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The Invisible Men

ahmad hayat April 17, 2007

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#45 Posted by swh on June 22, 2007 5:24:03 pm
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#44 Posted by catfischblues on April 23, 2007 11:52:38 pm
Paks is the land of the kings- it`s a country where hard work and struggle for your bread and butter is looked down upon with pity rather than pride. A single mother, working and raising her children at the same time, is only looked down upon- rather than applauding her for her hard work and spiritual strength and stamina, other married women feel better about themselves, they gloat with immense pride at their easy lives; a completly contrary attitude is seen in the west.

As a result, for those of us who own no land have to work hard for ourselves and our families. We need the appreciation of our hard work in financial and social terms. That is why, we rather struggle in the west, knowing that our hard work will pay off eventually.

I know a couple who own a house worth qaurter of a million pounds, you would think that its a home of some investment banker- no, the wife works in catering at her local hospital and the husband works at a car factory.

That would never be possible here in pakistan.

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#40 Posted by hamidm2 on April 21, 2007 6:05:37 am
Re: # 39

masadi,

...... how do you know that to be true ? have you ever `talked` to a dog ? ....... how do you know god did not create dog in his own image - is the fact that a `dog` is his name spelt backwards simply a coincidence ?
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#39 Posted by masadi on April 21, 2007 1:48:40 am
Hamid mian, I think it is best if you stay with what you are good at, sipping lattes and cracking yourself up over your own nonsensical jokes. Note that regardless of how your dimwit mind sees its image in the monkey, animals can develop conditioned responses in their behavior patterns which in no way suggests an ability to develop or use complex language of possess a concept of self. Monkey see, monkey rewarded, monkey do is not the same as evaluating yourself through the eyes of others.... comprendey?
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#38 Posted by hamidm2 on April 20, 2007 11:55:02 am
Re: # 36

masadi,

...... indeed, you are a very foolish person ! ....... sorry, but i had to say that because sometimes you say things that are asinine .......

``alienation is a uniquely human phenomenon because humans are the only self-evaluating conscious beings that have evolved language to understand the minds of each other as well as develop a concept of self``

...... you should watch the national geographic channel instead of staying glued to qtv - you will realize that chimps and gorillas are more eveolved beings than mullahs ....... or you can get a dog as a pet - you will be surprised to find out that they are more `human` than most people ...........
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#37 Posted by hamzaad on April 20, 2007 8:03:27 am
``that have evolved language to understand the minds of each other as well as develop a concept of self``

HAHA!

If that`s true then, kaka has (d)evolved a language of `bhangi and chutya` to `understand the minds` of ashraf-ul-mahlooqaat like you. Please give credit where it is due.

To say that you are deluding yourself when you think you understand the minds of others is beneath kaka. All kaka has is text from you manifesting juvenile understanding of language and `self-evaluation` serving as handmaidens, fellating your anti-west mullahism. The silver lining is that we are all going to die eventually and your `sense of low self-worth` will also find a home in this nothingness.

In the meantime, let us contemplate the words of the Quran where ants on couches are discussing self-preservation with Solomon and then the `hud-hud` birdie is playing mind games with the king. Kindly use your evolved language to understand what`s on Allah`s mind with self-conscious birds and high-faluting ants..
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#36 Posted by masadi on April 19, 2007 10:29:28 pm
hamzaad writes <<< Brother masadi,

Don`t rail against kaka just because you are STILL an underachiever bhangi in your preferred social system of azaan and domestic servitude. >>>

Your introduction to the response tells me the level of your intellect. Whether I am or am not an underachiever has nothing to do with the fact that alienation is a uniquely human phenomenon because humans are the only self-evaluating conscious beings that have evolved language to understand the minds of each other as well as develop a concept of self. You mistake adaptation to an environment based on instinct, as is the case with animals, with alienation and then claim to be some big shot. Further whether trees and animals feel ``alienated`` was not the point, the point was that a social system generates alienation, not only among implants but among locals as well, and finally, the social system I live under was ``caused`` more by colonization and the neo colonial setup than Islam
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#35 Posted by KaalChakra on April 19, 2007 10:14:20 am
hamazad

What big books you (and Raw_Dust) read! :)

OK, here is a serious question. Please don`t make fun of me for asking it, because everyone knows - you are THE kaka, and nobody else is. :)


What does Wittgenstein say, or will say, about the following very curious, fascinating, and far more common situation:







We all know about beetles, mice, turtles, and other animals. Some we hate, others we love.

