Arachnophobia Vs. Nyctophobia Aala.... this was very well-written... loved it... and as somebody has already commented earlier, the line "bladder starts confusing itself...." had me laughing hysterically...

very imaginative and very "profound" indeed ;)

Dilemmas of Creative Children Hey Dr. Sohail....
Have you heard about the new rather popular movie called "Taare Zameen par"... It looks like it's inspired from your article...
I suggest you get hold of Aamir Khan for this... ;)

Surplus Majors and Jerk Chicken Nice article...
Loved the writing style... witty, catchy and humorous...

But your thoughts got a bit carried away at times... they were all over the place...

But great work, anyway

Inzi Post-Bob: An Interview pathetic

How Many Votes a Party Needs to Win Pak Elections? to win the november `07 election, a party needs just one vote... and that of gen. musharraf

The Fall Deep, touching... but a bit abstract....
a lot in fact...

or is it just me and my dumbness ?

I, Consumer Why does everything on chowk have to be politically correct ???

Hamidm really has a point here and the way he has tried to explain it ``must`` impress all and sundry... (the comment about looking like gandhiji and talking a niece to bed had me laughing hysterically)...

And the point someone made about all these white people spending billions for a tan... the answer could be: ``the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence``... but the fact remains that when these people go out for a tan, they don`t actually want to come back looking like Kofi Annan or Condoleeza Rice...

Some people may like darker tones of skin - and everybody has a right to opinion - but conduct a survey any day of the week and white will well and truly come out on top.... and for heaven`s sake, white has got nothing to do with our colonial masters (who are, more often than not, pale-dead white), it`s fair skin that we`re talking about... Fair & Lovely does not get you an EU passport, it just gives you a fairer skin...

and coming back to the ``actual`` point of article... the ads are only intended to sell the products and (please) they also don`t have to be politically correct !!!

I don`t like the new Olwell`s ad much but the first ad for Olpers milk (btw Olpers is the ``parent`` milk of Olwell) was awesome... and the sheer `enormity` of the ad (with all the who`s who of Pakistani modelling industry) made me believe that this product must be good... mission accomplished....

and this flesh-flashing and stuff - it`s what the consumers demand and it`s a simple case of meeting their demands

P.S.: I am not white but I ain;t no Kofi Annan either...

P.S.A.: I don`t use Fair & Lovely

Mohammad Yousuf: A tribute This article actually IS all over the place...
but still.... i agree with most of the things u said and put in a less dramatized/romanticized way these things are quite true...
the article itself might not be worthy of a lot of praise but the thoughts definitely are...
overall a very good piece

The Great Wrong khaans or no-khaans....
i really didn`t mean to offend anybody.....

personally i try not to judge people by their color, race, ethnicity etc..... we`ve some great pathans who`ve done our country a lot of good and there are a lot of punjabis who`ve done more harm than good... in fact if i start thinking, i might be able to recollect more khans (pathan or not) who`ve been a source of pride for the whole pakistan... so
I DON`T HAVE ANYTHING AGAINST KHANS... they are great ppl

what i wrote was what i`ve observed and i might be mistaken at some places but not all...

also i cannot argue with facts, assertions or analogies to prove that dividing punjab will do such and such damage... it`s more of a hunch and it doesn`t seem to me a great idea....
and on the flip side, i`ve failed to see one argument which might persuade me to change my mind on it
had i been around in 1971, i`d have opposed the idea of seperation of east pakistan even though one could easily ``prove`` that it was in west pakistan`s interest... but not in pakistan`s (east AND west) interest

taikonaut:
if majority of a people fall into certain category... u don`t refer to it as stereotypes
and bulldozed or not, Urdu is the national language of Pakistan... and now that it is... i`d appreciate if all pakistanis appreciate that

adamkhan:
i am a punjabi and i hold pakistan a lot dearer... and ``most`` punjabis i personally know share the thought but a few pathans i`ve met would happily walk away with their ``pakhtoonistan``... now this is not to say that all pathans are like that... but then, if 5 of the 10 pathans i`ve known share a thought, i`d ``assume`` that half of all pathans share that thought...
and the equation is not as simple as punjab=pakistan

last note.....
i believe it`s ``perfectly alright`` to put sarhad before punjab if u r a pathan or punjab before sarhad if u r a punjabi, but only as long as it doesn`t do PAKISTAN any harm...
so let`s not fight here and let`s all be good PAKISTANIS

