The Chronicle of the Air-Conditioned Class

Re : Jay and the dangers of hyperbole and gross generalisation (#24)

Due to terrible spelling and grammatical mistakes in the earlier reply which would make my good friend cringe, i am reposting my reply. Wish there were a spell checker incorporated into the interact section.

Jay wrote,..``It is very hard to find truth in pakistan, a country where a person on the ground could be a hijacker, where a set of hijackers and murderers can vanish at the borders, because all pakistanis are rikhsw pullers, they are beasts of burden, pulling their own rikshaws, loaded with their own propaganda, or truth the case may be. A nation fed on lies from child hood, it is hard to see reality, hard to see rikshaws, hard to see glorification of killing.``

Jay,

What are we going to do without your tantrums and vagaries? Not a lot i suppose.

What are we going to do without your constructive critique? Not a lot, i suppose.

What are we going to do about your gross generalisation viz-a-viz Pakistan, as an outsider looking in through the myopic eyes of an agenda driven western/Hindian media?not alot, i suppose.

What are we going to do about your holier than thou attitude, in face of denial of your own problems back in the land of opportunity and and social equality(aka Hindia)? Not a lot, i suppose.

What are we going to do about your claims of being a peace-loving nation, despite your impartiality to nuclear weapons of mass destruction and Gandhi`s ``peace`` philosophy? Not a lot, i suppose.

Yes Sir, indeed, for a nation fed on lies from child hood, it is hard to see reality, hard to see glorification of killing. And yet it is even harder to see one`s own shortcomings. It takes more than a living conscience to recognise that; it takes character and conviction of the value of truth regardless of what or where it might lead, notwithstanding our own prejudices about boundaries, caste, creed, religions, and other such divisive dogma.

Unfortunately only a very few of us could ever achieve that ``nirvana``. The rest of us(myself including), with our limited insight,tolerance impartiality, jaundiced views, mould the truth into resembling something which appeals to ``our`` version of reality. And invariably end up on chowk fighting the futile battles not with facts, logic, or arguments, but using vain weapons such as pride, patriotism, and complete disregard for truth. Ironic is it not!

Regards

Asim

P.S Bully`s can almost always win arguments. But they can never win the admiration of their opponents. (Asim)

Re: scout

``Did you hear about the lower caste Hindus massacred by upper class Brahmins in Puna, or Patna?``

Yes, along with massacres by the Abu Sayaf & MNLF in Phillipines, Hamas in Israel, Lashkar-e-Pakistan in Kashmir, and Chechan Islamists in that country.

To scout # 29

CHILDREN OF TNT

Very good questions. US sanctions against Iraq is a political decision, it can be reversed today. Caste related violence in India, people are being prosecuted, it is illegal, there is constitutional or legal sanctions against it. An grown up pakistani, product of the madrassa killing a hindu , that is jihad, supported by the political system of pakistan. Even the most elitist mosques, people are urged to donate to the jihad, it is the mums and dads supporting the jihad. The killings is an outcome of a value system imbibed through the mothers milk, in the four corners of pakistan, backed by a belief system, supported by an organizational system of madrassa and mosques. This cannot be changed in a day, it is not a political decision. That is the difference between the pak initiated killings and the others you referred to.

The great liberal CE has to honor the man who organized the spectacular ‘honor killing’, he could not change the rules of blasphemy laws.

Pakistan is created by the TNT, which will be shortly competing with a similar hate theory of yester years from europe for the top kill billings. At last the intent of the theory is being realised by the mushrooming madrassas of pakistan supported by the educated, yes, there are only 2% extremists.

In an educational system inspired by TNT, it is curriculum requirement to identify hindus, and one can see in Kashmir how this knowledge is put to use. It is appalling that no Pakistani cared to question the above requirement in an educational system, no one cared to find the motives.

If any one believes that the monstrous creation of TNT can be humanized by a document and a hand shake hasn’t learned the lessons from europe.

What is happening in kashmir is the work of a new generation, the children of TNT, armed by the madrassa. If any body believes that the TNT will have a less spectacular death than its predecessor in europe are only dreaming. Look at the no-war pact that Musharaff is offering to the neighbours.

Long live the children of TNT. Don’t ask silly questions, do what you are programmed to do.

Regards and best wishes

jay

To scout # 29

CHILDREN OF TNT

Very good questions. US sanctions against Iraq is a political decision, it can be reversed today. Caste related violence in India, people are being prosecuted, it is illegal, there is no constitutional or legal sanctions against it. An grown up pakistani, product of the madrassa killing a hindu , that is jihad, supported by the political system of pakistan. Even the most elitist mosques, people are urged to donate to the jihad, it is the mums and dads supporting the jihad. The killings is an outcome of a value system imbibed through the mothers milk, in the four corners of pakistan, backed by a belief system, supported by an organizational system of madrassa and mosques. This cannot be changed in a day, it is not a political decision. That is the difference between the pak initiated killings and the others you referred to.

