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TRUST THEM IF YOU WANT TO BE TRUSTED

Food for thought…

“You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible.”– Chekhov

I tested this quote in real life today and came out with flying colors…
Date:14 Sep 2010
Time: 8:15 AM
Place :Outside the US Consulate, Toronto.

A strange unscripted drama unfolds...
I had an appointment with the US Consulate to get a visa for attending a “Connect for Health” Conference, New York, next week.I was late for the appointment by 15 minutes (5 minutes over the time limit), due to an accident on the Expressway which had blocked it. I was sure I will be refused the entry because of being a late comer.
I gave a deliberate and fake angel smile at the blue uniformed lady at the gate saying, “I’m sorry I am late because…”

The masked face lady interrupted me and asked back,”Do you have any food, drinks, camera , cellphones or any other electronic devices?”

“No, none of these but….. I have this iPhone.” I said.

The’ mask faced’ changed into a Cruela Devil. She retorted, “You are already late. You have two minutes to give this away and get inside. We donot keep them with us nor do we allow it to be placed within the premises.”

The car was parked two blocks away, so going upto it wasn’t an option.

Suddenly this prized possession turned heavy and cursed. I had just a couple of minutes to decide its fate,or else I miss- my appointment, the visa and hence, the terrific Conference where I have to make a presentation of my decade long work. I had to choose and then act in the next TWO minutes.

I looked around to see if any savior would come forward and volunteer, to hold my cell phone till I return back. All those onlookers who were watching my drama changed their gaze when I looked at them—as if they didn’t know what was going on.

Half a minute had passed in my watch and as if the seconds’ hand was trying to beat the 100 meters world record of Usain Bolt, right then.

I saw two angels descending down from the horizon across the road. I knew they were God sent and one of them will envelope my divine iPhone in his wings.

The first one was a young lady rushing towards her office perhaps. I jumped at her and requested her to keep my cell phone till I’m done from inside. She gave me a wierd look and angled herself away from the potential exploding device in my hand. She walked away quietly not even bothering to say a big “NO”..Not her fault. I fit into the profile of a suspicious person by virtue of my skin color. Without uttering a word, she spoke of volumes of her distrust on me and my iPhone. I felt really helpless for not being trusted.

I knew I will miserably fail in my efforts today, but I didnt want to give up without trying. My presentation and a decade of work behind it was at stake . It was dramatic, it was embarrassing but I chose to do away with all those senses for just these two minutes of my life.
A few seconds later, I stopped a man , probably in his early thirties and repeated my request to him. He took his hand forward and grabbed the phone without a second look or a second word. I just threw the iPhone into his hand and jumped across the road saying ‘thank you’ half way across the road . He waved at me to take his cell number but I pretended as if I hadnt heard, and rushed into the gate before they got closed on my face. At the doorstep, I made sure that when the lady in blue uniform looks into my face, I will give her a scornful look. And, yes, I did give her one. She was unmoved and was probably immune to such looks day in and day out.

I realized how painful this device was, which was faking itself as a blessing to me for the past one year. I was feeling light. But the materialistic in me was calculating how much will I lose if I never get this thing back and if the fellow disappears from the scene. Why would he take this iphone so willingly without even a question?

I took me about a couple of hours inside the consulate to fulfill all the requirements of document check, finger printing, interview etc. Because of the invitation letter, the whole ordeal was a smooth sailing. I still did not regret handing over my iPhone to a random man on the street.

At 10:30 am I was told that the passport would arrive at my house by the weekend, stamped with the visa. I felt I had won a medal at the steeple chase race. I walked out triumphant from the gates.

On the road I looked around as if he would be standing for the past 2 and a half hours,dying to give back my iPhone. He was nowhere to be seen.

I knew what I had done. What will I tell my folks at home—did I drop it somewhere? I certainly won’t let them know of my foolish act—I will fake it, that I dropped it. Or may be I will tell the truth so that everyone learns a lesson at my cost.

Half sure, I decided to call on my own cell phone number from the public booth. The bell was ringing. Will he pick it up, will he…?

Before I could think of anything else ,he answered and asked,“‘Did u get your job done ma’am. Wait I am three blocks away from the Consulate and will come down to you in ten minutes”.

His words were music to my ears. I had never felt so relieved in my entire life. A while later I saw a man coming from across the street. I wasn’t even sure if he was the same person. I hadn’t even looked at him well enough to recognize him two hours later. He handed over my phone, and smiled.

I thanked him in the politest possible way I could, and he simply shrugged his shoulders,”No big deal lady”.An epitome of dignity he was. “I have to get back to my office”. He turned never to look back again.

I did not have the strength to ask him of his name,or anything else. I couldn’t even say a thank you with my mouth full open. I was overwhelmed.

I still do not know who he was, what his nationality or what his faith was . I do not even have either his cell number to call him and say thanks , or his name to add him on FaceBook. He just came and went back like an angel. He was a human being. Yes, it’s human beings who turn into angels when they help others in need or transform into a satan when in greed.

How right was Abraham Lincoln when he said, “The people when rightly and fully trusted will return the trust”.

In every man resides an angel and a satan.
It is up to us to chose which one we ought to awaken.
We need to awaken the angels from within.
Let the Satan in us die a premature death.
Is it worth putting our i phones at risk?
I am not sure. But, yes, I did so.
I got back not only my iPhone,
but also, a huge trust in the the humanity.
It was worth a try.

