Crickety Shickety

temporal #21:

My pleasure.

So I`ve been told by many others.

Thank you.

No but which site?

An honour to be a part of history in the making.

(Have you made a sticky note of me yet Saima?)

I possess many other abilities as well - just as rare as my sense of humour...

Yes to your question, and

you`re not the only one - I love myself too.

Don`t worry, very clear. I understood you

quite well......;)

- lk (I think I`ll stick to ``lk``,

L.K. Advani being a hard act to follow)

temporal #21

plzz temp can you tell me which OTHER pakistani site you are refering too...

arif & lubna

thats was very well done..all in good humor..

hope dear slink gets some more hits..though I don`t really think that its a measure of the quality of the article..keep writing::))

luv always,

TAM.

Lubna #16:

Thank you. Love you.

Welcome to Chowk. Are you the same Lubna who contributes regularly on another Pakistani web site?

When the history of Chowk will be revised you may well be credited with stopping the downhill slide of inter-actions on creative writing. (Saima, please make yellow-sticker note of Lubna #16.)This despite the fact that most of my unindicted fellow co-conspirators are still hiberanting.

And you have a sense of humour as well! Did I mention I love you? That is about as rare as Chernobyl type of accidents. Just so it is clear, the third sentence refers to the first not the second.

Arif, take our mututal object of reverence out and celebrate. (And since we occassionally word-fight please make note I said `reverence` not `desire`)The frontal and rear-guard `assaults` have netted Lubna. And may lure back some of the hibernators yet.

Shandy, the low turnout, in fact no turn out Crown for a certain hack remains unassailable for now.

love,

temporal

Thank you so much Arif for blowing my cover!

And here I was gloating over the fact that I was finally able to get away with posing as ``Lubna``!

Now let the tirade begin!

- L. K. Advani

t

*Chuckle *

From now on, I`m only reading JK Rowling.

Regards,

temporal and arif LOL

temporal, this one`s for you.

I`d just like to bring to everyone`s attention that Lubna, who signs off with the initials LK, is none other than L.K. Advani, idealogue of the BJP.

Now if that doesn`t bring flag-waving gentlemen into this discussion, then I`m afraid the fires of nationalism are being quenched.

bye now.

a.

Shandana,

I`ve only recently started visiting Chowk and this is the first time I`ve read anything written by

you. Impressive. Still sinking in...... Can`t wait to read the other articles at ``The Other Side``.

Just wanted to add to the ongoing discussion on the # of interacts to an article:

I didn`t realize until now how much consideration was given here at Chowk to the no of

responses to an article. Most of the interacts I`ve read so far are in reply to political based

articles and, not really wanting to get involved in the war of words going on at such an early

stage of familiarity with the Chowk visitors, I opted to stay out. And as Arif pointed out, the

majority of the responses had little to do with the article itself, more with personal issues with

others on the board.

Thanks temporal for egging me on though - I know your interact was meant for others but it

helped in making me feel guilty about not responding :)

Now I`ll make it a point to respond to articles in the future.

- lk

And for you Jonty:

You`d think I`d be thankful? Not!

I disagree. With what?

Oh, there must be something in them words you wrote that I can pick up and shake my head vertically or horizontally, depending on my posture at that time and nod in disagreement.

OK, so you want me to be specific?

[--reluctantly--]

so...like I went back and read your comments....seems alright to me .. but wait!....
come? Yeah, that word in the context you used is ... is sexist, to say mildly. Yeah, that`s it! I disagree with that word;)

rgds

t

PS: Shandy, am trying:)

Uzma and Zehra can be excused. But where are you bina, jawahara, happy, manail, amber, gymno, farangi, Zahra and the rest of the Word Brigade?

--t

Shandana,

It is a joy to read your articles. You are an excellent wordsmith and weaver of tales. Your writing reminds me of P.G. Wodehouse`s characters, but not so lovable. Please keep writing.

Shandana,

It is a joy to read your articles. You are an excellent wordsmith and weaver of tales. Your writing reminds me of P.G. Wodehouse`s characters, but not so lovable. Please keep writing.

Alright, alright, I might as well make my contribution and save myself from being lumped with the boorish philistines...actually, this was a very good read. Sharp and witty. Dickensian echoes and all that. Well layered, some nice comic touches. I feel a novel somewhere here. Not as tight at certain points as it could be, but nothing a good editor can`t help with.

All in all though a fine piece. And there needed no temporal come from Toronto to force us to say that. (OK, well maybe just a little prod.)

Regards

Jonty

Cliff notes, Cliff notes ! Not everyone knows enough of whats happening in Pakistan to catch the beauty of allegory?. Also, I was fine till `consciousness` went from Ms Chitan to Ms Fateh somewhere around the `soup`. The question marks(on my screen) instead of quotes are a bit confusing, too.

Anyway keep them coming, please and thanks from a `lay` reader.