But suppose a few hundred (or a million, or a billion) people come and tell you that they know about another - the loveliest that ever lived or will live - animal that noboy other than them has seen. It`s called the treetle. Everyone must make space in their house for this new beauty - the treetle. It`s terribly useful. So every treetilite feels a strong moral obligation to let you know. Just in case you later decide to accuse them of not being good neighbors and all.

These people are terribly excited. Each describes it to you in breathless terms. Some describe it as though it were a fresh-born lamb (except that it is nothing like any lamb you saw). Some see it as an elephant. Others sketch it as a cat. Others claim that everything that breathes is actually a treetle, but in a form that only they can see, or realize their treetleness. Still others educate you that since God made all animals, all animals were originally a treetle. (Unfortunately) these treetles diverged and changed /degraded into rats and cats, and dogs and deers. May good God take these latter, flawed animals to their early grave, so you may have sufficient space again - in your heart, home, and neighborhood - for the glory of the treetle.

So with faith in Witgensetein, and with some idea about human mind work, you request these treetlites to point out to you one treetle, so you could see for yourself this divine wonder. Sure. Everyone informs you that their mamoo jaan - a particularly clever man long ago, according to most accurately kept historical records - had one. Mamoo jaan and his treetle are naturally dead (may they rest in peace together and forever). But if you wait till year 2250, you can check one out for yourself.







Would Wittgenstein say that treetle exists? If it exists, then what is it - an animal or something else?

A serious answer please. I am engaging you as phokat ka Wittgentein consultant, and would not pose a nonserious question (existential or otherwise) to you.
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#34 Posted by hamzaad on April 19, 2007 2:08:45 am
`Wittgenstein’s Beetle

In his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein uses an analogy in an attempt to clarify some of the problems involved in thinking of the mind as something over and above behaviour. Imagine, he says, that everyone has a small box in which they keep a beetle. However, no one is allowed to look in anyone else’s box, only in their own. Over time, people talk about what is in their boxes and the word “beetle” comes to stand for what is in everyone’s box.

Through this curious analogy, Wittgenstein is trying to point out that the beetle is very much like like an individual’s mind. No one can know exactly what it is like to be another person or experience things from another’s perspective (look in someone else’s box), but it is generally assumed that the mental workings of other people’s mind are very similar to our own (everyone has a beetle which is more or less similar to everyone else’s). However, it does not really matter – he argues – what is in the box, or whether everyone has a beetle, since there is no way of checking or comparing. In a sense, the word “beetle” – if it is to have any sense or meaning – simply means “what is in the box”. From this point of view, the mind is simply “what is in the box” – or rather “what is in your head”.

Wittgenstein aruges that although we cannot know what it is like to be someone else, to say there must be special mental entity called a mind that makes our experiences private is wrong. Part of the reason he thinks this way is because he considers language to have meaning through public usage. In other words, when we talk of having a mind (or a beetle), we are using a term that we have learnt through conversation and public discourse. Furthermore, the word we have learnt can only ever mean “whatever is in your box” – i.e. your mind – and should not therefore be used to refer to some entity or special mental substance since no one can know that such a thing exists (we cannot see into other people’s boxes).`
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#33 Posted by hamzaad on April 19, 2007 1:59:29 am
Re: # 32

Brother masadi,

Don`t rail against kaka just because you are STILL an underachiever bhangi in your preferred social system of azaan and domestic servitude.

Trees and dogs also function through system of interaction with other organisms. A mango tree, when uprooted and planted elsewhere will be `udaas` and not bear fruit for several years before blossoming again. Of course, your mullah model of social interaction has no place for animals and plants because your chutya religion is not smart enough to think through self-awareness theories of other living things.

Your models of understanding the uniiverse is severely handicapped by the revelatory `ashraf-ul-makhlooqaat` status of humans. Step outside that matchbox and witness Alienation BEING MANIFESTED in various ecosystems.

