Paper Ciphers

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urstruely

very cool. somewhat similar to my story.. except i dont recall the dripping nose.
i just recall that the kid sister was as scrawny as me (then). i was cornered by her elder sister and was offered standard threats (no brother stuff). all i remember was that i promptly agreed to lose interest in the kid sis. in my case it was very heartfelt, since i had instantly fallen for the elder sister like never before. perhaps it was that the elder sister looked similar, much more ``mature``, definately not scrawny.

classic Urstruly stuff.
You are one of the great writers here--and without any pretentousness too.
Loved it!

Well, that has brought back some memories because, incidentally, the name of the girl to whom I wrote my first ever love-letter, was Nafisa Khatoon. When I wrote that letter, I had barely learned how to write. She was not a princess Cinderella but just an ordinary girl who scratched her head all the time and occasionally wiped her nose with the back of her hand. What separated her from the rest of the kids, were her lips. She looked like she had just eaten a bunch of red beats and with her pale skin those pouty red lips were the most prominent feature on her face.

The contents of my first love letter are kind of sketchy in my mind now but it definitely consisted of a cheesy lyric from a song; something like ``itar ki sheeshee gulab ka phool`` or probably ``bachpan ki mohabbat ko…..``; something like that. I daubed the letter with my Mom`s parfume and gave it to her. Unfortunately, my handwriting was so bad that she couldn`t read a word that I had written. So she approached her elder sister to read it for her. Her elder sister immediately summoned me. When I got to their home she was sitting with a bunch of her college friends and Nafisa was standing on the side with her head bowed down. I was greeted by ``aaeeyay hero sahib`` which all the girls said in unison.

``How dare you write this love letter to Nafisa`` sister inquired.

All the girls were trying very hard to make indignant faces but with their occasional uncontrolled laughter they looked more like worshipers of Lucifer.

``I am sorry, won`t do it again baaji`` I sensed that matter was very serious.

``BaRa darpok hay bhai yeh majnoon tau`` said one girl and rest started laughing their heads off.

``Sorry say kaam nahin challay ga`` baaji bulged her eyes out. ``you will have to draw lines on the floor with your nose – tauba karnay kay liyay`` I think everybody is familiar with what I am trying to tell here.

``No`` I plainly refused.

That was a direct challenge to those disciples of Lucifer. They started to threaten me with all kinds of threats including telling parents and teachers but I thought that I would rather die than scratch floor with my nose. And then came the ultimate threat that the matter would be handed over to Babar bhai. Babar bhai aka bubbar bhai aka turkey bunba was the eldest brother of Nafisa – a blob of muscles with two red eyes. Everybody on the street was scared of him; since last year when he lifted a 5 foot tall turkey dunba above his head he had earned the alias `turkey dunba`. He wowed then that next year he would lift a donkey above his head. That never happened; otherwise his next alias would have been quite unpleasant- I think now.

That was a formidable threat; and I started feeling sweat appearing on my forehead when one of the girls further elaborated on the threat ``naak say lakeerain nikal lo baywaqoof; bubbar bhai tau tumhari noni kaat kar, tal kay kha jaiN gay``.

I swear to God that I felt a very sharp pain you know where.

``hunh…..I will run. He can`t catch me`` I mustered up courage and shrugged; since three days ago I was able to out pace him to catch a bo kata kite on the street.

I guess my defiance softened the hearts of daughters of Lucifer.

``What do you see in Nafisa, after all; she is smelly and her head is probably full of lice; why don`t you write me a letter instead `` one of the damsel asked me blinking her long eyelashes.

``But her lips are so red`` I replied.

I looked at Nafisa. She was scratching her head while sucking the nasal secretion back where it came from.

....... one word comes to mind - pretentious!....... if i wanted to read stuff like this i would read james joyce or the koran or mbz isphahani !.............. i am sorry - i held my bile as long as i could, but this is the kind of stuff that turns school children into truants and drives them to commit suicide or kill their english teachers ............