You try it too, sometime….

ILMANA FASIH
14 September 2010.
(P.S. Whether I get the visa in time and can make it to the Conference seems a trivial matter now!)

Category:

Personal, Social Issues

A 21ST CENTURY SHAME

A bitter food for thought…..

Whenever the topic of “honour killings” came up in any Dinner party or gathering I attended, I would end up arguing and fighting against it being a Pakistani or a Muslim phenomenon.

Alas, God heard my cries and enlightened someone else also, to acknowledge that honour killings are not synonymous with only Pakistan.( We needn’t worry! We have monopoly over many other issues like Feudalism, bigotry, “outside hand”, to name a few. And yes, we also have a huge turnover from the “rumour factories” all across the land).

Yesterday, I came across an article in The Independent by Robert Fisk. He introduces it by the opening paragraph:
“ It is a tragedy, a horror, a crime against humanity. The details of the murders – of the women beheaded, burned to death, stoned to death, stabbed, electrocuted, strangled and buried alive for the “honour” of their families – are as barbaric as they are shameful. Many women’s groups in the Middle East and South-west Asia suspect the victims are at least four times the United Nations’ latest world figure of around 5,000 deaths a year. Most of the victims are young: many are teenagers, slaughtered under a vile tradition that goes back hundreds of years but which now spans half the globe.”

(However, his is a half the truth. It doesn’t span only half the globe—it spans across the globe. Only the magnitude may be variable . Fisk failed to mention the lands beyond the Atlantic Ocean).

The Independent did a 10 month long research and investigated the existence of Honour Killings in various Middle Eastern and South Asian countries. The study came out with few interesting facts:
-Although unfortunately being stereotyped as a “Muslim practice”, it exists among the Christian and Hindu communities as well.
-Men are also killed for honour at times.

Indeed, this barbaric practice transcends beyond any faith and sect. It is a hallmark of ‘Jahalat” (ignorance is too soft a word for this ). It would be an equally heinous crime to label it to any religion -whether Hinduism or Islam or Christianity or any other ism for that matter.

My heart bleeds when even seasoned journalists label it “a largely Muslim practice”. It may be more frequent in some Muslim communities but that has more to do with their level of ignorance rather than their faith. For all those who either don’t know or simply forgot-Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) had denounced, campaigned against and banned the “female infanticide”(burying the female child) some 1400 and more years ago. The birth of the female child in PreIslamic Arabia was a dishonour to the family.

The practice of Honour Killing dates back to 2000 years, and has been documented to be existing in the ancient Rome and the Mesopotamian Civilizations(in Hammurabi’s Code).

The reports from Amnesty International and other Human Rights groups indicate that menace of honour killings is increasing each year.

The Fisk article mentions, “ Iraqi Kurds, Palestinians in Jordan, Pakistan and Turkey appear to be the worst offenders but media freedoms in these countries may over-compensate for the secrecy which surrounds “honour” killings in Egypt – which untruthfully claims there are none – and other Middle East nations in the Gulf and the Levant. But honour crimes long ago spread to Britain, Belgium, Russia and Canada and many other nations.”

UNFPA estimates that annual worldwide total of such killings is around 5,000. I beg to disagree here. This may be the hard statistics, but it just represents the tip of an iceberg. A vast majority (upto 90%) of these dastardly acts are conveniently reported as suicides or accidents.

In fact, honor killing exists in the garb of various other names in different parts of the world. It comes with the name of “Karo-Kari” in Pakistan, “Dowry Deaths or Bride Burning” in India, “Loss of Ird” in the Bedouin (Middle Eastern) communities and as “Crimes of Passion“in Latin American countries.
Each of these kinds merit their explanation and clarifications:
.
KARO-KARI: The compound word literally means “black male”(Karo) and Black female (Kari), a metaphor for the adulterers. Once a couple is accused of “immoral behaviour” the male family members authorise “themselves” to restore the honour of the family by killing both the karo and the kari. But the real life scenario is that in most of the times only the female accomplice becomes the victim, whilst the perpetrators are close male relatives-father, brother, husband or son. One needn’t bother to get a witness, mere suspicion and accusation is enough to desecrate a family’s honour. To wind up the event the victim’s family pardons the murderer (usually from within the family) or are “counselled” by the elders of the community to accept blood money (if the perpetrators are outsiders). And hence the murderer sails free in ALMOST ALL the cases . A Bill against the practice was passed in the Pakistani Parliament in November 2006, but the practice still goes unabated. We still have a couple of “people’s representative” sitting in the parliament who have the audacity to stand up and justify the incident as “our culture”. And the irony is that one of them remains a Minister – with just a change in his Ministry after human rights activists’ cries for his removal.

DOWRY DEATH/BRIDE BURNING: It isn’t technically an honour killing, but the motive behind the act is similar —for not honouring the in laws by not bringing “enough” dowry. (Dowry is a symbol of the high credentials of the groom. The more he earns the more dowry he deserves). A young woman is murdered by her husband and his family for not living up to their expectations of the dowry she brings with her. She is typically dowsed with Kerosene, and set alight leading to death by fire. Although there is legislation in place since 1961 as Dowry Prohibition Act, about 500-600 brides are dowsed each year. The murderers and the abetters can be sentenced to from 7 years to life imprisonment, but the reality is that many are passed on as accidental kitchen fire or a suicide unless the girl’s parents are strong enough to cry foul. The dowry deaths saw their peak in the 80s and early 90s in India. I remember reading at least 2 or 3 cases each day in the newspaper those days.

