Passage Zawar,

Very nice poem. I have this suspicion that you also wrote for Echo at UET...if this is right (so did I), can you e-mail me at a.mian@ieee.org? Would love to get in touch with you. I am in telecomms also.

Regards,

:-))

Honoring the Greats Rehan,

I am surprised at your assertions...if you had been a careful reader, you would note that I had singled out both Punjabi and non-Punjabi`s as non-deserving. By the way, I still do not know whether Dr. A.Q. Khan is Punjabi (and how do you REALLY know I am???)

I did also mention my rather personal acquaintance with him. Several of my friends, having worked at Kahuta Labs., were also familiar with him. So I did stand on solid ground (not sure about you, though?)

Z.A Bhutto certainly did many wonderful things for which he is still remembered, regardless of the folks he left behind as followers.

I suggest that you consider the facts before you leap to conclusions. Your reamrks were certainly idle, if not, ironically, biased and inflammatory themselves. I will leave it at that.

Honoring the Greats Anjum, great article!

I agree with most of your listings and those of others. My comments:

- You missed on Tahira Sayeed, who has achieved fame anyway from her (and her mother`s) National Geographic cover photo and article,

- I would be careful in claiming Ghulam Hussein aka Kathak Maharaj, whom I knew, or Naheed Siddiqui, one of his pupils, as greats. Mr. Hussein was decidedly a fraud, at best a PR figure,

- Asma Jahangir may have done some good work, but there were many others who did more and suffered too, unlike her. I still remember Herald Karachi`s cover article on her where she reveals her motivation by saying that she always wanted a husband with a flagstaff car (and got one, much like the ex-TV actress Khalida Riyasat.) She didn`t ``do`` much after that marriage. And who is paying for the luxury labeled as ``Aurat Foundation``? Like you said, it is difficult to extract hype from fiction,

- Same goes for Dr. A.Q. Khan, whose cousin, ``Dr.`` A.H. Qureshi was our Vice Chancellor at Engineering U., Lahore. Dr. Qureshi spilled the beans more than once on A.Q. Khan, and I also know from personal experience that Dr. Khan was another gadfly with not much of a contribution. He actually delayed our nuclear program quite a bit, along with other characters! I moan the loss of talent and hard-earned foreign exchange here, not the delayed ``bomb``, which was Chinese-originated anyway.

- If by Mazhar Ali Khan, you imply the editor of Viewpoint, I fail to see his contributions...to the end he was predicting a socialist revolution through the Afghan corridor, a preposterous assumption even a decade ago. And wasn`t he himself a ``wadera``,in the fine tradition of other waderas talking shop about liberating Pakistan?

- I will certainly be interested in the contributions of the economists that you have named (don`t know anything about the folks.) However, contrary to what readers have suggested, Mahbub ul Haq was no hero...his borrowed policies of import substitution played havoc with both the Pakistani,and similarly,the Indian, economies. His UN/IMF/World Bank title of Senior Vice President is unimpressive...there are countless of those revolving door bureaucrats. Merely UN ``experience`` and authorship of scantly-read books should not be a qualifier. Plus remember, he was always ``imported`` when a military dictatorship took power, and fired otherwise. That should say volumes about him.

Regards,

A Forgotten Incident I apologize, but please read ``FRK`` for ``Ras.``

A Forgotten Incident Dream On!

Ras, I think your active imagination can be put to much better use...

So you think Pakistan can seriously start building its own weaponry and navycraft any time soon? After it actually can barely upgrade its textile mills, the marvel of today`s technology? And after borrowing half-working 40s nuclear technology from China to prove its manhood after successful Indian testing?

You mention Arab forces trained by the Pakistan military. Is that why Arabs cannot fight, with all their billions? But you don`t see another Bangladesh coming, though?

Sorry, but you just cracked me up on one of my snow-filled, down days...BTW I think Amit`s point is well taken. With what I see around in Pakistan, it would be hard to say we are any better off than ``those Hindus`` (no disrespect implied.)

An Interview with Nasser Khan Ghazi

Great article, the kind Chowk.com is sorely in need of as opposed to the cliche-ridden ones that are in abundance. However, calling Mr. Ghazi the founder of ISPs in South Asia would be a stretch...regardless of his enviable accomplishments.

