Hello. I’m Captain Jawad Generic, an officer in the sensitive agencies in the service of the motherland. I’ve been feeling under the weather lately, very much fatigued and angsty. I really can’t say what this affliction is, although my trusted colleague and old boarding school mate suggests that it is probably stress that is to be blamed. We work long and hard hours in the forces you see. And sometimes the workload gets to us, rendering us antisocial and irritable. He recommends that I start putting my thoughts down on paper to relieve some of this pressure. He had personally done this last year during his posting as Station Chief New Delhi (a most tough posting I hear), and it apparently worked wonders for him. So, I’m giving it a shot.

I will begin documenting and archiving the events of my life in my diary (recently purchased from Saeed Book Bank, Jinnah Super Market, Islamabad as part of a fabulous discount for forces’ employees buying a copy of Jeremy Scahill’s expose on Blackwater!). These events will be re-told as they happen, with an obvious addition of my own opinions on the matters at hand.

Regards, Captain Generic.

Captain Jawad Generic

Monday

Duty outside Indian High Commission, Diplomatic Enclave, Islamabad.

Sigh. My week got off to the worst possible start. I was posted outside the Indian High Commission visa section on espionage duty, where my job entailed establishing the motivations of those poor, hapless souls who applied for Indian visas. It is exasperating work by any standard, being out in the sun with one measly tent to offer protection. On top of that, imagine the indignity of having to borrow drinking water from the Indian Embassy personnel.

Worst, though, are the visa applicants: wretched scum of this pure soil who for whichever Godforsaken reason want to cross the border and visit the Other Country. Such characters I saw! There was this pathetic old lady who was mumbling something about wanting to see long lost relatives for Eid. She apparently was in some delusion that she will cook finger licking-good mutton karahi and will be put on a glamorous train that zooms through the fields of Punjab and ends up in New Delhi, where she will take a charming tonga ride through the cramped, rustic streets of the Muslim neighborhoods of the old city, finally arriving at her magnificent ancestral haveli where she will be greeted by her estranged brothers, sisters, cousins, their sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, their neighbors, their neighbors’ sons and daughters, their neighbors’ grandsons and granddaughters, the old mochi, kasai, halwai, sunar, kumhar, lohar, and their sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters and other assorted characters from the ol’ mohalla. I tried to reason with the woman: madam, this only happens in TV ads such as these.

She would, of course, have none of it, and got in the visa application line, only to come face to face with a filthy bald Hindu who rejected her application on the pretext of her not having filled out the application form. At all. Apparently women grew up illiterate in magnificent havelis in inner city neighborhoods in pre-partition northern India.

And then there was this silly motley crew of young university-going boys and girls who wanted to attended some “youth development and cultural exchange” conference next month. Say what? This always drives me nuts. Every once in a while this random group or the other come sauntering in with an influential-sounding letter from some big shot industrialist and hope they will get a bloody Indian visa in time for their alcohol-laden debauchery festival in some wretched Indian city or the other masquerading as a fucking “youth development and cultural exchange” conference. My blood boils looking at these snobs and their desire to go party with hot Delhi girls and then post pictures on the internet with comments such as “Yaro Yehi Dosti Hai, Kismat Se Jo Milli Hai.” Fuck me.

Thankfully this is one issue where the bald Hindu and I see eye to eye. He summarily dismissed their “application” and practically tore their influential big shot’s letter into pieces, saying he doesn’t want these kids to go prancing around Hyderabad Deccan with a video camera recording tourist attractions and then handing over that stuff to some naughty people with bad motives.

Now how the fuck he came up with that ludicrous idea is beyond me! But, on second thought, it’s fascinating isn’t it? I wonder if we can use it in our next, um, assignment.

…are conformist sheep, really. You know how Facebook has this magnificent suggestions thing going whereby it runs its super-smart algorithm to tell you what your friends like, with the hope that you’ll like it to? Well, I decided to play along and see what is this all about after getting annoyed by a constant barrage of suggestions along the lines of “Many of your friends who like Coke Studio also like…” (Yes, I like Coke Studio on Facebook. In my defence, Ali Hamzah is irresistibly cute and my current man-crush.)

Ali Hamzah = *drool*

As it turns out, people who like Coke Studio, amongst my friends, also tend to like things as diverse as Pervez Musharraf, Zaid Hamid, Junaid Jamshed, 3 Idiots (the movie, not the previous three personalities, who are obviously not idiots. Duh.), Imran Khan (do you know Sony Entertainment Television recently ran a “Become the 4^th idiot” contest?), Ufone, Top Pops (!), gol gappay (! x 2), Nestle Fruita Vitals (?), and a delightfully named Facebook page, “Oye, extra pen hai?”

In this piece, I will try to analyze why Coke Studio fans are partial towards some of the entities mentioned above. Let me begin with Pervez Musharraf:

Pervez Musharraf is the reason Coke Studio exists. Had he not toppled Nawaz Sharif’s fumbling, tumbling Humpty-Dumpty-sat-on-a-wall government, pop and rock stars in Pakistan will still be writing boring, meaningful, mildly-catchy songs about accountability (eh?) and consequently getting banned on television. By setting free the powerful forces of enlightened moderation to guide us towards gleaming progress, he set in motion the wheels that eventually led to Meesha Shafi singing on national television clad in, of all things, jeans. Coke Studio, obviously, is the progeny of Musharraf sahab’s visionary thinking, thereby explaining why they have many fans in common.

Beauty & The Beast(s)

Zaid Hamid’s case is even simpler. Coke Studio is Pakistan’s answer to A.R. Rehman. And as we know well by now, nothing pleases Zaid’s hilariously passionate supporters more than us one-upping India. That too an India made famous by a treacherous, traitor Muslim like Rehman, whose forefathers were probably too lazy (more likely poor or indifferent) to migrate to the pure-land back at the time of the Big Bang. Never mind, Zaid bhai, when (y)our dream comes true, Radio Pakistan New Delhi will be blaring Arieb Azhar 24/7 to torture Rehman and his compatriots into eventual and glorious submission.

On the other hand, I honestly cannot for the life of me understand what is in common between Junaid Jamshed and Coke Studio besides a) Rohail Hyatt being the sugar daddy for both; and b) only rich kids able to afford his kurtas to wear at Eids and their cousins’ Mehndi celebrations are actually into Coke Studio.

I am similarly confounded by the seemingly disparate nature of gol gappay and Nestle Fruita Vitals. I am inclined to hypothesize the following: while the Coke Studio-savvy crowd has obviously become health and brand conscious, and thus relies on premium-priced fruit juice to quench its thirst and replenish its vitamins after a grueling gym session, it still appreciates the quaint, sarak chhaap charm of the occasional plate of gol goppas to feel connected to the pure-land’s delights on offer. However, I am certain the irony of paying Rs.100 for a sanitized, upscale version of such traditional delicacies at places like Chatkharay is lost on us.

Generic logo image to add visually to this blog post

Finally, “Oye, extra pen hai?” Sigh. Well, there is no clearer signal regarding the dominance of the ballpoint revolution than this. All school- and college-going kids now use Picasso pens. Disposable, cheap, pathetic pens carried by the dozens by every student. A few years ago, back when I was growing up, you wouldn’t be caught dead without an ink pen. Students now sneer at such anachronisms and rely instead on the ease and convenience of Picasso. I guess legible and pretty handwriting just went down the drain.

I wrote this as a piece for the Sunday magazine of the Express Tribune. It appeared on Aug 1, 2010 (minus the funky images, of course).

The Chief in all his glory. (Image courtesy random google images search.)

General sahab,

I have been a silent admirer of you and your methods for a long time now. You have impressed all and sundry with your charm, your cool, your foresight and your prudent outlook on matters of great importance. You have admirers in the motherland, in the Enemy Nation across the border, the Great Red North and the Imperial Kingmaker, a hard feat that even your charismatic and skilled predecessor struggled to achieve. And yet, respected sir, I have a major bone to pick with you:

Where is my military coup?

With the predecessor, looking sharper than him. (Image courtesy random google images search)

I have waited with bated breath for you to step up to the plate and provide deliverance to us measly Pakistani and rid us of this corrupt, ineffective, incompetent and unpleasant dispensation, and put the country back on the path of progress and unbridled nationalistic fervor. I have bit my nails at odd hours and during moments of crises, waiting for you to appear on national television looking your usual dapper self, with an inspirational picture of the Quaid in the background, announcing the wrap-up of this nonsensical farce that has been running for two years now. And yet, you have not lived up to my expectations. I only have one question on my parched lips:

Where is my military coup?

I sat through many hours of the trudging Long March hoping you will seize the moment and send home these misguided champions of democracy and people power, only to see you display a reverential-yet-frustrating measure of restraint. I was on the edge of my seat, laddoos ready, during all of December 2009 hoping your friends and admirers in the media will finally convince you to heed their prophecies and put in place the ingenious and admirable Minus-One Formula. And yet again, you displayed your characteristic self-discipline. Watching Geo News every day, I cannot help but wonder:

Where is my military coup?

You went to the United States and were wined and dined by the most fashionable members of the World Capital’s foreign policy apparatus. They fawned over you and listened to your every word with wide-eyed wonder. You rather cleverly got your Boy, Mr Foreign Minister, to schmooze with the former First Lady and get cute pictures taken together that were mocked the world over, while you got down to the real business of deal-making with the powers-that-be. What a skillful move that was, General sahab – I must say I was left rather awestruck and dazzled by your aura. You also went to Europe and charmed our NATO allies with your great acumen and insights into the War and our nation’s crucial rule in its endgame. And all I could think was how a son of the soil was telling the world what rightful place our great nation deserves in the galaxy of global powers. People listened to us and respected our opinions – for the first time in an era, if ever, I might add – and you were our worthy voice. I saluted you then.

