On Awakening

this is about the big toe.
I did actually vote in the referendum. The soldiers manning the box at the local CSD found it hilarious that I instinctively went looking for a private place to mark the ballot. As jovial a bunch as the saargunt who thought couldn`t believe that someone would actually make an effort to answer the NCC `exam`.
October 12 1999 wasn`t it? It`s going to be six years now. Another generation has grown up in this time. I grew up in Zia`s.
You weren`t the only one sleeping Shandana.

Amrita #9: ``And did you know women are naturally good pilots? This isnt feminist hogwash, its a scientific study. Its coz women have great multi-tasking skills and the modern day jet is all about multitasking.``

I have heard that and read that women are better suited to fighter flying, physically, because they can pull more G`s, and because they have faster reflexes.

There are two senior women pilots in Pakistan International Airlines. They must be Captains, on international flights, by now (NHK would know).

The thing about fighter flying in Pakistan, is not the skill set. I think a lot of girls could fly the fighter plane. It is getting through the traning that is extremely difficult. It is so abusive and physically demanding that I have seen grown men crying,. You can multiply the abuse faced by women in normal society by about a thousand.....I have absolutely no idea, how the girls made it this far.............Truly amazing..........I rarely get impressed. But I am impressed.............this is what women need to do in Pakistan, if they want their rights............the other option is to just complain, all the time.......

a friend had two babies, one in india and on in the us...big difference in delivery room nurses. US nurse encourages to scream, give ice-chips and generally makes cooing sounds. indian nurse asks her to keep quet and further asks if she was doing the same screaming at the time of conception :-)

Hi Shandana,

Your article strikes a nerve because it reflects a labour experience consisting of the things I have been afraid of:

-traffic jams caused by VIPs en route to hospital
-non availability of doctor/epidural person due to traffic jam

However I also have flat tire, going into labour and running out of my jazz card minutes while shopping at Gulf, swearing uncontrollably and scandalizing myself with the family obstetrician, and C section after twenty four hour labour on my list.

I`m full term in a week, its my first baby and I`m scared shitless. I was hoping the screaming labouring woman thing was filmy over dramatization.

Also breathing exercises? Do they have Lamaze classes here? Would you recommend an episiotomy? How long did it take for you to recover?

Corina

``don`t shout``. Why ever not ?

Why do midwives from the land of the pure insist on no epidural, no shouting, no acclamation of pain. I don`t care how many women before me have gone through the mind bending pain of child birth and I don`t care how many more well. I just don`t understand the smugness of the woman who looks at me askance as if to say ``you`re not really a mother then are you ... you haven`t been through the appropriate rites of passage``. Why is anaesthesia alright for heart surgery but not for child birth ?

But its all relative in the end. The cousin who opted for a caesarean as opposed to ``natural`` also looks at me askance as if to say ``what, are you stupid`` ?

An appropriate punishment for the ``buggers`` : wish upon each and every one of them kidney stones to be passed through ``naturally`` and preceded by a brazilian wax ...

dL

Shandana - This was a great read! You lightened up my evening. Moms on this side of the border face the same lack of, er, epidural and it makes them just as mad. :) And here`s a cyber huggie specifically for writing that part about the guard who checked the baby bag.


Re: # 8
Romair - yes it is! and congratulations to them. And did you know women are naturally good pilots? This isnt feminist hogwash, its a scientific study. Its coz women have great multi-tasking skills and the modern day jet is all about multitasking. Good for Pakistan.

I am not sure whether this belongs on this thread, but:

I never thought I would see this happen. A few years ago, I exchanged emails with a young seventeen year old girl, who was hell-bent on becoming a fighter pilot in the Pakistan Air Force. She had her own website set up for this. She was initially not allowed to join. However, over a year, she petitioned everyone, and finally convinced Musharraf to change the rules.

She went through the selection process. And due to the change in rules, so did other girls. The training for fighter flying in Pakistan is so brutal and competetive that very few guys make it through. It is filled with abuse, physical punishments, excessively vulgar language, etc. I thought she would never survive.......

Apparently, she did. And she, along with quite a few others girls, have already cleared the first stages, and are now flying jet airplanes.............

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2005/05/050510_womencadets_sen.shtml

I am not sure where all this fits in with complaining about getting unnecesarily stopped at a red light. But it is, by any account an extremely impressive achievement............

shandy:

buhat dinON kay baad vintage shandy ko paRha aur maza aaya:)...the generals came, the baby came, you came...nobody is going away anywhere in a hurry...


(here is my take on an urdu saying:
miaN, beewi, bachcha razi
tO kya karaiga gen. kazi)


wishes for health and peace!

lve

t

Powerful stuff!!......Beware, you ``buggers``, the laboring woman`s wrath!

Ms. Minhas if this incident is true then congratulations on the addition to your family.

If someone can provide the daily number of childbirths in the city of Karachi, we can then make an approximation of the # of births that are affected by each hour of traffic jams in the metropolis due to a `dignitary`s` motorcade. For example, if 300,000 babies are born every year in Karachi that equates to roughly 822 births ever day or 35 births every hour! Hence an hour`s worth of traffic jams in Karachi, can potentially affect 35 labor cases and can lead to life-threatening complications in some. Not forgetting the countless other medical emergencies that also get stuck and suffer needlessly through this mess.

Re: # 2

Ozerkhalid

Well observed.

Hello Shandana,

Great piece as always. Love the way you write but I`m sure you get that a lot, right? :). I`m sorry you had to go through that. Hope the Uniforms didn`t cause any post-delivery trauma. On a side note, your piece was well-written but somehow, the issue at hand got lost somewhere. By the end of it, I felt horrible about labour pains and lack of epidural instead of pondering over the presence of those buggers amongst us.

Write more.

Samina

Shandana:

I am sorry you had to put up with the pain!

I understand that you would be upset at the “uniforms” but of course they just happen to be the outward symptoms of a much deeper affliction – perhaps going all the way down to our innermost selves – why are we so indifferent to those with which we ought to identify (and who ought to be the legitimate focus of our care and concern) and so subservient to others who have no rights (moral, legal, or any other kind) over us?

I hope the rest of the delivery process went okay! Did you undergo Lamaze training earlier, and if so did it help?

***

#1, Don`t worry - happens to the best of us!

Shandana Minhas:

A titillating masterpiece. Fact or fiction ? Regarding your article:

You poignantly depict how the brigadiers with badges are so vain as to set the lowest value upon those things to which nature has assigned the highest vantage point.

What can be more coarse and rude in the mind than the sight of a mother yearning to extract from her womb a breathing life only to be savagely interrupted by the goons in Matrix uniforms. Surely the “Oracle” will cast upon their precious badges a spell.

Yet they defile our minds and bodies more acidly than epidural pain. Making the possessor fouler than the artificer.

Medallions and bullets are haughty. But one day ``On Awakening``

They too shall topple.

More than a few centimeters dilated !

Wonderful. This is really touching Azmat. Didn`t know guys can have such feelings anymore.