The great liberal CE has to honor the man who organized the spectacular ‘honor killing’, he could not change the rules of blasphemy laws.

Pakistan is created by the TNT, which will be shortly competing with a similar hate theory of yester years from europe for the top kill billings. At last the intent of the theory is being realised by the mushrooming madrassas of pakistan supported by the educated, yes, there are only 2% extremists.

In an educational system inspired by TNT, it is curriculum requirement to identify hindus, and one can see in Kashmir how this knowledge is put to use. It is appalling that no Pakistani cared to question the above requirement in an educational system, no one cared to find the motives.

If any one believes that the monstrous creation of TNT can be humanized by a document and a hand shake hasn’t learned the lessons from europe.

What is happening in kashmir is the work of a new generation, the children of TNT, armed by the madrassa. If any body believes that the TNT will have a less spectacular death than its predecessor in europe are only dreaming. Look at the no-war pact that Musharaff is offering to the neighbours.

Long live the children of TNT. Don’t ask silly questions, do what you are programmed to do.

Regards and best wishes

jay

re : scout 29

what did you say? thousands of children being killed in iraq and we , the `` don`t kill the innocent `` indian angels not shedding tears for them..

yes, we are ignorant people mired in our narrow blinds which we created for ourselves.. but why don`t you as a peace loving individual do something about that issue rather than sitting tight and being smug about some other innocent people getting killed....?? or are you just masquarading??

and what did you say?

`` did you hear brahmins killing backward caste people in puna and patna?``



ya , i heard about it.. and i also heard about other forward castes discriminating against backward castes in my state , andhra pradesh, i have also heard about hindu - muslim clashes engineered in hyderabad by some vested interests.........

but i also heard about those political parties getting voted out of power, i also heard about laws specially made in favour of backward castes to give them voice, i have also heard about people like kanshiram and mayawati and others, however incompetent they are , capturing the power banking on the resurgence of dalit movement, i have also heard about special laws made in favour of minorities to safe gaurd their interests.........

our system is not perfect, but we believe in solving our problems through dialogue though we initially stray from our path......

we don`t believe in intentionally derailing the peace process through killing other innocent civilians.......

i thought i detected insincerity in your condolence.. probably you are smug that people on the other side got killed..... if so, i don`t even detest you, i just pity you because you are unaware of the disastrous consequences if this peace process fails.......

re : bina # 31

sorry that i brought this topic when you are discussing the finer nuances of literature... may be i was just emotional and could not stop myself from bursting out.... but i would like to point out your statement about the outcome of this peace initiative.....

i am very much for that, my only concern is that it will be difficult for this peace initiative to take off if THEY resort to inhuman massacres like this......

A concerned Indian

I usually stay out of political debates but I agree with Scout in this case, this is a book review of ``Moth Smoke`` and a discussion on rickshaw pullers, why are some people using it as a way to draw in the Kashmir issue? Personally I am very interested to see what comes of the ceasefire. I am waiting for the day when all people, Muslims, Hindus, Kashmiris, Pakistanis, Indians, don`t have to fear losing their lives over this issue. In the meantime, let`s keep the peace here at Chowk and continue discussing Amitava`s review of Moth Smoke. Kashmir can be discussed elsewhere, please!

As I said in an e-mail to someone, I read Moth Smoke and found it uneven - beautifully written in some parts and not so well-written in others. My favorite was the scene where he describes watching the moths burn, towards the end of the book. He doesn`t seem to know women too well, I really didn`t like his characterization of Mumtaz, and oftentimes I felt the three voices - Daru, Ozi, and Mumtaz - were just three versions of the same cynical person. Plus I really didn`t feel there was much to redeem any of the other characters. But that is just my opinion. Still, am proud of Mohsin Hamid for getting his book out and about so well, and not the least because he is a Pakistani writing about Pakistan (though not a side of Pakistan we ought to be too proud about!).

All right, guys. Come to San Francisco and go to Fisherman`s Wharf. You will find a half-dozen cycle-rickshaws. You can pay the guy $10 and get a ride for a couple of blocks. Perhaps then you can go back to your hometowns and boast how you had a gora for a rickshaw-wallah.

Wasn`t this a book review? Then why is there hatred for Pakistan spewing here?

Five thousand children die each month in Iraq of starvation and disease, thanks to US sanctions.

I don`t see any of these ``don`t kill the innocent``

Indian angels lamenting for them.

Yes killing of the innocent is wrong, some do it openly, some (US) do it underhandedly.