PS. Look up Wittgenstein and his though experiment of `Beetle in the Box` and maybe you will understand that feelings (like Alienation) can only be evaluated if they are MANIFESTED. If hamidm is not MANIFESTING `traits of Alienation`, please leave him alone and administer those doses of azaan back in your ear to cure thyself mullah!
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#32 Posted by masadi on April 18, 2007 11:11:20 pm
hamzaad writes <<< Alienation is a feeling that that organisms (even dogs and trees) may manifest. >>>

After reading this nonsense I need not have responded to your idiocy par excellence. Alienation is restricted to conscious, self evaluating organisms, unlike dogs and trees, and it is a product of a social system, not some ghost affecting your psyche from on high.
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#31 Posted by neembu on April 18, 2007 5:26:48 pm
Re: # 25

thats a bit overly reductive, isnt it?
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#30 Posted by Minhaj on April 18, 2007 11:43:54 am
minhaj-man: Nothing is sacred when you are in your 20s (assuming you are a 20-something) least of all ``memories``, which should be cherished as opposed to worshiped, from a distant future, of the past that was yesterday.

Thanks yoda.

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#29 Posted by Raw_Dust on April 18, 2007 8:29:34 am
``I miss the US too, but what I miss about it is``

Senhor Masadi:
I am guessing, there is at least one thing you`d definitely be missing in Pakistan and that is the grand library system as it is in us (college libraries or the cities`) and come to think of: old bookstores and recordstores. I don`t think there can be an argument about that.
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#28 Posted by hamzaad on April 18, 2007 8:27:58 am
`#25 by masadi on April 18, 2007 6:10am PT

it is a trait of a social system and the US social system is an Alienation generator par excellence.`

You are an idiot par excellence. Alienation is a feeling that that organisms (even dogs and trees) may manifest. IT IS NOT A TRAIT HOVERING OVER THE SKIES OF THE LAND OF THE FREE! You can feel it in the middle of karbala fighting alongside Hussain or in America when your selected reading is rejected in your book club. The cheerful morons that you resent are really your personal demons and cannot be projected onto people who have a firmer control of their destinies.

Unlike you, a few desis in this country and in Pakistan control their own destinies. Your middle class angst are a product of your own shortcomings. If you can`t hold onto a job in a private university because some desi entrepreneur deemed you irrelevant, HE IS IN CONTROL and you are just another uncle with a pocket protector..
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#27 Posted by Cobra on April 18, 2007 7:55:20 am
I find it funny how people adapt a lifestyle based on what is considered cool and curious about the penchant of anglofobs to be accepted by white society. If you are going to embrace a particular lifestyle then do solely for what it stands for and what it means to you, and not for any wrong notions of social acceptance.
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#26 Posted by aslam644 on April 18, 2007 7:09:22 am
Re: # 25
masadi i hear you`ve gone back to pakistan.
to paraphrase jane austin, in pakistan it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possesion of a green card must be in want of a wife.
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#25 Posted by masadi on April 18, 2007 6:10:21 am
Re: hamid and his gang

All of your replies are quite ignorant compared to the profound insight based on experience of the article`s author. Alienation is not a gora or colored trait, it is not an immigrant or native trait, it is not a worker or middle class trait, it is a trait of a social system and the US social system is an Alienation generator par excellence. Those that understand this and get back in tune with their reality, they are the liberated. The rest of you, who are ``enjoying every minute of it``, self deceived and deceiving, remain enslaved, soon you`ll note that your entire life has just vanished away......for nothing. Devoid of meaningful memories, trapped in bureaucratically circumscribed existence, bowing day and night to the corporation for whom you work, for whose sake your leisure activities are rationalized, and for whom you nurture your kids.....you are a lost bunch....I pity you