LOSS OF IRD: This is a preIslamic custom. “Ird” is a Bedouin honour code for women. A woman is born with her “ird’ intact, but any immoral act of sexual infidelity could take her ird away. Los of ird doesn’t merely imply to the physical transgression, but it is more of an emotional concept. Once lost, a woman cannot regain her ird . In contrast to this “Sharafa”–the honour code for men can be acquired, augmented, lost and regained. And if this wasn’t enough Sharafa is required to protect the Ird of the women of the family and honour of the tribe. Majority of these cases get highlighted only in the countries like Jordan, Iraq or Turkey. In countries where press is gagged—like Egypt and the Gulf, the incidents are claimed to be nonexistent. We can guess that.

CRIME OF PASSION: This too isn’t technically claimed as an honour killing but the perpetrator generally kills the woman when his honour is stabbed by her presumed or real infidelity. It could be considered more of a form of domestic violence where the husband, partner, lover or the boyfriend murders the woman in a rage of jealousy or when the latter being caught for infidelity. Usually the perpetrators claim to have committed the act in a fit of rage or “temporary insanity” (in legal language) and the crime gets mitigated. Unfortunately a lot of the offenders get away with lighter sentences on that account. “Femicide” and violence against women as it is also called has reached alarming proportions in the Latin America. In a report from Peru, 58% of men accused of murdering their women blamed it on the infidelity or jealousy.

The irony is that in any form of honour killing, one need not prove the offence and the offence need not be grave either. Just a suspicion or a dream could lead to the act. So also, it need not be a grave act of marital infidelity or premarital sex, even flirting and failing to serve her man on time can be enough to dishonour the fragile “honour’ of men in her life(whether a husband or a father or a brother).

Statistics say that all round the globe only half the killings are by firearms, the rest being by throttling, strangling or stabbing with a knife. Majority of women are between the ages of 16 and 30 years of age.

Wherever it is done (here or there), whoever commits it (a brother or a husband),or Whatever the motive is (honour or jealousy) the end result remains the same—a woman (in 99.9%) cases) becomes a prey to the misogynist mindset of a close male relative.

The practice is nurtured by the idea that Woman is “our property” and that the violence against a woman is “a family issue” and not a judicial one.

As quoted in an old article from National Geographic on honour killings: “Women are considered the property of the males in their family irrespective of their class, ethnic, or religious group. The owner of the property has the right to decide its fate. The concept of ownership has turned women into a commodity which can be exchanged, bought and sold.”

Just to give a firsthand feel I copy-paste some of the real-life clips from across the globe:
* In Turkey, a young woman’s throat was slit in the town square because a love ballad had been dedicated to her over the radio.
*In Delhi, India, Deepika Bajaj (28), customer care and services manager of Hans Hyundai in Jhilmil Colony, was burnt to death allegedly by her husband and in-laws,over the issue of dowry, in their house at Gopal Park. The woman had made a call to the police saying that her in-laws were trying to set her ablaze. When the police reached the spot, she was found burnt in her room.
*In Pakistan , five women were buried alive for “honour crimes” in Baluchistan by armed tribesmen; three of them – Hameeda, Raheema and Fauzia – were teenagers who, after being beaten and shot, were thrown still alive into a ditch where they were covered with stones and earth. When the two older women, aged 45 and 38, protested, they suffered the same fate. The three younger women had tried to choose their own husbands.
*In Iraq, a 17-year-old girl, Rand Abdel-Qader, was beaten to death by her father because she had become infatuated with a British soldier. Another, Shawbo Ali Rauf, 19, was taken by her family to a picnic in Dokan and shot seven times because they had found an unfamiliar number on her mobile phone.
* Even in liberal Lebanon, there are occasional “honour” killings, the most notorious that of a 31-year-old woman, Mona Kaham,
whose father entered her bedroom and cut her throat after learning she had been made pregnant by her cousin. He walked to the police station in Roueiss in the southern suburbs of Beirut with the knife still in his hand. “My conscience is clear,” he told the police. “I have killed to clean my honour.”
*In India, an engaged couple, Yogesh Kumar and Asha Saini, were murdered by the 19-year-old bride-to-be’s family because her fiancée was of lower caste. They were apparently tied up and electrocuted to death.
*In Peru, in a police report obtained by IPS, Juan José Galiano, 36, confessed that he strangled his partner, Rosa Trujillo, 38, because he suspected her of carrying another man’s child.
*In Brazil: The mountainous south eastern state of Minas Gerais is commonly known as the terra dos machoes, or land of the machos. “Here, if a man sleeps around with other women, it’s a sign of masculinity,” says Elaine Matozinho, a policewoman in Belo Horizonte. “But if a woman is an adulteress, it’s a different story: she pays with her life.”
*”In Jordan, if a woman is afraid that her family wants to kill her, she can check herself into the local prison, but she can’t check herself out, and the only person who can get her out is a male relative, who is frequently the person who poses the threat,”
*In London,UK„The 16-year-old was stabbed to death by her Muslim father Abdullah, in west London, because he disapproved of her Christian boyfriend.
*In Canada, Aqsa Parvez, who was found strangled in her family’s home. Friends said Aqsa had been at odds with her family over her refusal to wear the hijab.
*In Canada,Kamikar Singh Dhillon, who pleaded guilty to stabbing Amandeep Kaur, 22, to death Jan 1, 2009, said he feared his daughter-in-law would leave his son for another man with whom she was allegedly having an affair.

