Coney Al Jazeera

Howdy Samina,

I`m making a guess here but you`re probably a Syedna (the shah bit) and hence you have syed relatives dotted around UK. The murtaza bit, just like Ali or Mustafa is used by them quite a bit, I take it. Alas, the blood of the Prophet does not run through my clogged veins. I feel so unworthy being just another Joe Muslim.

But I do know a few Shahs in London. Drop me a few names. They all probably end with Hussains, Hassans, Shahs, Murtazas or Abbases anyway. Right?

My actual name is Rasheed Hamid. Some people call me Sheeda Meeda. Other`s stick to Sheeda Talli. I was deeply insulted when someone called me Sheeda dubba but I don`t mind being labelled a chubba dogger.

Umer Murtaza is my name. Some people have tried to search on me to find out about my details but hark, they have failed and got the wrong stuff. They know who they are :). I, on the other hand, know all about them...including their home addys. Am I evil or what? (evil laughter)I may even send them a birthday card.

Ha ha, as for telling your folks about my crass humour, go for it. I knew that sophisticated mature act of mine wouldn`t last anyway `cos I`m a fake. But it don`t matter because soon everyone will know who I am, and that includes seeing my ugly mug.

Best wishes

Umer M

Shankar,

One last note; my joke came after Ana`s encouragement, which I appreciate very much. Its nice to have a sista in arms (and a college teacher) in these subjects- I`m not all the things you listed in your post; in fact, I`m critical of the practice of many religions-obviously a belief that would get me in a lot of trouble in Pakistan. And Ana is very much a pride to me and other Pakistani Chowkies, as are Scout, anNy, Semiprecious, aicha...

(sorry to embarrass, Ana!)

I hate to bother you, but I do need to ask you this question; would you recommend anti depressants for elderly people who have heart disease and tend to be immobile?

Tahmed, Subroto

Glad you liked; its one of my favs! My other fav is based on the adage ``If you`ve nothing nice to say, then say nothing.`` The revision goes, ``If you`ve got nothing nice to say, then sit next to me.``

saminashah #153 ``A skeleton walks into a bar and tell the bartender,``Give me a drink and a mop.``

Ha! Ha!

tahmed321 #150

``This is the real shame of Pakistan and of India as well.`` - I agree :(

Funny how many different realities can exist in gender issues in the same society depending on what ``class`` you belong to. From the most wretched poverty to ``middle class morality`` to upper class hedonism ... people in these slices of (desi)society could be from different planets almost - must make trying to analyze social trends a total riddle for those who do this for a living.

RE SaminaShah & UM

I always love this one told by my Irish teacher in school:

``A man is climbing a hill on a hot day. He reaches the summit and takes off his shirt and pants``.

My personal favourite is about the man who works in an orange juice factory. He got fired because he couldn`t concentrate.

Before I go, do you know why Clinton thought Monika L was an angel? Cos he saw her against a stained glass window. (Nacheez nay likha tha).

Umer M,

So y`all call each other ``matey``? Cute.

Yeah, Seinfeld`s has its day but the Simpsons still rule...and Northern Exposure was considered a classic. If you really must know, Canada`s Kids in the Hall and SCTV set the standard over here IMHO. After Belushi od`ed, (was too young to watch it anyway) SNL could not seem to do what these shows could; and their alumni included John Candy, Dave (the guy from Newsradio) something, and a whole bunch of brilliant character actors I can`t remember now. Seen ``Best in Show``? Thats several of them...dost mittar, can you attest?

Who`s hot here? Google Margaret Cho, a kick derriere comic. She is unbelievably funny, smart and edgy and will go where no Asian/South Asian seems to have the courage to...

Btw, is that nick your real name? Do you have distant family in London? We have relatives in England, and I`m trying to figure out if we are related. If we are, I am SO telling on you and your jokes!:)

Leave rsax alone.

Dear Sax

``Chowk decided to censor my response....oh well, do you still keep in touch with john reid?...``

Hey budd, take it easy. I just did it `cos I knew it`d pi$$ you off. Oh, and as for your so-called offensive post, that`s a lie. You didn`t write anything because you haven`t got the brain to offend anyone because I really don`t think you`ll ever advance on your WWF slogans that you sometimes use. I on the other hand can be lethal.

