses of good character!!

Re: # 22

tahmed,

...... now don`t go literary on me ! ........ we are talking about the physical phenomenon of antilclimax - kind of like the lull after the storm .........and may i also refer you to :`` I withdrew my forces from the castle and tended to their uncleanliness`` ...... obvious, no? ............. but let`s not argue about it - we will let the author settle it for us ....