A Moment of Silence Re: # 1

Cayenne wrote ``If the middle east muslims believe in their causes there are other means to pursue them.Not by formenting terrorism.Screw them all.``

Do you mean all the Muslims Cayenne ?

A Moment of Silence Re: # 2

Beejay wisecracks `` And where were you, O great, great knight
When Saddam’s thumb crushed rank and file``

Beejay by making the above comment are you legitimising the attrocities that are ravaging Iraqi civilians under US soldiers post-Saddam ? Seems so to me....and are you saying that what happened in Abu Ghraib is any better than Saddam`s regime ?

Why paint blood a sickly shade of pink ?

A Moment of Silence Re: # 3

Patwari

The subect-matter might seem ``stale`` to you but everyday Muslim civilians bear the brunt of 9/11. At the workplace. In social gatherings. At school. In airport terminals. And the shopping list is ceaseless....

So I would challenge your assumption Patwari by stating that 9/11 is very topical and will remain so as the wheels of time turn.

A Moment of Silence Farzana

You are one of the few individuals who has made a concerted effort towards ``constructive`` remarks on the poem itself. It is hoped (rather optimistically) that other interactors emulate this trail and make ``constructive criticism`` on the poem and its substantive subject matter.

Interactors, engage in relevance rather than resorting to enfeabled attempts at character slander. Chowk cannot remain an electronic boxing-ring for sheepish spineless characters who have way too much time swinging on the pendulum of their lives. The whistle is blown. The bouts have finished. The boxing match (should) be over.

Are we grown up enough on this forum ? Or will we carry on Eminemishly tit-for-tatting ? If readers do not have anything relevant to say let them plead the 5th Ammendment and retain their right to remain wisely silent.

A Moment of Silence Re: # 18

Dear readers, I will digress, and since I do have a captive audience, besides Hamid is gagging for it...well if you all insist I must:

At long last my numero uno fan Hamid M has graced us with his appearance....you have been sorely missed by your cheer-leader bimbettes....you are now a Corollary (look it up in the dictionary Hamid good boy now...) to anything I write. So this one is dedicated specially for you.

There will be many more coming up. So belly and chin up for the roller-coaster ride Hamid boyyy...

With his infinite pearls of wisdom Hamid wisecracks ``if this is a poem then i am a peter pan``

Hamid you are treading on very thin ice. By claiming to be ``Peter Pan`` you are sounding more and more like your arch-hero Michael Jackson. Im sure that the similitude and intimate affinity between yourself and Wacko Jacko runs deeper than ``moon-walking`` ! Perhaps certain less benign habits you would like to share with the general public ?

Hamid M then quizically ponders, in a Hamlet sort of manniere ``whether to wear briefs or boxers?``

The fact that Hamid knows how to wear either is utter misguidance. Hamid things are done incrementally. Once mummy ceases your nappy training session only then you can go on to wear briefs or boxers. Oh sorry I forgot they have to perform a very rare nip and tuck upon thee Hamid jeeeee....ahhh good luck in surgery.....

Hamid feeling desolate peers toward the limitless-blue sky and asks ``who is going to clean up this mess`` ?

This is where Benevolent Beejay with his bacteria-addled mop intervenes and self-crusadingly mops up ...but he soon becomes cognizant that what he has mopped is actually his own excrement....gollly gosh more mopping up is needed by a more adept janitor. Time to hang your keys now Mr Janitor! Good boy.....

Hamid then fuels his batteries and like a regal Easter bunny jumps up and enlighteningly quotes ``the ummah has been wronged and it is justified in blowing up things that they do not understand and cannot hope to build themselves is that it?.......As usual our eager infant is running before he can crawl and has not even read the prologue. Surprise. Surprise !!!

Hamid summarises ``now can we get back to working on the dinner menu`` ?

Hamid (M)anure the menu for tonight is what our resident janitor has mopped up. Would you like to sample a tad bit ?

A la carte menu to be continued....................................

