Train to Pakistan 2004: The Tribute

hamidm2 . . . can you tell us more about hajooj & majooj please?

For the rest, your humour is amazing, thank you. I do not know how many people are able to read between your lines . . .

hamidm2, dost-mittar, tahmed32

Now you guys are really sharp. Know every thing and here I am just trying to figure out why India and Pakistan cannot maintain the same level of relations that we have now for another 57 years? Indians can come every two or three years watch cricket until the fascination goes away. There is nothing that suggests that Pakistanis would go to India to watch cricket games. Pakistanis don’t have this fascination of India. I doubt that any Pakistani would be spending time writing these huge monologues after being in India under ten days. I mean what is the big deal! I will be nice to any idiot that visits my home. I have been nice to dogs regularly.

Pakistan has good game of keeping India and Hindu supremacist party BJP tied down in Kashmir and I just don’t see any reason to let this up because for some reason we need to have better relations with India. I mean what are those reasons precisely? Both govts are being forced to please the US and they can play this game until some reasonably secular govt comes into power in India.

First people from Karachi f--ked with Indian brains then Punjabis had some fun with these useful idiots. Why turn it into some agonizing ordeal of having to deal with them and their 1930 model cars regularly?

hamidm #49 relax. i dont think we are going to see swarms of painted swamis and hordes of big-toe chuppalled madrassis accompanied by their women with badly tied saris with love handles sticking out from the sides parading down mall road anytime soon. the madrasis have started dressing better now anyway, and some of them have even started wearing proper shoes. check out indian movies and see how cute the actresses now look. change your stereotype of the indian, and you will feel better. if not, take two aspirin and call me in the morning.

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aakar
That bit in Mid Day on Imtiaz Ahmed sounded snobbish and cheap. Please don`t let the class snobbery of some of our friends rub off on you.

hamidm2:
`` why can`t we treat it like china treats the taiwan issue?..........continue to call it an integral part of pakistan while playing footsie with businessmen from bangalore and bimbos from bombay (and that does not include fv) .......... ``

My point, exactly, even though I did not put it so succinctly!

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hi veeresh
great piece.
funny you should mention feeling moved on hearing of 3000 sikhs in pindi.
rehan and i were walking around old lahore and near delhi gate, on the way to wazir khan`s mosque, we entered a lane where hundreds of sardars were walking around shopping and it was beautiful.
rehan`s uncle (col) moin said half-jokingly that ``seeing so many sardars on the mall again makes me nervous``!
aakar

dear everybody
while on the subject of sardars, a group of us desis and pakistanis went over to the tombs/shrines of maharaja ranjit singh and guru arjun outside the badshahi masjid in lahore and the guards at the gate asked us where we were from.
a sign in urdu outside said muslims may not enter and we lied to get everybody in.
my host ifti khalu said that the banning of muslims was probably the work of the pakistani wakf board. is that true? or is it the gurudwara prabhandhak samiti equivalent in pakistan that`s responsible?
would any of you know?
aakar

tourists, voyeurs or spies .............

....... it really warms the cockles of my heart to see that peace has finally broken out between the horrible hindoos and the pathetic pakis ............ vereesh and dost-mittar have visted their ancestral land, the indian cricket team has whopped up on their ancestral enemies, tahmed has chosen to disregard the koranic instructions on how to deal with infidels, nazar hayat is being his usual gentlemanly self, romair is off to start his indentured service in bangalore - in short, everyone is smug and happy and has this warm feeling as if they have just peed in their pants !..................... remember, you might be feeling good for now, but in a little while it will start to stink ..........

.......... why is it that i have absolutely no desire to visit the wrong side of the border?......... i don`t even have any desire to visit jhelum which is sixty miles away, or peshawar which is a hundred miles away .......... if you have to go somewhere why don`t you go to maui or rome, angoori or chattar ?.......... what is with this voyeurism?........ why do people have this sick desire to see how the enemy lives, or for that matter how anyone else lives?............ anthropological interest?.......... i can assure you that just as the bushmen of kalahari do not enjoy white men in pith hats gaping at them, my people in pindi did not appreciate indians in their silly white rss topees running around raja bazaar ............

.......... i see this as a conspiracy........ yes sir, a conspiracy by the cunning bania to make us forget about kashmir, lull us into sleep and then whack us over the head and steal what little we have left ...... ........ as a matter of fact, dost-mittar ( a convenient name!) has suggested as much on another board - he asks us why do we need nuclear weapons and then goes on to suggest that kashmir is an albatross around our skinny necks!......... wah bhai wah!........we all know that a fool is born every day in pakistan, but only a complete imbecile would suggest that pakistan did the wrong thing to make a bomb or two ......... even i, a whiskey loving peacenik, threw a bomb-party when nawaz sharif titted the indian tat .......... at least we can go to bed knowing that if we get evaporated in our sleep someone on the other side will pay in kind ............. not much of a consolation but, human nature being what it is, it is better than nothing ............ personally i don`t care much for kashmir or kashmiris, but as a nation it seems kind of whimpy to back down completely after fifty years of blowing hot air ......... why can`t we treat it like china treats the taiwan issue?..........continue to call it an integral part of pakistan while playing footsie with businessmen from bangalore and bimbos from bombay (and that does not include fv) ..........

