Deprivation

My advice to you.....
STOP TAKING DRUGS
and maybe you`ll be able to see things a lot more clearer.

wow, brilliant, when did you write this?

I do not think it would be so horrible to scratch each others surface and find just another person. I think it would be liberating to no longer live up to the expectations you set for each other. There is comfort in sameness. There is peace in security and there is passion when the Ivy intertwines with the ivory colmun.

Nice work. I liked it a lot.

I have no idea about what you are trying to say. But good luck anyway.

cheers

This article carries the story of every struggling woman of this society.

But the question that keeps bugging my mind is that how long will all this last?

In response to Jay (Reply #: 36 and Reply # 38):

Dear Jay:

Assuming that you are a South Indian, permit me to say that South India is a hub of some great languages (and cultures). Some South Indian songs (in languages that I can`t understand) sound very sweet and melodious.

Regarding love, I have found one of the best statement in Rumi`s poem about Hakim Lughman/Luqman. I learned this poem through the courtesy of an Iranian friend of mine. Urdu, like your mother tongue (I assume), is also very rich in various expressions of love.

It is, however, quite natural to think that the expressions of feelings are better expressed in our mother tongues than any other language that we don`t understand so well. All languages have, what we call in Urdu, a ``mijaz.``

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

to Studebaker,

May be there was a personal experience dimension to that comment, may be my inability, may be even the impossibility of translating some of the poetic narratives of the indian `love songs` to my children, who i feel have an impoverished life compared to mine in the midst of apparent plenty. Language mediates our experiences, our thinking and feeling and I believe that indian languages are more endowed in expressing feelings while english is better for `rationalist` arguments.

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Interesting to see chowkwalas talking about love, what a demented senseless word.

One can declare the greates of `love ` to the sweet heart and next moment say, i really `love` pepperoni pizza. Well now, I have some vague idea about the meaning of the word `love`.

In my silly old mother tongue in India, I can choose among at least 10 words to replace the `love` depending on the circumstance, and I am no scholar in my mother tongue.

Yes chowkwalas, keep discussing love.

Shandana - Very interesting flow of words! A little confused by your ``thinking out loud`` thoughts but yet, impressed by the deep rooted sentiments. When I think of Karachi... I think of a lot of the things you mentioned. Thanks!

=mariam ispahani=

Re: Zehra and Durdana

Well, I always thought I would marry to achieve something that cannot be had outside of marriage. But I think the rules are different in Pakistan.

-!K!-

durdana..

im not assuming.

rizvi

K, tum kaheen say bhi naive nahi hou :)

Re: shandana

``the biggest reason to get married? you`re kidding right?``

I wasn`t. I`ve been told by several Chowkwallas that you were referring to regular sex, I suppose, as the biggest reason to get married. It totally didn`t occur to me. Shows my naivete, huh?

-!Kamran!-

Funny ways women, have she is cross with somebody who in appreciation of the effort she took in looking pretty and attractive brushed past her!

tariqlodi

re: boris_yelstin

``couldn`t understand a word``

You`re not alone. My problem with Ms. Minhas`s writing (when she writes in this style) is that I don`t quite know what one paragrah has to to with the next (... sometime what one sentence...)

Now, either we`re the dumb ones or she`s the emperor`s tailor, pulling fast ones over our eyes with her stream-of-conciousness ramblings, right?

Well, I`d have to admit I suspect the former to be true. Not because I think so many other readers couldn`t be giving `correct` appraisals just to feel they`re adequately contemplative, which these days seems to mean `aware of our darker side` --(they could!); nor because I know Shandana likes the brutality of the truth too much to compromise it with her style. And nor because I do end up feeling, quite aside from any considerations of her reputation, that there is something of great value in what/how she writes (Don`t ask me to put my finger on it though!)

No, I think we`re a little dumb (disclaimer: just u and me, that is) because we think that writing that doesn`t have good, logical structure is trashy. Maybe it`s because we`ve been brought up too much on `understanding` and too little on exeriencing.

The `problem` with Shandana is she doesn`t write tragically... There are no heroes and no real villians in her world. That is why, I think, we end up wondering what `lesson` we`ve learnt. But if we could get ourselves to not expect a tragical ending to her stories, we`d come to better appreciate her art. And what does she offer if not the chemically pure icons of tragedy? Certainly not instant catharsis. Nope, her`s is not a quick-acting drug that gives style to our emotional life. What we get, I think is a slower but more lasting (sometimes haunting), stable (yes!) change in our selves (if we choose to change), effected by that lovely, desperate quality of her being: honesty.

(Yes, I DO know her (I think!) personally)

I can still empathize with the `jackass` who asked her to write about `love [, love, love makes people happy]`. We still could use that kinda stuff... there`s nothing wrong about feel-good writing. But then, that just wouldn`t be Shandana Minhas. Not the Writer anyway. From her we expect greater things.

Keep `em coming, Shandy. Honesty might well be contagious.