R.I.P Asim

It has been 2 whole days and the cursor has been blinking on the same spot on the draft of the article – I cant add any words to it move it any further and take any out to move it back.

Only If going back in time wound have been as easy as pressing the backspace, i would have gladly kept the key pressed till i would have been two days back in time when he was still alive, and would have

left the cursor blink for a lifetime there. or Only if life would have supplied us with an Undo button.

I have not known Asim Butt personally too well, but the few shorts talks i had with him, his artwork that i interacted with, specially the mural at the old T2F – He always managed to touch my heart and soul …

today words fail me, i don’t know what i can say to make my self and others feel any better …. I guess there is really nothing that can be said… Rest In Peace Asim.

Lets not be a victim

I was supposed to do this post on the 25th of November but since a few days life has been spinning at lightning speed right in front of me and I have been trying only to make out some sense of it.

Anyways this post is about this international campaign called “Take Back The Tech!” which is a 16 day action plan against women harassment over the new media, which includes mobile phones, internet (E-Mails, Blogs, websites, social networks) Television or any other electronic media which has been or can be used for gender based crime/violence against women. The campaign’s main initiative is to spread global awareness and educate people to take full advantage of the social networks and the new media technology fearlessly without giving the sick minded culprits a chance to victimize them.

A fake facebook female account created to study people’s behavior over social networks revealed some disturbing trends.

Women from almost all age brackets but mostly teenagers from around the globe would often add people they don’t even know and when asked why they did so their replies were:

1) some of their friends were already friends with you so I had thought you might know me.

Well as I was adding people randomly, I did add most of a person’s friends. And since I was posed as a girls boys often agreed being friends with me without even a single question. Now I have most of your friends and hen I add you are under an impression that I may be one of your friend’s friend and you would gladly add me.

2) “You where a girl so I thought I might know you from school or somewhere.”

although I don’t have a face on my display picture my name strikes familiar and you think I may be someone you know and you add me without thinking twice.

3) I don’t share much personal information so it doesn’t matter who I add.

Yeah you may not be sharing much of your personal information but your friends are constantly adding information about you on your profile, you are commenting of your friend’s images and you are even talking about what you have been doing at school and what school you are going to.

4) because You knew the names of both my parents (This was a case of a girls who is a performance artist and both her patents are also countries well known artists.

Don’t you think 70% of the whole country knows this information, would you actually be adding all of them ?

In all the cases above no one asked a single question before adding a complete stranger, they don’t question my legitimacy and they don’t suspect any foul play. And even if they ask question it is only after they have already added me to heir profile which actually gives me enough time to scan through their data, images, personal information and save it all for a later use.

Now Social networks have become an essential part of our daily lives. They are an incredible tool to make friends and socialize but you have to practice caution before you add anyone to your social network.

When a person adds you verify who that person is. If s/he has a common friend mail your friend and ask him/her If s/he personally knows this person, if you don’t have anyone common ask why this person has added you, and how do you think he knows of you.

While being on a social network always make sure you don’t upload any of your personal photographs or those of your friends. Any pictures taken with a plain background can possibly be photo shopped and the background can be easily altered. Remember anything you put up on a social network is visible to public so don’t post anything that may comeback to haunt you later in life.

Do not reveal where you are exactly located, even giving out an approximate area of your residence or the place you frequent like your school or workplace or a café you hangout with friends can be potentially dangerous.

Restrict your social network from publishing information of photos you leave your comments on as you may also be allowing someone else to see your friends photos.

If you find out that someone is impersonating you on a social network, inform the social network administration and all your friends. Put a notification on your social network page your blogs and on as many places as you can .

You must be careful no to mention your exact location until really necessary while updating your status, keep privet information to your self, keep your tagged photos from appearing to everyone and you will be just fine on any social network.

Tarrs

kabhi kabhaar maray mazee kay woh bhayanak chehray waqt he deewar ko cheer rooh baroo a kharay hootau hain, bayan kernay ko insaan ka vahshee roop. baycharay aur ker bhee kiya sakhtay hain tarrs ke bheek mangnay kay siwa.

Depressing Times

Each morning if you open your television for the day’s latest thasedays you get a red breaking news ticker running some news of violence, blood shed or bomb blasts accompanied with even more disturbing imagery running in the background and mind numbing audio commentary.

The news papers are no better option they too carry equally disturbing imagery and news items.

Obviously i have been avoiding any contact with the above mentioned news resources, for at least right after i wake-up simply because i cant take it, first thing in the morning, day after day, after day.

A Reality Show That Killed Saad Khan.