PS. After all this writing I do not have any spirits left in me to conclude this note. My mind is numb. I leave it on the readers to draw their own solutions to the problem and give the feedback if interested.
Read and think……..

Ilmana Fasih
8 September 2010.

Category:

International, Social Issues, Women

AS LIFE GOES CHEAP, LIVING GETS EXPENSIVE

Watching a news bulletin in Sep 2010 is no less than watching a World War II movie fron 1940s. Statistics of just the past few days go as:
-72 migrant workers killed in Mexico near US border
-Over 50 killed in Quetta in a procession
-35 killed by a suicide bombing in Lahore
-Sixteen killed in Darfur
-Nine killed in Kandahar
-Six people set ablaze in Barbados
-Four killed in bomb blast in Hebron
They may look a micronumber considering the 6 billion who call Mother Earth their home..
Many more precious lives are lost through natures’ fury . But that is another story although the onus of outraging the mother nature too lies on us .
Death is inevitable but a human life succumbing to the barbarism of another fellow human being is an abominable act. Isn’t this a trait uniquely attributed to us the “human” beings. Rarely do we hear of ferocious lions killing other lions, or elephants stampeding elephants in the frenzy of the ‘mast’. I feel ashamed of being a homo sapien.
It would be rude but true to say, probably those who departed were ‘blessed’ , keeping in view the billions who lead desperate, hungry lives and die a hundred deaths each day out of hunger or humiliation. One out of every 6 (i.e.1.02 billion)people don’t get enough food to stay healthy or lead an active life.
Surfing through the website of the World Food Program is a journey through the chamber of horrors. Facts appear like hammer blows over one’s skull, strong enough to stun the brain. Truly representing heartless clan of human beings, I sail through the fact sheet ,alive and breathing, reading :
*Almost one billion people suffer regularly from hunger, mostly being women and children-equal to the population of the US, Canada and EU together.
*97% of them being in developing countries.
*65% of the world’s hungry live in seven countries— India, China, DR Congo, Bangladesh , Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia.
*Malnutrition prevents children from reaching their full cognitive and developmental potential.
*One child dies every six seconds from hunger and related causes.
*More people die of hunger every year than AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis combined.
And then, today a news flashes on an international channel:
”The UN has called an urgent meeting on rising global food prices in an attempt to head off a repeat of the 2008 crisis that sparked riots around the world.”
Russia, the world’s third largest grower of wheat ,extends a ban on wheat exports next year. In a knee jerk wheat prices in the world rise, biggest monthly rise in 37 years. In June itself UN had warned that the prices will rise by 40% in the next decade due to increases biofuel demands. How will the above stats take shape in future is a scary thought.
If the news shakes a ‘little’ me, it must have thrown the Nobel Laureate ‘The Banker of the Poor’ Dr Mohammed Yunus into a convulsion. A reincarnation of an angel on this earth, he believes “Poverty is unnecessary “ and attributes it to the lack of the political will. On narrating his life journey towards the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, he had said:
“I went to the bank and proposed that they lend money to the poor people. The bankers almost fell over. They explained to me that the bank cannot lend money to poor people because these people are not creditworthy. Today, if you look at financial systems around the globe, more than half the population of the world – out of six billion people, more than three billion – do not qualify to take out a loan from a bank. This is a shame.”
Hail the top brains in banking and corporate world for making this world “a heaven” for the rich and “a hell” for the poor. Yes, these ‘achievers’ are honest men, human life is indeed a cheap commodity with a high maintenance cost.
Dr Yunus dreams to create Poverty Museums.
We need to clone more Yunuses to make it possible.
Each one of us can live a micron of Yunus within us to make it possible simply by thinking about the millions who sleep hungry each night and persevere to not llet a grain end up in the garbage bag. It isn’t asking a lot.
I wish he was Hercules.
Can he live his dream?
I wish he does……

ILMANA FASIH
4 September 2010

Category:

Pakistan, Politics, Social Issues

LET’S NOT LET ‘EM FIX THIS GAME

Jaagte raho…

Days ago the water was still. Yesterday I saw some ripples. Today there are waves in it. And tomorrow it’s getting ready to turn into a whirl pool. The whirl pool which will suck with it the very cause of it.
I sit half way accross the globe from 9 pm tp 2 am glued to my TV watching the channel whose name rhymes with the name of our favourite enemy. The news ,the news analysis, the debate, the talk show—all one after the other, with a burning desire in the heart that today will give a pleasant surprise .For months on, each time I switched the TV off at 2 am-dejected and disappointed.
However, yesterday night was different. Somewhat different.
Though the opening news of the Lahore carnage was as painful as the numerous other such news we have been hearing and watching for the past few years. The scenes of incident couldn’t be watched with a dry eye. They were soul shaking. Each time one hears such blasts, one goes through the de ja vu feeling one got on losing a family member. And am not exaggerating.
Initially, program after program I felt the same monotonous rut until came the music of the last talk show at 1 am. It changed my day. The anchor was going through a camp at the suburb of our largest port city where IDPs from the Shaheed Bhutto’s home town are settled. A beautifully organised tent city is lined up. Each settler interviewed showered prayers and no complaints on our “Billo’s” philanthropist cum singer cum ex lecturer. They hug him, embrace him, bless him for making them live a dignified life in this tent city. When asked repeatedly whether they would want to go back home after the floods recede—majority refuse without a pause. Not because they got spoilt by the luxuries of a tent house and two decent meals ,but because they feel home here. They feel they have found a saviour in him.Their dignities restored. Their being a “human being” feeling restored.
Not one but all of them one after the other utter,”Why should we go back? What do we have there? As we go empty handed into the ruins, the Wadera will load us with the loans bonding our subsequent generations repay it forever. We feel safe and cared here.” It’s sad they are rejoicing the displacement from their homes, from their fields where they ploughed. They have lost all in kind only to get their dignities back which had been missing since their time immemorial. And remember they came from the land of the current rulers.
Its touching to see the humility with which their new wadera goes from tent to tent ,dawn till dusk asking them if they were fine. I have failed to find an appropriate adjective to the humility with which he was accompanying the anchor. Avoiding to look up to the camera hiding his wet eyes. The gentility personified. I salute this man!
I also salute all those other known or not so known “humans” who are turning their nights into days to help the humanity –here as well as anywhere on the globe. The hour flies away and the anchor bids “Khuda Hafiz”.
I turn to my laptop to check the status and to shut it down and sleep. My eye catches a glimpse of a video link. It says” Must watch this video clip”.It is barely a 54 seconds video but it beautifully sums up the history of 64 years of a Feudal Nation:
Pet bhar amir shadbad,
Bhal maran ghareeb kanda yaad.
Asif nu bangle aali shan,
Dubai ,Pakistan.
Pak sar zameen ka nizaam,
Amir tar amir ,mui awam.
And it goes on……………..
Unfortunate! It is a parody of our National Anthem, but not even one word of it is a lie or an exaggeration. I click it neither once nor twice, but again and again till I lose the count. Each time I hear, it rings bells in my ears.
I can smell it .Yes I can smell the change coming.
It isn’t too far. We don’t have to wait another life to see it.
We don’t even have to wait another year to see it, I am sure.
We are starting to wake up. We are standing up.
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Lets all see the light getting brighter each second.
Lets not sleep until we exit the tunnel.
We don’t have miles to go –it’s just round the corner.
Yes, FEUDALISM is getting ready to be caught out at the slips, let not any bookie, “in here” or “out there” fix the game to drop the catch. Let no “Butts” amongst us get sold out.
Beware and stay awake…….

ILMANA FASIH
3 September 2010

Category:

Pakistan, Politics, Social Issues

OF HUNGER, HOMELESSNESS AND DESPERATION

Food for thought…

“There is a triple threat unfolding as this crisis widens and deepens. People have lost seeds, crops and their incomes leaving them vulnerable to hunger, homelessness and desperation – the situation is extremely critical. We urgently need continued and strengthened commitment to the people of Pakistan in this time of crisis.” says Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of World Food Programme.

She accompanies Anthony Lake, Executive Director of UNICEF to see first hand the scale of the current needs in Pakistan.
Millions of hectares of farmland lay inundated as far as the eye can see. Just overnight, the lush green fields turn into stinky swamps. They transform into breeding grounds for mosquitoes causing malaria and dengue, and into culture-medium for Cholera, Typhoid and Hepatitis.Who knew that it was not just the droughts that bring thirst and hunger?

We had presumed that rampant corruption, frequent suicide bombs, lawlessness and sky rocketing inflation had already seen its zenith prior to these killer monsoons. Who knew this was just the beginning of the misery?

Children and infants under five are the most vulnerable and first to be affected in any disaster, followed by pregnant and nursing mothers. The National Nutritional Survey statistics for Malnutrition rates (general) and Stunting rates (in children) were already alarmingly high at 13% and 36.8% respectively. Where will these statistics reach now, is nobody’s guess.

The UNICEF and WFP with numerous other local and foreign organisations have come forth to feed the hungry through energy dense and vitamin fortified Ready to Use Supplement Food (RUSF). The fliers with instructions are handed out but to many of our unlettered women they appear to be Greek and Latin. Only if these women could read the manuals to know that they are to be consumed several times a day and not all at once to get the optimum benefit.

The Chief Executives of these phantom organisations roam around fearlessly not as trekkers but as saviours to the millions, while our own local Chief Executives stay within their fortresses saving their skins. But they do speak up occasionally. It is we the feeble minded who do not get the spirit of their lip service.

When the PM talks of NGOs consuming 50% of the aid—he said it in good will. Messed up that our psyches are, we deliberately twisted his words. If the aid would go to one of his likes, even the rest 50% would also vanish into thin air. Our myopic eyes missed this hint in his wink and the naughty smile, when he uttered these golden words. Poor him.

The detective minds amongst us can even attempt to uncover a hidden American agenda behind these floods. No, I am not joking. We did so during the earthquake and some of us suspected it in tsunami too .

And it is certainly not a divine punishment either. Allah does not punish the innocent when the culprits sail scot free.
This is the blessed month of Ramadan. We fast to learn self restraint and to feel for the less fortunate among us. How can we devour table full Iftars when 20 million of our compatriots go hungry, homeless and desperate.