Did you hear about the lower caste Hindus massacred by upper class Brahmins in Puna, or Patna?

Correction to my last post.

It is Mohsin Hamid and not Amitava who has refered to rickshaw-pullers so the book`s author must have been refering to the type that he perhaps saw in Pakistan. I was confused after Asim`s posts.

Ashish

Addition to rickshaw debate.

I think Mr. Amitava Kumar was refering to cycle-rickshaw ``pullers``. I have seen the ``man as mule`` rickshaw only in Calcutta. In the rest of India cycle-rickshaw drivers are known as the rickshaw-pullers.

Some posters here have perhaps confused Mr. Kumar`s reference as meaning ``man as mule`` rickshaws. Personally, I think all rickshaws human-mule, cycle, and even auto ones should be phased out. The auto-rickshaws are horrible polluters and as rooster-blues#19 has pointed out the ride is bone jarring.

re: Zahra # 14

I hope you were horrified and disturbed by the depiction of the lives of rickshaw-pullers (cycle type in South India) and not by the fact that they traced their ancestry to Tipu. Nobody should be pulling rickshaws- regardless of their ancestry.

Ashish

Hi folks

Some Pakis on this site sometimes reel off the sham figures told to them by their shackled and ignorant media about kashmir killings. An example is that 70,000 Kashmiris have been massacred till now by Indians. This figure ia a fraud in the first place. Yes Kashmiris were killed,not Muslims as much as the Kashmiri Pundits. Why does nobody raise the issue of hundreds of Kashmiri Hindus who were brutally murdered and are still being murdered by the wretched terrorists. And the issue of 350,000 Pundits who fled kashmir. So much for the Kashmiriat crap. Is the title of kashmiri limited to terrorists who go on killing people in the garb of Indian police. Or to those traitors who cooperate with them in doing so.

Kashmir, which was populated by a sizeable Hindu population at the time of independence has been virtually cleansed of Hindus. Talking about peace!!! who wants it. Not the Pakis or their underling terrorist organizations. And this freedom fighting crap!!!. The majority of these terrorist organizations employ a large number of foreign mercenaries from Taliban or Laden. One day Pakistan will burn in the fire it has flared for others. Taliban backed mullahas will take over Pakistan who will beat their football players for wearing shorts. If Pakis remain obsessed with Kashmir and killing Hindus, India will be hurt, but in the long run it will totally obliterate Pakistan. Now after such killings even the thought of talking to Pakis about Kashmir has become abhorrent. India will never give up Kashmir, this will be made clear to all mullahas and ulemas and their Laden type activists

To: All the Aficionados of Rickshaws (in Gujarat, they are called rickshaahs),

What a sudden burst of literary pouring on rickshaws! Some have seen it, some do not know what the heck they are, to some they been banished (by the bureaucrats or mullahs!), while to some they are still there like yesterdays for all to see or ride. There is even a bragging match, ours are nicer than yours kind (no PI veeresh!):-).

Now let me talk about the comment regarding rickshaws in the article. Why so much ado for nothing? IMHO, the reviewer is reviewing a fiction (thogh, may be based on current-day-realities). Now, if the author uses his imagination to fictionali(y)ze events and facts, why cannot the critique of the same work can fictionali(y)ze the facts.

Secondly, I do not think Amitva meant the rickshaw simili in the factual context. He meant probably more as a metaphor! He was suggesting, through the sweat and tears, pulls and pushes of rickshawallah as a simili. Like that Bando or Bonda, of Frontier Post article (compliment to whoever posted it on CHOWK), the poor-down-trodden-slave-afraid of jamadar, etc.

Veeresh, I do not know about zipping through the dusty alleys of Delhi (I meant D & not ND), but for a change (if you have not done already), go to Ahmedabad, OFTM, Vadodara( fmr. Baroda), and take a ride in one of those dare-devil rickshaws. The speed, the abrupt jerking and sharp turns and stops will make you forget any joy-ride you may have experienced on a most fearsome rollercoster.

The beauty is that it will take you in the shortest time, and cheapest way, to where you want to go compared to any (taxis included) transportation. A couple years ago when I took one cost me a Re 1 or2(?) for five mile ride through horrandous traffic. Believe me, it is cheaper than walking (don`t ask me to explain). BTW, if you need the latest inf.on the Indian films and Bollywood in general, the rickshawallas know more than a Filmfare journalist. As a matter of fact, a movie named HERO, starring Amirkhan (?) I believe, was screened on the this very theme. Sameer may have more take on this.

Take a ride ang enjoy!!!!!

Kant.....