``Like a parched rose between the pages of a book, a dead reminder of being plucked and never able to return to my roots.``.............. i think the writers of these epistles are trying to mess with our minds and should be told to move on instead of resting in the shade beneath my branches......................

Great Read Farzana.
AFS

khamkhwa


fine, but why is your behind on fire over this?

...if you spent more time worrying about being an unemployed 45-year-old and less worrying about what rsaxena is and is not posting, you wouldn`t be unemployed anymore....think about it...

- cheerio, have fun mocking hindus with your friend ali1

A valentine day diner, some good red wine, and I thought instead of reading antiwar.com, I might as well visit my new love the chowk.com. So I opened the site in great shape, in less next ten minutes I was depressed to the bones. I play with zeroes, zeroes and one, zeroes and ones, off and on, off and on, then why zeroes make me so depressed? My zeroes and ones talk; they are so real they move things, the cipher or the sifr here is so dry that I wish it was just one.

In Indian movies, when it is love, happiness, romance or flirtation they take lovers to Europe, America to sing love songs, happy songs. When it is time for villain to show up, the bad times to show up every thing goes back to India. We Indian or Pakistani, or whatever, what is in the name; it is still the same, hide emotions behind loudness, lewdness and exaggerations.

Our emotions are not raw or virgin. There is always an element of exaggeration in them. In the US a 14-15 years knows, she is not waiting for love letters. She is ready to make a move when she has to. Back home, they still talk in silence, in eyes and in quite, in small notes, in little letters. I still remember the first note I dropped. 14-15 years old in the subcontinent are still learning, learning to hide their feelings, learning to love. There emotions are not mechanical or exaggerated. There is still some innocence. Knowing what goes on under the lihaf is still a giggling experience. Touching, still a taboo.

I am not a writer, I am a techie. Literature is not something I care very much. It is there. You read the book, finish it, put it on your chest, think for a minute or two, turn off the light and turn to your wife next to you just to touch her and give meaning to the softness in the book.

Emotions are raw like virgins back home. You like olive oil, extra virgin- you like the first cut there. You don’t like emotions extra virgin. First cuts need lots of tender touch. 15 years old back home are like extra virgin. You touch them slowly, softly with care and gingerly. With eyes, with little notes and when you get a chance you play with them under the lihaf. Just touching, just feeling slowly as you are scared too.

In Paper ciphers a 15 years old was raped.

I am not a BA or an MA in English. I was a coder. I was told to write clean code. Code, other people can read. Use functions as much as you want but don’t overdo it. I thought the same principles apply to writing in general. I go on reading paper ciphers as if I am going thru the dictionary.com.

What is self-love? It is just being stuck in self. Fifteen years old stuck in self, would be anti-thesis. She would be crude, as if she was raised in Louisiana Cajon country.

There are queens in corporate life; the SLA queen, the contracts queen, the excel queen and you also have word whores around. Shandanda Minhas likes to say word prostitute. I like whore better. It is a whole word, more encompassing then prostitute, somehow less vulgar and not too British like the prostitute. Here is what I read in Paper ciphers “I make love to words and with every touch and look I give them, they swell further in their bounteousness.”

Swelling and bounteousness…love…words??? I get lost in fantasizing options.

Why emotions have to be made up? Why they have to be placed under words smack out of synonyms and thesaurus?
I am a simple man, I write as I think. I like houses. I turn them into homes. Lots of drywalls, drop ceilings, beautiful paint, a great landscape and they look beautiful. Emotions are not homes. They are cherished for what they are; unbridled.
To end my rambling I would only say;
Farzana ji,
Hurfoon main kiya rakha hai ji.
Thora saa iss main piyar dalna tha naa ji;
Thora saa iss main dil dalna naa tha naa ji;

old chomsky article:

The Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy
Noam Chomsky
ZNet, October 31, 2003

Establishment critics of the war on Iraq restricted their comments regarding the attack to the administration arguments they took to be seriously intended: disarmament, deterrence, and links to terrorism.