Signed

``Machiavelli`s child``

A Moment of Silence Dear Farzana

Gracias ``por`` your thought-provoking interact.

Farzana types “That is the reason why I thought your prologue could either be seen as defensive or a pre-emptive self-chastisement before a `crime`”.

Farzana the prologue is actually a caveat for all those who seek to tar this poem with the brush of bearing a fundamentalist slant. But since pigeon-holing is society’s favourite recreation the labelling comes as second-nature to sheepish interactors. Commonly found on these forums.

“This is too vast a spectrum...or if irony befits, then the unseeing naked masses are helpless products of Machiavellis.Their ears too are ``clogged with wax``, but for different reasons”.

FV a very poignant remark. The “Machiavelli`s” constitute a hegemonic superstructure (media, policies, government, laws) and an economic sub-structure (macro and micro) which wilfully eclipse the retina of the eyes so that the masses are blinded and stripped of any “garb” of intellectuality leaving them “unseeing” “naked” and “helpless”.

FV interacts “I hope you are not one of those who will stay snug only in the ``anguish and affliction``.

Rather than staying “snug” these gruesome global verities make me feel “stung”. Indeed lines drawn in the sand of perfection suffer a windy fate. And sculptures are never carved to perfection. Though that should never cease the sculptor from carry on chiselling. My chisels are words. For in the cyber universe they are all I can fall back on.

``Both are hunters with hungry intent``? Why kill your own lines?

FV sometimes a stab to one`s own style is uplifting. It puntures any traces of ego.

”Also, the use of some words in Caps appeared self-conscious- the flow should be its own emphasis.”

If anything they were “sub-conscious”.

``But tonight, we will keep on screaming``...and will you hear those screams when your ears are clogged with wax?

``Rhetorically`` they are meant to be clogged. But Farzana are they in practice ?

Farzana comments: ”Are you sure?! Pray, why? If innocuous poetry can be magnetic and refrigerators can be frozen, then I`ll be damed to leave the poets”.

Ebbing towards a “Dead Poet`s Society” ?

Farzana concludes “You will understand that I am only ``slaying``, only ``singing``, but not for ``the dead``...but for those who strive to be alive.

As opposed to those who merely “exist”?

RSVP. Many thanks.

It seems that ``cyber-ghosts`` and ``cyber-witches`` make a stellar ensemble do you not opine FV ?

A Moment of Silence Re: # 7

Scout

Honor killings in Pakistan are shameful while patriarchs are fleeing, assassins are brandishing their venom through age-old Hudood Ordinances introduced during Zia`s epoch. Police constables and law enforcers with greased palms turn deaf dumb and blind to the nauseating reality. Masi Mai is merely one instructive case in point.

As for female infanticide in India, the Atharva Veda postulates: ``The birth of a girl, grant elsewhere; here, grant a boy`` The repugnancy and travesty of female infanticide is rooted in the Vedic period. Moments of gender discrimination are evidenced in the writings of Manu. The prevalent and prostituted philosophy in most societies, of Eastern or Western persuasion, is that the female is under the custody of males

From womb to tomb.

In patrilineal-ravaged societies like South Asia archaic traditions from time immemorial coupled with a staggering demand for dowry exacerbates the perpetuation of infanticide.

The malevolent attitude vis-a-vis women is especially rampant in Tamil Nadu and Bihar. In Rajasthan, mostly amongst the Rajputs who enjoy a majority there, daughters of life are seen as a

Burden of nature.

A Moment of Silence Re: # 11

Urstruly note that at least 5,000 civilians have been slaughtered ``during`` the invasion of Iraq alone. As more evidence is collated, month by month this figure tilts toward 10,000.
Iraq Body Count (IBC), a volunteer group of US intelligentsia painstakingly gathered this evidence which testifies, as you rightly point out, that a 9/11 occurs every month. But where are the sound bites now? Abu Ghraib is yet another feather in Uncle Sam`s tyrannical foreign policy cap.