Ramadan also reminds us of the importance of a collective responsibility as mankind. It is time to think collectively as a nation and as humanity at large. Ramadan is a month of alms giving too. Allah specifies the minimum that we are obliged to pay to the needy. He does not prescribe an upper limit.

Let us open our hearts and minds.
Let us have a guilt free Ramadan this year.
Close your eyes and think….

ILMANA FASIH
31 August 201

Category:

Pakistan, Politics, Social Issues

OUT OF SIGHT BUT NOT OUT OF MIND

Food for thought…

Imagine yourself going up or down in a lift at night and the light goes off. The lift stops and one or more of you get trapped in the pitch dark. You scream at your utmost and no one hears you for less than 10 seconds. You know you are above the surface of the earth, have enough oxygen to keep breathing for some hours, surrounded by a metal cased lift walls which cannot cave in, and a button at your hand to press in case of emergency. Close your eyes and imagine how do you feel…

I know exactly how it feels. I got trapped in a lift some few floors above the ground . I saw my end from the closest and shreaked hysterically at my best for ‘help’ ‘help’ till after some 20 seconds, rescue arrived. I did not have the presence of mind to even think of pressing an emergency bell right next to me. I even had a cell phone but no presence of mind to even think of it. The state,both physical and mental, in which I walked out of that lift was only seen to be believed. So embarrassed was I for several months that I could not look the eyes of those two men who rescued me,for a long time.

The thought still sends shivers through the cells of my body.

Today, there are 33 miners trapped 2500 feet below the earth’s surface in a remote Atacama desert of a far flung country we call Chile in a remote continent by the name of South America. They haven’t been trapped for 20 seconds or 20 minutes or even 20 hours. They are there since the past 20 days. They were mining the precious metal called copper to get huge revenues for the owners and for their country. The mine caved in and the 33 miners began climbing the emergency ladder, but they could get only upto a third of the way.

Ask why? Because the mine owners had never bothered to finish the ladder to the top. If this ladder was in place they could have been out in 48 hours after the incident.

The owners of the San Esteban Mining Company that runs the mine said “it was THANKS to the safety regulations that the miners were found alive and WELL.

”Clap clap! “ (I wish I could keep my social norms up on the laddle and swear all the possible four letter words I know)

If this is not enough to shake you, the news is:they are going to stay there until December when the rescue tunnel is completed to pull them out.

Yes, they are getting oxygen, water, food, letters from the loved ones everyday through a duct with the diameter of a grapefruit. Camera too has been lowered for them to send their images and messages for their loved ones and to the rest of the world to know what they are going through.

Yes their relative are camping close to them—2300 feet vertically above them. They are really happy to see their partner’s ,son’s, father’s recorded films, showing they are alive. Yes the miners and their families are blessed. Eating, living, happy—why should they get the news coverage from our “independent media”. This is not a sellable story in our part of the world, why should our reporters or journalists hype this news.

They are not Palestinians ,they are not Iraqis, they are not suffering Indian Muslims, they are CHIIILEEEANS. Why care?

We have our own mega problems .We have BIG issues like big cricketers being pulled in a conspiracy of the gora media because our team was so good ,that no one could ever defeat us in the tests, one days or the twenty-20. Jealous world. Ehh !

Indeed we are the chosen people .Why should we care even to know whether Chile is a country or a condiment?

We have the right to cry foul when we don’t get enough foreign aid or foreign empathy for our floods and they have no right of their plight to be even known by our countrymen.

We have the right to ask for all the aid possible and they have no right to question our governance.

We have the right to call others infidels and they have no right to call us extremists.

This is the world in which we live. We look at things from a tube through which only those things which matter to us are visible. We prefer to keep the rest of the issues as” none of our business “ attitude. We are a great people!

I feel ashamed of myself. I feel so probably because I got trapped in the lift myself. Those amongst us who didn’t they needn’t worry.

Why didn’t these floods drown my conscience?
Please think.

Think hard……..

Ilmana Fasih
30 Aug 2010

Category:

International, Politics, Social Issues

LET’S ERASE THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BORDERS

Panchee nadiya aur pawan ke jhonke, koi sarhad na inhen na roke;
Sarhad to insanono ke liye hai socho tumne aur main ne kya paya insaan ho ke.
(Bird, river and the gust of wind, no border inhibits them:
Borders are for people, think about what have you and I obtained by being born as humans?)

This couplet by Javed Akhtar from a Bollywood blockbuster entered through my ears but shook my soul. Wow ! Javed Akhtar knows what I feel each time when I go to the Indian consulate to ask for a visa for my family to visit my parents in New Delhi.

“In January 1990, a girl in her mid twenties in New Delhi ties a knot with a Pakistani man in his late twenties. Happily, but quite unsure how the things in her life would unfold after that. She wasn’t a poor small town girl from India who gets married to her well off cousin in Karachi on her parents decision. She was a typical city girl, who made it to a premier medical school in Delhi and was full of patriotic fervour for her homeland. Her parents did not consent for it until she approved of it herself. No good decisions are made on a swivel chair. It took her four painful and paranoid years to decide if this was the right decision. The young man across the border erased all his egos despite repeated refusals to convince her that they can make it.”

