Seven Reasons to Kill You can look my pieces up under Burpinder Singh. Feel free to rip :)

Seven Reasons to Kill Doc, in your earlier articles you at least tried to inject an element of psychology, but now it looks as if you're just winging it. This certainly is not a comprehensive list of reasons for murdering another human being- rage, jealousy, pleasure, fear would have been a much more plausible list. Utter crap.

Odd Jobs BTW I don't believe a word of it :))

Odd Jobs Nice read. After the typical pretentious ponderous prose you get used to reading on chowk, a refreshing breath of fresh air!

Talk English, Walk English Shoaib,

The point I was making was that there need not be any hypocrisy born out of guilt of using a "foreign" tongue/some warped superiority complex based on our firm belief that anything Indian is better than anything non-, which are the two main objections people have to making English language compulsory in schools, etc.

But I understand what you're saying.

Talk English, Walk English Shoaib, the piece is well written and you have every right to your opinion, but face it, refusing to use English on the pretext that it is the language of our former colonial masters is like a Mexican refusing to speak Spanish, for similar reasons. I don't think anybody is stupid enough to claim that NOT knowing English is better for your prospects, not just internationally but ironically, within India as well. You wouldn't get a half-decent job at the Indian Railways or Steel Authority, let alone TCS and Wipro, if you insisted on using only your native language.

Face it, most Indian languages are not contemporary- probably the most technical term in Hindi most students know is "sanganak" (computer). How do you convert broadband? Software? Embedded software? Extraction, transformation, loading? Facebook? Twitter?

So all this bullshit about English being elitist is just a political ruse that isn't going to fool the masses forever. If everyone learned English in school, at any level, it would do wonders for our prospects as a whole. Failing that, let's adopt Mandarin and beat the Chinese at their own game :)

Obama’s Promise Riaz do you really represent PakAlumni worldwide? I have trouble believing that...

Obama’s Promise Hehe...this is hilarious. Now not only is Obama's love of Islam gauged by one (beautifully orchestrated) speech in Cairo to the "Muslim world" but India's love of Bush is apparently gauged by one speech given by Manmohan to -what?, the "American investor world"?
If you read that much into politicians' speeches you are too stupid to be true. Sorry mate- but it needs to be said!

Obama’s Courtship of the Muslim World Got news for you doc...there is no "Muslim world". There's just one world and we all gotta share it.
Is Obama a better option that Bush? Definitely- and it doesn't take a carefully orchestrated event like the Cairo speech to know that. But if the "Muslim world" thinks that Obama is going to be any softer on terrorism than his predecessor, they may in for a rude shock.

Obama’s Promise
Re: #6 "As to the reaction across the border in India, it is well known many Indians loved Bush and cheered him on in his failed policies of war against the Muslim world."

This is talking through one's ass at its best. Bush's antics in Iraq is seen for what it is- a hypocritical attempt in the name of "freedom" to gain control of oilfields and expand American commercial interests in that region. I am not a Muslim but find all this "addressing the Muslim world" stuff highly patronising. But I guess its worth it if some jihadis buy into it and stop blowing themselves and us up. So I am with Obama on this.

Muslim Psyche After September 11, 2001 Hi doc, long time.

I have always been a fan of your simple writing style and objective outlook, but am afraid it doesn't work this time around. like someone said, this is a little schoolboy-essayish. I think the best expressed "Muslim" point of view on 9/11 is Mohsin Hamid's reluctant fundamentalist- which coincidentally I read just this week. It's emotional, it's raw, it's also kinda contradictory, which somehow makes it all the more poignant and believable.

This Is For The Men Who\'ll Roll Their Eyes Sidra...believe me, there are a lot fo men who are waiting too.
More power to your kind...

The \'poor\' Neighbour This is a good article and would rightfully make most Pakistanis happy and proud of what they are achieving. But on one level, it's also irrelevant. That the good things that are happening in Pakistan are underreported is more of a reflection on the stupid policies that various Pakistani governments have pursued since independence rather than any real bias on the part of the West. Overt and covert support of jihadis and Islamists, actively supporting secessionist movements in neighbouring countries, a blatant disregard for human rights and democratic norms, etc. are only some of these policies.
What the subcontinent needs are two confident nations interacting adult-to-adult, rather than, as it exists today, an insecure sullen Pakistan trying to live down its idiot little brother image and playing a never-ending game of catch-up with the favourite son India. I say more power to Pakistan; the better you guys do economically, the less time you have to wage silly wars and waste time over non-issues like Kashmir and Siachen.

Pakistani Adoptions Samina, thanks for your response. Boomboom and Shah-jahan are just having some fun in their perceived righteousness of belief. Ignoring them is probably a good idea.

I am not against cross-cultural adoption, if that`s what my post #4 seemed to imply. My concern is that people from America or anywhere else in the developed world may be wanting to adopt for all the wrong reasons. It is really scary to hear stories like the Dutch guy who used to fly into Goa every month to lure some desperate parent out of his offspring only to use them to satiate his unnatural urges; which he could not in his own country. There is no dearth of such desperate, indeed venal ``parents`` in the subcontinent.

My second point is the message that serial adopters like Brangelina are sending out to the world..that it`s perfectly OK to go around plucking kids out of their homes (in some cases even when they do have parents/grandparents to take care of them- all they perhaps need is a helping hand). Considering the average lifespan of a Hollywood marriage, the risk of these kids (who have precious little else in common) may find themselves victims of a broken home up for foster care themselves is an irony we can live without.

This is probably just my subcontinental conservatism -what we call ``family values;))- speaking. In any case it`s just my opinion. I am sure there are a lot of perfectly decent Americans wanting to adopt a child from the subcontinent with every intention of providing it a safe, comfortable home and a bright future- more power to them!

The Horse and The Zebra Re: # 44

ana, while I agree with your contention that chowk is a good platform for subcontinental folks to express our ideas, nevertheless it also could serve another useful purpose- viz separate the genuinely talented from the rest of us wannabe `writers`.

I have not read Rafi`s other pieces on chowk but this story leads me to believe that if he wanted to make it as a ``real`` writer (as opposed to a chowkie, with no disrespect meant, since I belong to that category myself!), there may be other avenues open to him :)

Pakistani Adoptions Aren`t there enough poor orphans in the US that can be adopted by these folks? It`s really scary to see the likes of Brangelina and Madonna go about their adopting as if it were a geography project.