The Future Is Another Country: 2050 And Beyond

Stuka:

``semipreciousme

you mean ``intimidated`` ..right?``

...oops...yeah, that`s intimidated not intimated....intimated totally changes the meaning, doesn`t it?...sorry, samina...

Shankar on YLH:

I agree with Shankar that Ylh exhibits `narcissistic` tendencies. Whenever he writes grandiosely `I, Yasser Latif Hamdani, hereby blah blah blah`, I burst out laughing.

However, I shudder at the thought of ylh getting into any position of authority, in the US or Pakistan or anywhere. Narcissism will get converted to megalomania: `I, YLH, hereby bomb you to dust...`

re: stuka

{{lol ha ha ha...so that`s why ?? May I suggest Pudeen Hara?? HA HA}}

oh yeah? we`ll see who`s laughing when i`m in amsterdam next week. you`ll be stuck with pasty boston chicks, fake blondes, and mean desis.

Reply QuratulaiN # 534

Aap hamari behain haiN tho hamaiN daNtna tho aap ka huq hai. Mathlab, I had no probs with your tone – hope that my response to you was not overly stuffy or agressive (I was a bit worried after posting. So please accept my apologies if it offended you.)

“...but I stand by my argument- you/we/us need to be more fair in your/our critisism...everyone who is rude to women needs to be condemned…”

I can’t argue with that. I admit that the tone I use varies widely, depending not just on the subject to which I am responding, but also on the person whose post it is. On chowk many interactions come with a history (for example, yours and Sadna’s, mine Urstruly’s) and it is difficult to take each post entirely on its own merits, and without placing it the context of what that handle has posted in the past.

“waisae, how come you didnt say anything when i was called…”

It is to my shame that I didn’t. I should have.

Also, both your and Scout’s posts gave me pause for thought. I am not sure that I am convinced, but I did go and reread C Paglia on the subject (ok, I know passé hai, but kya karoon…age tho aisa hi hai), and am re-thinking some of the implications of what I posted.

Be well,

Zafar

RSAXENA:

``....no wonder you don`t get those European chics you salivate over.``

lol ha ha ha...so that`s why ?? May I suggest Pudeen Hara?? HA HA

semipreciousme

you mean ``intimidated`` ..right?

re: spout

{{don`t ever say that again, not even as a joke. that`s just not allowed. him and `sweet` don`t go together, not at all, ABSOLUTELY 100% not.}}

forgot your tranquilizer dose again?

re: spout

{{does it? i wonder how you would know.}}

common sense? do you have to jump off a building to know not to do it? but i guess you`ve tried that and landed on your head, so learning by doing must be your thing...

{{ps: i don`t take subways}}

oh, too much excitement for you

Sadna,

Thanks for the Spivak article: very informative! If her comments were about the Metropolitan Museum`s collections of devis and apsaras, I`ll be looking for it...they are really stunning, btw.

Your posting was serendipitous-Im reading Jane Eyre for my Feminist Lit Crit class, and Spivak Begum is assigned afterwards...and I`m looking forward to it...btw, while some critics claim Spivak`s prose is unpenetrable, has anyone read Sara Suleri`s scholarly essays? These two wome could give Julia Kristeva or Luce Irigaray a run for their money-and I dare the same critics to call their work a cakewalk....

Rsax and Wholly Precious,

How could we live without either of you? I`m just getting over that sharing moment between scout and rsax (sniff)...this is progress! Btw, semi, very funny cut and paste on the axises of evil and not so evil...

anybody,

So okay, we get the International channel and Z-TV and are you going to blame me for watching it? Anyhoo, I like Uma and Ranvir of this Ztv video show-quite witty and they big up ``serious`` causes-so cute...

I saw this video by Ila Arun in which she`s wearing a turban, a velvet doublet and her hair is curled and flowing past her shoulders. I can`t remember the song`s name, but remember her facial expresions and delivery of the song-quite campy, slapstick, flirty and suggestive- it was very cool...the young women dancers in the video, not your usual uber-femmes of Indian videos, but regular girls chewing gum and making faces while they danced...anyone see it?

aicha #529, ``Rsaxena ohh well let me ruin it some more - have I ever told you that you are the mostest sweetest person on chowk.``

beti, are you feeling alright? don`t ever say that again, not even as a joke. that`s just not allowed. him and `sweet` don`t go together, not at all, ABSOLUTELY 100% not.

suxena #538, ``...too much chana causes gas...beware..now you know why people run in the opposite direction in the subway...``

does it? i wonder how you would know.

listen, i don`t want to hear about your problems with flatulence. it`s so sick, vile, and revolting....no wonder you don`t get those European chics you salivate over.

ps: i don`t take subways

re: anNy

{{Quratulain S. Hussain}}

...who???...and i thought i was the only one using a funny, made-up moniker on chowk...

