As the Bald Eagle Tries to Rule

Veeresh sahab; enjoyed this a great deal. Thank you.

Thank you everybody, this was written while trying to wade through the acres of information available on Iraq, and by the comments of a friend that he had simply shut down his television. If out of this I can make even a few more of us appreciate and believe that at the end of the day while we as Indians and Pakistanis can & should continue to retain our rights to disagree and fight with each other, but need to believe that our real enemies are common and various, then that makes me happy. And warm inside, so thank you for the compliments. Somebody has sent me a private mail accusing me of Joseph Conraditis, so next time I shall try to make it shorter.

Many:- Yes, the Indian Rupee, coin as well as paper, was the currency used in places as far apart as Aden, Kuwait, Burma, probably Brunei till the late `50s and in some parts of the Persian Gulf till the early `60s. Matter of fact, melting of Indian coins for higher metal value was part of the success and origin of more than a few very respectable business houses in both Pakistan & India.

Nazarhayatkhan:- Women in our middle/upper middle class families outlive men because diet and health are equally distributed. I think. It is the overall national average that I was comparing.

Ahmadzai:- what can I say, just ``chill``. Maybe I could comprehend that you are probably anti-Indian government, not anti-Indians? There is an interesting point of view here, many Indians can`t stand the Indian government either! But it may be slightly politically incorrect for us to say so on an Indo-Pak forum, like how we would boast about the Ambassador, for those who caught that? . . . our governments are so similar that we end up hating both of them simultaneously, but Pakistanis end up confusing Indian people with their Government. And vice versa?

Harimau:- yeah, you are correct, Chennai multi-nick airport is legoland in white gone haywire. But then, i quite like the Oberoi trident right outside . . .

TAhmed:- yes, i think there will be some payback that the USA will get out of this carpet bombing and bullying. And I think the lessons of Vietnam will be revisited on them in the mountains and the marshes.

Temporal:- yup I remember the ``K`` ships and then the Dwarka etcetc. Also the Asia/Victoria duo. Grew up around them . . .

Temporal:

You wrote:
``things have changed and yet they have remained the same…we are the same…indians or pakistanis…attitudes have hardened in some cases where the ordinary desis have to pay for the follies of their governments…but deep down we are still the same…my travels always reinforce this… ``

And I find it to be the other way round. The more I try to find commonalities the more I find differences. Beyond cultural and religious distinction, there is increasing enmity now.

The real enmity in the younger generation might have come from 1999 Kargil episode. Although the Indians had sneaked into Siachin back in 1984, that was not raised as an issue so much so that the Indians made it out for Kargil.

Pakistanis sneaked in Kargil just like the Indians had in Siachin. However, due to on over-presence in electronic and conventional media, India soon blew the whole thing out of proportion. The subsequent battle followed the war hysteria created by Indians. The result is that Indians have begun to hate Pakistanis from the core of their hearts knowing not that not all Pakistanis had any thing to do with Kargil. The net result - Pakistanis reciprocated in the hate frenzy and the things are irreversible now.

This is what I have found during my travels. Talk to any Indian like you are an Indian and find out their hate against Pakistanis, always giving reference to Kargil and Kashmir. Talk to any Pakistani by acting like a Pakistani and you will find hate but not to that extent as Indians have for us.

Other indicators: You may find Pakistanis buying Indian products and watching movies. You will not find Indians picking any Pakistan made, for example, food Masala item, although these are even being shopped by non-subconties nowadays. Do your own independent survey and you will get to the same conclusion. And then these Indians have the gall to call Pakistanis as extremists. What nonsense?

Veeresh,

that was good....after a very very long time I have read an article on Chowk which was great had all the ingrediants there. I not sure if this is the first.....

Yes, the khor moosa khurram Shehr basrah and the rupee.....when Iraq was simply a better place to visit than the sandy dunes of the rets pf the gulf where all you had was .......

thanks for the great peice....

veeresh:

so you have not been able to shake off Kurt?;)…and it shows!…felt transported a-la back-to-the-futute…yeah…`those were the day my friend’…aren’t you glad you did not ‘lower’ yourself from the huge boats to state-of-art ‘dhow’ launches…ferrying the other contrabond?…who knows you could be a Mumbai don now;)…you remember karanjia and kampala?…I remember when there were no roads in the region….other than the camel the Leyland landrover was the only mode of transport…and at night the driver navigated looking at the stars…yes, those were the days, my friend:)

ahmadzai:

things have changed and yet they have remained the same…we are the same…indians or pakistanis…attitudes have hardened in some cases where the ordinary desis have to pay for the follies of their governments…but deep down we are still the same…my travels always reinforce this…

rgds,

t

Veeresh: I think we have a first on chowk: an article in the good old tradition of seamen`s tales. Your impressions from your wanderings around the gulf area in the 70`s and 80`s are quite interesting.
The gulf area has indeed a long tradition of sea-faring activity going back a few thousand years, which has only lately been eclipsed by the transformation of their economies due to oil wealth. But the age-old sea-faring tradition will live on, I think, in stories of Sindbad the Sailor and (now) Veeresh the Sailor as well.

