Oxygen

I have read it.

Shandana,

Very Crisp,sour and spicy.Painful to munch, and difficult to swallow. A strong comment by a ironclad strong woman. Excellent, brilliant.

Leave Karachi, and ignore the frivolous assertions by the ignorants who inspire you to stay.A country like America will give U the respect U deserve.

Hakeem saab was one of those people that the people of Krachi will sorely miss and a person that they sorely needed. he was one figure that my father and uncles talked about with respect and reverance...i agree with shandana that to take the leopard wearing ostrich aunty approach just will not cut it. what the latest girl on the marriage mart wore to the neighbours wedding may seem to hold more merit for them however recognzing what is wrong with society and what steps to take to eradicate those problems is just ``too much tension yaar``...``yeh tou hota hee rehta hai..karachi hai naa...adaat see hougayee hai..kya karain``. what we need to ``karain`` is to get to the heart of the problem and look for ways to get to it and get rid of it. one of the biggest merits of karachi , one that has repeateldy been written about on chowk also, is /are the people of karachi. deep down they DO care, they Do want to make a better place to raise children and future generations. screw the old bags who want to eat paan, drink chai and put into categories anyone who is `metric pass`.

shandana: `poem` was darker then your other work but a worthy commentary...but only that.

z.rizvi.

Re: bg and slink

Its good that you two are optimistic, so am I, but the reality says: yeah, right!. Read below: its from dawn of 10-20-98.

_______________________

Officials prepare alternative scheme: Metropolitan police plan shot down

By Our Staff Reporter

KARACHI, Oct 19: Senior federal and provincial government officials have virtually shot down the plan of a metropolitan police department for Karachi.

Those who are leading the attack are the additional interior secretary, the provincial chief secretary and the home secretary and they have prepared an ``alternative plan`` replacing the one prepared and presented by the Citizen- Police Liaison Committee to the prime minister last week.

The ``alternative plan`` rules out the need of a separate metropolitan police department for the city at present. It rather calls for improvement in the police department through other measures needed to be implemented in phases.

Shandana:

Just one comment.

There is as much steel in a coke can as there is coke. Go decipher!!

Sorry had to add my two bits. That line spoils an otherwise good effort.

regards

I have been told that too much of a good thing may cause inappropriate results.

The idea is to adopt an even keel approach. All I am trying to suggest is that lets not be carried off in one direction. Lets try to balance our views with negative and positive to give ourselves some cautious optimism.

re amin saleh:

don`t you think a free press is a positive entity in itself? don`t you think its existence should be reason enough for some good cheer?
i appreciate what you`re trying to say, but i dont think the sentiment gels with the situation.

re slink

developments sound promising. for those who are interested in this new police force, check this week`s cowasjee on dawn. //www.dawn.com//

slink

he who overthrows the tyrant eventually wears the robe of the tyrant.

slink

God, then I must be in heaven. For since the people are generally upbeat and optimistic, there should be no crime, corruption, etc. that you face in Karachi.

If Karachi has no good and everything bad then you must be living in hell.

It is extremely unfortunate that everybody is willing to expound on Karachi`s short coming but not its virtues. Now I am not proposing that we forget about the thing that Karachi lacks. But lets adopt the middle path. As I see it we are becoming extremists.

Even Allah says you should thank him for his bounties. Now if Karachi is all bad then what do we have to be thankful for.

We need not be like the ladies you talk about but then again we need not follow in the footsteps of Cowasjee for whom everybody is bad. Not that I am saying somebody is perfect, because only God is perfect and everybody else will have faults. Lets work around those faults to achieve something better. Lets get the ball rolling towards some optimism.

Again I am not saying that we should say something positive on something that isn`t but should find something that is positive to get the ball rolling. believe me that nobody can make any place better overnight. it all happens in small steps and if we cannot recognise those step then we are ungrateful people.

re RR:

a new metropolitan police force is in the offing, the committee formed to oversee it`s creation includes jamil yousuf and ardeshir cowasjee, this will hopefully see some degree of power wrested from the hands of the rangers. hakim saeeds death shook us all, but it hopefully isn`t the final nail in the coffin for us.

I`m not usually paranoid about these things but the murder of Hakim Saeed was just too shocking. Take my word for it, here`s why probably he was killed: Army refused to come to clean up the mess government and the politicians have created. The government failed in its negotiations with MQM and the rangers didn`t want to go back. Something had to be done to scare the people to death. As if they are not already.

Hakim Saeed`s murder represents the final nail in the coffin. The expected pressure on the government to respond will be so immense that army would be called and it would have to agree to come (AGAIN) and wipe out the terrorists, the politicians, the youngsters playing cricket on the streets, and anyone who doesn`t look like a son of the soil. Sorry, I`m just too shocked to talk sense at the moment. Hakim Saeed was my hero and a role model, along with Ansar Berni, Cowasjee and Sattar Edhi. One wonders how much time they`ve got left.

If you`ve lived in Karachi over the past year or so, you`ll know what Shandana is talking about. And since May 28, 1998, things have gone steadily downhill - almost at an exponential rate. I came here three years ago and things seemed to be on the up-and-up -- I think I might have to revise my opinion now.

Hakim Muhammed Saeed, former governor of Sindh and head of the Hamdard Foundation was shot dead this morning in his clinic.

Shandana: Stay strong. Karachi needs you.

- Bina

Great delivery. But Karachi still has two
of the best things in the world. It is/was
home and still serves some of the world`s
best food.
The rest is the kind of madness that you describe.

Ras

Ahhhh. Heavenly.

Shandana,

Pick your poison, I guess. However, I didn`t realize Karachi was a post-apocolyptic wasteland. It seemed cool enough when I lived there. Toxic waste dumps and rabid dogs? Can mutant bloodhounds and zombie K.E.S.C. workers (redundant, I know) be far behind?