Rikshaw Pullers of pakistan

It is very hard to find truth in pakistan, a country where a person on the ground could be a hijacker, where a set of hijackers and murderers can vanish at the borders, because all pakistanis are rikhsw pullers, they are beasts of burden, pulling their own rikshaws, loaded with their own propaganda, or truth the case may be. Some thing as simple as whether there are rikshaws in pakistan takes on a typical pakistani hue of duplicity, like the support for jihad. Zahra and hamid have heard about rikshaw in the indian context. Asim and timur have actually seen rikshaws in pakistan. Products of madrassas are jihadists on a kill spree, some pakistanis disagree. A nation fed on lies from child hood, it is hard to see reality, hard to see rikshaws, hard to see glorification of killing, hard to see the feed back in the front pages of dawn and jung to the educated of pakistan.

Our rickshaws are better than yurs, too! Indian rickshaws have shock absorbers (hydraulic ones, adapted from old motorcycles), then they have sun-shades which are chamki-chamki bright and most of all, IIT-Delhi has re-designed the rickshaw, one fourth the effort, geared, tubular . . . they are now exported to the UK where they ply in University towns . . . the ``official`` vehicle of the Norwegian Ambassador in Delhi is a 3-wheeler rickshaw (54-CD-1A) which his son pulls while a lot of Volvos and saab colect ``Delhi dust`` . . . rickshaws have been allowed wholesale all over India to counter adulterated fuel pollution and sorry to be so smarmy about it but seem to be pulled by Bangaldeshi ``illegals`` all over the country . . . a ``schoolbus`` edition of a rickshaw can carry upto 15 small children . . . even Madhuri Dixit took a rickshaw with her to Los Angeles as part of her dowry . .

Hello friends,

I would like to draw your attention to the cowardly inhuman killings of people in kashmir done with the sole intention of derailing the nascent peace process.... what do they want? do they want us to kill each other like this forever , all in the name of religion, freedom struggle..

Now by killing these inncoent people they want the indian forces to react and inflict further brutal retaliatory measures in the name of flushing out of militants, thereby killing the peace process..

if the militant groups and pakistan establishment are so sincere about kashmir and the self-determination of kashmiris, why don`t they give support to HM proposal?? Did HM eliminated pakistan entirely from the proposal? then why this massacre?

what do they want? They want this to continue like this.. It is not that because the people killed are indians that i am disgusted... The people killed are not just indians, they are also human beings... they are innocent , far removed from the struggle... they have their own families, their own problems in life, people dependant on them.........

How will they react if some people in karachi or lahore are killed? They are getting away with this only because the main stream of pakistan have not suffered in this struggle so far... it is only the kashmiris and indians who struggled and suffered .. The establishment and the army in pakistan is sitting tight while the inidans and kashmiris are getting killed? How will they react if some innocent people in lahore and karachi are killed?

friends , if these killings continue like this, india will not become softer as some of them may wishfully think.. i have never come across any indian who is ready to forego kashmir and surrender.. i hope they will realise that.. but if the killings continue like this , sadly the hard liners in india will become increasingly powerful... then the conflict will widen.. for every massacre on this side , india will then engineer a massacre on the other side , not in kashmir but in punjab or sindh. it will further widen and as we all know it can be very devastating ......

friends , i hope they realise that kashmir is not another vietnam or afghanistan where u.s. and soviet forces withdrew because of the increased domestic and other compulsions.. indians will not even think of succumbing to pakistan.. i only hope that THEY will realise it... though sometimes i think this is what they exactly want....

some of you may point out that the same happened to kashmiris , what about them?

I agree, people suffered on both sides, but is voilence an answer for voilence? what is an end for that? should we not give peace a chance.. esp. when the main protoganists are willing to talk...

How long will they continue like this? Do they want a barren kahmir? or a nuked india and pakistan.......??

we shall give a chance to peace .. not to the fanatic , hard liners on both sides...

An indian

Re: Wasiq and Rickshaw puller phaseout?

Wasiq,

I have spent a good six years of amy schooling in Bahawalpur, at the Sadiq Public School. I have always seen rickshaw pullers in Bahawalpur, or Multan. No one has phased them out. I made its a point to call up some folks to inqure about the existence or the lack thereof of such rickshawpullers. Guess what. They are still pedaaling furiously over there, trying to make ends meet, while developing severe meedical problems, as a result of this inhumane means of transport.

One thing is changed in Bahawalpur. My friends told me they have seversl Chinese Restaurants which are flourishing as opposed to the mid-eighties, when there was not even a single one.

I wish Amitava would come back and explain the mystery of rickshawpullers in Lahore. Not that it takes much from the central point of the novel, save for reality.

I am not determined to go out and buy this one, despite Amitava`s good review. I dont see the point. its not as if we are going to learn anything new from this exericse, (albeit, possibly an eloquent one), which we are not already too aware of.

Asim