The first internet e-mail commercial service was established in Pakistan in 1992-3 by Imran Anwar, an electrical engineering graduate of Engineering U., Lahore and later an MBA graduate from Columbia Business School in New York. As a matter of fact, the top level domain for Pakistan, .PK did not even exist, until Imran Anwar and one of his associates had it created/registered.

Imran`s service that also carried press feeds and had several hundred individual and commercial accounts besides offering a free PakistaNews (which was among the first DAILY NEWS services on the internet at that time), was arguably the real pioneering idea.

Of course it did not offer live web services at that time. And Imran eventually moved out of offering internet services. As a matter of fact, his recognition as the pioneer comes also from the international media, like the Wall Street Journal, and their magazine Far Eastern Economic Review. Yet, it is strange that a Pakistani e-zine like yours fails to realize or recognize that.

Perhaps we should do more background research before making the kind of hype-ridden claims South Asians are accused of. As disclosure, I went to high school (Aitchison College, Lahore) though I did not know him there, and later to university with Imran (imran@imran.com) where we were acquainted. He still hangs out in Long Island, NY and can be checked up at http://www.imran.com

Faraway Kind of sad, but written well.
If you were Julia Roberts, you probably will feel differently... :-))

(Any relation to Mystic Pizza ?)

Aitchison: Scenes From Within To: Asim Hayat

I have got to agree with Wahid Malik. I think the point is that all the ``atrocities`` you have pointed out are actually far more prevalent, and the status consciousness far more apparent, at other institutions than my alma mater (and yours, if you are not too ashamed of it still), Aitchison College.

Like you, I came to the ``A`` level classes from St. Anthony`s (a mission school in Lahore), and no, my parents actually did not even know about it till I was admitted. I did not feel discriminated then, and I can tell you outright that my undergraduate college, Engineering U., Lahore was more corrupt, ``dangerous``, ``falling apart``, and status conscious than the Aitchison I went to. Sadly we tend to demonize our own existences...at least some of us do. My impression, from your writing, is that you were dying to get into Aitchison (after all Sadiq Public is not exactly considered the same), and then you felt disillusioned. Maybe it was because you automatically thought admission conferred onto you certain inalienable rights...no, you just have to earn them.

My favorite impression of Aitchison, like it would be for all ``elite`` private schools anywhere, is movies like DEAD POETS` SOCIETY and CHARIOTS OF FIRE. Maybe I am a romantic, but like the pedigreed sweetheart says to her man (the Jew who felt excluded): if you cannot run, you cannot win.
The reason people clamor for places like Aitchison are simple: they all want to join the club. So it cannot be overrated. Like in financial markets, a securities` price is set by the buyer willing to pay the seller.

Lastly it always amuses me to note the ``anonymous``` remarking about how oppressed they feel. Maybe that is why. No guts, no glory.

I hope that I have not necessarily offended any feminist, ``humanist``, or other ideologies disproportionately represented on Chowk`s pages. Most of your Western-oriented inspiration is already discredited by the West. You would have known had you gone to an Aitchison.

HSC `79. Jubilee House.

Memories of Kashmere Moe,

Beautiful poem ! I wish I could go visit the
Northern areas again this December. I have many happy memories still...

Pirani To: M. Aliani

I am sorry to say but let us accept some facts, which we Pakistanis (and other 3rd worlders)in general have in general refused to accept.

Yes, poverty is a factor, but then for example, the Vikings or the Anglo-Saxons never sold their daughters...or allowed female circumcisions. And they were extremely poor a couple of hundred years ago. But maybe they are responsible for eliminating ``Native`` Americans, and getting rid of heroes like Saddam Hussein.

And by the way why are we poor and depressed in the first place ?!!! Some of us have claimed to be heirs of the Great Islamic Civilization on one hand, and of the Great Indus Civilization on the other. But it is the ability to learn and struggle against the odds that we have lost...Pakistan has enough resources but they are just extremely badly managed.

And this still does not excuse the ``poor`` father from the heinous act of selling his daughter (and then crying about it later !) He is no hero...we need not sympathize with him. He is the villain, no better than the wadera himself (or herself.)

If there is so much oppression and cruelty, and ``they`` are doing it, why don`t we all rise in rebellion against ``them``, instead of just talking about it ? I don`t see it happening, so I must assume it is not just ``them``... the problem is deeper. Maybe the enemy is us.