A Moment of Silence Re: # 10

AV KRISHNA

You hit the nail on the metaphorical head. Foolhardy would be the souls who dismiss the fact that violence is waged against Hindus and Sikhs who are gruellingly massacred in Jammu & Kashmir and elsewhere. 700,000 Kashmiri Pandits in refugee camps without evenhandedness, unfortunately any type of ehtnic, class, religion and caste-based grandstanding inflates the ego away from truism and justice. Underneath this shady veneer lies political ambition and ill-fated nationalism.

Society needs more Arundhati Roy`s, martyrs en route to greater things. Planned shows of consciousness by political heavyweights never cuts the mustard. And lip-service gesturing is the satire we breath-

Day in. Day out.

All ethnicities, classes, castes and religions have a part to play in these toxic acts of violence. Gujarat is a case in point. I remember that India Today reported that A group of outsiders from the far-right extremist leaning Deobandi Tableeghi Muslim sect sieged the mosques in Godhra and deliberately inflamed passions and inflated theological egos. 500 cows were slaughtered illegally in Bharuch in February. Many plots are conveniently foiled by the media. This is the essence of my poem.

The question AV krishna is why are these apparent facts, such as the Godhra massacre and other anti-Sikh anti-Hindu anti-Muslim anti-Buddhist communal conflagrations not debated in the media ?

Are all Women Witches?
It is not sagacious to irk a ``witch`` for her broomstick has two ends, and only one of them is blunt.......

Are all Women Witches?

Farzana wrote “the certified witch of the fairytales is “sanctified” by her evil…

Therefore Farzana what seems like “sorcery”, conveniently tagged on by a dismally myopic society is “sanctity” to “witches”. Sorcery or sanctity? -surely two sides of the same coin dissected into separateness by prejudiced-based social labelling ?

Farzana further elucidates “but it is the Cinderella who becomes a threat, with her innocence, her dreams. Often, she has no shoes of iron – she walks barefoot on the glass and the trail of blood becomes the only landmark for her to find her way back ‘home’ “

But Farzana the nagging question perseveres: do these Cinderella`s really have a “home” ? Do they not “homelessly” tread the alleyways of life in search for an unattainable sanctuary ?

Since they are uprooted from their domiciles and ditched into the “outside, the fringes, the periphery” of comfy social landmarks ?

Surely Cinderella’s ``homelessly`` meaningful meandering across the maze of existence remains frost-bitten by the blood-streaked shards of glass upon which she trails ?

Farzana types “The latter-day Cinderellas who dare to dream meet this fate. I sometimes smile wryly when I am called a “bloody b!tch”, for I know that the symbolism has met reality right beneath my “feet”.

I assume that you also walk barefoot? For the streaks of blood and their deep wine-red trail leave you inspired even more? Perhaps even energised ?

You stipulate “there are enough real ghosts to talk and walk with in what passes for the actual world for me to imagine a cyber ghost would care to seek out my words in the deluge where not all ‘epics’ are epicurean…

Well let me assure you FV that this “cyber-ghost” has a feline curiosity and will internally strive to seek out “your” words- for in the deluge of his internal desolation your words seem even more epicurean…….


FV posits “by then I had heard whispers about your identity”

Careless “whispers” were they? Seldom healthy, often misleading ?
It is a cyber-pastime here at Chowk to speculate about my true identity...funny since it slowly unleafs itself through every word I type ? .....

“Having said that, I will have to refrain from indulging here in the last bits of your reply – it would fall in the category of an ilog or merely canonise me as ‘liqueur witch’!…perhaps, I might write about those momentous minutiae in the lonesome space I occasionally find anchor in”

If the ``momentous minutiae`` of your ship, no matter how high the tide, manages to “anchor in” please send a cyber-signal to my lighthouse for I will curiously be awaiting at the dock. Sitting expectantly on its bay.......

Lastly FV writes “your “plzzz” denotes the weight of ennui perking up at the thought of a past curiosity”

FV Why do you assume this curiosity is shelved in a transient and ephemeral past?