Let me start with these reality shows, because a lot of people say what’s wrong with them, well I don’t know what’s right with these shows either. Sensational items sell, my it be extreme stunts, dares or people living through changing extreme environment.

With stunts a professional stunt man calculates each and every risk factor before single stunt is performed in a controlled environment, all safety precautions are taken into account and paramedics and rescue team trained to handle any possible accident remains on standby, and moved quickly as soon as the situation goes out of hand.

But with dares that are posed at common unsuspecting people with a TV camera and crew peering on them things are a bit different. I remember a TV show which was aired on Rung Tv a couple of years back where a man was dared to eat dirt from the road, and he did. He also admitted on TV that he did so because he knew all his friends were watching him and he didn’t want them to think he was a coward, he also admitted that after eating a few hand full servings of dirt he wasn’t feeling quite well. It was the emotional pressure, the hype that people feel about being on TV and the glitz and glamour of it all. Take any regular teenager, and he will crumble under the pressure and will few sure will do any thing outrageous. Which they will later suffer for but the TV channel, producers care little about it, they had their 20 minutes of sensational footage, and the victim get is 10 seconds fame.

With reality shows, again people who agree to take some challenges and they are asked to do real life stunts and compete with one and other on the team. The problem again is one media hype which influences a person’s dissection making abilities, ego issue that I have to win and for that I will have to push my self beyond a certain point, and a certain trust that it’s a huge TV show they will take all precautionary measures, they wont let us die! But will they ? (now let me come back to thins in a while)

For the audience such shows sell them sensational entertainment, which are far fetched from reality, enforcing the idea that taking dares without thinking, pushing your car to the limits or jumping in rough waters from a very high point or doing outrageously insane things with total disregard for your safety or at times that of others is something cool, and to make it all worst you are also told that this is not a Movie, but actual reality.

A few days back something went wrong on one such reality show hosted by Unilever Pakistan / mindshare which took the life a 32 year old man, a father for young kids. The sad ending to this young mans life is described here, here and here and in several other blogs around the blogosphere. Trusting the brand associated with this reality show, and it being a part of the main stream media Muhammad Saad Khan must have thought that the stunts would be under a controlled environment, with paramedics and rescue teams ready to control any unfortunate situation before he signed the undertaking agreeing that he is taking all the responsibility in case of an accident and I am sure both Unilever Pakistan / mindshare didn’t planed the stunt to end this way.

But something somewhere went unexpectedly wrong. It became more questionable when the media remained silenced, some people said the victim who was an excellent swimmer drowned in waist deep water, No footage or prove was made public to clarify explain how or what happened. To make it worst both the (so called) reputable internationally affiliated companies with absolute disregard to any corporate social responsibility refused to even provide any support to the victimized family.

Now these are the brands we put our trust in and in return his is the irresponsibility they show towards us and also the main stream media also fails to do their duty just because their major source of revenue comes from these big brands.

Now we must practice out basic right to raise our voice and demand these corporate giants an explanation they owe not only to these families but also to their customers in the country and around the world So that such brands can show a bit more responsibility and respect towards the people who work for them and help them promote their products. Or simply because we don’t want another Saad Khan to fall victim anywhere in the world ever again.

When The Cactus Talked.

When at times I come out of the Illusions that I live in, I realize the thorns that grow all over my green skin, hard, sharp and red at the tip. They are there to protect me from being hurt but they also keep friends at a certain distance. No wonder I grow in deserts, and I am glad I do grow there because in any other place, I may end up hurting so many.

What! you worry of my thirst ? Stop being a fool, You know I take the moisture from the air and the occasional rain brings enough for me stay alive. Yes Of course I grow flowers, and you may also pluck them off my spiky body and take them to the comforts of your home, and they last longer then regular flowers, actually I do like you to take them away from my thorny existence because you know it’s never too pleasant living among thorns.

Oh yeah, there are some fool who find me beautiful and at times even take me home, and I often end-up hurting them even without wanting to, so I don’t want them to do this, I am good where I am and they too should look for some better things then me.

Yeah, I love growing alone in the desert, and I have seen some lucky ones of my kinds who got rid of their thorns with time, but I don’t think I am one of those kinds, because I would have shed my thorns by now if I was that lucky. So I yeah its always better to leave me here, in the desert.

Now if you may allow, I would like to ask you just one little Question young lady. What channel would this interview be shown ? Oh, Nat-Geo yeah that is the one for animals and things like me, thank you for taking out your time to extend my thoughts and views to your fellow human beings.

Burnt By The Shadows In The Scorching Heat.

Touching a beautiful flower and finding it be poisonous, getting sliced into tiny bits by tender wings of butterflies, walking in the scorching sun barefoot and getting burned only by the shadows.

