Books Every Globalized Pakistani & Indian Middleclass Youngster Must Own …

Re: # 28

Brilliant!

Aisha Sarwari

test2

Ref#29
Nadeem it would be nice if you would give serious responses for a change. Why is everything a farce to you? :}

Jang
It wasn`t supposed to be funny. But on the other side, I usually find the most serious situations funny. That`s where this came from. Thus, what is lame and unfunny to you seems perfectly funny to me.

Stuka
The ``allusions`` were to what are universal situations adapted in and by Indian and Pakistani contexts. I hardly see much difference between the peoples of both the countries. In fact, as far as modern middle-class consumerism is concerned, there are striking similarities among the people of any country. I`m sure you would suggest the same thing regarding leftists. Perhaps, but not as much. Because way back in 1988, I as a young worker of the Communist Party Of Pakistan spat at the feet of one of its main leaders and my friends started calling me an anarchist. However, I`ve always liked calling myself an egalitarian bourgeois beer lover who enjoys reading Marx, Kropotkin and Batman comics. And why did I piss my former Communist Party leader? Because he hated my habit of lighting hashish joints during poetry recitles. I wish he now knows that I do this more often at shopping malls and in and around No Smoking Zones. The later I believe are one of the finest examples of 21st Century fusion of facism and bourgeoise liberalism. Do you think the RSS would call me decadent for this?

rgds,
NfP

Hijab and Postmodernism by J B Sameer

We have come long way since the stone age. We went through stone age, bronze age, iron age, steel age, technology age before entering into hijab age. Hijab has already become the most important invention since the invention of wheel. We are only begining to understand the diverse hidden message of word hijab in revelation by allah almaty (almaty, formerly known as alma-ata, capital of the Republic of Kazakhistan, somewhat similar meaning as all-mighty in Turko-Mongol language of Kazakhs). Sadly, Muslims remained unaware of the essence of this revelation about hijab for 1400 years. Only if they knew the metaphorical and symbolic meaning of this word, they would have been superpower now and leaders of information technology.

Hijab really meant hiding the secrets through camoflague. Look at the world we live in; it is truly a hijab age. The password is the best example of hijab. Password going with the username is hijabization at its best. Then, all the long security codes attached to messages by governments, corporations, banks, military and every business to business communication in cyberspace is also basically hijabized.

In military, stealth technology for avoiding detection by radar is perfect example of hijabization. what is the difference between a lady wearing hijab in Anarkali Bazaar in Lahore, in 786 cybercafe on Tariq Road Karachi, F-18 stealth fighter or B-2 stealth bombers? They are all trying to camoflague what they have or pretend to have. Allah almaty told all of this to Muslims 1400 years ago but they did not make efforts to understand it in depth. Fortunately there is some light at the end of tunnel with people like tahmed32 finallly breaking the secret code of this revelation and Romair revealing the secrets of steath technology.

Now apply it to women. The make up is nothing but hijab. It tries to camoflague acne scars, hailry upper lip, effects of aging on the skin, masking natural odor with artifical perfumes and so on. Add to that face lift surgeries, use of padded undergarments and even bladder control accessories, which are all hijabs. Similarly hiding the age according to solar calendar by telling the age according to 500 days per year calendar is just another example of camoflaguing the data and revealing it when it cant be detrimental anymore, like on the deathbed or after having several children.

We are in the age of hijab even if hijab is strictly refered to face saving, I mean face hiding device. Sooner or later, American Cancer Society, American Heart Society, American Medical Association and Surgeon General of America are going to recommend it as safest technique to reduce or quit smoking. You dont have to be a rocket scientist to know that one can only inhale through mouth or nose and when both are covered, the ease of inhaling cigarettes goes down by. What better one can ask for instead of nicorette, seminars, treatments than a piece of cloth?

Hijab is environmental friendly too. It teaches recycling like nothing else. The breath is recycled partially more with hijab than without it. Recycling is very important for western industrialized nations who are polluting atmosphere at much faster rate than the rest. They should teach population to conserve and recycle with such remarkable examples like wearing hijab.

The benefits of hijab were so obvious for intelligent minds that Gandhi came very close to accepting it. Hijab was only couple of feet down and moving upward when his life was cut short by an assassin. Had he lived longer, the hijab would have moved at the face level. After all it was hijab that casued partition of British India. A minority of men prefered hijab above the face and majority prefered hijab below the face. All they had to to to avoid partition was to compromise on the positioning of white hijab somewhere in between.

Please read the rest when the book hits the shelves on February 29, 2005.

dear nikki7777,

why are u finding fault with every other article and blaming it on your self devised ``pakistani twisted intellect``? plz come up with some positive criticism.....or get some life.

samina sha,

your suggested books sound very interesting. if you can give us an intro on them that would be great. :-)

stuka
you are right on. meatball days part is a lame and not funny because it just does not fit. paracha is unsuccessfully trying to find a satirical indian equivalent to the hijabless part. He should focus on more relevant stuff like New Mother India or Modern Puppet Shows etc.