I can ``hopefully`` assure you It is perked up in the here and now…………………..

Are all Women Witches? Farzana

Excuse my inexcusable tardiness in replying to a previous interact of yours regarding the epic article about ``a view from the bar``. I know I digress but interesting threads can be woven from your previous response to topics raised in this article. You will appreciate the symbolism. It is only hoped ?

Farzana wrote ``Isn’t it interesting that it is the gigolos who take charge of the fairytales and the women are left with glass slippers?``

Farzana spot on … that is why the unlucky ``Cinderellas``` of life reflected in your piece have to climb up mountains of ``glass`` in shoes made of iron. This is the harsh and frozen fate that befalls their glacial existence.

Farzana poses the question “Are all vices abusive to others?”

Not all are Farzana, but to be more précis, the vice you mention, that of exploiting prostitutes, is a spitefully abusive imposition by gargantuan gigolos of epic proportions. The “nuts and bolts” in their fairy-tale psyches ravage the ill-begotten Cinderellas`- institutionalised socially in the form of bonded labour.

Farzana you type “When the blood is blue and the wine is rose-hued, eking out a living ought not to even be a consideration”.

If only the blue blooded barons and baronesses stepped out of their ivory towers removing their “rose-tinted” glasses perhaps then would they begin to choke on their “rose-hued” wine and realise the fatal implications before that clock strikes 12. Slipper or no slipper.

Farzana most evocatively in your last para to me: “Alas, in the occasional London bar I have been to I spotted no popes and presidents…or perhaps I was too busy rubbing shoulders with a leather-backed chair, trying to remove the remnants of guilt…the “aspirations” had already been “jaded”. “

Interesting to note that you`ve been to the city of Big Ben and sipped the liqueur of life in London, you roused my curiosity, being a doyen of London hang-outs may I ask which bars? And which “aspirations” have been “jaded” ?

I only ask this

For in your tone and typing I sometimes hear a rare distant lament which is an echo of my own…………..

RSVP plzzz.......

Tales from Behind the Bar Re: # 20

Farzana

Merci beaucoup for your charming response. A few addendums to your thoughts:

``Isn’t it interesting that it is the gigolos who take charge of the fairytales and the women are left with glass slippers?``

Farzana spot on … that is why the unlucky ``Cinderellas``` of life reflected in your piece have to climb up mountains of ``glass`` in shoes made of iron. This is the harsh and frozen fate that befalls their glacial existence.

You pose the question “Are all vices abusive to others?”

Not all are, but to be more précis, the vice you mention, that of exploiting prostitutes, is a spitefully abusive imposition by gargantuan gigolos of epic proportions. The “nuts and bolts” in their fairy-tale psyches ravage the ill-begotten Cinderellas`- institutionalised socially in the form of bonded labour.

Farzana you type “When the blood is blue and the wine is rose-hued, eking out a living ought not to even be a consideration”.

If only the blue blooded barons and baronesses stepped out of their ivory towers removing their “rose-tinted” glasses only then would they begin to choke on their “rose-hued” wine and realise the fatal implications before that clock strikes 12. Slipper or no slipper.

Farzana most evocatively in your last para to me: “Alas, in the occasional London bar I have been to I spotted no popes and presidents…or perhaps I was too busy rubbing shoulders with a leather-backed chair, trying to remove the remnants of guilt…the “aspirations” had already been “jaded”. “

Interesting to note that you`ve been to the city of Big Ben and sipped the liqueur of life in London, you roused my curiosity, being a doyen of London hang-outs may I ask which bars? And which “aspirations” have been “jaded” ?

I only ask this

For in your tone and typing I sometimes hear a rare and distant lament and echo of my own…………..

RSVP plzzz.......

Tales from Behind the Bar Ferzana Versay

Whilst you dexterously engage us with 2 tales from ``behind the bar`` : that of Pooja`s excellently executed, that of Sushila`s does merit more elucidation from yourself and her character could have been further threaded into the narrative: nonetheless I hereby offer you ``1 tale from the front bar``.