RSaxena:

``thanks for picking up on that...how could they have left me out``

...hmmm....methinks samina`s intimated by your dress sense;)....

anNy:

re: QuratulaiN S. Hussain

...ok...you got me...what`s the s stand for?...

re: spout

{{as for mirchi with lime juice, i`ll save it for eating dry chanas.}}

...too much chana causes gas...beware..now you know why people run in the opposite direction in the subway...

re: semipreciousme

{{“You, Tamed, Dost Mittar and Prem are an example of whats so compelling about Chowk.

(And scout, anNy, sadna are wonderful as well)”

….ahem, ahem…}}

thanks for picking up on that...how could they have left me out

Kashmir: Musharraf`s many dilemmas

http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/DB09Df01.html

By Muhammad Rafique

ISLAMABAD - A startling statement by a prominent Sindhi politician and spiritual leader with hundreds and thousands of followers has presented a new dilemma to embattled President General Pervez Musharraf, who is locked in a dangerous standoff with neighboring India over the disputed and divided Kashmir.

On the eve of Solidarity Day with Kashmiris on February 5, the Peer Pagaro Shah Mardan Shah, the spiritual head of the Hur tribesmen and a known supporter of the military in the key Sindh province, shocked both the nation and the military by declaring that the Kashmir Valley never belonged to Pakistan and ``it never will``.

Although the military regime did not directly respond to the Peer`s statement, several pro-Musharraf politicians, mainly belonging to the Pakistan Muslim League party aspiring to form the bulwark of the ``real democracy`` Musharraf is planning to introduce in Pakistan after the upcoming October elections, condemned the statement as ``unpatriotic``.

The Peer Pagaro heads his own faction of the Muslim League, which is divided into half a dozen or more factions, and the military is trying desparately to unite them in order to pick a prime ministerial candidate from among them, by helping it to win the elections. Musharraf himself will become an all-powerful president under the new dispensation, after dumping the ``sham democracy`` under which Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif twice became prime ministers.

The Peer Pagaro, who helped General Zia ul Haq topple prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in a coup in 1977, has always been close to the generals, not because of any political skills or popularity among the masses but simply because he commands the unalloyed loyalty of the hundreds of thousands of Hur tribesmen who live in the deserts of Sindh, bordering India, and who have always formed the second line of defense for the Pakistani regular troops in the soft belly of Pakistan.

Most observers say that if and when the war breaks out in the context of the present standoff between the two nuclear-armed adversaries, India will attack from the same very region. In both the 1965 and 1971 wars with India, the Hurs of the Peer (the hereditary spirtual head) fought side-by-side with the Pakistani troops in that strategic area and they will again need the Peer`s help if the war breaks out.

Reliable political sources have told Asia Times Online that the government has sent intermediaries to mollify the Peer to keep him on their side. The Peer, according to sources, wants a nominee from the province of Sindh to become the prime minister of Pakistan under the ``real democracy`` which Musharraf wants to introduce after amending the 1973 prime ministerial constitution patterned on the Westminster model, which all military dictators in Pakistan have spurned and amended to enable them to wield real power.

Musharraf has constituted the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) under a retired lieutenant-general to amend the constitution, which he is allowed to do as the Supreme Court of Pakistan validated his coup until October 2002. The NRB is now busy making the amendments which Musharraf plans to have validated by the new parliament, the seats of which he has already increased by about 30 percent. The NRB is also making provisions for Musharraf to handpick about 50 technocrats to strengthen his hand.

Musharraf has also increased to 70 the quota of seats allocated for women. These will be elected on the basis of proportional representation while the regular candidates will be elected along party lines on the first-past-the-post basis.

But Musharraf is determined to keep both Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, both of whom are in exile, out of the electoral arena. Bhutto is now in Washington to lobby for support from the right quarters to allow her to return to Pakistan to participate in the elections. She has even said that she is ready to become prime minister under the new Musharraf dispensation, and has supported his move to crack down on Islamic jihadi organizations. But Musharraf has stuck to his stand that he will never allow either Sharif or Bhutto to contest elections while he is in power, and he is determined to remain in power even beyond the permitted five years from October of this year, unless the fates or the Americans intervene, according to independent political analysts.

And the general has removed far from the scene all the mullahs who can and are determined to muster street power to force the general out and install another general more to their liking.

Politicians other than the Peer of Pagaro are eyeing the key positions, including the prime ministrial post, and they are looking to the Americans more than the ruling junta because they perceive that power in Pakistan comes via Washington. Meanwhile, the Americans, especially the very active American Ambassador Wendy Chamberlain, are keeping a close eye on who might become the next prime minister.

One of the current favorites is Mehmood Kasuri, a lawyer from Lahore who runs a string of schools throughout Pakistan. As for the unpredictable and sometimes jocular Peer of Pagaro, his favorite could be anybody from the half a dozen politicians who go and touch his feet, as is the custom for the holy men of Sindh. The Peer is no fundamentalist and is known to keep the compay of beautiful women.

Intriguingly, some analysts believe the Peer of Pagaro might have made his Kashmir remarks with a wink and a nod from ``someone important`` to help solve the Kashmir dilemma by having both India and Pakistan maintain the parts of Kashmir they now hold - which just may be the ultimate solution.

sorry, thats:

www.matteela.com