Rozaiba: No they would not.

But the pro-business low tax investor friendly Republicans as well as similar Clintonion Democrats would not be accused of throwing molotov cocktails at Blacks either. And that is what Paracha is alluding to in an Indian context.

Very funny and caustic! Although it has all the bitterness of one of those greeat losers of modern times, the communist. Never mind, losers have a unique perspective. Carry on!

Oh Paracha jee tusi kidar ho? No chitie, no nothing?? Been missing your snarling tirades
here but will catch up now. Good one this, boy. So they finally put up Cactus Gas. Wonderful. BTW, I like the question Feedback asked. What happens to you if the world becomes exactly the way you like it?
Socialism Destroyed My Life was wicked, bro. And especially Meatball Days. Steam roll!

Hahaha. Good article. My favorite was ``Socialism Destroyed My Life``.

How about ``Mommy Dearest`` by Bilawal Bhutto; ``Easy Masters` Degree in Three Weeks`` by Ghinwa Bhutto; ``My Life as a Polo Pony`` by Asif Zardari; ``The Joy of Cooking.. and Eating.. and Eating...`` by Nawaz Sharif; and ``The Hijack - The Story of Modern Day Pakistan`` by Muhammed Ali Jinnah.

Why not Every Globalised Indian and Middleclass Pakistani Youngster?
;)