I miss the US too, but what I miss about it is living within it yet rejecting its enslaving system. That sense of liberation and freedom, the real freedom not the fake bs is what I miss. In this country, the number of the free are much more and what required education and knowledge to uncover over there is known to the common folk based on their experience and deprivation. They are all social scientists of sorts without degrees. Over there, among the cheerful morons, hypnotized by the system, those that are liberated are few, and that feeling of liberation is what is missed...
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#24 Posted by hamidm2 on April 18, 2007 5:47:46 am
Re: # 22

hamzaad,

.....excellent post ........ ``the haven of domestic servants and the mediocrity supporting it`` says it all ......... after thirty years in this country and loving every minute i still think that ``naukar allah taala ki sab say bari naymat hai ``....... and if i ever move back to pakistan it will be because of the cheap and abundant domestic help you can get there !
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#23 Posted by neembu on April 18, 2007 4:28:08 am
Re: # 8

I cant believe this, but I think both sides might be right. Kulharee is correct in pointing out that NYC is city that echoes with a million smaller cities, a million neighborhoods that are communities. E.B. White evocatively describes this and other city related phemonema in his essay ``Here is New York``. So, there are infinite possibilites of communal and individual identity every two blocks. This labryinth can be incredibly absorbing and challenging; some people have negotiated New York and found they belong here for the above reasons and others run back to the suburbs (where life is much stranger, if you ask me).

I am sorry that the writer of this piece felt so alienated in my city. Unfortunately, it is as White poiints out, a gift and a curse for all of us. ``Belonging`` can shift in degrees from one circle of identification to another; i.e. neighbors, friends, fellow hobbyists, work colleagues, commuters, etc.

I hope the writer revisits, and the next time he comes, be prepared to encounter and engage with the many communities that make New York. As Hamzaad (and I cant believe I`m agreeing with Kaka), for the discomforts and anonymity of New York, it is filled some of the best or people struggling towards being their best at their art and labor.

Also, spend some time in the boroughs. You might visit the most affluent middle class of color borough in Queens-African American, West Indian American. The Bronx has a growing and interesting West African and Bangladeshi community. Harlem is simply one of the most culturally, politically and socially significant areas of our city. Go to Long Island when you want to be in Surburbia. I cant account for Staten Island.

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#22 Posted by hamzaad on April 17, 2007 11:58:34 pm
Written from the heart and written well!

Although NYC may have a lot of cabbie and working class desis, it is IMPOSSIBLE not to find like-minded, high brow individuals. You don`t seem to suffer fools like zeena easily and you shouldn`t have to but it is only through fools like zeena that you will get to meet people like neembu. Moreover, with your insights about what ails `the Orient`, you will find plenty of ears from the Lower East side to the Columbia precincts..

You fell off the great diaspora discourse by moving back to the haven of domestic servants and the mediocrity supporting it. Maybe like Saima Shah here, you surrounded yourself with goray MBAs and figured them to be relevant to YOUR view of the West and America..

PS. kaka was just listening to Natalie Cole`s live performance of `Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds`.. and it occured to him the utter irrelvance of `goras and integration etc` in face of this beautiful rendition. If you can`t appreciate the Occident on its merit of skilled artisans and best artists.., you really are wasting your time living ANYWHERE in the world.
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#21 Posted by Ranjit on April 17, 2007 11:02:52 pm
What a BS article!! When you voluntarily move to some other country, you are the newcomer there. It is their country and you are trying to become a part of it. The onus is on you to integrate, not for the locals to treat you like a son-in-law who is gracing their home with a visit. How many goras did you invite to your place for dinner? How many goras did you consciously try to hang out with after work? Did you pick up on local sports and culture, which are topics for people to socialize on? If you kept inviting people and they didnt reciprocate, you have cause to complain. If you never took the first step and waited for the goras to initiate social interaction, then you are acting like a pompous fool who thinks he is God`s gift to America. Yeah, right!!

The fact is that all desis come to the US for studies or jobs. A lot of them intentionally restrict contact with goras to a professional level. After work, they like to hang out with other desis, attend desi parties, watch desi movies, marry some desi woman from desiland, shop from desi grocery stores etc. The same desi who will go out of his way to make friends with a new desi and invite them over for dinner, will rarely do that with a gora. Then they complain that the goras do not accept them socially!!