After Mumbai, when the Enemy Nation sent its fighter jets over for a brief reconnaissance mission, you scrambled our boys up in the air and drove the Enemy jets back over the border. You took pictures and nonchalantly passed on this message to the offenders: “Next time we will bring them down.” I felt proud to be a Pakistani that day, realizing you were guarding not just our physical borders, but also keeping watch on our much-maligned and always-threatened ideological frontiers, a task that the current dispensation, with its motley crew of misguided, traitorous, anti-Pakistan separatist loonies, is ill-suited to accomplish. And when the journalist from across the border wrote a two-part piece on you in The News, profiling you in great depth and showing reluctant admiration, I fawned with him. Finally, when Ayesha Siddiqua wrote her piece in Dawn, calling it you a man of destiny, I found a kindred spirit. My resolve was permanently strengthened and I vowed that day to support you in this noble endeavor that you are, as she implied, destined for.

And yet, General sahab, you are disappointing me. Your time at the helm is running out, and I am afraid that you will not grab at the opportunities that are presenting themselves. Please, for the sake of my nation and its ideologically motivated and endlessly frustrated citizens, I implore you to reconsider this restrained approach. You rid us of the monsters in Swat, and you can do so with those in Islamabad as well. I urge you to step up and claim what you are destined for. Make amends, sir, and take the throne that is rightfully yours, so that no other dispirited man like myself can longingly ask the question:

Where is my military coup?

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: army, democracy, Pakistan ]]> http://gulbadan.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/o-brother-where-art-thou-an-open-letter-to-the-chief-of-army-staff/feed/ 9 Sohaib COAS_profile_pic Kayani_Musharaff Kayani_reception http://gulbadan.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/making-your-american-airport-experience-more-pleasant-despite-the-baggage-of-the-green-passport/ http://gulbadan.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/making-your-american-airport-experience-more-pleasant-despite-the-baggage-of-the-green-passport/#comments Mon, 03 May 2010 02:24:45 +0000 Gulbadan http://gulbadan.wordpress.com/?p=160 ]]> Update: This has been rendered useless as soon as it was written. After Times Square case, forget it: you’re in for it at airports.

We Pakistanis complain, and do so often, about the treatment meted out to us by security personnel at U.S. airports. After accounting for the general penchant of our countrymen to complain incessantly, there is no reason why this issue should miff them so much. Instead, it is far more productive for everyone to put up and make the most of this rather ‘unpleasant’ situation. In this piece I offer some practical tips regarding this matter to make your American travelling experience more efficient and comfortable.

Having travelled extensively on airplanes throughout America for the past two years, I feel confident enough to assert that I have mastered the delicate art of dealing with stringent checks and unpleasant security personnel. For your own sake, you are advised to listen to me.

First, smile a lot. Do not look mad. No one likes looking at a pissed-off Pakistani. It reminds everyone of Pervez Musharraf, and Americans don’t want to be reminded how he played them like a flute. Instead, show your bateesi like our current President. Smiling widely will help you ingratiate with the security guy, and will make both him and you feel more comfortable. You are also advised to exchange pleasantries; this is your chance to show off your newly acquired knowledge about U.S. sports and your local team.

Second, dress sharp. Wear a shalwar kameez to an airport at your own risk, no matter how dapper you think you look in your uber-desi attire. Preferably, wear a suit, especially if you are going to another big city. Everyone knows suits make men feel more confident, and this swagger is much needed at airports if you want to get through the security check faster. Americans tend to be a sucker for confident types, so utilize that to your advantage. Also, do not scratch down there, as that will make you look ridiculous at best and suspicious at worst. And we all know you don’t want that.

Third, and I say this with a very heavy heart, do not crack jokes at any point inside the airport. Remember that Qatari diplomat a few weeks ago who was smoking in an airplane toilet and then made a joke about lighting his shoes on fire when he was confronted by the flight attendant? Yeah, such flamboyance will only get you deported. And what will you do with only five hours of electricity? So, do yourself a favor and leave your funny side at home. Mind you, this is easier said than done: it is exceptionally hard to subdue your temptation of cracking a joke after all that confidence you have already built up by following my earlier advice of smiling and wearing a suit. It is indeed a fine line you will be expected to tread between flair and solemnity, and there will be significant pressure on you. But then, if we’ve learned anything from our national cricket team, it is that Pakistanis perform exceptionally well under pressure in an environment charged with sky-high expectations. You are in good standing, my fellow countryman, so stand proud and charm the pants off that mean-looking security dude.

Finally, and most important: despite this charm offensive, even if you randomly selected for extra screening, do not throw a hissy fit like some of our FATA senators did a few months back. Instead, feel proud when asked to stand inside that machine that reveals everything to everyone. It is important to know that the picture is being seen by one single person sitting in a different room. Enjoy the moment while it lasts; after all, this is probably the only chance you have as a desi man to get a gori to see you naked.

If all of these tips and tricks fail to satisfy you, just man up and get a U.S. driving license. You probably are over twenty-one years of age. (If you aren’t, well, you’re probably too young and irresponsible to be alone in this country in any case, and thus any harassment at airports is probably justified – stop getting drunk at college parties and go home to join daddy’s business.) Just go give a driving test (doesn’t it suck that they don’t accept bribes in America for this purpose?), get an I.D. card and use that to visit airports. Leave your green passport-to-hell at home, and pretend you’re an American. So, unless you really screw up like that Afghan idiot Najibullah Zazi, chances are your air travel will be free of hassles and discomfort.

I wrote this for the Express Tribune newspaper’s Sunday magazine. A slightly edited version appeared in it.

The Plan includes converting important sites in the hard-fought Battle For Hearts And Minds into national landmarks and tourist monuments, and to specifically target an American audience as the market of choice. The five-year plan’s strategy also includes supplanting the French Riviera, Egypt, Latin America and the Bahamas as tourist destinations of choice for American citizens, and designing specific initiatives and packages for the said target market to induce them to take the long journey to their former colony and marvel at its sights and sounds. Incentives will be provided to travel agents to make this happen, and the first sign of this is the upcoming trip of Expedia and Travelocity representatives to Helmand to inspect poppy cultivation (and take back home a sample for their pleasure).

Important initiatives within the Strategic Plan include, but are not restricted to, the following tourist activities and sites:

1. A Freedom Trail, inspired by the one in the historically significant U.S. city of Boston, is being designed in Kabul. Tourists will be able to walk the winding and war-torn streets of the old neighborhoods. Inspired by the Trail in Boston, the path will be marked in red along the streets for ease of navigation. Except, actual blood will be used in the Kabul version. From, you know, martyrs of the war etcetera. (Ouch, dark.)

2. A special landmark will be constructed outside the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered her famous Lahore Address to announce the start of a new, crucial operation in the Battle For Hearts And Minds back in the heady days of October 2009. This landmark will be graced by a photograph of Ms. Clinton covering her head while entering the mosque as a sign of respect to the local Muslim culture. President Obama’s address to the Muslim world in Cairo in early 2009, signaling an important milestone in the said battle, will be inscribed in full next to it. The purpose will be to inspire visiting American tourists and help them understand the subtle beauty and grace of the Muslim culture and its 1,400-year-old civilization. (Some in the Ministry are also secretly hoping that this initiative will result in a few conversions to the One True Religion.)

Ms. Clinton in her milieu

3. A special landmark will be constructed in North Waziristan where Af-Pak’s enemy number one, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed by a U.S. drone strike in August 2009. The purpose of this landmark will be to remind American tourists of the evil that haunted their country for a good part of the decade, and the eventual victory of truth, justice, liberty, and all things good and pure, over the forces of darkness led by the Eye of Sauron. And just like American tourists are awed by the Lenin monument in Moscow, and can see first hand the face of evil communism that haunted their country for the better part of the 20^th century, they will be able to see up close and personal the face of evil in the 21^st century. Gate receipts for this monument are expected to be sky-high.

This could be FATA, bitch! Watch out for stray Stinger missiles.

4. Inspired by the helicopter rides over the Grand Canyon, the Ministry is also planning similar rides over the entire FATA region. Tourists will be able to marvel at the natural wonder that is the rugged terrain of FATA, and marvel further at how, finally, one Empire defeated that rag tag bunch of miscreants after many an Empire in the past failed. A sumptuous meal of lamb will be served in celebration after the helicopter ride is complete.

5. Giant fiberglass replicas of the Bamiyan Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban regime will be constructed to revive tourism to that historic site. The inconvenient fact that fiberglass probably makes ugly statues will be ignored for the sake of the greater good.

6. The folks running the Ibiza chain of nightclubs will be given a concession to build a swanky new club at the Marriott hotel in the Af-Pak capital Islamabad that was bombed by terrorists in September 2008 and led to a significant change in public perception across the Af-Pak nation. This nightclub will be a testament to the resolve and strength of the Af-Pak people in the face of adversity and their willingness to forget all worries and be happy. This nightclub will be the epicenter of nightlife in Af-Pak, attracting foreign tourists from the world over. Lady Gaga is being considered as the lead performer for the grand opening night. Marines stationed at the nearby U.S. Embassy will be given front-row seats as a gesture of goodwill and thank-you.

7. Special packages will be introduced for foreign tourists to visit the lovely valley of Swat. The site of a Taliban-style insurgency, Swat was the crucial turning point in the Battle For Hearts And Minds and thus holds special significance. The house belonging to that wretch Mullah Fazlullah, the leader of the Swat Taliban, will be converted into a luxury guesthouse for the discerning tourist. Sadly, the only luxury on offer in that little cottage will be expensive toilet roll.

This could be Islamabad, yo! *disco lights drooool!*

8. A special marketing package will be designed and offered to residents of San Francisco to visit the city of Kandahar for a special, one-stop 10-day trip. Virgin Atlantic will be roped in to provide non-stop flights. Those familiar with the demographics of San Francisco and the running jokes about men in Kandahar should appreciate this point. Others, please speak to your friendly neighborhood Kandahari for explanation.

A lot more frisking and touching will be going on in Kandahar if this plan succeeds.

Talks are currently underway with the World Bank to release the first tranche of the loan, so that the Ministry can put its Implementation Plan in action. However, sources suggest that the talks are stalling because the said Implementation Plan is filled with loopholes, broad generalizations, dodgy assumptions, and, in general, wishful thinking and impractical optimism. According to a World Bank consultant that this scribe spoke to over the telephone, “the Ministry of Tourism is nothing but a bunch of deluded morons comfortable with blissful ignorance.”