I sit in front of the bar of life Ferzana and my eyes gaze frozenly at empty haunting faces of young Sushila`s in virginal whites and vicarage embroidery affronted by a patriarchal system with a self-styled ``holier-than-thou`` bent sexual morality at its crux. The Pooja`s of this world are condemned far more savagely than the men who use their services. The visage of contradiction has never been so eerie. Its` taste never so sour.

I sit in front of the bar of life Ferzana and notice that the architects of our ``patriarchy`` engage in pedantry: for it is far more easier for them to point the feverish finger at Julia Roberts than the smooth-talking Gigolo Richard Gere ( or should I say Vinay ?) Politicians, priests, private bankers: all remain the ultimate guardians of moral disorder. Their suited smiles, nods and winks are given the freest sexual license. Their cheeks need to be branded with hot iron, otherwise these men with long purses and lose morals will never desist from their vices.

I sit in front of the bar of life Ferzana, as an events manager, and ubiquitously meet interesting people in London`s bars. I have rubbed the occasional shoulder with

princes and presidents,

popes and princesses.

But it is the prostitutes and paupers

Who are the most street-savvy and work the hardest to eke out a living. I realise from the very front stage of the bar that the bar-tenders of life need to soul-search and remedy the deeper parameters of gender inequity, law and morality, bonded labour, societal double-standards and only then will there be a gleam gushing out of jaded aspirations.

Until then life, and its bar

Is merely a Perverse Pandemonium

Interview with the Vamp Miriam your comment:

“Handsome men and honor killings. Sounds like something that should be on a travel brochure. It works on me every time...ahem``.

I take the liberty of presuming you are referring to handsome men ? (LOL) ? And which seductive actors, after Woody Allen ofcourse, titillate your feline oestrogen ??

Methinks that this interview with AJ sounds deadlier than ghee-laden auntie jeeez on a head-long Bollydollywood collision course. Do you not ?

Miriam states `` She’s not just another pretty face that one!``

I totally concurr. Our resident feline vamp du jour, Angelina, can tomb raid me anytime. She is the most seductive vamp in the world !!! Followed ofcourse by the delectable Eva Mendes, Rosario Dawson, Catherine Zeta Jones, Vanessa Williams and the banks of Tyra herself !!

Back to Jolie Mademoiselle, she even managed to partially tame Collin Farrell himself....Brad Pitt will require more work. Hint hint Jennifer Annistonakis. Meeeaaaooww !!

But beyond that veneer of sultriness and vials of blood... ...whereas a lot of politicians are stringless puppets in the theatre of life, sometimes it takes a celebrity to hone a cause.

Witness Bob Geldoff and Bono Vox and how their efforts raised millions for Africa, no red tape, no fat cat bureaucrats just people wanting to tilt the balance of inequity. Im sure that Kylie Minogue will now trailblaze a cancer campaign in the footsteps of imperial bat-swinging Imran and star-studded Anastasia. Our resident park and police uniform loving George Michael and Magic Johnson have both unnearthed laudable funds for HIV victims.

Not all stars are Britneyesque Jessica Simpsonettes. These showbiz kitten synthetic starlettes need to wear their corsettes and go save the world. They can do it a-la Tom Cruise Scientology style, Zen-Buddhist Richard Gearing or even a-la Kabala red-banding Madonnaesque.

Take your pick. The possibilities are infinite.

Time is less so.

The first time I quit Zehra

Forget Boston, a ticket to London can be arranged snappy snaps....but before venturing to do so:

a. will you smoke the cigar I have on offer ?
b. will you sail into the sunset of the river thames with me?
c. will you venture to try the global culinary trials that i shall prepare for you?
d. will we shelter next to a fireplace and read the finest poetry on offer ?

RSVP

Merci beaucoup

Le Gaulois Blonde