Pirani Heart-rending...

I wonder how Sindh (or other parts of Pakistan) can make true progress unless the citizens themselves can reform their age-old habits. Sounds like nothing has changed since the British days, which is probably why our feudal lords were falling over each other to greet the British Queen on her recent visit to her brown slaves, in poor grammar (indeed nothing has changed here , either !)

I remember my Aitchison College days, when I entered the Library for the first time, having been admitted to the A-level class. The first thing I noticed raising my head up was a facsimile of a diploma granted to the Nawab (of Bahawalpur?) in third class. That still makes all of us very proud, I think. Except that now we go to the Cornells and Harvards and MITs !!

Also I can recount from a recent Forbes interview of V.S. Naipaul on his rise to knighthood (Sir Vidiadhur!) Sir V. recalls an 80s conversation with an Iranian editor, who was writing anti-US diatribes. The editor described at length what was wrong with the U.S., but when Sir V. asked him why he was sending his son to a U.S. college, the editor exclaimed, ``but that is where the future is !``

Looks to me that whereas 15 years ago, it was only the secular, elitist class who were currying favor with the West while condemning its policies at home, only to get more failed-IMF aid (or to get their relatives plush bureaucratic jobs in Western capitals), the poorer, more ``Islamist`` minded folks have also joined the game. I applaud the equal opportunity implications, but just do not like the inherent hypocrisy.

PS Our Shair-e-Mashriq, ``Allama`` Iqbal`s MA thesis at Oriental College, Oxbridge was also approved in third class, from another facsimile photo I remember having seen in a book back in those days. No wonder the Allama`s cheap-wine influenced poetry produced no miracles for the Umma. Some of us sycophants still beat our chests about how great the ``Poet Of The East`` was. Just as we have his modern version, ``Daughter Of The East`` (who says Pakistanis don`t have affirmative action ?!) But maybe that`s all we got.

Pakistani Cricketers Mugged in South Africa Re: Mugging , Chowk`s LLC change of heart.


Sorry to hear about the mugging. Most people just assume this kind of thing can only happen in NYC (though I never heard of any celebrity being roughed up.)

On a different note: Chowk seems to have gone from a ``non-profit`` organization to an LLC (a for-profit partnership.) I wonder why ?!!!

Chowk management should explain to its readers the reason for the change, why Chowk should own intellectual property (contrary to all established practise elsewhere), and now that it has a for-profit charter, whether it plans to ``leverage`` reader comments and articles to make money. Or will Chowk simply sell ad space?

Did anyone see it coming?

Aunty Vilayatpasand Thinking Aloud To: Chowkidaar

You (or anybody) should be no judge of what constitutes a personal insult, or otherwise.

If Bad Girl is merely a handle, then its owner can never be personally insulted. If not, the self-depricating label explains itself. Perhaps you got carried away by emotion...it helps to be level-headed.

And yes., I am a bored, 55-year old woman, if that revelation can help overcome your boredom !

Aunty Vilayatpasand Thinking Aloud Your article, as usual, is bad again. At least you are consistent.

I do not think that all ``fundamentalists`` came from outside Pakistan, or that they constitute a threat to Pakistan. No matter how it may hurt anyone`s feelings, Pakistan was created in the name of Islam, remember? !

I suppose you just are too lonely, and worse, sensation-oriented. But someone like Monica L. stole the show this time again.

On The Other Hand Tahnoon:

Thank you for writing a wonderful article about what Pakistan should really mean for Pakistanis.

I fondly hope that your article will deter some from writing viciously about ``dirty``, ``ignorant``, ``macho`` Pakistan (as if we were all born with PhD`s or MBAs, and the US is not where 2/3rds of college women are date-raped), at least some of the time. Old habits of finger pointing die hard though.

On The Other Hand Tahnoon:

Thank you for writing a wonderful article about what Pakistan should really mean for Pakistanis.

I fondly hope that your article will deter some from writing viciously about ``dirty``, ``ignorant``, ``macho`` Pakistan (as if we were all born with PhD`s or MBAs, and the US is not where 2/3rds of college women are date-raped), at least some of the time. Old habits of finger pointing die hard though.