(This was published in my school newspaper’s April Fools’ Day edition. The main idea for this came from a terribly offensive late-night conversation involving myself, an Afghan and a dude from the Dominican Republic, of all places!)

Is this the blood of martyrs?

Damorkussy is what democracy has become in Afghanistan now. And also probably in Pakistan. My cunning, or Pushto speaking, readers will probably realize this is a pun. (Cunning and Pushto speaking, notice, are mutually exclusive categories. ) For the uninformed or linguistically challenged lot, allow me to explain:

“Mor” is the Pushto word for mother. “Kuss” is a well-known “Pakistani” word that decency prevents me from translating. ( ) “Da” is simply added randomly, to make the pun complete.

Damorkussy thus (playfully) means mother-fuckery. This is the status of democracy in Afghanistan; or Pakistan, for that matter. Total, absolute mother-fuckery.

A strong implication exists. Someone who is a liberal, a fan of democracy, believes in fluffy concepts that will save humanity from backwardness, is called a damorkuss. That is, he is a total mother-fucker. So, the next time UNDP, or George Bush, or other relevant people talk about promoting democracy, you know what word to use. Thus, at the next London conference on the future of Afghanistan, when soundbytes come forth that the fledgling democracy in that country must be protected, your natural response should be: “what damorkussy is this?”

Thank you, Ateeq Nosher, for forever changing my worldview. My faith in democracy stands shattered.

The authors of this book must be banging their heads against a wall.

A friend has nominated yours truly’s humble blog in the “Best Humor” category for a Pakistani blog awards thingie. Now, personally, I don’t know much about who is running this award show (I don’t think I’ll be making acceptance speeches thanking the Hollywood Foreign Press or the Academy any time soon) and cannot see how legit or credible these are, but the website has a Google and Dawn News logo. And even though the whole world knows I despise Dawn News, I’ll take whatever ego-stroking I get.

So, merry children, I have done the requisite and promoted myself. You can vote for me by clicking here, or clicking that horrid big red button on the top right of the home page of this blog. I have already promised free Lady Gaga concert tickets to those who oblige, in case of a glorious victory.

Personally, however, I am a bit offended that my fact-based, meticulous and methodical research, which leads me to form concrete and balanced opinions, has been marginalized by being called ‘humor.’ Pfft. I am no fucking court jester. I dare anyone and everyone to disprove the veracity of any statement I make.

Further, I think these people do ‘humor’ much better than anyone writing about Pakistan:

Iblees

Maila Times

The budding Pakistani Marxist

Roommate (snickering): “Sohaib, that girl is in a completely different league. It’s like she’s Manchester United and you’re, umm, Chaman FC from Balochistan.”

Interestingly, Chaman FC is famous for getting arrested and having their heads shaved by the Taliban back in 2000 when they dared to play wearing only shorts on a tour to Kandahar. True story. Read here.

Fuck my life.

Before I go any further, a brief explanation is in order for those folks who do not know the meaning of burger. (These folks include my supposed (and rapidly dwindling) readership outside of Pakistan, especially of the foreign variety.) A burger is best understood as a derogatory term for a youthful soul that is too westernized, and out of touch with his native culture and society. It is used by non-burgers to mock burgers. (At the opposite of the spectrum would be ‘paindu’, someone who’s from a village and thus ill-informed about the ways of the world.) I personally find ‘burger’ to be a most fascinating term, and if I could venture a guess as to its origins, it would be this: this happened in the late 1980’s etc when burgers started becoming an essential part of menus at upscale restaurants all over the country. Those youth who, in any given situation, chose to reflect their preference for a foreign alternative to any item or mode of behavior over its local variety, or behave in a reasonably foreign manner, began to be labeled ‘burgers.’ The term, thus, is also comment on globalization (that is, Americanization) of world cuisine.

Okay, enough of the pseudo-intellectualism from my side. Let us move on to the topic at hand. So, after a fair bit of thinking, I was able to conclude that there actually exist not just one kind of burger, but in fact quite a few classes of it. These vary in their burgerness based on their members’ characteristics. I present below my humble analysis and contribution – the three categories of burgerness that I have identified, with increasing order of burgerness: the bun kebab, the crispy chicken burger at AFC, and, finally, the Quarter Pounder.

The bun kebab (especially the one at Tipu Burger)

This is the first, and least burger, category of burgers. In fact, it is hardly burger at all. People belonging to this category aspire towards ultimate burgerness, but that will always remain a distant dream for them. At maximum, they will be lucky and get admission and a scholarship at some elite private university where they can interact with whatever Quarter Pounders (the ultimate burgers) have not left for studies abroad, do well in that university, get a high-paying job at a fancy multinational company, have kids, send those kids to elite private schools, and, finally, be able to attain some Quarter Pounders. Thus, it takes an entire generation for someone to progress from bun kebab to Quarter Pounder. (LUMS National Outreach Program, I look at you!)

The biggest obstacle bun kebabs face is that they are too rooted in their desiness to break free and embrace western influences fully and completely. The only western cultural and musical influences that they admire and appreciate wholeheartedly include global phenomena such as Michael Jackson and Rambo. They got sad when MJ died because for them that was the only quality music that side of the world has ever produced.

Another interesting characteristic of bun kebabs is that a lot of people in Pakistan’s entertainment industry fall here. These include the actresses and fashion models types, looking to break free from a traditional, conservative family culture and embrace fully the vices promised by Quarter Pounderness.

On the internet, bun kebab-types are quite active. Sadly, however, I feel they are too busy looking at porn or complaining on some political forum about Blackwater’s unwarranted presence in Pakistan to show interest in this blog. My analysis, thus, will remain in the wilderness for them.

The crispy chicken burger at AFC

This is the second category of burgers, and I affectionately call these the crispy chicken burgers at Lahore-based chain AFC, which is a rip-off of KFC (and the burger itself a rather delicious and half-priced rip-off of the world-famous Zinger).

This lot is a bit confused, but would be too proud to admit it. The AFC crispy chicken burgers did not have the luxury of going to the elitist of private schools in the country. Instead, they went to the second tier schools, which incidentally are still too expensive for most Pakistanis. You know, the Beaconhouses and City Schools of the world. Invariably, they believe that those kids who went to the elitist private schools are complete burgers (and thus don’t realize that they themselves are also quite burger, but just not burger enough).

In terms of cultural and artistic preferences, the crispy chicken burgers have a mild preference for Hollywood films over Bollywood, because, well, the stories are better and the acting is stronger and the women are hotter and less inhibited. Further, crispy chicken burgers are big fans of Pakistani rock bands such as Noori, EP, Call, Jal, Junoon et al. In fact, if I had to guess I would say they constitute the biggest fan group for these bands. They are also strongly inclined towards the usual suspects amongst western rock/pop acts – Metallica, Pink Floyd, Green Day, etc. Interestingly, these burgers think that ‘nigger’ is an acceptable word around the world, because all the rap musicians that they have heard seem to be using it. (Some of the crispy chicken burgers thus are often liable to end up in some kind of trouble if they somehow manage coming to the United States for graduate studies or work.)

My obsession with all things Bollywood and antipathy to any western music that is not Lady Gaga keeps me paindu enough to be in this category; otherwise I would have become a Quarter Pounder long ago. Which brings me to…

The Quarter Pounder

Burgers belonging to this group are the easiest to spot, and are the most despised universally. They will only use English as a language of communication, unless speaking to their driver, guard, cook, or staff at their favored DVD shop at the market, in which case they will use Urdu that is often accented. Invariably, Quarter Pounders have studied at the elite private schools in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad (there are, by a law of nature, no Quarter Pounders from any other city) which their parents have paid an arm and a leg for. They can either be first or second generation Quarter Pounders (see ‘bun kebab’ section for an example of how first generation Quarter Pounders come to be).

Oh, an interesting aside. Even though I have labeled them Quarter Pounders, which is a McDonald’s brand, they are mostly likely to consider McDonald’s as a slightly ghetto joint which is too often frequented by the crispy chicken burgers. Thus, when craving a burger themselves, these burgers will only visit a McDonald’s joint via drive-thru, or will get home delivery. Or, they will simply go to Roaster’s in Zamzama and have expensive-as-shit burgers there.

For Quarter Pounders, looking down upon the other classes of burgers is considered standard and often encouraged. However, this attitude seems to be getting a bit passé now, and there appears to be renewed interest amongst this community in understanding the complex socio-economic problems inflicting the common man in Pakistan. Because we must help. Somehow. Like, you know, go back and do something meaningful.

Quarter Pounders probably don’t know that hockey is the national game of Pakistan. In fact, the only hockey they are likely to have seen is the kind played on ice, during graduate studies or regular family vacations to the United States. (Yes, it is indeed quite a fast game, and great fun to watch when drunk. I know. Shahbaz senior can kiss my chuddies.)

There is no point discussing cultural preferences and shit like that, because the only time they watch Pakistani TV is when the cricket team is playing some important match. (Incidentally, whenever they go see a cricket match live, they will sit in the enclosure that allows other Quarter Pounders to congregate. They are thus insulated from the aam junta (or, mango people. Oh man, Love Aaj Kal really outdid itself in this one! Pure brilliance.) and can enjoy the match with insane amounts of poondi to entertain themselves during boring periods like when Salman Butt is trying to bat.

In terms of music, they are likely to know more about the history of jazz music than the average American. Regarding movies, Bollywood is obviously considered to be a joke. However, Aamir Khan tends to be one Bollywood actor that is respected, and ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ is considered a good film. Because, well, it’s relatable. Shahrukh is considered a chootiya. Interestingly though, all the pomp and show of Bollywood comes alive for Quarter Pounders every wedding season, when pretty ladies do the sexiest dances to hits from the previous year wearing very-very tasty clothes.

On the Pakistani side of entertainment, Quarter Pounders are likely to have watched ‘Khuda Ke Liye’ once and found it a bit preachy but relevant. Because, you know, “it shows our religion in a positive light and shows the true face of those barbarian bastards, methinks.” Quarter Pounders also have vague recollections from when they were young of their mothers almost getting wet while talking about some random godforsaken dead guy called Waheed Murad.