Twenty years on, now I can confidently say that we have really made it. The road of life together hasn’t been all tulips and roses, though. We had our share of bumps and puddles on the way, in addition to the usual hurdles any random couple faces. Both of us being passionately patriotic about our respective homelands, it wasn’t an easy task. The only thing which made us sail through was the erasing of psychological borders, knowing very well that humanity on both sides of the border had same needs and aspirations. We promised to uphold sanity in the heads above our shoulders and not indulge in spewing of patriotic venom against each other. Not that the outsiders spared us in peace. Any bitter comment on the annihilation of the other side by a “patriotic acquaintance” from either sides, left me more enraged than my husband.

At times I would even cry for being “punished“ for this decision, only to be comforted by my husband with a “mitti pao” attitude. This is an experience to be lived, to realise what goes within one’s heart when someone recklessly passes a casual snide remark about your homeland sitting on the other side of the border. With every news of bomb blast or riots in my city, amidst the indifference of the friends and relatives, but I would sit paranoid, glued to the TV wondering about the safety of my parents and sibs.

Even in the kindergarten my kids were hurled questions by their curious friends—if we had fights at home when there’s a cricket match between India and Pakistan ? For several years in the early childhood, my son would come home crying that his friends tease him saying, “Your mom is a traitor!” It did take him some years to get confident that his mom wasn’t a traitor.

Months and days passed by as usual. The only time I really, if ever, regretted my decision was when I had to queue up outside the visa window in the consulate of a country I called homeland. Miserable is an understatement of how I felt when the man behind the counter would frown at my kids as if I was taking terrorist recruits with me to my beloved city. And then on return to their homeland my kids and husband would be scrutinised by the airport security questioning about the frequency of their visits across the border.

One has to live it to feel it.

The upbringing in a home with parents teaching international politics- my sibs and I grew up with our eyes open to the world issues. We were trained to look beyond our boundaries and feel the empathy for the suffering of others be it in Palestine or Apartheid in South Africa or Gen Zia’s martial Law in Pakistan. I salute my parents for raising me and my sibs into “human “ beings with a wide horizon.
Many a times my critical comments on the Dawn blog or FaceBook, on political issues in Pakistan are retorted back at me attributing them to my “Indian roots”.

Yes I am proud of my roots but I also have a very patriotic husband and two passionate kids who say: they own Pakistan they love both the places.

A for me, I claim that I own both the places and love both too.

But more than that we know both sides have their good and bad. And don’t indulge in mutual blame games. We have erased the psychological borders at home and at the same time respect the sanctity of political borders. And we love this feeling.

What if the one and half billions across both the borders could erase the psychological borders one day?

Believe me it isn’t really impossible, for the humanity on both sides of the border is made of the same flesh n bones, has the same shade of blood and shares the same genetic pool.

I wonder if I will live to see that day!

llmana Fasih
27 August 2010.

Category:

India, Pakistan, Personal, Politics, Social Issues

WE NEED TO CHANGE

Food for thought…

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, or the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change that does”.

This is a quote from a famous man. I dare not mention his name, fearing the knee-jerk reaction one would get from a section of our people who have already made our lives unliveable on the face of this earth.

No, this isn’t a puzzle or a riddle. It is a blatant truth that all those who possess sane heads over their shoulders need to accept and pull their ostrich heads out of the sands. In fact, burying our heads in sand for too long has made it metamorphosise into granite and we find it now impossible to pull our heads out without fracturing the cervical vertebrae. Not that I am making myself sound ambiguous out of fear or to look charismatic, but because the message is intended to those who have the willingness to grasp its essence. If others don’t get it—probably it wasn’t meant for them.

1400 and some years ago, Islam itself brought with it a huge change: from survival rights of a female baby to women’s rights to child’s rights to minority rights, and to human rights, in general. That was a huge change.

By ‘change’ I do not imply a revolution. It does not mean rebellion either. But yes, a change which is enough that the bend in the road does not become an end on the road, if we fail to take a turn.

Yesterday when I saw on TV, the much needed aid being distributed to the flood victims in Pakistan—my eyes couldn’t believe that I am alive enough to see this. Yes the aid was coming to the them, but certainly this is not how they deserve to receive it.

‘One plastic bag gave itself up when at least half a dozen needy angels pounced on it for the grab. As if this wasn’t enough—the flour spilled on the dusty road was so desperately being collected up by the kids that they chose to pick up even the straw and dirt in not letting an atom go waste. There were those relief workers with a big heart but small minds who did not have the common sense to bring water in individual containers. They poured water out of their jerry cans from the trucks to the people down below holding their shallow trays and polybags trying to catch every drop they could. And then in the pushing and pulling the poor souls drenched their bodies with it more than their throats. And that old lady who was trying to dip all her face into the polybag to get some sips without bothering if the bag and the water in it could smother her. Gosh, why don’t the poor come born with beaks?’

The truck moved ahead like a Pied Piper of Hamlin and the needy angels (no, they are not rats) ran obediently behind it trying to catch the goody bags thrown at them.

My heart too raced into a paroxysmal atrial tachycardia. I wish I had a cardiac arrest instead.
I wondered what stopped them from distributing the aid in a more dignified manner.

And then came the news report, wherein the myopic MNAs and MPAs who did show up in their constituencies, not to save people, but to save their own lands and properties. The smartest of this smart lot showed up in their constituencies only to breach the bunds toward the lesser smart ones. I couldn’t help but notice the glimmer of hopelessness with which these needy and desperate angels watched on, when these “people’s representatives’ cheered in their heart on saving their side, while deluging the other. Why were the peasants born with eyesight if their Feudal Lords were without vision? I wish I could go into an amblyopia before watching this news clip.