They scarcely made reference to liberation, democratization of the Middle East, and other matters that would render irrelevant the weapons inspections and indeed everything that took place at the Security Council or within governmental domains.

The reason, perhaps, is that they recognized that lofty rhetoric is the obligatory accompaniment of virtually any resort to force and therefore carries no information. The rhetoric is doubly hard to take seriously in the light of the display of contempt for democracy that accompanied it, not to speak of the past record and current practices.

Critics are also aware that nothing has been heard from the present incumbents -- with their alleged concern for Iraqi democracy -- to indicate that they have any regrets for their previous support for Saddam Hussein (or others like him, still continuing) nor have they shown any signs of contrition for having helped him develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when he really was a serious danger.

Nor has the current leadership explained when, or why, they abandoned their 1991 view that ``the best of all worlds`` would be ``an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein`` that would rule as Saddam did but not make the error of judgment in August 1990 that ruined Saddam`s record.

At the time, the incumbents` British allies were in the opposition and therefore more free than the Thatcherites to speak out against Saddam`s British-backed crimes. Their names are noteworthy by their absence from the parliamentary record of protests against these crimes, including Tony Blair, Jack Straw, Geoff Hoon, and other leading figures of New Labour.

In December 2002, Jack Straw, then foreign minister, released a dossier of Saddam`s crimes. It was drawn almost entirely from the period of firm US-UK support, a fact overlooked with the usual display of moral integrity. The timing and quality of the dossier raised many questions, but those aside, Straw failed to provide an explanation for his very recent conversion to skepticism about Saddam Hussein`s good character and behavior.

When Straw was home secretary in 2001, an Iraqi who fled to England after detention and torture requested asylum. Straw denied his request. The Home Office explained that Straw ``is aware that Iraq, and in particular the Iraqi security forces, would only convict and sentence a person in the courts with the provision of proper jurisdiction,`` so that ``you could expect to receive a fair trial under an independent and properly constituted judiciary.``

Straw`s conversion must, then, have been rather similar to President Clinton`s discovery, sometime between September 8 and 11, 1999, that Indonesia had done some unpleasant things in East Timor in the past twenty-five years when it enjoyed decisive support from the US and Britain.

Attitudes toward democracy were revealed with unusual clarity during the mobilization for war in the fall of 2002, as it became necessary to deal somehow with the overwhelming popular opposition.

Within the ``coalition of the willing,`` the US public was at least partially controlled by the propaganda campaign unleashed in September. In Britain, the population was split roughly fifty-fifty on the war, but the government maintained the stance of ``junior partner`` it had accepted reluctantly after World War II and had kept to even in the face of the contemptuous dismissal of British concerns by US leaders at moments when the country`s very survival was at stake.

Outside the two full members of the coalition, problems were more serious. In the two major European countries, Germany and France, the official government stands corresponded to the views of the large majority of their populations, which unequivocally opposed the war. That led to bitter condemnation by Washington and many commentators.

Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the offending nations as just the ``Old Europe,`` of no concern because of their reluctance to toe Washington`s line. The ``New Europe`` is symbolized by Italy, whose prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, was visiting the White House. It was, evidently, unproblematic that public opinion in Italy was overwhelmingly opposed to the war.

The governments of Old and New Europe were distinguished by a simple criterion: a government joined Old Europe in its iniquity if and only if it took the same position as the vast majority of its population and refused to follow orders from Washington.

Recall that the self-appointed rulers of the world -- Bush, Powell, and the rest -- had declared forthrightly that they intended to carry out their war whether or not the United Nations (UN) or anyone else ``catches up`` and ``becomes relevant.`` Old Europe, mired in irrelevance, did not catch up. Neither did New Europe, at least if people are part of their countries.

Poll results available from Gallup International, as well as local sources for most of Europe, West and East, showed that support for a war carried out ``unilaterally by America and its allies`` did not rise above 11 percent in any country. Support for a war if mandated by the UN ranged from 13 percent (Spain) to 51 percent (Netherlands).