Most readers of this blog fall in this category.

(Update: So, apparently, this topic is as old as the hills. See hottie VJ Mahira talking about it here. I personally couldn’t focus on the content of the discussion (I am sure it wasn’t anything enlightening) because her supreme hotness is too bloody distracting, yar.)

(Acknowledgements: Actually, this idea has been brewing in my head for quite some time now. A big puppi and japhee to Umair Javed for throwing his significant intellectual (and even more significant body) weight behind the topic of burgerness and its social implications, over many pointless online chat conversations.)

One, there was no nipple slip that came to my attention. This is sad because the authenticity and prestige of any given fashion week is usually judged by how many nipple slips it contained, or how scandalous, if at all, said nip-slips were. My friends across the Line of Control usually conjure nip-slips on a regular basis, and this is directly related to how many orders their designers are getting from international and regional buyers. By the way, allow me to complain that my search for above-mentioned reasonably hot pictures from the Pakistan Fashion Week was quite useless – the results were totally insipid and not hot. No one has done a good enough job of taking, collecting and uploading high resolution pictures, or hasn’t informed me at least even if he has. The only collection of pictures I came across were on the media gallery of Dawn, a media network that continues to defy logic as to the reason for its existence and continues to remain pointless and fucked up. Like, seriously, are you trying to copy BBC or something? Get over yourself, you English-speaking fucks.

Second, one normally doesn’t have such shenanigans in countries that are fighting a war (!). And not to sound like that idiot Mr. Stating The Obvious, but we are fighting one. This leads me to conclude that the Fashion Week was staged as a wonderfully well-executed distraction from the war currently engulfing the poor wretch that is our beloved homeland. This is both fascinating and sad. It’s fascinating because we have a wonderful and enviable ability to oversee the obvious problems, de-prioritize the priorities and allow ourselves to inhabit, if briefly, la-la-land where dreams come true and Nomi Ansari is king. It’s sad, however, because we have a wonderful ability to oversee the obvious problems, de-prioritize the priorities and allow ourselves to inhabit, if briefly, la-la-land where dreams come true and Nomi Ansari is king.

Now, yes, of course, it’s not so simple because the said war that we are currently engaged in is obviously bordering on both the pointless and the boring. It’s a boring war because there is no clearly defined enemy, there is no glamour that is usually associated with just and righteous resistance to aggression, and there are no empowering patriotic songs to get everyone excited. (Yes, Abrar-ul-Haq has indeed come up with a new song/video concerning the above (which can be viewed here), but I am quite sure my Pathan brethren are not too happy at being depicted as the only evil, money-hugging, conniving bastard-villains in the storyline, especially when Punjabis redeem themselves. Well, it’s not my fault that’s the fucking truth, you gibberish-speaking cavemen!) Further, wars are simply not the same amount of fun without a powerful neighbor whose butt you can try to kick and get away with. No India, no game. Lastly, of course, there is the small matter of, you know, killing our own countrymen. And that’s obviously no party. Thus, this is a very, very boring war, and distractions like the Pakistan Fashion Week are an adequate response to this dilemma.

Now let me explain why this war is pointless. There are two arguments often given: one, that we are making a colossal mistake, that this is not our war and we should not be following Washington’s orders by massacring our own brethren when we can easily negotiate with them to stop bombing us due to a small misunderstanding and instead focus all their efforts on liberating Afghanistan from foreign occupation; second, that this war is unwinnable – it is like beating a garden animal into his hole, whereby he will pop up from a new hole, and this will repeat until you get tired. This argument makes sense because when we attacked them in Swat, they ran away to somewhere unknown, when we attacked them in South Waziristan, they ran away north and further south (yes, sadly, the grand “fight to the finish” ala ISPR spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas has failed to materialize), and when we will attack them again, they will run away again, and so on and so forth. Stretching this strategy to its logical end, we will end up starting military operations all over the country to root out militants spread all over, until we reach the point that General Kayani and Hakeemullah Mehsud will be squaring off in a swordfight duel to death in front of WAPDA House on the Mall Road in Lahore.

And no one wants to see that. (Although considering how uber-hot Hakeemullah is, as established here, I’d buy a ticket to see him wield a sword like it’s supposed to be wielded. Yum.)

So, the war is pointless and boring, which necessitates that we distract ourselves through an indulgence such as the Pakistan Fashion Week.

Sadly, however, this is not our only current distraction. Instead, we as a nation are engaged in a plethora of activities that can only qualify as efforts to quell the yawns that follow hearing about the military’s supposed advances in previously-unheard-of places such as Kabal and Makeen. Some of these activities are listed below.

1. Indulging in political speculation

This is and has always remained our favorite pastime, and nothing has changed ever since the war started. One can, in fact, deduce the importance the public attaches to a given national issue by looking at the strategic placement of news items related to the issue on the front page of the daily paper. Thus, on a day when PM Gillani made some nonsensical statement about the NRO and the military entered the crucially important Taliban stronghold of Sararogha (another previously-unheard-of place) and killed a fair number of militants along the way, the former news item was splashed across the front page with an accompanying picture (always a plus when the picture subject is dashing PM Gillani) and a minor, 3-inch long box containing information on the latter.

Other important speculative questions that are probably being asked on a daily basis include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. How tight did Nawaz Sharif tie the naala on his shalwar today? What effect did it have on his bowel movements? Consequently, depending on the presence or not of constipation, how did he deal with President Zardari’s latest offer of reconciliation?
2. Which finger did Altaf Hussain use to scratch his beer belly in London today? Did he use the middle finger? If so, was it an implicit fuck-you to President Zardari signaling a break in the coalition after a year of happy times? Instead, was it an index finger? If so, was he praying while drunk? (But it’s already been established that in English it’s drink, not drunk, according to Ranbir Kapoor in his latest. Yay, Bollywood reference!)
3. Whose picture did President Zardari jerk off to last night? Was it, by any chance, film actress (and recently rejuvenated TV hostess) Noor? Free mango shake in the winter for anyone guessing the origins of the Noor reference. Is his consistent masturbation the reason for his glowing, ever-present smile? If so, can you construct a counterfactual predicting the behavior of Zardari had he not been so trigger-happy?

Interestingly enough, all three questions can be turned into respectable and relevant doctoral theses in political science. That is, after all, the current stature and relevance of that silly discipline, is it not? Hah, score! Sohaib Athar – 1, entire LUMS Social Science department – 0. Bazinga!

2. Gossiping about the sex lives of female politicians

While this was always a fun thing to do at social dinners, it really became part of the national discourse after Firdous Ashiq Awan, our deliciously charming and well-mannered Federal Minister for Social Welfare, accused, on national television and in a live show, Kashmala Tariq, that certified hottie from the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam), of starting her political career from the Heera Mandi (symbolically, of course. Kashmala did not actually run elections and win a seat from there, although that would’ve been immensely fun and ironic) and entering Parliament from someone’s bedroom.

The video is available below, although if you’re as much of a pervert as I am, you’ve probably seen it already.

Now this whole incident would’ve been highly sad if it wasn’t probably true. According to a good friend of mine who’s a treasure trove of information on controversial topics in Pakistani politics (and, for some reason, has also become a full-fledged conspiracy theorist who starts his conversations with me with, “Sohaib shehzaday, how are you, yaar? Want some chai? Oye, did you hear about the CIA angle on the Lahore bomb blast yesterday? No? Yaar! Acha, let me explain…”) (Asalam-o-alaikum Munir bhai!), this is the story of Kashmala Tariq’s rise to political ascendancy: she was dating (read: giving head to) former Minister of Commerce, and one of the richest men in the country, Humayun Akhtar Khan after returning from England where she had studied. He used to take her to all the social gatherings he attended. Then, then-President Musharraf saw her, was stunned by her beauty (one should give credit where it’s due – Kashmala would make me eat out of her palm) and said to her, “you should be with me, not with that loser. Come, and I’ll make you member of Parliament.” She then proceeded to join the National Assembly on a reserved seat for women after the 2002 elections, and remained Mush’s girl for quite some time after.

Sad but probably true.

3. Watching pointless cricket matches

Pakistan and New Zealand just finished playing a ridiculously pointless 3-match one-day international cricket series where our team, sadly, performed miserably. A much more exciting and interesting cricket series that we should have focused on during the same time was being played in India, where the hosts were playing a second-string Australia that beat the crap out of them.

That series was fun because, as just mentioned, a second-string Australia beat the crap out of India. Further, however, it contained one of the best innings of Sachin Tendulkar’s career, where he scored a massive 175 and almost lead his team to chase down a fucking mammoth 350. Sadly, however, he could not finish (yet again – oh, how I miss Brian Charles!) and got out painfully close to the end, and his teammates squandered the chance and made fools of themselves. The said innings was also interesting because everyone thought he’d break Saeed bhai’s record of the highest individual score in one-day cricket (that of 194, of course), but fell perilously close. Now had he done it, that would have been a major, major disaster for us. 100 dead in Peshawar, 40 dead in Lahore, gang rape in Karachi, Christians burned alive in Gojra. National tragedy? Nah uh. In perverted little Pakistan, Saeed Anwar losing the world record = national tragedy.

This of course needs perspective. In terms of national accomplishments by Pakistan ever since it was created, Saeed Anwar’s world record is as high as third on the list, behind only the 1992 cricket World Cup win and the country going nuclear in 1998. (Interestingly, Saeed bhai’s record was in 1997. I had no idea the 1990’s were such a kickass time for the country! I guess the (albeit brief) dawn of democracy does bring about national happiness. Go Ronald Inglehart!)

Of course, the fact that Saeed bhai’s record has remained intact despite many batsmen coming tantalizingly close to it over the last decade is proof of the power of prayer. And given that Sachin, despite being on song and playing one of the best innings of his life and not providing any chances to the bowlers and not looking like ever getting out, perished with a soft lollipop of a dismissal only 19 runs short of the record, no more conclusive proof is needed that Allah > Rama.

