Balkan Tragedy: A Re-enactment of the 1971 Genocide in Bangladesh this was supposed to be about kosovo; however, the bengal parallel seems to be drawing fiery response. include me amongst the fiery responders!

the rape of bengal has continued for ages. it has to do w/ the richness of the land, the basically spiritual and peace-loving nature of its people and, most importantly, the highly-charged, super-talented bengali intelligensia.

the story goes back eons, but lets begin with the near-past.

the brits made their fortune playing one bengali against the other; they created laws that slowly but surely killed every lucrative industry in bengal. they played muslims against hindus, they played weavers against butchers, they practiced the epitome of their policy of divide and rule and reaped riches.

then came jinnah and gandhi. if ever a case was to be made by either, it was initiated in bengal. what`s that proverb the americans have ``where ohio goes, so goes the country?`` or is it omaha!? whatever! well, in the sub-continent, it was always ``where calcutta goes, so goes india``. congress and league played their power games on bengali turf - they won peace there, they lost lives there, they forced the gora to quit india from the platform, and when bengal was won, pakistan was made!

1971 is but a link in this ongoing chain. why blame only the army - why not the whole rotten fabric of governance? pak army atrocities are irreconcilable, but it does, afterall, boil down to ``bhutto ney ghaddari keeti``. it was his hunger for power that instigated the operation. add to that the treacherous and defiling manner in which we have ``mis``-taught history over the years - always caricaturing the bengali as the dark, undernourished dravidian and his western counterpart as the tall, muscular, aryan - the superior being. we were never taught the writings of tagore, we were never told of the rich culture of bengal. sure, we learnt of the gallantry of siraj-ud-daula but we thought he was a west pakistani residing in bengal - rather like a blonde, blue-eyed jesus!?? we also learnt about the super fine muslin produced in bengal, but we thought it was made in lyallpur and shipped to calcutta!

dont kid yourself, it isnt just about religion, it isnt about west and east pakistan - it was about west and east INDIA as well. the pandits of kashmir consider themselves (and their counterpart muslims of the area) better beings than, say, the punjabis of the plateau. the dilliwalas have similar aversion to the biharis. apartheid is a multi-layered phenomenon - would that it was as cut and dried as the pak army against the unarmed bengali. the wounds of history run deeper - much deeper. it has not ended with the severing of an arm, east pakistan. the chornicle continues with sikhs and hindus, sindhis and mohajirs, punjabis and - well- punjabis!! we must be the only idiot race in the world that cuts off its nose to spite its face.

until we make radical, painful changes to our education system, until we force ourselves to truly believe in the democratic system, until we put our money where our gaping mouths are and actually disqualify the marauding, looting, lying, cheating politicians of our country from election, and - yes - until we bring the butchers of any and every era to trial, we will continue to hate each other and find justification for our hatred.

i watched arbab jehanzeb on tv the other day. he is said to have the most beautiful garden in karachi - spends millions (hmmm, wonder where he got the millions!?) on it every year. with a soulful, wonderous look in his eyes he said to camera ``a thing of beauty is a joy forever``, or something asinine like that. i dont imagine he loses any sleep over his adventures in east pakistan! however, be fair - dont practice ``bher chaal`` when you lay blame; the likes of sahibzada yaqub khan resisted and were returned home. there are plenty of cases of pakistani soldiers protecting bengalis w/ their lives, and vice versa. there is always good where there is evil.

i am a punjabi, from a military family, and i apologise to every bengali for the atrocities committed in 1971 and before - from the bottom of my heart. as faiz so aptly put it:

kab nazar mein ayegi be-daagh sabzey ki bahar

khoon key dhabey dhulain gay kitni barsaton key baad

hum key thehrey ajnabi.......

Massacre of a Language Adil,

- am an avid reader of your writings, have been since you were local and hadn`t yet become an NRP. article, as always, is good, but i disagree - am i the only one!?

let me qualify. ofcourse, using ice-cream to symbolise ``alif mad aa`` is asinine, altho` no more so than ``zhuad zaroof`` or ``zhey zhalaabaari`` - heck, I always thought zaroof was munawwar zareef when he wasnt feeling too happy!

so, agreed, qaidas are dangerously bey-qaida today. However, when has language not been a ``lashkar`` of borrowed terms, idioms, even slang? remember ``urdu`` - meaning ``laskhar`` in turkish? urdu is undoubtedly one for the most expressive of languages, and it owes it richness to borrowed terms. ever studied swahili - its urdu except for the accent and the prepositions! ``sabun`` is - sabun, ``kitaab`` is, yep, you guessed it! as for our favorites, ghalib and meer - they were rebels, preferring the street walker`s language as their vehicle for expression instead of the royal persian. it was their conscious choice of urdu that raised its status, altho` beauty of expression it had all along.

look at the japs - when they didnt know what to call a television, they started to call it ``televisionu``, cheese became ``cheesu``. sounds ridiculous, but did this belittle japanese, one of the oldest languages of the world? i seriously doubt it.

my point is this; urdu is in danger not because it is borrowing from english but because we as urdu speaking residents of this earth do not believe in its inherent strength to survive and its status as one of the world`s most widely spoken languages.

having said that - ``yeh yacht?`` you`re kidding me!?

Don’t Go to the Bathroom in India! if south asian caricatures are the order of the day, the best have not hit the US air waves yet. if you can get your hands on it, take a look at ``Goodness Gracious Me`` out of England. Four brilliant performers with an absolutely out-of-this-world sense of humour. it is one of the most interesting, intelligent tongue-in-cheek satire shows i`ve seen in a long time.

the four are south asians who have, like me, learnt to laugh at themselves and take caricatures with a pinch of salt. lighten up -caricaturing is the first step towards acceptance.