Sadhana

Wow! This is really good wit. Of course, I`ll have to read it a couple of times more to extract more from it`s many layers.

Good to see your back to your prolific ways, Shandana!

regards,

I don`t know if it`s correct to equate the number of responses with the number of times a particular piece is read. I find that even with the pieces with 50 replies, it`s about 6 people wanking most of the time, so the number of replies is hardly any criteria to judge anything by.

Also, the nature of chowk has changed over the last twelve months or so, from being primarily a forum to write and appreciate the quality of writing, to a forum obssessed with articles/discussions on the subjects of nationalism and religion. Write anything on this, and you stir a hornet`s nest... people post responses that generally have little or nothing to do with the original article, and which (to add insult to injury)are longer than the original article. This constant table-tennis game of one-upmanship has resulted in a number of people being gradually driven away from Chowk itself.

Is Chowk better now than it used to be? I don`t think so, but then that`s just my opinion, and someone will probably write a three page response labelling me a heretic and/or anti-pakistani.

Saima: #6:

Take heart. My comments were firmly in cheek :)

The writer friends I had in mind are witty, vivacious, hardy, tough --- as in willing to take it on the chin as well as able to sock it to you --- veterans of the ever unpredictably dangerous min(e)d-field (mine/mind-fields) of the eternal battle grounds of (s)words.

If the crescendo of inter-acts is the sole literary criteria I would suggest the following topics: though I doubt if any of my good friends would take me up on it;)

TOPICS THAT WOULD GENERATE HIGH INTER-ACT TRAFFIC

1: Gandhi and Sex -- Control, Absence, & Aftermath.

2: Jinnah and Sex -- Control, Absence, & Aftermath.

3: Yahya, Bhutto, Musharraf: Comparative Analysis of Horizontal Politics.

4: Fatimah Jinnah: Was She Lesbian --- An Inquiry of Lesbian Politics in Pre and Post Partition Pakistan.

5: Altaf Hussain: Is He Gay --- An Inquiry of Gay Politics in P.

6: Sex, Lies & Mullahs.

This should about cover the last fifty seventy years. If we go back to the days of the fifth caliph down there are many worthy topics that I would not even go into at present. Or I dare not.....

love,

t

Hi temporal and Shandana,

I couldnt resist the thread. IMHO, mere number of interacts does not equal quality. Some articles have far-reaching effects which should not be measured by interacts. It is perhaps an outcome of the free-market philosphy that demand for information is shown by number of hits, interacts etc., which in turn equals quality whereas that is NOT so in so many cases. Quality in any case is a difficult measure; and especially quality of knowledge__ high quality creates new paradigms and alters perceptions and worlds. Low quality fills the world with noise. But how do you measure which is which?

this is subjective; this is an experience that is most often recognized as high quality in hindsight.

Guess a writer has to keep taking the risk...:)

rgds

Saima

dear temp,

it`s not a heartening sign indeed :) maybe i should start mailing my work to the 8 people who read my stuff instead of taking up space here.

shandana

nice one..thoroughly enjoyed it..

regards,

Taimur.

SM:

Damn!

Don`t tell me I compounded the error! [....And so saying, Mr. Hafiz Chitan MG (mine’s bigger)...]

I also copied MG. S/b MB? Or MMB? Or MMMB?

Just some (not-so-vulgar) thoughts.

love,

t


PS: Your last literary effort merited 8 hits. Bina’s is down to 18. Jawahara’s is 24. On the RSLI (Reverse Scale of Literary Inter-acts) for creativity not marred by religion or politics I hold the record-- (modest bow)-- But you guys are inching down! Don’t know if it is a heartening sign....

Hi
This is brilliant. I am quite stunned at the way you crafted this. So rich so smooth so good!

a pleasure to read. I want to read more.

Saima

Gently, Shandy, gently you lead.

Innocuous masturbation, through MG, to cultural renaissance. Oh, and the cultural renaissance. And the eggs. So many eggs. So many eggs avoiding so many faces.

Some good gems:

---”you can’t do things half heartedly, if these people wish to regress, they must do it whole heartedly...”

---”These eggs, my friends, contain the stuff of dreams.”

And the Swiftian dissection of the cultural renaissance”

---”The martyr spore was a bad thing because it made people forget who they were and live for others instead..”

---”The cultural renaissance was very specific about what to do with people who did not inhabit the same frame of consciousness. They were pushed under the carpet. Only a person conscious of the truth, and thus enlightened, had rights and privileges. Those who chose to ignore the truth, so apparent to the members of its club, well; they were only aliens in transit.”

--- “A pin dropped in an alternate universe but nobody heard it, being so tightly locked into this one by belief in the totality of its existence.”

Salvation from diseased brain? And degenerative at that! And those stultifying committees.

Agree with you. Spores will fawn not a regeneration but a degeneration. And the committees will ponder till their demise what is writ so large everywhere.

I hear the pin. I must be an alien.

love,

temporal