SameerJB:

````Feminine Males, Masculine Females - a case study of Nehru dynasty`` by Yasser Latif Hamdani``

:D:D That was hilarious SameerJB! Yasser are you up for it?


Stuka:

Hard right of Pat Buchanan in America and the hard left of the democrat party also have similar economic policies - trade tariffs, protectionism, no `exporting` american jobs etc. That doesn`t mean they would team up.

It is the combination of corporatization with polluted religiousity which gets the perversion going. And BJP is a symbol of that.

Imran:

The present day BJP is the desendant of two different parties with overlapping agendas.

Basically when indepence occured the main party was the Indian National Congress which had socialist and secular leanings.

Note that thse are two different things ``socialism`` and ``secularism`` So Congress was not a Nationalist party in a social sense but it was so in an Economic sense.

There was the BJS which was the Bhartiya Jana Sangh which is the predecessor of the BJP. In its day, BJS was a right wing RSS influenced party but it had the same socialist leanings as Congress. Therefore it was overall a nationalist party.

There was another party which was shortlived called the Swatantrata party which was secular but rightist in an economic sense. It opposed Nehruvian socialism and was dominated by the elite businessmes, ex-maharajas etc. Due to the political conditions of the time, there was distrust of big business etc and the party never became politically viable.

Now, in today`s day and age, BJP is the descendant of the BJS BUT unlike before, it has consistency on the cultural nationalist front but that is not the case on the economic scenario. There are the hard right members of the RSSwho are also in the BJP and belong to the economic nationalist club. The key ideologue is Govindacharya and also includes MM Joshi. However, Advani and Vajpayee (both ex RSS members) and other non RSS BJP types like Jaswant Singh etc are pro globalization.

Basically Paracha is trying to draw a neat line between BJP and Congress, corelating economic globalization with hard right Hindutva and economic socialism with cultural progressive policies. Tthat is simply not the case.

The hard right and the Left actually STAND TOGETHER on economic policies. The Moderate right and the centrists stand together on the economic polies as well. From a strictly economic standpoint, Congress and BJP have much in common and the Left and RSS have much in common.

You forgot to add: God of Small Things by Professional Activist A. Roy. Pakistanis just cant seem to get enough of her.

on a different note.. themodernword.com did this pretty cool thing sometime back. They had this imaginary book review book competition. The idea was to write a review of an imaginary book by your favorite author and some of the contributions were pretty neat!

good satire!

Here are some more books soon to hit the market.

``Fathering without Mothering`` by Arundhiti Roy

``Low-Fat Diesel Cooking`` by Maulana Fazal Ur Rehman

``Long March: Kargil to Islamabad`` by Syed Pervez Musharraf Dehlvi

``Syed Pervez Musharraf Dehlvi`` by Ch. Shujaat Hussein

``Feminine Males, Masculine Females - a case study of Nehru dynasty`` by Yasser Latif Hamdani

``Making a Killing by Looking the Other way`` by Musarrat Shaheen

“I am absolutely, totally confused and proud of it!” That’s so gay...

To # 7 is BJP not the brain child of RSS and VHP? Basically they are the driving force behind BJP and they have a very open stand about globalization. I agree that they are in minority but they are the policy makers/think tanks behind BJP philosophy. So how you can differentiate two?

farhat hushpuppy`s was really funny.

it is not a coincidence that the religious right, the military, the landed gentry and/or aristocracy all are right-wing bedpartners. in them reside the seeds of fascism.

Nadeem..
An entertaining departure from that madness Cactus Gas. This is genuine satire. We all know you are good at it. But I`ve always wondered about infamous writers like you. What happens if everything becomes according to your ideas of economics, politics and society? Will you remain as crtical and sardonic about them too or will Mr.Nadeem Farooq Paracha finally give in to become a conformist? Just curious.

the ``meatball days`` and ``hijabless`` parts cracked me up. so true, so true.

See nikki, when Pak and Ind were having tensions we could not trade suzuki parts for Indian women. So we kinda got deprived. But now things are getting better. Paki`s are getting there share of brown ``cat``, so I think it will all be good in a little bit. And of course as the average Indian is beyond all depths of stupidity, he/she/it cannot be enlightened. So leave these things to people who are educated and not average stupid Indians: The Pakistanis. I have one question for you. Why are Indian girls don`t wanna do it on the first date? Do they seek permission from their father`s first? Just curious to know.

Good piece Paracha. Good to know you haven`t lost your touch. You should be writing more. We all need a little humour in our lives.

Entertaing and has valid points and observations about today`s modern ways and religious confusion in young peoples heads, but this is certainly not
one of your best satire stuff NFP. It seems to be written in a hurry. I`ll vote for your novel Acidity and 21st century Psychobabble piece as your best anytime.

``the westernised, decadent, retrogressive and spoiled-sport anti-capitalism anti-glabalization activists to stop attacking McDonald’s joints and shopping malls``

Since when did Leftists become reps of the West???

``instead invest their energies in more constructive, indigenous, nationalistic and progressive acts like attacking old Muslim mosques, wrinkled Christian missionaries ``

Yup, like the Swadeshi Jagran Manch that is so right wing it wants nothing to do with western systems like Capitalism...

..oh wait..

MAYBE INDIANS AND PAKISTANIS PERCIEVE BRILLIANCE TWO DIFFERENT WAYS??

NFP, stick to commenting on Pakistan. U are so completely wrong BJP/Globalization/ RSS satire I don`t even know where to start.

Even the other stuff, seems like the Left is getting desperate in these times of irrelavance :)

Hope you got a chance to see the ``leftist`` Manmohan Singh`s interview on the Charlie Rose show on PBS. The ``leftist`` said that experience had taught him that the only way to eliminate poverty is to encourage the creators of wealth. Boo Hoo went the leftists in India for it is a choice between a Capitalist Congress and the Capitalist BJP.

It is the Far Right RSS which actually is a minority in the BJP that could not press forth its economic agenda and so had to be content with pressing forward it social agenda. The difference between Congress and BJP is real, but only in the social sense, not the economic policy and attitude to globalization. Hence the relative calm of the Indian middle class once the Leftists were put in place and MM became PM. Notice the embarresing faliure of the BJP to become a meaningful opposition?

It would be even more interesting for you to read up on the performance of the Communist Government in West Bengal. Though the Leftists have been loud in talking against globalization at the Central level where they do not form part of the government, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, Communist CM of Bengal, apologized to the people for excessive Union activity in the past. They have curtailed the rights of unions to strike, made labor laws more friendly to investment climate and welcomes foreign investment.

The hard right of the RSS is against globalization ofcourse. But they have always had more in common with the Left than the moderates.

Another rabbit out of NFP`s mad hat. I love you when you are at your bitter most, Nadeem. This is when you are at your best. Your usual sarcastic critique and jibes at multinationals, corporate capitalism and religion keep finding new ways of attack. Keep them coming.

Very funny...

but you forgot, ``Excuse me, Could I Borrow Your Candle?``: The Faria Alam Guide on Desi Woman Enterpreneurship`` and ``Porn! Another Thing to Hold Against Salman Rushdie, Especially Since I Havent Read His Books!``

sorry...couldnt resist...

I agree....

NFP

Brilliant Piece

Manto
``does the erosion of the left have anything to do with the onslaught of international TV?``

I think the answer is that people stopped using their own minds and ascribe to all that was thrown at them from the tube. NOT Surprisingly all this was capitalist in nature, and thus the erosion of the thinking Left!!!!!

Brilliant .... a very powerful critique of increasingly global capitalist society and its interplay with ideological right wing of the west and religious extremism in the east.... India under the BJP and allies was a case in point. By allowing left to have the sway... the masses of India atleast have rejected this new society...

Tariq AliJr bit was awesome.....it is so indicative of the ambigious nature of globalization .... We see the `middle path` shrinking.... the onslaught of Cable TV is such that you find an extremely polarized society in a city like Karachi (thankfuly it is a little better in Lahore) ... there are increasingly only 2 kinds of people in Pakistan....

1) Those who accept the global culture completely

2) Those who reject it completely

a far cry from the erstwhile moderate society that existed when the college campuses still had a strong leftist presence.... does the erosion of the left have anything to do with the onslaught of international TV?

-YLH

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