Particularly interesting are the eight countries whose leaders declared themselves to be the New Europe, to much acclaim for their courage and integrity. Their declaration took the form of a statement calling on the Security Council to ensure ``full compliance with its resolutions,`` without specifying the means.

Their announcement threatened ``to isolate the Germans and French,`` the press reported triumphantly, though the positions of New and Old Europe were in fact scarcely different. To ensure that Germany and France would be ``isolated,`` they were not invited to sign the bold pronouncement of New Europe -- apparently for fear that they would do so, it was later quietly indicated.

The standard interpretation is that the exciting and promising New Europe stood behind Washington, thus demonstrating that ``many Europeans supported the United States` view, even if France and Germany did not.``

Who were these ``many Europeans``? Checking polls, we find that in New Europe, opposition to ``the United States` view`` was for the most part even higher than in France and Germany, particularly in Italy and Spain, which were singled out for praise for their leadership of New Europe.

Happily for Washington, former communist countries too joined New Europe. Within them, support for the ``United States` view,`` as defined by Powell -- namely, war by the ``coalition of the willing`` without UN authorization -- ranged from 4 percent (Macedonia) to 11 percent (Romania).

Support for a war even with a UN mandate was also very low. Latvia`s former foreign minister explained that we have to ``salute and shout, `Yes sir.` . . . We have to please America no matter what the cost.``

In brief, in journals that regard democracy as a significant value, headlines would have read that Old Europe in fact included the vast majority of Europeans, East and West, while New Europe consisted of a few leaders who chose to line up (ambiguously) with Washington, disregarding the overwhelming opinion of their own populations.

But actual reporting was mostly scattered and oblique, depicting opposition to the war as a marketing problem for Washington.

Toward the liberal end of the spectrum, Richard Holbrooke stressed the ``very important point [that] if you add up the population of [the eight countries of the original New Europe], it was larger than the population of those countries not signing the letter.`` True enough, though something is omitted: the populations were overwhelmingly opposed to the war, mostly even more so than in those countries dismissed as Old Europe.

At the other extreme of the spectrum, the editors of the Wall Street Journal applauded the statement of the eight original signers for ``exposing as fraudulent the conventional wisdom that France and Germany speak for all of Europe, and that all of Europe is now anti-American.``

The eight honorable New European leaders showed that ``the views of the Continent`s pro-American majority weren`t being heard,`` apart from the editorial pages of the Journal, now vindicated. The editors blasted the media to their ``left`` -- a rather substantial segment -- which ``peddled as true`` the ridiculous idea that France and Germany spoke for Europe, when they were clearly a pitiful minority, and peddled these lies ``because they served the political purposes of those, both in Europe and America, who oppose President Bush on Iraq.``

This conclusion does hold if we exclude Europeans from Europe, rejecting the radical left doctrine that people have some kind of role in democratic societies.

Regards:

-Taimur Khan

saxena babu...
...don`t you ever get tired?...i mean no one interacts with you, no one respects you for your oneliners yet you continue to post your `humorous` reparte at each and every corner...i am sure you have `some` self respect... think about it and stay away from places you are not wanted and you might get some respect from your peers... but knowing you, who suffers from delusion and masochistic tendencies, you shall be here at any moment berating me, my parents and my prophet and his 9 year old wife...who in reality never even knew about your existance...

wow, a farzana article without the word hindu in it

dearest ferz,
this takes more than one read, because it is all about words and how words are used.. . and the similies and metaphors you use are rich.

`. . .all those reasons for encountering the truth that love is always what you want it to be. .` - - true, but is it. . love?

khair, i`m not so certain i want to deCIPHER this. i want to leave it just the way it is. this will not make sense to some, i fear (but then that`s not new, you smile), but having written and received paper ciphers myself, i know something about subterfuge, and the irony of your piece is that there are concealed layers in these revelations. we have a love affair with words, but the words themselves betray us, objectify us and the other. . .

and the beegees song, `it`s only words, and words are all i have to take your heart away. . .` comes to mind.

love and as the french say, i embrace you,
ana xo