..........this lovey-dovey stuff is nauseating ............... all our lives we have grown up to believe that the horrible hindoos are like the hajooj and the mahjooj who are licking at the wall and one day will break through to destroy us ............ now we are falling over each other to open the gates of hell ............what is going on here?

............ anyway, i am glad that dost-mittar and vereesh had a good time in the land of their ancestors ..........

veeresh, Ansari:
Yes, my observations are based on HT and TOI which I saw in India. And, yes, in addition to selling it at the price of the newsprint, they also give attractive giveaways to pry the rival`s subscribers from it. My old favourite, The Statesman, seems to have almost disappeared from the scene, despite an impressive new building it has built for itself in place of the stately old building in Con. Place. My view is that if the newspapers have to compete with the instant news provided by TV channels, they can only do so by adding value to the news, i.e., more in-depth analysis and investigative journalism, something that weekly magazines seem to be doing in India.

...Filmfare for Rs. 250? who`s buying it when you can get all the masala you want in your 2-rupee newspaper?

Veeresh: right now I think it`s the garmi. It`s just too hot to bother . . . Lekin seriously, I think they need to, at least as far as this is concerned. It`s criminal how much books and newspapers cost in this country. Liberty Books has the monopoly on most of the stuff brought in from abroad and they mercilessly fleece us over them. Buy a book aur paanch sau rupay tau kahin nahin gae. What`s worse is that the books imported from India are marked at almost double the value sometimes. Jhumpa Lahiri`s The Namesake ka Indian edition 375, ya 395, ka tha, aur yahan pe 675 ka baech rahay thay. It`s outrageous.

There is no system really to keep these people in check. What we really need is a strong consumer body willing to assert itself on the market. But then we haven`t really been a community of readers. Maybe that`s why we don`t have too many good libraries here either. But that`s not really important. I think it`s just that as consumers we`re too docile and unimaginative. There needs to be more free market activity, more active consumerism so that the next time you go into a bookstore it`s a three story complex with cosy arm chairs and soft jazz and a little cafe serving capuccino because the store manager knows that if he doesn`t offer you all that you`ll just go down the street to the next store that does.

Dost Mittar 44 . . . sirji, you are correct about the merchandising aspect of many newspapers/magazines in India . . . but even then, The Hindu sells for 2 or 3 rupees and has probably the best researched content, The Indian Express likewise, Outlook you`ve mentioned is eminent value for 15/-, and the vernacular press is where the action really lies.

At 1.50 for TOI or HT, purchase price new is very close to kabaddi price resale. There is a truth in that somewhere!!

Why don`t Pakistanis demand better value for money? You tell me, Ansari?

Mittar-jee: I can`t speak for Indian newspapers because I haven`t read any. I have however read Pakistani ones and they aren`t particularly good. In fact, it`s enough to put you off newspapers altogether. Which is just as well. I have 12 extra rupees a day to myself now. [Chowk ``experts`` tell me all that I need to know anyways . . . ;o) ]

Outlook on the other hand was an enjoyable read. I`ve looked for it in bookstores here lekin apart from the usual Stardust and Filmfare we don`t seem to import any other Indian magazines. Aur Filmfare bhi do sau pachaas rupay ka hai.

Ansari:
The low price of newspapers in India have come at a price; and the price is that the editor in India has surrendered to the marketing manager. The Indian newspaper is not only cheaper, it also a lot bulkier and the bulk, alas, is full of advertisements and the stuff that really belongs in cheap tabloids - chat-patti stories about entertainment world and local celebrities or what is known as `page 3` in India. In Pakistan, ads probably make up for less than a third of the newspaper; in India they probably make three-fourths or more, not including the area-specific ads inserted in newspapers. The news is only secondary in newspapers, even the lead story not getting more than a couple of paragraphs (and that too sometimes summarised into a boxed highlight). One can get more in-depth reporting on TV channels these days than the Indian newspapers.
So, be careful what you wish for, you might get it!

Just going to bring something over from another board . . .

Veeresh wrote ``“I think the best aspect for Pakistanis of having so many Indian middle class adrift in Pakistan in what was essentially one mass unstructured walkabout was that many lower-middle class Pakistanis suddenly aspire for things like 2-rupee newspapers and multiple chemist shops and cheaper schools teaching English and economic emancipation of women etcetc . . .and most of all, some amount of a multi-cultural society . . . ”

Waiting to board a flight recently, I walked into a bookstore to buy something to read on the plane. Scanning the rows of magazines, OutlookIndia caught my eye. 3 dirhams. Yup, definitely. Turned out to be great value for money and am now a regular reader, what with the free online edition too, the latest issue of which, incidentally, carries a copy of this article.

Why don`t we as Pakistanis demand more value for our money?