I am so glad I was born on this side of the border. Phew. Now I can die in peace.

Sitting on my toilet seat the other day, however, I realized that there is no such list for, you know, men of chaos. They do, after all, have mass appeal. In some cases, they even have all the ingredients of sex appeal: charisma, intrigue and mystery, good looks, a devil-may-care attitude. Why, thus, should they remain outside the purview of those that define what is sexy?

To correct this imbalance, below is my humble contribution. I have restricted the list to Pakistani nationals, and those too recent ones, simply because my expertise outside this time and space is restricted. Others are welcome to bring to my attention terrorists who, besides killing and mutilating women the world over, have also made them wet. So to speak.

5. Ajmal Kasab

Ajmal Kasab is to Pakistani terrorism what Hrithik Roshan was to Bollywood – he came out of complete obscurity, as a total underdog, and delivered one mega performance that made everyone sit up, take notice, and crap in their pants. What he was lacking in terms of Hrithik’s legendary dance moves, he gained by generally prancing around nonchalantly in a city of twenty million people (which, incidentally, happened to be Hrithik’s home) with a loaded machine gun in his hand. Similar to Hrithik Roshan, however, he is destined to remain a one-hit wonder: just like Hrithik’s career seems to have fizzled out (yes, yes, I know he has given hits, but come on, who cares about him anymore?), Ajmal is probably going to continue embarrassing himself in a fun trial in court and will eventually either be put to death or see jail for the rest of his wretched life.

Now, seeing his picture you might ask from which angle does Ajmal Kasab look sexy? He is, after all, only 20ish. I will give you that. But you fail to understand the appeal such boyish charms hold for the tween and teen audience – he is the perfect cute boy that will drive many girls crazy rushing out of puberty. He is a veritable Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys from our part of the world. And therein lays his sex appeal, bringing him to number five in our list.

4. Masood Azhar

Maulana Masood Azhar is a surprise entrant to this list (well, granted there aren’t too many sexy Pakistani terrorists to choose from in the first place). He is fat, has a big bushy beard, and wears that god-awful Arabic headdress (an example of another futile attempt by a Pakistani maulvi to become more Arabic in the false impression that the trueness of our religion lies in that part of the world. Idiot.) He owes his appearance on this list, clearly, not to his physical appearance (which is god-awful by all means) but, instead, to the sheer power of his oratory skills. He is, simply put, one of the most passionate and hair-raising public speakers I have ever heard. (Disclaimer: I have never actually heard him in person. I have merely listened to his work on Youtube, which, in today’s world, is good enough. If you want to hear him in person, go to Bahawalpur.) He specializes in the usual armed jihad message, asking you to get up from your ass and get to work in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, and other assorted global hotspots. And he backs it up with his deeds too, unlike your average neighborhood maulvi: in the 1990’s he was arrested in India for charges of terrorism, and was eventually released in a dramatic hijacking episode in exchange for hostages of an Indian airplane. He then came back to Pakistan and founded Jaish-e-Mohammad, which used to specialize in Kashmir stuff but has now apparently turned its back on its paymasters and is having bomb blasts throughout urban Punjab. All very nasty stuff.

Anyway, do not take my word regarding his superior oration. Hear for yourself:

Here he is narrating his tale of release from the Indian prison – perfect for the average rightwing Pakistani.

Here he is explaining why Mullah Omar is the biggest badass alive.

And for a look at his humorous side (you know how humor adds to sex appeal):

Here he is explaining why TV is evil. Yes, TV.

And here he is poking fun at the entire Barelwi sect for their way-too-many religious festivals (definitely an inside joke that requires a certain appreciation of factional/sectarian rivalries within Sunni Islam):

(For my non-desi readers, if any: all links are in Urdu. If you don’t know the language, learn it. Pakistan is the most important country in the world, according to the Americans, so you might do well to learn the national language, ahem ahem.)

3. Brahamdagh Bugti

Brahamdagh Bugti is the grandson of the late Nawab Akbar Bugti of Balochistan and happens to be the only member of this list who is not an Islamic terrorist. On the contrary, he is probably Balochistan’s only hope for staving off a full-scale Mullah Omar-led Taliban takeover. His ideals, and those of his supporters, are purely secular in nature. Sadly for Pakistan, that offers no reprieve, as this kind gentleman is fighting for Baloch separatism and independence. Yes, that is correct. He is a modern-day Mujeeb ur Rehman, the only difference being that he is a dozen times sexier. Brahamdagh’s sex appeal is quite conventional – he is a man’s man. Rugged mountain dweller, he has been in hiding for two years, ever since our beloved Army murdered his grandpa. His story also features a fair degree of intrigue and mystery, another constant for high sex appeal: he is rumored (apparently there are pictures) to be regularly meeting Indian and Afghan intelligence people, getting money and arms for them, and generally being a big fat traitor to his homeland. Well, you know what they say, the enemy of my enemy…

The picture below shows Brahamdagh looking more manly than I can ever hope to become: gun on his shoulder, funky hunter’s cap, hunting away in a field. Man, that’s fucking hot, Brahamdagh. And I’m a total sucker for his name too. Bra-ham-dagh. Yum yum.

2. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh is a thinking man’s terrorist. A graduate of Aitchison College in Lahore (no doubt Pakistan’s premier and most elitist high school – my thoughts on it can be found here) and the London School of Economics and Political Science, Ahmed Omar Saeed is as cerebral as they come. And from what I have heard and seen of women, cerebral is hot shit. He also has a fair degree of intrigue surrounding him: apparently, he was first recruited by British intelligence (yes, British. Not every fucking problem in the world is our fault, yo) and was then taken on by our folks to be groomed for Kashmir. Arrested, he was Masood Azhar’s roomie in prison, and was eventually released courtesy the same hijacking drama that led to Maulana sahab’s outing. In sum, him and the Maulana are certified chuddy buddies.

He has become famous for being sentenced to life imprisonment in the Daniel Pearl murder case. In a way, thus, he is not a terrorist per say, but just a common murderer. But since we are intellectually lazy, and since I am sitting in the U.S. right now with the FBI probably keeping tabs on me, it is quite safe to say that every person ever implicated in jihadi ideas is a certified global terrorist menace.

Ahmed Omar Saeed is currently in Hyderabad prison, but is apparently not languishing. Quite the contrary, he is having a ball of a time there. He has surrounded himself with books on history, economics and other intense stuff and reads them regularly. The jail authorities change his guards often because if they spend time with Ahmed Omar Saeed long enough they start coming under his cerebral spell. He is, thus, a veritable Hannibal Lecter! And you know how easily women get weak knees thinking about Hannibal Lecter.

Ahmed Omar Saeed also exudes power, another turn on: apparently he used to phone Musharraf from his jail cell threatening him with attacks if he did not release him. And apparently the two attacks on Mush in Rawalpindi were arranged by him. Quite a string-puller from behind bars, I dare say. Hotness overall. Worthy number two on our list.

1. Hakeemullah Mehsud

I debated long and hard about whether Hakeemullah should be number one or two on this list. In the end, his dashing good looks and charming smile did me in. My heart fluttered once or twice and I could not resist making him my numero uno – officially the sexiest Pakistani terrorist ever to have lived!

If Ajmal Kasab was the one-hit wonder Hrithik Roshan, Hakeemullah is to Pakistani terrorism what Akshay Kumar was to Bollywood: stunning good looks, wonderfully built physique, highly underrated and a total underdog yet rising within the ranks and proving one’s worth repeatedly, constantly struggling below the top stars for eons and then finally making one’s mark and attaining tog dog position after a grueling succession battle.

Yes, indeed, Hakeemullah is your typical Pathan – tall, handsome, charmingly rustic. Never has a man looked hotter in that winter cap that he constantly adorns (someone should tell him summer’s just ending).

Hakeemullah is also every boy’s dream – at the mere age of 28 (okay, Pathans are notorious when it comes to their ages. He’s probably 34ish), he is in control of one of Pakistan’s largest and most successful enterprises – the Tehrik-e-Taliban. He has risen through the ranks of the organization utilizing the right connections but also displaying a fair amount of skill and expertise at his job (he is considered particularly nasty). And now, after a succession struggle, he sits at the top – one of Pakistan’s most dynamic and youngest CEOs. Hakeemullah, you have arrived. Who needs fucking venture capitals or the Karachi Stock Exchange to seed capital when, like you, one controls a national (nay, international) multi-million dollar ring of kidnapping, drugs, donations, and what not. You are a modern-day Pablo Escobar!

Of course, it adds to his intrigue the rumor that he might not be alive! Yes, they (and here they equals Rehman Malik, the epitome of truth and integrity) say that you are dead and they’ve flown in a lookalike cousin from Afghanistan to impersonate you. Now isn’t that fascinating?

Is he alive?

Is he dead?

Is he a ghost?

Where is he?

DHAN TE NAN!!

And now for the ugly

Meanwhile, while we’re at it, here’s the ugliest terrorist ever made: Juhayman al-Otaibi, famous for laying siege of the Holy Kaaba at Makkah in 1979 to topple the corrupt and debauch Saudi Arabian government (an attack that we conveniently blamed on the Americans/Israelis/infidel Iranian Shiites. Yay, false propaganda!).

Our best conversations, however, were through Facebook comments. Usually, we would be sitting in our own rooms and talking to each other virtually.

Going through some old photos, I came across one such time. It was indeed a most fun evening. I share the entire conversation below, in all its inanity.

The context is a photo of mine he had tagged, in an album called “California.” The photo was titled “Dinner with OCD roommate.” (He likes to think I have obsessive compulsive disorder because I tell him how to put things in the kitchen.)

Me: technically, you are grammatically incorrect. you should say “OC flatmate” or “flatmate who has OCD.” just wanted to point it out, you know.

And btw, how the fuck is this photo in an album called California, when I’ve never even been close to the place?

Him: Yes, but I love you so much, I can’t have an album without you in it. Naw, I like to have the first and the last picture of a travel album be a home picture.

Me: oh, thats v cute. but why is the last picture of this album not of home then?

