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.

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.

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.

Protected: Another silly post

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

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

The Clog

I opened up the lid and there it was, a clog, a huge clog made of mingled chains of words, thoughts emotions. GOD, it was huge, there were tears pure as rain drops, pain so sharp it would cut through the hardest of all metals, desires so daunting they would have made me shriek, all of this mixed with some confusion, depression and aggression and bounded together in to a huge stinking blob of letters, words, sentences, dripping of lethal poisons, looking so meaning less.

I think I removed it or have I just moved it so some words could slide out and make some sensible sentences ? Don’t really know.

How can we ever thank you enough…

Yesterday was Saturday night, I had been up chasing after my playful cat, commenting on a picture featuring some of my friends, reading a few serious blogs over the blogosphere, and designing an application form for KMB all night.

So obviously I woke up at noon, and as usual for a technology geek, still in bed I picked up my cell phone to check my emails, but instead an sms which had arrived an hour or so back caught my attention. It was an invitation to join a few old school friends most of them “December Pakistanis’ to visit out beloved school principal Madam Najmi. I haven’t met most of these friends in years so seeing them together was an offer tempting enough not to say no to and to top it all a visit to our dear principal, this was an occasion I wouldn’t want to miss for anything.

I had a few unimportant plans for the evening, which were quickly moved, and I was all set to be carpooled to our destination.

During our drive from Gulshan to Clifton to our destination, the old school crowd, all six of us backed like the sardines in a tin gossiped and talked of the old days, the silly questions we asked our teachers and even sillier crushes, the stupid games and mischievous activities we indulged in while at school and all the memories of the silly us kids were refreshed.

For a moment we were not who we are but the same silly kids wrapped in a sense of nostalgia, back at school but with a realization ” Oh! God How silly of us it was”. I guess that is the part of being grownup.

At our principals home, we were greeted with great love and affection, a strong feel of warmth I am sure we all deeply felt. And Madam Najmi’s bright eyes were even more brighter, full of affection and love, glittering with a contentment, for her hard work and the love and knowledge she had given us has nurtured us into fine gentlemen.

For Madam Najmi, it has never been about money, she wanted to bring out the best in every single one of her students, she wanted them to be intellects, different from the crowd. Of course the school also won for her some bread and cheese, but had had to survive, and yes she could have been a multimillionaire only if she would have commercialized education in her institution but rightfully this she never did, which was a very bold decision, because she always remained focused and never lusted for money.

In the end when we were leaving her place to head back home, I realized that this fine old lady has given us something that we cant ever repay for, she has given us that fine personality, that fire to continue, that passion to look minutely into the finer details of thing in life. She is the person responsible to bring that fineness in us which set us apart, she has brought the best out of us. We were fortunate to have her as a principal and even more fortunate to have her with us today.

Right now I am at a total lost of words, my true feelings cant simply be described by mix of some 24 alphabets. I could only but say thank you, but we can so not thank her enough all our lives for what she has given to us. May her love and affection always be with us.

Boss with brains, the size of a pea.

I am totally sleep deprived and too tired right now for anything but I have to get this out of my system, I just have to tell this to some one or I wont be able to sleep.

Well I was at this beautiful art exhibition yesterday when I noticed a reporter, his press card boasted his employment with one of the cities leading English daily and he was asking people their opinion about the exhibition I noticed he didn’t had a photographer with him so I asked him what visuals would he be using for his news report of this opening of the exhibition. At which he replied that he has a CD of the images on display and a printed catalogue of the art work, pictures out of which would be used for the purpose. So I replied that the visuals will then be only about the art work and not the opening of this exhibition, I then showed him this image which was in my digital camera at the moment and asked him wouldn’t this image, or something similar would make a better visual shot for the story at which he said something that totally shocked me. He said ” after looking at this picture my boss will say half of the image is out of focus, and he cant use it”. At this statement I decided to remain silent because after that anything said to guy would have been useless.

And why I hate men..

I was at a party, a privet family gathering of a sort, a wedding to be exact. I was sitting at the back listening the brides teenage brother talking about the girls who were there. The were doing a postmortem as if a detective would profile murder suspects. They were judging the character of every single girl by their appearances. ” Look her shirt is so tight, and he boobs are so huge, she surely cant be virgin” , “Look at the one in red dress, her chest is completely flat, she must be a lesbian” , ” The one in the blue dress is continuously talking to her boyfriend”

At this party while listening to them silly gossips besides degust I felt a bit sorry too for these guys.

But then the next day at another party well educated men and I heard them talking the same kind of crap, making a fuss out of a visible bra straps, telling how they saw a bit of a cleavage while they walked passed a girl sitting on the floor, and how they “think” so and so girl is a whore or not or a virgin or not .

I mean For heaven’s sake What the FU*K do you guys have to do if she is a God damn whore or a Slut or a virgin or not ? Are you some sort of a bloody keeper whose duty if to guard female virginity. And they are women, they are not some bloody object that you might be able to own someday, like you are looking for an untouched “Packed and Sealed” piece. And Why the hell No one questions how many girls you slept with before you decided to be “sincere” with one or in some cases several just so you can have Verity.

I am a man myself but I cant disrespect even a Female Sex Worker out there because of so many reasons and these men the majority of them, wouldn’t pause for even a second before they see a girl and they would instantly start judging her, weighing her and analyzing her character and boiling it all down to the possibility of her being a virgin or not… the only thing these men won’t give the woman is the respect and freedom which is their fundamental right of every human being.

Then how can I not hate men.