The Great Wrong almost all the interactors who seem to agree with the author can be grouped under one interactor id.... ****khan

pathans normally take great pride in their being pathans and this can readily be seen from the author`s own name who couldn`t drop khan even while chosing a pseudonym (pardon me if it`s the writer`s real name because it may well be so)... and similarly most punjabis take great pride in their being punjabis and almost all of them take ``greater`` pride in being a pakistani....

so for a punjabi, the idea of dividing punjab seems tantamount to the idea of dividing pakistan... hence the anger...

pathans, on the other hand, ``probably`` consider themselves pathans first... this can be inferred from a few facts... most pathans wouldn`t speak urdu... they see a person from another province as a ``stranger``... while many pathans live and work outside nwfp and balochistan, quite a few non-pathans have told me it`s not that easy to do the vice versa... (though i must add here that though i haven`t lived outside punjab per se but all my trips to peshawar and the northern areas of pakistan have been extremely pleasent and the people admirably hospitable)...

when i started reading the article... i`d have loved to see at least ``one`` argument supported by facts / statistics that could persuade me to side with the author but i fail to find any in the write-up (and the posts)... it just seems to be a ``belief`` of the ****khans that a divided Punjab will do pakistan any good...

when people talk of ``allocation of funds``... what they probably fail to realize is that of the 20 biggest cities of pakistan, at least a dozen will fall in punjab

the problem of nwfp or balochistan or sindh for that matter is not punjab but the bugtis and peer pagaras et al....

the division of punjab can make the lives of ``punjabis`` better or worse ``but it ain`t makin` pathans no difference...``

Confessions of a She-Driver Re: # 25

guess u still haven`t heard about the ``women`s rights protection bill``

Confessions of a She-Driver Women are bad drivers. Point. (And this is not a sexist statement at all). Like, almost all Indians at chowk have some sort of paranoia due to which every ``interact`` they put on chowk has got to end up with Islam-bashing. What`s credible is, though, that without reading the article, they somehow find a relationship between the title and jihadis and/or talebans. Women being bad drivers and Indians being bad interactors are universal truths which cannot be denied or even argued upon.
Coming back to the female drivers, I think the root of the problem lies with the fact that a large proportion of women (mind you, not all) can never be confident of anything except their beauty and charms and the same goes for their driving (now, this might be a sexist statement). Confidence is the key. It`s just a wheel and the lives of a handful of people that is in their hands so what`s the big deal !!!

Excursions into dystopia right said nfp !!!!
everything else might be palatable except those ``frigging`` (i wish i could use a harsher word) time checks.... these are so annoying that i`ve probably stopped using some of the products that pop up with a time check every... is it 10 minutes now ?

Schumi No More! i`ve been following F1 for quite sometime.... but watching a complete race is something you probably won`t find me doing

well... the teaser says it all about Schumi.... you either hate him or you love him... and that`s precisely why i wouldn`t term him as the greatest sportsman ever... the great F1 driver - without a shadow of doubt...

he`s on par with the likes of armstrong, woods, bradman, pele, agassi, o`sullivan, sampras, jehangir khan, jansher khan... people by whose names their games are known and not vice versa

i really wanted Schumacher to win at Sao Paulo and i actually wanted Alonso to retire (somehow)... i was even wondering if Massa could somehow slam his car into that of Alonso, something that Schumacher infamously did a few years back... but really... Schumacher deserved to win the title given the fight he had put up after being more than 20 points adrift of Alonso... and legends like him should always end up on a high note...

Click!! buhat aalaaa... khan sahib.... buhat aalaaa

utterly bitterly creative...

i think it`s a lot better than your ``much-acclaimed`` khassi and khabees duologue...

this is something that the writers on chowk normally can`t do: convey a message without offending anybody.... and u`ve done it in style

The Iftaar Party Scene well, well, well, i never knew we had such a ``huge`` fan-base for dear ``doctor`` aamir liaquat sb...

anyway.... a ``lighter`` piece to read on chowk after quite a while... much needed though...

keep `em coming