Taali do haath se bajti hai. If you want to integrate, take the first step. My experience is that goras are ordinary people just like desis or anyone else. If you make attempts to establish friendships, some will reciprocate, some will not. That is true with desis as well. My best friend at grad school was a gora. I have had many gora friends, just like I have several desi friends. I have dated americans as well. In general, goras are very open minded and have no hang-ups on interacting socially with anyone. It is an utter mistake to assign group identity to all goras rather than think of them as individuals. The point of going to America or any other place is to get out of your comfort zone and establish new relationships, to broaden your mind, rather than live in a self-imposed ethnic cocoon.
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#20 Posted by eSJay on April 17, 2007 10:24:47 pm
Hmmm... My bro`s been living in US since 7 - 8 years (was in NY and then moved to Dallas) .... Never heard such things about GORAs from him. According to him .. they are very friendly, polite and accepting people ... Neways ... we all have our experiences ... Good luck with ur stay in Pakistan. Cheers
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#19 Posted by Raw_Dust on April 17, 2007 4:10:59 pm
``we mock our most sacred memories.``

minhaj-man: Nothing is sacred when you are in your 20s (assuming you are a 20-something) least of all ``memories``, which should be cherished as opposed to worshiped, from a distant future, of the past that was yesterday.

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#18 Posted by haji004 on April 17, 2007 2:46:37 pm
Re: # 17

``Sang-Froid`` and ``look`` are not used as a single expression.

``Sang-Froid`` here means isolation or aloofness.
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#17 Posted by Minhaj on April 17, 2007 2:34:15 pm
The job started. I was good at it, I liked it and the pay was generous. The best of all the worlds. A loving wife, prime of my youth and plenty of money should have automatically been translated into “the best days of my life” but it wasn`t so. What happened was that I had consciously shunned my own culture, my own society and my own religion while being in Pakistan and had tried to embrace the Western one. What I had forgotten was the fact that how sham or how hypocritically nonsensical my religio-social heritage might be, it was my mine and the two of us were inseparable, how hard I might try. On the other hand, no matter how hard I try to integrate myself to a foreign culture, there would be minute details that would continue to escape my attention plus that biggest factor, “GORA doesn`t care”.

A very enjoyable and honest essay! I like the point you made that when we make a `conscious` attempt to free ourselves from something as natural as the culture and events of our childhood things like Sehri or watching Knight Rider, we lose an important emotion and we mock our most sacred memories.

Secondly I had to, since GORA was displaying his “Sang-Froid”, look for Indian/Pakistani couples with the same social/job backgrounds: Just to have some sort of social existence. That had its own drawbacks. That severely limited the choice of company that I could keep.

What is a Sang-Froid look?
Yeah I would hate that! To make the transition from real friendships to `taalukaat` type of relations so that you can mantain a family environment where every one can have fun. Maybe your kid likes to play with their kids but you dont nessessarily like the parents. Still you go there because your wife needs an `outing.` A person may feel that he works day and night to keep others happy and himself miserable. I am very interested to know if you became happy after returning to Pakistan. Do keep writing as frankly as you did.

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#16 Posted by Raw_Dust on April 17, 2007 12:54:53 pm
``And sadly cogs don`t have any social significance or have they? ``

They do. You are just stuck in your granddad`s mindframe where ``GORA`` was his master and he his colonial slave. If you were in North America, you would have found out that it is about ``You`` only and not the entire social hierarchical baggage you bring from the old-world. Isn`t that the whole point to come to the new world anyway? to leave your granddad and his demons on the dusty old streets of lahore/karachi/whatever.

[obviously, knowing who you are and how you want to build your life (on what ideas and mythology) is no easy game.]

integration, assimilation and stuff are details that come later.
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#15 Posted by TOLKININ on April 17, 2007 12:50:54 pm
It is called crossing the river .
All the A level defence living snob american immitating deserve to be taught there staus in the world
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#14 Posted by SaimaShah on April 17, 2007 12:04:00 pm
The articles brilliant honesty is the point at which art starts. Best of luck, dude, you are asking questions and not compromising--that`s intellectual honesty.