Alas, as if all this was just a trailer and the movie was yet to come. My misfortune that sitting half way across the globe I had to witness the Sialkot incident on TV. The barbarism of the perpetrators and the police wasn’t a surprise. What was heart shattering, instead, was the way those cool bystanders watched, as if Shahrukh Khan was shooting a scene for the next film. If I could, I would certainly want to sample what blood ran in their veins and biopsy their flesh and bones. I am sure each and all in the crowd had a Blackberry, a Nokia or a Motorola in top front pockets over their rib cages, devoid of a human heart. My heart missed a few beats. I wish it had decided not to beat again.

How I wish what my eyes were witnessing through TV were not real happenings in August 2010 but a reconstruction of the dark ages. We call this a civilised world, when even the cave men lived a more dignified life.

After all this do we still need to wait?

No, we need to change.

Yes not only do we need “a “ change and we need “to” change as well.

We need to change the faces that represent us and even if it requires a radical plastic surgery.

We need to change the way we disapprove of what we see on TV and whisper our complaints in our living rooms. And then move on to a soap serial on the next channel.

We need to change the way we shop till we drop and then hunt for a penny at the bottom of our purses, present it to the “cute boy” at the red light signal, driving back home with the feelgood feel of a philanthropist.

We need to change the way compassion pops up in our brains but fails to reach to our hands as if the floods swept away the bridge that transports the thoughts to actions.

We need to change the way we point a finger towards others without realising that the rest four are pointing and poking fun at us.

We need to change the way we look condescendingly at those who do not fit into our frame of faith and feel proud of ourselves.

Yes, we need to change our mindsets, our hearts, our philosophies and our lives. We need to come out of our cocoons and think beyond ourselves.

We need to change, to look at this world from the eyes of those millions who live a life not even a sewer rat would choose to live, if given an option.

Indeed, we need to change. Or we shall perish.

Ilmana Fasih
26 August 2010

Category:

Pakistan, Personal, Social Issues, Uncategorized

SPREAD THE INFECTION OF GENEROSITY

Food for thought…
WHO SAID THAT BACTERIA AND VIRUSES WERE INFECTIOUS? Twenty or so odd years ago, I studied in Microbiology during my third year in medical school that infections were caused by bacteria, viruses or fungi. I believed it with my eyes closed. Then a couple of years later, I stood with my gown on the convocation day with the photocopy of my medical degrees rolled in a ribbon and snugly hugging to the fingers of my right hand. I stood up with my head high, my spine hyper extended and my mind floating in the seventh skies. I was certain I was prepared for a career wherein I will alleviate the illnesses of my patients by my smiles, my prescriptions and if luck be with me, maybe with my scalpels.
On embarking into a journey into the real world, the lessons I learned unabashedly contradict the science I studied in my medical school. Time and again, the realities of life screamed in my ears and poked fun on my knowledge. “Hahaha. Who says that only bacteria, viruses and fungi were infectious?” “What else was infectious, man?” My thoughts wandered, flipping the pages of microbiology textbooks. The ‘Hahaha’ screamed louder and longer. However the ringing of the morning alarm, the call from the ward or the cry of my baby would wake me up from these thoughts and I would again enter the real world of responsibilities and duties.
I hear the cry of my naughty son, because he fell from his bike and bruised his shin. I caught the “anxiety” from his cries and got anxious too. Then it struck what else was infectious.
A small “hug” would comfort him and he would run back to his play the next moment. Again, it flashed in my frontal cortex what else was infectious.
My little girl comes “worrying” that she didn’t do her test well and wouldn’t get a High Honours that year. I would catch her worry, staring all night at the moving fan wondering about how she would be comforted on the day she gets her school report card. Again that was infectious too. The D-day comes. She goes to the stage and gets her High Honours. The “confidence” in her eyes beams on to me like electromagnetic radiations. Surely, that was infectious too.
My husband got his MRI report which said the “pain” he was having for weeks was from the prolapsed disc. The words in the report transmit a lightening pain in my spine from the cervical to the sacral vertebrae. Oh! Yes, I knew that was infectious too.
I write a “disturbing’ status on Facebook and my school friend from Atlanta (who I haven’t seen for the last 20 years) writes back equally disturbed to know what went wrong in my life. Gosh, that also was infectious.
Life went on and each day, I discovered a new cause of infection which medical science failed to teach.
And as enters August 2010, Pakistan faces a deluge from Swat to Sindh. It ruthlessly sweeps with itself the lives, the materials, the crops, the aspirations and the mere survival of twenty million innocents. They “suffer” and so do many elsewhere through their TVs or Facebook images. Wait, this suffering isn’t simply an isolated infection. Isn’t that what you call an epidemic?
As their houses and fields get “flooded”, millions of human hearts flood with empathy and compassion too, from Canada to US to Norway to UK to Saudi Arabia. Does it mean even the floods are infectious? And that too of Pandemic proportions.
The doctor in me stands paralysed in my abilities to deal with this suffering. But eureka! A thought springs from the grey matter. This pandemic needs to be treated with another infection and that is the pandemic of “generosity” which needs to spread from North Pole to South Pole, that too with a speed of light.

August 25, 2010

Category:

Pakistan, Personal, Social Issues

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