The Invisible Men

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...

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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

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

hmmm.

hain kawakab kuch.............