Him: Because there is another album in the works genius. This is just part 1

Also, much thanks for the grammatical input.

Me: well then it should be labelled “California Part I!” rather than “California!” And what’s with the silly exclamation mark? How would you feel if someone wrote “Balochistan!”?

Him: I would think: “Holy @#$! Our army @#$#$ up again!”

Was the Mummy called The Mummy Part 1? Maybe I will call my second album The Return of California!

Me: the army is not the root cause of every problem in pakistan, you neo-marxist luminite fucktard.

Him: Says the Punjabi guy.

Yar mein bata raha hun, koi parhai nahee honee aaj. Let’s watch Top Gun instead. Come out of your room.

Me: punjabis are not the root cause of every problem in pakistan, you mohajir-hugging karachiite.

yar im sorry i am about to upload an album of facebook. then i will watch two episodes of how i met your mother, and then go to sleep. i have to wake up early morning and learn about jihad. oh, oops, that sounds totally dangerous and reckless on facebook. let me rephrase: i have to take a class in harvard, the most well-respected educational institution, about the history of jihad (in whose final paper i will naturally espouse the idea that it is a dead and irrelevant concept and its supporters should be bombed out of their rustic caves)

Him: I will have you know I am a Punjabi and am hence unable to hug anything, courtesy my fat tond.

Re your jihad training: I sympathize with your stance. I too shall attend a class on Democratic Theory soon, at the same august institution where I shall without a doubt argue in favor of the most auspicious democratic polity that surpasses all others for the sole reason that it is Western. I too shall then proceed to advocate the bombing of any (possibly oil rich middle eastern persian) state that attempts to incorporate the medieval Islamic political system into it’s every day life. Either the buggers are with us, or against us.

Me: acha dont go all intellectual on me. i hate smarty-pants. and you are a disgrace to all punjabis. you have no tond. you, on the contrary, like to jog and swim. eek!

Him: That is true. I shall withdraw myself from the generalized pool of fat Punjabis with tonds. *walks away into the sunset, sniffling*

End of conversation. Sigh. I miss him.

(This was such a fucking lazy thing to do, what I just did above. Basically just a shit poor copy-paste job. Just another way to procrastinate at my summer internship. )
Posted in Uncategorized ]]> http://gulbadan.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/a-conversation-on-facebook/feed/ 1 Sohaib http://gulbadan.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/the-twenty20-world-cup-a-constant-hunt-for-streams/ http://gulbadan.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/the-twenty20-world-cup-a-constant-hunt-for-streams/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 22:36:00 +0000 Gulbadan http://gulbadan.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/the-twenty20-world-cup-a-constant-hunt-for-streams ]]> First, something about the IPL this year, that concluded just before the Twenty20 World Cup. I had decided to boycott the damn thing as it was not featuring any Pakistani player. I found that to be insulting and pointless, and thus made it a point to not watch a single match and, essentially, ignore the competition’s existence. I swear, I did not watch any game. I did once give in to temptation and decided to see what was going on, but seeing Yuvraj Singh bat pissed me off even more, and after two balls I shut it off. And look how things have turned out – the kids that were ostracized from cricket’s big, glamorous clusterfuck now fucking own the world cup. While everyone else in the world was busy ogling at sexy Katrina Kaif (even though I boycotted the tournament, I know from my regular following of Bollywood websites that she did, indeed, perform), our boys were probably staring at TV screens in their homes wondering what could have been. Fuck that shit, boys, you did it without the IPL, hence proving the absolute worthlessness of the competition. In sum, screw you, IPL, you over-glorified domestic competition! You have been rendered irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. To add insult to injury, Pakistan’s star performer in the final, the-usually-innocuous Abdul Razzaq, came from ICL, the equally-irrelevant-but-thankfully-less-pretentious-rival to IPL. Oh, how things turn out!

1. Mohammad Zahid
2. Shoaib Akhtar
3. Mohammad Sami
4. Rana Naveed ul Hasan
5. Mohammad Asif
6. Sohail Tanvir

Almost every day while walking to class or to run the usual errands, I see a man sitting on the stairs of his townhouse talking on the phone and smoking a cigarette. He is quite old, has a mane of bushy, unruly grey hair, and always appears lost. When I return home in the evening, I see him there again. Then, late at night, when I head out to have my final cigarette of the day (my house is sadly non-smoking, a regulation I have begun to flout recently), I see him again – he’s sitting on the same stairs, looking into the distance, and enjoying his drags.

I never spoke to him or even acknowledged him while passing by, always intrigued and fascinating but a bit afraid. Until today, that is.

I ventured out at night to have a cigarette (even though I now sneakily smoke inside sometimes, the weather was rather nice so it was worth enjoying the deathstick in fresh air), and walked up to my usual bench in the corner where I sit in solitude and think big thoughts while slowly reducing my life. This time, however, the mysterious smoking uncle was sitting in the same area, rather than on his stairs as usual.

I quietly sat down on my bench of choice, exchanged a smile with him (our first acknowledgement of each other’s existence in the entire year), and lit my stick. Suddenly, he spoke, and that too in heavily accented English: “Tonight is a great night for smoking, isn’t it?”

I smiled hesitantly, and said, “Yes, it definitely is,” and would have ended the conversation then had I not noticed his heavy accent. Now I was mildly intrigued. So I straight up asked him, “Uhh, where are you from?” (In retrospect, I realize that’s a pretty rude start to a conversation.)

“Iran” he replied very slow.

“OH” I went, a bit too loud. I had spent the whole day catching up on the mayhem and protests and election rigging and everything going on in that country, and so naturally was quite excited to meet an Iranian in flesh. “I am from Pakistan,” I finally added.

“Oh, that’s nice,” he said, smiling, almost happy to hear that.

“So, what do you do here,” was my next obvious question.

“Oh, I write.”

“I’m sorry?” I blurted out. My bad. See, I was expecting something like “I am a professor of history/political science/international relations/insert-important-sounding-subject-of-choice.”

“I am a writer,” he replied, still very polite and gentle.

“So, what do you write? Novels? Scripts?”

“Yes, novels mostly. Or stories. I am writing a novel about censorship right now. My agent is trying to find publishers around the world.”

Me, now obviously intrigued: “So, have you written before this, or is this your first novel?”

“Oh, yes, a lot. I have about eleven books or so.”

Holy fuck! That’s a lot of books.

“So, this book is about censorship. Are all your past books about political stuff?”

“Well, in Iran, if you’re a dissident and you’re not writing for the government, all the books are about political stuff.”

“Oh” was all I could say. “So how long have you been here?”

“I have been here three years. Sadly because of my books, I can’t go back.”

“Wow. I’m sorry,” was again all I could say. “Umm, so your family lives here too?”

“No, my wife and daughter are back in Iran. The Americans don’t give my daughter a visa, she has tried five times. Has taken a lot of expensive trips to Istanbul and Ankara. By the way, what does Musharraf do now?”

“Oh, Musharraf? Hehe. Well, umm, nothing really. He pretty much tours the world giving lectures and making money, and lives on a farmhouse outside the capital, stealing electricity. Nothing exciting. So, umm, things are bad in your country right now.”

“Yes, very bad,” he says, suddenly turning very gloomy. “I was quite hopeful, but it’s all very fake. Very fake. And our president, he’s such a shame.”

“Is he popular in Iran?”

“Yes, a little bit. People believe him. They make a mistake.”

“Well, I hope things work out. There was a protest today in Harvard Square, I believe,” I said, trying to sound consolatory.

“Yes, yes, I know. I went to that. It’s all very sad.” He then paused for a bit. “And how come your English is so good?” he suddenly asked.

“Pardon me?”

“Your English. It’s very good. How is that?”

“Oh, hehe, well, umm, British legacy, I guess. We were ruled by them for 200 years, so some of our education system is in English. It helps us now. Everyone in the world speaks English,” I tried to explain.

“Heh, yes, that is true. In Iran they don’t teach English well. I wish I could speak it well, write in it. I have a translator, I have to write in Farsi and get everything translated. It is very difficult.”

“Oh. Umm, if you don’t mind me asking, what is your name sir?”

“Hmm? Oh, heh, Shahriyar.”

“In case I want to read your books, I should know what to search for.”

“Yes, of course, Shahriyar Mandanipour.” He then went ahead and spelled out his last name, letter by letter, so that I would remember.

“Right. I’ll definitely go to the book store this week and try to find some of your books.”

“Yes, they are on the Amazon website.”

“Okay, I will check that out. Right, I need to head back now. My laundry must have dried,” I said getting up. “I hope things get better in your country soon.”

“And in yours too,” he said.

And I proceeded to pick up my dried laundry, came back home, sorted and folded and put away my clothes, and plopped in front of my computer to do a quick Google search on the dude. I forgot how he spelt his last name. All I could remember was a Shahriyar M-something-pour. Hehe. After a few tries, I was finally able to locate a Shahriyar Mandanipour. Sounded like him. So, I clicked.

And, oh my Deobandi God, was I in for a shock. Turns out, the quiet, almost-scary looking, mysterious smoking uncle I was seeing every day and never acknowledging is one of Iran’s most famous writers. Mr Mandanipour is a true artistic legend. And the book that he was talking about is actually out now. It’s called “Censoring an Iranian Love Story.” I couldn’t believe it.

Now I will definitely be reading it, and all of his other work. And hopefully I’ll run into him again, and bum a cigarette off him, and finally have a mildly interesting story to share with my kids.
Posted in Uncategorized ]]> http://gulbadan.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/the-mysterious-smoking-uncle-who-turned-out-to-be-a-legend/feed/ 7 Sohaib http://gulbadan.wordpress.com/2009/05/16/an-application-of-microeconomics-supply-and-demand-in-the-pakistani-market-for-suicide-bombers/ http://gulbadan.wordpress.com/2009/05/16/an-application-of-microeconomics-supply-and-demand-in-the-pakistani-market-for-suicide-bombers/#comments Sat, 16 May 2009 21:34:00 +0000 Gulbadan http://gulbadan.wordpress.com/2009/05/16/an-application-of-microeconomics-supply-and-demand-in-the-pakistani-market-for-suicide-bombers ]]>
Time to sound like a total self-absorbed douchebag. So I wrote this article for an online magazine run by a couple of acquaintances titled The Green Kaleidoscope. This appeared in the May 2009 edition, and you can see the original here. Some people have found it funny; others think it is offensive, nonsensical and uncalled for.

