Help! Is Anyone Out There?

That was a nice one!

Reminds me of the childhood stories where one will read......Once Upon a time,........

I feel the poetess has expressed what she is looking for, in a very light but emphatic manner. She is being smart by spelling out what her desires in a poetic manner. Though I will like to say that by nature there are more South Asian Women who are poetic than men. So what does that say :-) ?

You seem awfully despondent.What`s the matter??

there are plenty of people like you out here. you are not alone. everyone has their downs-but it`s important to climb back up.you have to look inside yourself and find the strength to rise above these temporary problems-and believe me, they are temporary.you will find someone who will help you get back on your feet.

Remember...

` What Doesn`t destroy you,

Only makes you stronger.`

take care.

Mujahid

Not that it should matter, but I think it was

Barbara Striesand, not Linda Ronstad

Ms. Afreen,

I haven`t learnt to critic(ize) poetry as yet, But

I would like to comment on an aspect of your piece

I found charming-- even commendable: your honesty.

And don`t let anyone tell you need help for

needing another (to feel complete?).

Remember Linda Ronstad: `People Who Need People...

are the luckiest people in the world.

Oh, and by the way, any female who tells you

you`re sick is probably living in denial.

(I do, however, wonder whether the last stanza,

worded as it is, belongs more to the matrimonial

columns!)

Hope to see more honest stuff like this from you.

regar

Re: In response to the LITERARY CRITICS

aha .... desi literary critcis abound ... Darn maybe thats why nothing really worthwile gets published in desiland .... - lets nip the budding poetess :)

write on girl !!! Maybe its not the best poetry I have come across but it sure is funny ....BTW it does get better with time :)

Jonty # 10:


``And is temporal out there? I`d love your take on this, t.``

----Alive and well. More in a personal email, if you write to me (Have lost your and bina`s addresses.)

As for my take, let`s check out the title and some lines:

.....Help! Is Anyone Out There?
and
.....I need someone wise
.....Wise enough to refrain
.....From speaking or acting in vain..

I meditated, retreated to my dargah to smell the lobaan, and heard a voice say ``refrain``. Guess you can say with my absence I was making a point.

``BTW, have we given up on AI?``

----No. But I cannot access the open interaction page anymore since thata time when hackers tried to disable yahoo. Kindly inform the ``mistress``. Go to my page and click the link and you will know what I mean. Also, there is a new poem Word Waves. You may enjoy it.

rgds

t

Hi.

I found this poem really funny. It gets to the crux of the life partner search issue with such tongue in cheek humor and involves the reader from the beginning. thats cute.

Hmm....

I think I just heard

Lord Byron,

Cryin`

Out loud in his grave:

``Oh thou wretched Pakistani

Wench,

I wish thee heroes

galore,

But I do prithee,

to keep thy toilet

away from thy prose``.

Sabah, i apologize for the flack you have gotten for this poem. What someone said before is correct - when you enter a marketplace of ideas like Chowk, you have to be prepared to be offered all kinds of wares and to bump into all kinds of people. You have to choose with what - and whom - to leave the market.

So don`t be unduly worried by the negative responses you`ve gotten. Think of them as catcalls you get as you walk through Juma Bazaar - they`re annoying, but you can ignore them as you go about examining the ideas you want to purchase.

I`m sympathetic to your poem - perhaps i`m not as good as reading between the lines, but i didn`t really see its side-splitting humor. I saw it as a sincere expression of a frustration that i know many women in the West and in their 20s - including myself - feel. Sure it all sounds cliched and that`s why half the responses are sniggering about matrimonial ads in Dawn. But the sense of loneliness - and the fear that you may never meet somebody who understands both the desi and the Western parts of you - is very real.

I admit that the poem needs improvement, but i`m not critiquing technique - i`m acknowledging sincerity. Good luck.

As for us women, we`ll all be fine. We just need to bring our own toilet paper in with us until someone else does. :)

Hello, yes I’m here

I’m the toilet paper and I can carry you thru

Thick and thin...literally!

Kidding kidding kidding! :) Not bad, Sabah Aafreen...your poem`s very funny...after being chastined by Farangi-Kush, I dare not say any more...no, honestly, everyone`s being tooooo critical of you. The poem`s...interesting. :)

Afreen! Afreen!

which in english can be roughly `translated` as bravo!bravo!.

Please do not even acknowledge their presence.These self-styled `critics` have no clue either of the english language (proof: they would not have `criticised` the way they did) and secondly no poetry subscibes to any rule.Please rejoice in the fact that it is important to you.Even Dr.Johnson,if here today,would not `criticise` it unless he got paid for it.The others can only say what they liked or what they couldn`t comprehend.

The best english writers fron India & Pakistan are/were the ones who excelled in their mother tongue first.The rest are mostly ba ba blacksheep/wanna-be karantaas fit for becoming bank presidents or multi-national glorified clerks(both jobs no-brainers...it also helps to distance oneself from ones religion & food & language & assert ones dumbness about them).

If you had not mentioned the word urdu and instead given your poem an ambience of that of somebody who knows everything of the western trivia but is very proudly(woefully) ignorant of Lalookhet & kharadar,then that would have won you accolades galore from these psycho-pasteaurisers. Two such specimens are on two different boards, concurrently.

wassalaam

Pathetic is a word in english language to describe one` emotions after reading this Poem in English. I dont understand if one can`t do poetry in English why should he/she even think doing that. And same hold s for poetry in general. After reading the first thought that hit me was ``someone is trying to act like an intellectual when he/she isn`t``

Try something else

Cheers,

A view from the FirstSlip

Present, Re # 9,

Couldnt agree more, well said bro.

Moez Momin.

And is temporal out there? I`d love your take on this, t.

BTW, have we given up on AI?

Unfortunately, I took the liberty of going through

other comments that this piece attracted.

It would appear that sensitivity and compassion,

the two foremost human attributes that need to be

much preserved .... have died a premature death and been long buried in this country.

On a different plane, I wonder if any of those commenting has seen the inside of a jail in Pakistan, the women`s quarters, where privacy is only evident for the lack of it.

And, anyway .... do these smart alecks have any familiarity with the concept of alienation....and what it does and can do to people??/