Here is my two bits for you:

1. Your identity that inexplicable, indefinable you is up against a huge challenge, fortunately you share that with thousands of others. Left liberals (Indo-Paki and others from all races populate the planet from Alaska to Khatmandu) ask similar questions, whereas the right quickly dons a hijab or a beard. Personally speaking, I prefer questions to voluminous folds of cloth. Open your heart, and you shall find others like yourself. Live as a cog in the corporate world--a world that only cogs inhabit till they cannot, and you won`t find them.
2. There are two things that can happen at that point, you can expand your sense of self, find others who ask such things fearlessly and continue to develop your individual identity, or give up, remaining just another cog, who mistakes livelihood for freedom. The second doesn`t appear to be possible, given that you seem to be a compromising type:). Now that you are here, don`t stop. It gets better, not worse.
3. I feel sad that so many of us in the interacts display an acceptance of the low self-esteem that immigration to the West brings. We all go through what you did--trading status for anonymity, trading identity for a designation (some of us weren`t even lucky enough to get a job), trading self for livelihood. But do we have to? Who decided that? The singular joy of the West is that compromise is neither necessary nor required. There is no rulebook that says you have to follow the rules. So, my friend, stand up tall and look the others straight in the eye. Be a mover and shaker, and the whole world will flock to you: White, yellow, brown, black the whole world looks for leaders. Your country has great intellectual resources, it has art, it has language, you have the education and the creativity to turn the tide. If you have asked such questions then do the next step. Be a leader.
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#13 Posted by Naqshbandi on April 17, 2007 11:58:22 am
Re: # 10

one of the profoundest statements ever made on chowk.com. so true.
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#12 Posted by Naqshbandi on April 17, 2007 11:56:34 am
of course, until you`ve had your soul sucked out of the end of your dick by a goree* you haven`t really lived...

* gori here means anyone who has grown up in the west from birth or infancy and not just
white skinned folks since culturally and in terms of morally and ethically most of us are indistinguishable from them no matter how much we might fool ourselves or how it may torment our elder generations. i too was in self-denial until i actually lived in the `land of the pure` and couldn`t take it anymore after a few months. then i realised that speaking urdu or being able to quote ghalib doesn`t make you culturally a pakistani. mentally we are a different species...


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#11 Posted by Naqshbandi on April 17, 2007 11:52:01 am
i think it is up to the migrant to integrate; each person integrates as much as he or she wants to. often i have seen spoilt people from pakistan or india come to the UK and, when treated like equals like everyone else, get a shock and spend the rest of their time badmouthing the host culture. when the fox cant get the grapes, they`re sour...

i respect you for coming back to pakistan though. 99.9% of the people who complain never come back. take our friend masadi for example...

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#10 Posted by GT on April 17, 2007 9:57:55 am

Kings do not migrate .... workers do, if they can.
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#9 Posted by Ally on April 17, 2007 9:27:21 am
Get over it and integrate you over privilaged Paki... otherwise go join the rest of the hoard that is bleeding our country... na idhar ke na udhar ke... i think over privilaged Pakis should just come to the west for shopping trips and holidays... its the rest of us who can actually live in the west and for the most part (barring the fundos) can integrate into it well... no matter where you are you make your life as materialistc or as spiritual as you want... happiness comes from you not from another being or thing... Nirvan can be reached in NYC, London or under some peepal tree... its entirely up to you... `integrate nahii ho saka` a BS excuse if i ever heard one...
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#8 Posted by Kulharee on April 17, 2007 9:16:25 am
I have lived in a different New York City for the last 20 years than storied here. Living outside of one’s comfort zone can be challenging no matter what, but overseas Desis, as a group, tend to be very insular (although not as much as Chinese) the transition shouldn’t be that hard, specially in places like NYC.

If the writer had taken some time to explore the city, walked the Coney Island boardwalk, ate Nathan’s, explored ethnic enclaves such as Brighton Beach, Bensonhearst, Chinatown 2, Sunset Park, Willie, Washington Heights, Redhook, and so on, he would have learnt that he is not the ONLY one, there are millions “un-integrated” New Yorkers happy going about what they do, be it vending hotdogs or playing chess, working on the Street (i.e. Wall St if you didn’t know) or selling crack.

Living in NYC for one year is like going to a ball game and leaving the stadium after the national anthem is sung.