Ansari #6
The idea of those who were traditionally nomads actually having to build homes and cities, settle down and get adjusted is very interesting :). I guess like there was recently such a boom in software during which even people with NO s/w skills could get jobs, there would have been a time when there was a major building boom in the Gulf countries.

very powerful article, veeresh. Its almost like reading a memoir.Yes you have definitely lived a full life. The metaphors, and imagery is also very poignant. Couldnt stop reading till the last word and then too didnt want it to end!
I had no idea that the ruppee was ever that powerful.

Sadna,

Don`t know about the Pakistanis making for interesting architecture but I know that in the early days of the UAE when they had had only recently become a country and the Bedu weren`t as despotically comfortable with their wealth, a lot of them started building houses and settling down, shedding their nomadic ways. They built these huge mansions smack in the middle of blank desert and would go roving miles for food in their land rovers and what not and while the charm of those palaces worked for the younger people, a lot of the older ones couldn`t stomach it. So, having spent their day at home with the family, these old men would go out every night and sleep in the desert, under the starry sky.

Ref sadna #4

[I heard it said that the older buildings in Saudi Arabia often have crooked walls, or slanted walls or have five walls to a room or crazy corners. It seems the reason was that though they were filthy rich, Saudi Arabians were basically a nomad people with no building or masonry skills and so, in the early days, they had a desperate demand for Pakistanis, ANY Pakistanis to build their buildings for them:). Any corroboration?]

The ONLY people on earth who are incapable of building a building with 4 walls are Hindus. Only Hindu architects and builders are capable of building a structure with all walls at right angles to each other AND completing a closed structure with 37 or 53 walls. If you don`t believe me, look at any concrete monstrosity these guys have put up. I suggest the International terminal at Chennai as one example.

Hindus are also genetically incapable of using an arch.

Veeresh Saheb:

You are talking about the good old days.

The days when my brother and friends, all school kids, would bike 30 miles to Peshawar and back. When my father used to take us across into Afghanistan in Shalwars and Qameeses with visas stamped on Torkham border. When the whole world was friendly towards each other.

There was no Pakistan and Indianism in the late 80s too. I recall one night out of my college campus in NYC into the subway and an Indian Gujrati (obviously some Patel) newspaper staller approached me and while talking advised to devote more time to my studies and make my parents living in Pakistan proud. He would hand over a copy of NYT free of cost daily.

My sweetheart (now my wife) had Indian friends and I never minded that. Our Indian friends invited us to their place and vice versa. I liked Indians calling me Kabooli (although I am not).

Now the times have changed and I do not notice how biased (anti-Indian) I have become. When we travel to the USA, we notice that the Indian friends of our next generation (neices and nephews) disperse quickly at my site. Although I never realised that I am anti-Indian, it must be showing on my face right?

I have not been able to figure out what happened in the 90s that really made me an anti-Indian, if I am one that is. This is something that the `biased education of Pakistan` was not able to impart.

Liked this. Talking of daal Mohammads, I heard it said that the older buildings in Saudi Arabia often have crooked walls, or slanted walls or have five walls to a room or crazy corners. It seems the reason was that though they were filthy rich, Saudi Arabians were basically a nomad people with no building or masonry skills and so, in the early days, they had a desperate demand for Pakistanis, ANY Pakistanis to build their buildings for them:). Any corroboration?

Speaking of marshes, there was a book A Ring of Bright Water about an otter which the author had brought back from the Tigris-Euphrates marshes. The species was later named after him, Maxwell`s otter, a species which it seems is now extinct.

At some point in his career, Saddam Hussain set fire to those marshes, to punish the Marsh Arabs, who have been `protected` from him in the last many years by US/UK through their enforcement of the Iraqi southern nofly zone.

Veeresh

I enjoyed reading this travellers`s tale. That sounds like a full life. Meeting people and mixing. Oceans & ports and ``Teen Patti. `
Whisky & woman.

When was it? Did you come across Captain Bligh?

Women outlive men all over the world. Something to do with estrogen. Look around in your family.

nice comparison of experiences veeresh. didn`t know the rupee had so much value. the bald eagle has pecked into hornets nest me thinks. i wonder how all this will be ten or twenty years from now. right now, it`s the dollar with so much value.

//..``They`` could have, if they wanted to, gone in and taken Saddam out. Everybody knows. ..//

That was a huge mistake - not to take out Saddam last time. A stitch in time would have saved nine.