As for John Reid…naah, not any longer. The thing with us Al Qaeda people is, it`s comprised of many support and attack cells that function independently around the globe. I was in the same cell as John Reid but we hardly spoke. It`s just the way Al Qaeda cells work. When you sign up with Al Qaeda, you have to follow the `need to know basis`. The thing is, we both had our covers as charity workers (I was the project manager) in a registered charity that served under the heading of `advancement of religion.` In fact, NGOs is one of the many ways (perhaps the most effective way) to ship money to our terrorist recipients. You know the story, open a charity under a title so that the money is shipped to a third world country. There, you take pictures of absolutly anything and in your annual reports you bull$hit that the money was transferred to such and such places whereas in fact, the money is diverted to another secret account.

Don`t get me wrong, I could have used other covers too, like working in restaurants or fruit markets or holy places but the immigration officers are coming hard on those spots nowadays.

I`ll come to John soon. When we set up the organisation, we wanted to make sure that we didn`t arouse any suspicion from the charities Commission UK or the beneficiaries so our mission statement said that we were out there to alleviate some of the problems of Muslim women from 3rd world countries. We recruited women who were not very observant. They had poor English skills and being from African Muslim countries, even less worldly wisdom than their Asian analogues. We set them up to do sewing courses, knowing full well that we wouldn`t have to spend too much time teaching them because they would already knew. I could go on and on but I won`t. Believe it or not, you`re not that precious.

Everything was going hunky dory when John had this bloody great idea. `Brother, I wanna blow myself up,` he said. One thing about Al Qaeda cell members is their flexibility to go from one form to another. He approached the middleman and asked him to speak to the men at the top and requested if he could become a martyr. By the way, in our cell, he was known only as his first name and the place he was from, as in, John-al-Brixtoni. My one was a bit better, Umer-Bin-Londoni. I swear to bhagwaan, I didn`t know anything else about him.

Al Qaeda keeps the profiles of every single member: our names, the cells we belong to, our covers, our families, our histories, our mission statuses and most importantly our psychological profiles. Not every Al Qaeda member is martyr material and in fact the `recruitment agencies` will undergo great lengths to sieve through the material.

Anyway, to cut the story short, John-al-Brixtani was found to be worthy enough to become a martyr. In all honesty, he was a bit dozy and narcissistic. Believe it or not, many terrorists are actually very narcissistic because they all want to induce political change upon people, hence wield power, but they do not want to take the honest hard way of doing things. They fed his narcissism, boosted his ego by telling him the impact of his martyrdom and there you go…the rest is history. To be honest, I was glad to see him go. He was a bit thick.

Listen, why don’t you tell me where you live. Maybe we can chit chat a little sometime.

Umer M.

Samina Shah,

Matey, come on. You know it and I know it that British humour is the best (and I`m not referring to the Faulty tower rubbish - that`s all you yanks can ever think of). US humour is too soft though I do enjoy Seinfield / Fraser. European humour is too theatrical. Indian Bollywood humour is just plain boring with that Johnny lever fella and tends to follow European lines with scrunched up faces and funny Yamaha keyboard noises in the background. As for Pakistani humour, it lies between British and American versions. Russians don`t have any humour. Chinese language is too poetic to be humorous. I haven`t heard `African humour` as such (41 countries and I`m not aware of any funny men from there).

But…

If you want a big laugh, then just listen to the Tamil newscaster and it should wash out your gallstones.

Does that make any sense???