But it is a funny writeup nonetheless. In pompous kinda way.
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#7 Posted by pmishra2 on April 17, 2007 8:51:32 am
bizarre, very bizarre. I haven`t run into this kind of individual too much, probably because I am just a worker-type, tho` I recall that indian aristocrats also tend to move back to india as as soon as possible after maybe taking a degree or spending a year in the west.

I guess this clown thinks that because he speaks english and has read a few books he is some kind of god. Maybe in pakistan buddy, elsewhere you are just another working guy...
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#6 Posted by KaalChakra on April 17, 2007 8:30:26 am
A poignant, deep narrative of the futility (some say, utter dishonesty) of trying to integrate the unintegrateables. Take Gill sahib`s post as cautionary advice, and dedicate yourself to being who you really are. Best wishes.
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#5 Posted by vanguard on April 17, 2007 7:03:08 am
I hope that it was a light hearted attempt at explaining your desire to leave the west.

You remind me a lot of People in Pakistan (known in Karachi as `Pull kay uss paar rehnay walay`) who think that they were not meant to be born in Pakistan. I heard a long discussion on the radio when I was driving to the office between Karachi Grammar School students and students from rest of A level schools. According to the poor chaps of St. Paul, Avicenna etc. The latter were complaining that the former consider themselves as higher beings and the rest of the crowd as lesser mortals. For my part, I was oblivious to these undercurrents having studied in St. Yellow (Peela School _ public school for th un-initiated).

I think what bothered you abroad was that from a pedestal of higher being, you became an ordinary mortal in that city and you just can`t bear being treated at an equal level. It had nothing to do with morality, religiousity, secularity or any other aspect of western culture. The only thing that bothered you was that from always being a somebody you became a nobody.
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#4 Posted by masadi on April 17, 2007 6:43:43 am
Accurate observations about the the ``little men (and women)`` trapped as cogs in the machinery of capital. Their worth being determined by their position in the marketplace. Having only ``use value`` and not human value, lost in worlds they have not made, where leisure as well as work is rationalized to benefit others, where the personality is saturated by nonsense making it blase` and impersonal. The vast majority of Goras themselves are victims of it, as were you and I. WE could escape the belly of the beast and we did, many are still trapped there, chasing dreams that they wont attain, living narrow lives that attain meaning only vicariously through the world of movies and fake entertainment. Since memories are narrow, life passes fast and before you know it it has gone, gone the narrow way.

The beast`s web is vast it has entrapped in its fictional dreams people of far flung lands, pulling them in for the purpose sucking their blood, breaking their families and killing their children in the process. Like the Matrix, they live in an artificial world, and they worship it even as it drains them of every semblance of their humanity.

Those that cannot integrate into this bs, those that refuse to integrate to this BS, even though they suffer materialistically back home, are the blessed who have seen the beast and escaped from its belly. Congratulations on your liberation...BE strong for the stamp of the beast on the mind wont let you go that easily, he will show you images of starbucks and blondes and organized traffic, and fake politeness of the people and other such nonsense to lure you back in, so that he can control your life....don`t give in
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#3 Posted by freethinker on April 17, 2007 6:16:56 am
You were artificially imitating the ``goras`` (mimicking their accent, way of speaking, and dressing etc.) while you were in Pakistan and could not accept what they in fact are as human beings when you came to New York. You didn`t write any specific incident in New York so it is difficult to understand your angst against the goras. Many of them keep to themselves or to their own kind as many of us do in our normal life. Many of us are still daunted by the image of goras and ``gora shahi`` and find things to criticize where they don`t even exist.
Many of the immigrants from the subcontinent do socialize with the whites quite normally. I think the problem of adjustment mainly laid in your court. Why should any one embrace you at the first sight? The saying of ``nah teetar nah bater`` seems to apply to you.
You`ll probably not fit in the Pakistan social milieu again after your brief `pilgrimage` to `the dreamland.` You seem to take pleasure in self-pity.
Be well,

Mohammad Gill
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#2 Posted by neembu on April 17, 2007 5:18:53 am
hmmm.
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#1 Posted by Perfection on April 17, 2007 4:28:17 am
hain kawakab kuch.............
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listing 1-16   1 2 3

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