Vajpayee Toppled It wont make a difference for us in south. For us Sonia is as much white as other northerns.

Why a Madrasi or Tamil never get a chance. Its all skin..........

Dust and Color Very nicely written. I have very much the same experience on my each annual (two to four week) trip for last many many years. Your story is similar to a number of divided families. A good number of replies talked about your male female parity lines, but I want to mention some other stuff. You wrote

``we settled down in one of the waiting areas while someone took care of immigration and baggage claim for me. One of the wonderful perks of being a middle-to-upper class citizen living in a poor, third world society is that if you know the right

people, and you`re worth knowing for them, you can get a lot done with minimal trouble. ``

I see so many bad things in Pakistan`s system which need to be corrected. Like many others I blame Pakistani People for corruption and not following the rules and law. But then I realize the education rate, poor training, having never seen the good system-in-working-condition, unemployment, ``Sfarush`` are the few ingredients that brought the mismangement which we have in Pakistan`s every public/govt department (including airports).

I can forgive Pakistani people when they dont obey the rules and laws. But when I see my fellow passengers who fly from USA (who obey the US law and praise the system in USA and talk tirelessly against the bad system in Pakistan)and received by their relitives and govt officals(whome they call before leaving to Pakistan and let them know their flight # and time)in offical areas, I really get mad.

I cant believe these are the same people who in USA, do everthing themselves even push their carts. As soon as they touch Pakistan, they change themselves and start looking for help (short cut)from officals through safarush, Rishwat and connection etc.

Why do they need someone to wiat for them near the airplane (in case of top safarshi), or just before the immigration( in case of medium safarshi) or near the bagagge just before the customs( in case of small Sufarshi)???

Having my relatives and friends in military and customs, I never asked anyone to come inside the official areas to receive me.

The half an hour or so which I spend at airport after arrival is my worst time in pakistan on each trip, when I feel so ashamed by my fellow so called Americans` (Blue Passpot and Green card Pakistanis)actions (``phurtian``).