Life has shown it all and more. It’s a funny world I guess where people much younger then you, bounded in strings of relationship, even those who where in your arms when they were just new borns, come up from behind to plant their poisonous daggers through your heart.

Indeed cowards, who say they cant stand you but in fact they don’t have the courage to face you. They will be dead-silent when they will be around you, forced by their guilt they flinch and wince with fear of being notice, pretending not even to exist, shielded behind a show of arrogance.

Fools, what bloody fools. They think they have concurred something substantial by harming, undermining disgracing you but in fact they have just lost their share of love, their chance of contentment, of being felt alive. Oblivious of the fact they it is they them selves who will be left alone to be haunted by the horrors of this world and to fight the demons in the end all alone.

But what else can be expected from people, people who have been long dead, devoid of all feelings, of the joy, beauty, of love and devoid of their soul.

Sensitively Insensitive

Waking up after a good night sleep and with the tender nascent cold morning breeze, even before my first cup of coffee I hear people shrieking of pain and misery. Some somewhere have bombed them, some one shot bullets at them some one today had locked them in an air tight container with a promises of a better life ahead, some has burned their homes, killed their parents, their loved ones.

The tender morning breeze, instantly turns heavy, with stench of last night’s bloodshed, and starts mourning over the misery and sufferings of the innocent. And the ocean screams and shouts begging us humans to stop – ” For God’s Sake Stop” .

But we humans are dead – so dead that although we hear all those deafening painful screams we conveniently turn a deaf ear to it all, turn up our iPods drowning to death any traces of feelings, what so ever is left in us and carry on nurturing a growing our selves while we know thousands more will suffer for our inhumanity today – too selfish to care for any of it.

My first cupper is empty now, enough time I have devoted for the day being sensitive, Ill just get dressed up and have a brunch at that fine expensive hotel, will drink the evening away and will dance till late night. I have a busy day ahead I better get going.

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Untitled – A random vent out

It was not a very large space and that too on the second floor of an office building, and climbing all the stairs may leave you panting but once we walked through that wooden door, the warmth of this fabulous space would take away any signs of stress, what so ever from your whole body. Yes I am talking about “The Second Floor” where today the last cup of coffee was served, and yes Indeed they are moving to a new location nearby but there will bet it will take some time to finish. The place Void of all it’s furniture, the coffee machine on a different location, temporarily placed on a table to make a few last servings and A couple of customers walked in, “what happened ” Zaheer Bhi said ” We just served the last cup of coffee here, we are closed” and they replied “Where will we go then ?”

Yeah exactly where will we go till the new place is furnished and becomes functional ? Where ? Where will those students study, where will we get to have such brilliant conversations ?

This place is where I met the most amazing people I know today, writers, poets, singers, social human right activists, film makers, artists, VJz . The floor introduced me Mohammed Hanif, the wonderful writer, and I good Punjabi speaker to I learned, Musadiq Sanwal and his excellent singing talents, the Mirza Sahiban he sand that day over the harmonium. Basharat Peer a journalist from Indian administrated Kashmir, whose brilliantly written book “Curfewed Nights” which I am currently reading and falling deeper in love with it every day. And David, Bina Shah, Sehba Sarvar, Bina Sarwar, Mushtaq Ahmad yousufi, Zehra Appa, The list goes on….. All the events, talks, readings and events and then the quality time we spent discussing, reading, learning and enjoying the freedom to say and express without being judged or disrespected. Where students studied for hours without being disturbed or asked to be customers to be able to sit and study.

And the amount of love Sabeen had put into this place, taking care of the finest of It’s details, decorating every wall every corner with some thing interesting and actually thought provoking, the posters, the slogans, the magazines, the soft-board in the toilet and the pin board in the alley.

This was one place which was ours, which we knew we will not be kicked out of also for reasons of Class distinction ( What ever the word “class distinction” means) . This was one place where we were given a true sense of ownership. Where when the Mac book got stolen we all felt the pain, and when there was a pencil mark on the white wall we felt bad and when we saw that table which was slightly burnt because someone left a lit cigarette on it we felt sad.

I remember it was a bloggers meetup at which Sabeen had mentioned her plans to setup a coffee house, with a library and hold literary events, a space for open conversations. And then around a year or so later T2F started it’s services, No it was never meant to be a commercial space and NO It was not at all pseudo, the tears when it was announced that the landlord has asked us to move out, were real, I cried, we all cried and It was not a Fucking Drama !…

I don’t know if this is even a blog, or even if this all makes any sense but today I just want to sit and cry the emotions are too high and the thoughts are too random… But I really don’t care.

View more images from T2F here

P.S sorry if I miss spelled any of your names