A gaping hole in the bedroom wall

The scene: a house in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, early morning, June 1993

A man is removing the air conditioner in his bedroom, His wife asks: "What are you doing? The AC is working fine". The man does not answer. He keeps at his work. When his wife's voice become too loud, he tells her quietly. "I am taking it for the Bosnian guests". "The what? …" His wife is flabbergasted. "This is my AC. I need it in my bedroom. What will I do without it? You know you cannot buy me another one."

"You will be all right. After all, we have lived without an AC for until this summer."

"I can't live without it. Leave it alone". The woman is in no mood to let go of her comfort appliance.

"Look, we are from a village in this hot part. These people are from a place that is even cooler than Kashmir. They will fry in this heat. They need this AC much more than we do."

When the wife does not stop protesting, the man tells her he will send her back to her village, where there is not even an electric ceiling fan.

Saying this he walks out and heads towards the motor rickshaw stand. The wife stares at the gaping hole left in her bedroom. She feels too angry to cover it with something. Let him do it when he come back. Outside, the man has hailed a rickshaw, A long time ago, pedaled rickshaws were banned, and replaced with motor ones.

The scene changes to just outside Madinatul Hujjaj - the city of the Pilgrims, a complex of plain buildings built for departing pilgrims to Mecca. It comes alive only prior to Hajj, when intending pilgrims are trained and facilitated for their onward journey to the holy land. This is June, much too early for Hajj, but it is inhabited again, as the first batch of Bosnian guests (as the refugees are called) have arrived in the night and accommodated here.

Outside the Madinatul Hujjaj gate, one sees a sea of people in all sorts of vehicles, and even on foot - carrying various things, charpoys (beds), bedding, covers, kitchen ware, daigs (huge cooking pots with cooked food), fruits, meat, chickens, vegetables, pedestal fans, toys for kids, refrigerators, … and this man with an air conditioner. And there are guards, police, welfare organisations' employees, ...

"Please, please, take this AC inside and give it to the Bosnians", he is pleading with everyone he thinks has an official position or may be of help, but no. The guards are not letting anyone or anything in. They have instructions to make sure the guests are not disturbed.

Everywhere is the same story. People have brought out what ever possessions they have for their guests. "Please, please, take these and give to our guests".

As Sajida Sladjic, the Bosnian ambassador to Pakistan, tells this story to us, her special guests at the Bosnian Village, her eyes are filled with tears. "Where else will you find such people, who remind you of the Ansaar", she asks.

The curious case of US consulate in Karachi

Pakistanis subsidize the poor US government!

Shawkat Aziz, a Citibank banker in New York, was imposed on Pakistan as a wonderboy who would take Pakistan out of its economic mess. He was not the only one to be so imposed. Moeen Qureshi, and Shoaib, among others, had preceded him in the list of such wonder-boys.

He was made the Finance Minister, and then the Prime Minister. Here is the first order he issued on becoming PM:

The first order of PM Aziz: serve the US
Concessions to friendly countries is a norm, says former official

by Ansar Abbasi

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Musharraf, the clean guy

Everyone, except the army, was corrupt, he said, and set about cleaning the system. Here is a sample of Mr. Clean_Guy's actions:

Documents reveal power scandal in Chak Shahzad palaces
Government found illegally subsidising Musharraf, Shaukat’s electricity bills

Saturday, May 23, 2009
By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: Former president Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf and former prime minister Shaukat Aziz, who have built up multi-million rupee palaces in the name of farmhouses in Chak Shahzad bordering Islamabad, are getting subsidy on their electricity bills and are charged at the cheapest agricultural rates, copies of their bills obtained by The News have revealed.

A selected few amongst the other highly influential and well-connected residents of Chak Shahzad are also paying the cheapest rates with the connivance of the Islamabad Electric Supply Company (Iesco).

While the whole world knows that Musharraf has constructed a modern house on the farm, obtained for breeding poultry and vegetables, the Iesco is still allowing him to enjoy the cheapest of power tariff D-2(1), which is meant for agriculture tube-wells and lift irrigation pumps and is even subsidised by the government from the taxpayers’ money.

Quranee Urdu, or Urdu words from the Quran

The easier it is here, the more difficult it will be in the Hereafter

we born Muslims did not have to struggle with having to search for the truth, except may be in a superficial way. Being brought up as Muslims we could always see the wrong in other aqeedas. There is a downside, for all will be asked what action they took on the knowledge they possessed.

Some take it to mean we should not try to gain knowledge - if we do not know, we won't be asked about it, but that is wrong. We will be taken to task for not trying to learn.

Those who understand Arabic will have a harder time. Those of us who have a language close to Arabic, will also have to explain why we did not try to learn it.

Subhanallah. There is good news for those who can understand, read and write Urdu:

Urdu is similar to Hindi. Both were indistinguishable, except for the script. Urdu became closer to Arabic because of incorporating the script, but retaining a few letters of the alphabet for sounds peculiar to its Indian origin.

A book called "Quranee Urdu" has just come out by Col. Aashiq Hussain. He has spent his life in the education corps, with Urdu, Arabic and linguistics as his passion. He claims that 94% of the words in the Quran are in use in Urdu in some derived form or the other (sometimes the meanings are different from the Quranic ones).

world heritage tour: Moenjodaro

This is part of the Indus Valley civilization, which thrived about 5000 years ago. The city had straight and perpendicular road grid, covered sewage lines running along the roads, and the city was made entirely of unbaked bricks. It had a rich quarter: on higher ground, and more spacious, and a poor quarter, the opposite.

Seals and Toys from this and the sister site of Harrappa are also dintinguishing features.