The other day I was attending a seminar titled “Youth radicalization in Pakistan” where the speaker mentioned in passing that there now seems to exist a sort of market for suicide bombers in the country – a market that functions like any other. Just like you would go to Ehsan Chappal Store to buy shoes, you can now buy or hire suicide bombers for your esteemed missions.

This got me thinking as to how this market functions in practice, and if textbook microeconomics can help me comprehend it. Turns out, it can. After just a few hours of incoherent thinking, I have been able to decipher how the invisible hand of free markets plays its role in this particular domain, and how the supply of and demand for suicide bombers is equilibrated to provide the optimal levels of quantity of bombings. I present my analysis below, and suggest areas of further research to improve our understanding of this recent but rapidly developing market.

What is the “price” in this case?

As we all know, every goods or services market has two elements: how much quantity will be produced and consumed (the “quantity”) and for how much will it be sold for (the “price”). While the quantity in this case is clear (the number of suicide bombers), what’s the “price”? Surely willing bombers don’t sit in the aisles of Al-Fatah with price tags on them waiting to be bought. Instead, the “price” in this case is the compensation received by families of suicide bombers for their services. These are often in lakhs of rupees, and thus we will use that as a unit of price in our analysis.

The supply of suicide bombers

1. Deriving the supply curve

Holding everything else constant, an increase in the compensation paid to families increases the number of suicide bombers willing to provide their services. This is quite rational: if you offer a broke, unemployed, hopeless soul one lakh rupees to blow himself up, he might be a bit hesitant, but he’s surely yours if you suggest two. Thus, as the level of compensation goes up, more and more potential bombers enter the market. This results in a conventional upward-sloping supply curve, as seen in the diagram below, which should be familiar to students of basic economics.

2. Shifts in the supply curve – what changes supply besides the compensation?

i) Drone attacks

No points for guessing that these kill people, and hence increase anger in the population. Also, they often leave victims’ family members and relatives with little else to do except seek retribution. This increases the supply of suicide bombers, as more enter the market, and more bombers are now available at any given compensation than before. In graphical terms, this means that the supply curve shifts to the right. An area of further research is to determine the exact, quantitative impact of drone attacks on the supply of bombers. A simple empirical study, for example, can try to tease out the causal, incremental effect of one additional drone attack on suicide bombings in Pakistan. A friend has already begun collecting data for this purpose, and hopes to get his research funded by the Jamaat-e-Islami or the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf.

ii) Changes in preferences

If I use an old Nokia phone and my best friend buys an iphone and starts using it in front of me, I will be very, very tempted to buy one as well. This is true – if I could afford an iphone, I’d ditch my crappy Nokia tomorrow. So, preferences matter, and can be changed by circumstances. This applies equally well in the market under study. If my best friend or fellow tribesman becomes a jihadi and declares that the mission in his life is to mutilate apostate Pakistani Army soldiers and go away literally in a blaze of glory, I’d be tempted to get inspired and follow suit. In technical terms, this results in an increase in the supply of suicide bombers at any given rate of compensation. The supply curve, thus, shifts rightward again.

iii) Education and reverse indoctrination

The more educated you are, the less likely you are to get inspired by half-baked theories of victimization, or get jealous of your friend’s iphone, so to speak. At least that’s the theory behind investing in education to reduce extremism. The supply curve shifts left, reducing supply at any given rate of compensation. This, though, remains unproven in practice and further research and empirical study is suggested in this area.

iv) Economic incentives and jobs

The theory is that if youngsters have jobs that provide stable incomes allowing them to lead respectable lives, they are less likely to be induced by the compensation provided by suicide bombings. If this works, the supply curve shifts to the left, reducing supply at any given rate of compensation. This theory holds merit, and I have been told that it has been tested in Iraq to get support of Sunni groups fighting American forces.

The demand for suicide bombers

1. Deriving the demand curve

Suicide bombers are demanded by those who want to use them to do, well, whatever they do. The usual suspects apply here: Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its various local chapters, other assorted militant organizations like Lashkar-e-Toiba, Harkatul Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammad etcetera, and, as some would allege, even our patriotic brethren in the intelligence and security community. These organizations reveal their preferences for suicide bombers by their willingness to pay the required compensations to families.

Given that the resources at the disposal of these organizations are not limitless (at least till now), holding everything else constant, the quantity of suicide bombers demanded is inversely related to the going rate of compensation. In simpler words, the cheaper they come, the more we want. This results in a conventional, downward-sloping demand curve for suicide bombers, essentially identical to what you would obtain for the other precious Pakistani commodity: Ehsan Chappal Store shoes.

2. Shifts in the demand curve – what changes demand besides the compensation?

i) Military action against militant organizations in Pakistan

After suffering casualties in military operations, these organizations crave revenge and thus want more shock troops and suicide bombers, as they cannot really compete effectively in conventional warfare involving devilish equipment like gunship helicopters. Thus, military action increases the demand for suicide bombers, pushing the demand curve to the right – more bombers are demanded at any given compensation rate.

ii) Cultural events

Cultural events are great targets for making a statement, and so increase the demand for suicide bombers. Thus, one should expect higher demand in seasons when cultural events are in abundance. Again, the demand curve will shift towards the right to reflect that. An interesting case is that of the winter wedding season. Soon, the impact of this increased demand for suicide bombers will be felt in the wedding season, where there is an abundance of haram music, general fahashi and terribly un-Islamic levels of skin show. This is actually quite useful for the suicide bombers’ market to remain efficient, as it counters the lull in demand that is experienced in the winter months due to a let up in fighting up in the northwest. Thus, in the future the demand should remain smooth and strong throughout the year, rather than showing erratic peaks and troughs as before. As any economist will tell you, this is good news for market efficiency!

iii) Price and availability of substitute services

If rocket launchers are more easily and cheaply available, if more troops surrender to the militants due to the low morale of security forces, or if improvised explosive devices become easier to produce, then the demand for carnage is satisfied elsewhere, and there is no need to hire more suicide bombers. Thus, as conventional microeconomics will tell us, favorable prices and availability of substitute services reduces the demand for suicide bombers. This results in a shift in the demand curve to the left.

Equilibrium in the market for suicide bombers

Put the supply and demand curves together and, viola, we get the equilibrium level of quantity of suicide bombers and the rate of compensation to their families!

(Of course, actual numbers here will be of great help. This remains another area for future empirical research.)
Briefly, let us see how a typical equilibrium will look like in the market for Ehsan Chappal Store shoes, using a similar level of basic microeconomic analysis.
As you can see, the similarities are uncanny. Readers are left to draw relevant conclusions and snicker at subtle ironies, if any exist.

The role of madressahs

In this market, madressahs often act as a sort of clearinghouse, gathering the supply of suicide bombers in one centralized location and allowing consumers (the various militant organizations) to pick and choose and purchase services with relative ease. Their role is similar to stock exchanges in financial markets and shopping malls in markets for consumer goods. Without them, these militant organizations would have to track down each individual supplier, thus probably prohibitively increasing their transaction costs. Thus, in this sense the madressahs increase the efficiency of this market manifold, and their role here should be appreciated.

Some important experiments

To make our analysis more relevant to current affairs, and to allow our model to predict future outcomes, let us now conduct some pertinent experiments to see what happens to this market in certain situations.

Experiment 1: the Lal Masjid fiasco

An incident such as the Lal Masjid episode, where military action is taken against armed zealots (especially when they happen to be teenage girls) has a profound impact on the market for suicide bombers. It increases the demand for bombers by increasing the necessity for retribution and revenge that militant organizations feel. Further, it increases the supply of suicide bombers due to both the victim factor as well as a change in the preferences of local population, inciting more potential suicide bombers to enter the market. Thus, both the supply and demand curves shift to the right.

The effect on the quantity of suicide bombers is clear: it increases significantly. Whoops.

The effect on the going rate of compensation is ambiguous though, and depends on the relative size of the shifts in both demand and supply. For example, if the demand increases more than supply, the rate of compensation goes up. In the interesting case of equal increases in the magnitude of supply and demand, the equilibrating compensation rate remains the same as before, as shown in the diagram below.

Experiment 2: investment in propaganda

An increased level of anti-state, anti-imperialist, anti-U.S. or anti-insert-enemy-of-choice propaganda also affects the market. This propaganda can include the following: a higher number of Al-Qaeda videos bashing the West and propounding global jihad, an increase in anti-U.S., anti-Zionist and/or anti-India speeches by key religious figures and opinion makers especially during Friday prayer sermons, a proliferation of jihadi literature and multimedia both online and off, and, finally, more television appearances by world-famous defense strategist Zaid Hamid.

However it is done, an increase in propaganda increases the supply of suicide bombers as it alters the preferences of the suppliers, making them more amenable to serving the true and just path and shunning worldly, materialist comforts emblematic of Western cultural dominance. This results in a rightward shift of the supply curve. The impact on the market is quite clear: the quantity of suicide bombers increases, whereas the rate of compensation paid to families fall, as there is just way too much supply of bombers to get a competitive bargain for the orphaned families.

In sum, this is an important investment that the militant organizations can make, as they are the beneficiaries in the new market equilibrium. An area of further research is to conduct a cost-benefit and net present value analysis to assess how the costs of this investment are providing returns to these organizations.