Umer M.

re: umer murtaza

chowk decided to censor my response....oh well, do you still keep in touch with john reid?...

anNy on 12 head

Amazing - I could swear I had some courteous interacts with AAmir and Nagatheshwar ... please defend yourself if you are not it !! Also Anika Zaida !!! My daughter`s name is Anika - does it have an Arabic meaning as well as a Sanskrit one ?? (and even a Hebrew one according to a jewish friend of mine who stole the name for her daughter and swears it is Hebrew too)

I`d tend to agree with anNy about naga-head. The style isn`t all that different..and isn`t the intention behind all the mukhtalaf heads a difference in style, except that the original head unfortunately is not creative enough (let`s just keep it at creative!) and the `asli` (whatever that means on an internet message board) roop comes shining through! (Ms. Lauper`s `True Colors` playing in the background)

roohi #134 I know your remark was referring to our common housefly rather than to the common men`s trouser fly. But more seriously, on your point about sexual mores of pakistani vs. indian middle class, I think it is hard to say anything for sure without proper research. I have heard of some extreme stuff among married people in the major cities of Pakistan, but never been to one

:-) And I have seen some scenes in past years of secret lovers in Pakistan that I shall not get into.

However, it is not what goes on between consenting adults, in Delhi, Dhaka, Islamabad or in some western city that bothers me. That is their business. If I was to make it my business (i.e. by condemning it, as the mullahs routinely do in Pakistan) than I would in fact be displaying a vicarious pleasure in such activity that I have no desire to do.

The real problem is the non-consenting sexual assaults (the jirga-sanctioned rape of a teenager in Pakistan being the latest and most appalling example) that are inflicted on the weak (the peasants, the poor) by the strong (the landlords, the mullahs, soldiers, police and perhaps most frequently the damned husbands themselves). This is the real shame of Pakistan and of India as well.

anNy #145 You are clearly stalking every single persona of my good friend 12-head. But Nagnatheshwar (sp?) does not seem to be 12-head I think. The style is too different.

Umer M.

Dude, is this like an example of British humor? Fasc. study of male hetero hysteria...

Let me show how its done:

A skeleton walks into a bar and tell the bartender,``Give me a drink and a mop.``

Drumroll.

One line of surrealist perfection....

(I hate to say it, but USA! USA! USA! USA!)

shankar,

Blushing, blushing....actually, if you must know, most women in my family tend to be more intelligent than the men (cough!), but our darling men seem to accept it rather good naturedly...(altho Mr. S gives me a run for my money-but I wouldn`t have clapped on the iron chains otherwise!) Thanks for the compliments! I sometimes feel that I don`t know the accepted code of propriety (current Pakistani codes) so I take my risks. And other times, I grow weary of the limits and silences on the boards; believe me, reading Literary Theory and graduate school has helped me to be much less timid...

Tahmed

Yes, I do agree that analysing a joke may take the intial fun out of it...but I tend to think it raises appreciation of the machinery of it, much like the Charlie Chaplin biography you mentioned. I`ll post my response in the next few days. I also love the gentleness and earthiness of my uncles and aunts jokes; they tend to be a mix of good humor, absurdity, openness, and wonder with a liberal dash of ``can you believe it?``. My uncle just told us this amazing story of something that had happened in his college days-about a young washing woman who was so beautiful that none of his friends could look at her. Theres more, but I digress...

Hobbyty,

Read your post and will respond. A bit tired today...probably tom.

regards

Ana, anNy, hydra,

You forgot Brad Cruise, Starbuck, snoopy, Lucy, cutnpaste...(we have lost count). Thanks for the Public Service Announcement!

And hydra, may I remind you that your nick ``fatimah`` is not a real, biological woman like we are? Unless of course you have something to tell us?

Ana

You have no idea about hydra...when I first came on Chowk there were only a few, and they seemed to all be taking to me....can you imagine how furious I was when I found out? I was getting all these strange, scolding, cursing posts (as I had heard many other female Chowkies had) I dragged everyone through a huge stink about it with the support of many Chowkies and the Chowk Staff....someone has to post a message about hydra and his nicks everyone month or so-but we`re begining to lose count. And he has to some extent, changed his behavior. But we`ve still got an eye on him....

hey! If you, anNy, scout, aicha get together, I want to come too!

anNy luv.thanks for all the `heads`...that`s 12+.. *laughs *

I`m sure there`s more, as well as other multiple headwallahs lurking about..wasn`t it temporal who said tetra/hydra isn`t the only one???