Experiment 3: Balochistan declaring independence

If Balochistan declares independence, it is not expected to have any effect on the market for suicide bombers in Pakistan. No one cares enough about the Baloch for them to matter.
Posted in Uncategorized ]]> http://gulbadan.wordpress.com/2009/05/16/an-application-of-microeconomics-supply-and-demand-in-the-pakistani-market-for-suicide-bombers/feed/ 5 Sohaib http://gulbadan.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/the-mullah-versus-the-chief/ http://gulbadan.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/the-mullah-versus-the-chief/#comments Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:00:00 +0000 Gulbadan http://gulbadan.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/the-mullah-versus-the-chief ]]> Now that the Chief Justice is back in his rightful seat (yay, people power! Yay, lawyers and hot student activist chicks! And, of course, yay, Nawaz Sharif my hero and savior!), the question on everyone’s minds is how he will deal with, amongst a plethora of other issues, the parallel justice system supposedly propping up in parts of the country – one that at least superficially relies on Islamic law and in practice usually boils down to a good, solid and well-deserved spanking for adulterous and loose teenage girls.

Well, I have the answer. How, you may ask? Simple enough – I am an expert on such matters. Having attended a grand total of zero demonstrations and protests in support of an independent judiciary, I am well-versed with all matters related to how the CJP thinks and operates, the sly old fox that he is. And, having been a regular at Eid prayers all my life, I also consider myself to be an expert at understanding how people aim to manipulate Islamic teachings to achieve an agenda of global domination aiming to create a new world order in the long run and making the Interior Ministry shiver and wet their pants with fear in the short. Thus, using my proven expertise, I have foreseen a conversation that shall be taking place in the near future between the CJP and Mullah Fazlullah of Swat – a veritable ideological showdown, if you will.

The conversation goes as follows: the CJP fires the first salvo by taking suo moto action against Fazlullah’s regime, and asking him to appear before his majesty at the earliest. It takes the shape of the following letter.

Respected Mr Fazlullah,

I am almost tempted to start my letter with a glorious Asalam-o-alaikum since you obviously are a man of faith, but feel that official protocol requires me to abstain and keep this completely professional and, of course, secular.

Sir, I must bring to your attention that I strongly object to your subversion of our esteemed legal system in the pristine valley of Swat. The disrespect shown by your cohort to our constitutional values undermines our ability to provide effective justice to the poor lot in the valley, and makes a mockery of the strong institutions that we have painstakingly built throughout the country for the past six decades. Your actions are also a general nuisance for my fellow legal community members in Swat, as they are now effectively unemployed and thus labeled failures in society.

Furthermore, your qualifications to provide justice are messy at best – neither have you bribed officials administering bar exams in order to gain your license to practice law, nor have you earned your wings by arguing effectively in front of a competent judge and habitually beginning your sentences with a requisite and elegant “Me Laard”, and nor are you cognizant of the fact that the founder of this nation was a lawyer and thus consider the legal profession to be inherently pristine and noble. Oh, you also clearly would not look an appropriate amount of dashing in a black coat and tie. Finally, by monopolizing violence and the use of force, you have made useless our allies in the provision of justice – our esteemed friends in the police department.

Therefore, sir, I forcefully object to your legal system and to you as an arbitrator of any value or legitimacy. To borrow a catchphrase from my (and allow me to gloat here) thousands of supporters, “lathi goli ki sarkar nahin chalay gi.” (There is a second “nahin chalay gi” that ideally should end the sentence for extra emphasis and poetic charm, but I do not want the tone of this letter to be considered uncouth or sarak chhaap.)

In light of all that I have pointed out above, I summon you to my Court to explain your lewd and obnoxious behavior, your self-aggrandizing posturing, your revulsion to the legal system espoused by me, your monopolization of force, and, finally, your men’s behavior in the flogging incident (which, I privately admit, was a thoroughly fascinating and surreal experience, even for someone from the utterly dilapidated Balochistan like myself).

Regards,

Your revitalized CJP

Mullah Radio receives the letter, and responds immediately as follows:

In the Name of God the Most Beneficent and Most Merciful,

Asalam-o-alaikum Chaudhry sahib,

I must start by congratulating you on your stunning reinstatement. While I am personally rather indifferent to the cause, and have remained so for the past two years (having been busy, as you know, in consolidating the Emirate), I listened to the updates of the Long March regularly on my radio for sheer amusement and entertainment – after all it does get a wee bit boring when there’s no snow left to ski on in Malam Jabba. I also admit I smiled a little when I heard the Interior Ministry requesting citizens not to join the procession as suicide attacks courtesy my henchmen were feared. I am thoroughly pleased to know I have become important enough to be used as a means to achieve political ends by these incompetent infidels. It appears I am now, intriguingly enough, the new version of “so jao warna bhao ajaye ga” in this case. This suggests that the Almighty is helping me in my just cause.

Now for the matter at hand – Chaudhry sahib, I must say that I respectfully decline your summons and, in fact, want to use this opportunity to bring to your attention that your approach is both futile and ludicrous. Allow me to explain for your benefit.

Firstly, I question your legitimacy to be the most superior judge in Pakistan. Not only have you not slugged it out against the infidel army and are thus complicit in the massacre of your fellow Muslim brethren, but you also do not bother with the most basic requirements of following in the footsteps of our noble Prophet – where, sir, is your beard, your turban, your shalwar kameez? Why, sir, do you use state convoys for transportation when steeds are more than adequate? Why have you not spoken out against democracy, capitalism and the Zionist agenda overtaking Pakistan? Your qualifications are questionable and your background imperialistic. Oh, and for good measure I must point out that you also do not look particularly dashing in a black coat and tie, so there!

Second, even if I did consider you to be the superior judge of the infidel land of Pakistan (which I really don’t, so, haha!), I must point to you the simple matter of fact that we are no more part of Pakistan. We have effectively severed all official connection with that wretched landfill and are now comfortably consolidating our Islamic Emirate. Your self-denial is a moot point for us. The implication and consequence of this is simple: your puny, convoluted and Zionist legal system has ceased to apply to us, rendering your laws, your objections and your summons worth as much as a Swati girl’s education (which, to spell it out for you, is really just a fancy way of saying that they are worthless).

In light of the above, unless my steed craves the shrubbery of Islamabad for sustenance, I shall not be making a trip down Blue Area any time soon.

Now I must return to more urgent matters. Apparently a man has found his daughter brandishing a tattoo on her lower back. My first guess is that it’s a fairy, but worse things have happened.

Decency dictates that I close by mentioning that it was a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors, and hope you can manage to stay out of trouble long enough to see me chop your head off in due time.

Khuda hafiz and shaba khair,

Mullah Fazlullah

On reading this, and realizing the futility of the entire exercise, the CJP decided to drop this particular case and instead begin investigating the curious case of why the one-dish-at-weddings regulation continues to be openly flouted.

Anyway, now that that’s out of the way, we address the topic at hand: procrastination. Everyone procrastinates. It’s really a fundamentally important part of human nature I believe. And yet, everyone feels guilty when they do so and, more importantly, surprised when it actually happens.

That happened to me yesterday, where the procrastination devil hit me hard, and I ended up wasting what was supposed to be the most super-productive day ever.

This is what was supposed to happen yesterday – my ideal daily planner told me this:
1. I was going to wake up early.
2. I was going to enjoy a nice, healthy, filling but quick breakfast and then a nice, warm but quick shower.
3. I was going to head off to the library, reaching there around 11 am and begin work.
4. I was going to spend 3-4 hours applying for a few dozen summer internship positions by writing cover letters, tweaking my resume and sending out the necessary emails to contacts and employers.
5. I was then going to break for lunch – a quick but health bite, really.
6. Post-lunch, for the next few hours I was going to invest all my energy doing (and completing) research for a final paper I am supposed to write for a course I am currently taking.
7. I was then going to come home late at night after many hours of hard labour, warm up the leftover pasta for dinner, and then head to bed all tired and satisfied.

So yea, as you can see, this would have been a very productive and useful day.

This is how it turned out.

1. So I woke up late. Bad start. I had slept at 3 am the night before, because I was watching Battlestar Gallactica season 2, so that’s really the root cause.
2. I made breakfast – healthy and filling. Then I thought I’ll watch one more episode of BSG because I really need something to do while I have such a large quantity of breakfast.
3. So obviously since the show is so fucking addictive I couldn’t resist watching another one. Two episodes later I realized I needed to rent the remainder of the season from the university library, but couldn’t stop, so went online to search for streams of the next episode.
4. Couldn’t find them, ended up noticing that new episodes are out for both Gossip Girl and How I Met Your Mother. Said to myself that it’s really just 2 measly episodes, there’s no harm in watching them. That was another hour or so gone.
5. Thought I’d catch up on the news while I was online, so went to the DAWN website. Read a few articles, and came across the phrase “we must be vigilant all the time.” Probably a Pakistani-terrorists-creating-mayhem-and-causing-the-rest-of-the-world-a-big-fat-headache story.
6. Started thinking how the word “vigilance” is so cool. Remembered something I had read somewhere, a lot: “constant vigilance.” Started raking my brain but couldn’t place it. Where was it? Lord of the Rings? Gandalf? No, unlikely. Harry Potter? Hmm. Likely. Sounds like something Dumbledore would say. “Harry, we must show constant vigilance (or else Voldemort will anal-rape Hermione and spear Ron.)”
7. Went to Google searching for “constant vigilance” and found it. Aha! Mad-Eye Moody’s pet line. Why did I think Dumbledore? Hmm.
8. Came across a Harry Potter fansite specializing in trivia and assorted information about all things relevant to the books.
9. Ended up spending seven hours on it. Yes, seven fucking hours. On one website. (Clearly you can see how much I like Harry Potter.)
10. Realized it was too late in the night to start doing anything productive, so started watching the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” movie. Fell asleep within one hour. I think that depressing robot did the trick.

The next day, today, hasn’t fared so well either. Although I did end up waking up on time, and did make a healthy and filling breakfast again (btw, I also watched the latest Scrubs episode while eating it), and did make it to the library on time, and did start researching for my paper, I ended up getting distracted on the internet again, and started reading up semi-related articles and the like. And then, in an unexplained moment of utter madness and stupidity, I somehow ended up having a conversation with a recent ex girlfriend. That led to a flood of a thousand good memories and fun times spent together and the inevitable and totally sour parting of ways, resulting in pain and heartache and depression that will probably last for another few days, if not weeks.

So, yea, that was pretty screwed up. Should never have stayed up late at night watching Battlestar Gallactica to begin with.