Ganga chali Pardes

First major thing I resolved to do after landing in Sydney was to try find a cook and a cleaning service. The web is full of cleaning service agencies across Australia, but not a single decent cooking service provider ! How inconvenient! So I began to ask around from acquaintances and any desi I know in Sydney, only to be given 'that look': a desi come-at-home cook? That doesn't happen here buddy, we all do our own cooking...kinda made me feel like that Indian movie heroine who goes to a foreign land where anything she tries to do she gets told, "Ganga, yeh vilayat hai, yahaan aisa nahin hota...".
Bechari paindoo Ganga.

Kyun nahin hota bhai? This only made my resolve stronger...finally after a few days of turbo web searching I finally chanced upon this obscure site where two Indian women had put an ad about their combined cooking + cleaning service, and at rates much lower than the cleaning-only agency rates. Viola! I called them up and within a day I had both services, twice a week.

Where others continue to come home after a long days' work and spend the next few hours toiling in the kitchen then downing it and falling dead in bed, I get steaming hot biryanis and niharis, do my reading and writing, put my feet up and enjoy every evening.

So who's laughing now. Ganga yeh pardes hai, yahaan bhi sab kuch ho sakta hai. Hmph!

When We Two Parted

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever the years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder, thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sunk, chill on my brow,
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me...
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well..
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met
In silence I grieve
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.

- Byron (1728-1824)

Obama sacks McChrystal

Hope there will come a day when a President of Pakistan can also sack a serving general of the army with the statement:

"...our democracy depends upon institutions that are stronger than individuals. That includes strict adherence to the military chain of command, and respect for civilian control over that chain of command."

And be able to get away with it without a coup.

Khayyam's Rubai'

Pray tell, who has not transgressed Your Law?
Pray tell the purpose of a sinless life
If with evil You punish the evil I have done
Pray tell, what is the difference between You and me?
- Omar Khayyam

Swat Flogging

Shock. Rage. Gloom. Despair.

The phases I went through during the weekend as the flogging of the 17-year old girl and related opinions were being aired over and over on TV channels.

Shock, that such a thing has been allowed to happen. Shock, that the people's government we have elected after years of dictatorship, a democratically elected parliament with a record majority - this 'people's government' signed the 'peace accord' with the militants that allowed this incident to happen while hundreds stood by and watched.

Rage, that no one could dare to stop it while it was happening. Rage, at the complete helplessness of the woman screaming for mercy. Rage at the utterly sick minds of the men flogging her. Rage, that the Taliban spokesman interviewed felt the punishment was justified and was being made into a big deal unnecessarily.

Gloom, that there are so many others who support this punishment. That some people still believe the tape is 'doctored'. That some feel it is an attempt to jepoardise the peace accord.
Gloom, that there are people who still want to find excuses.

Despair.
At what we have become as a nation.
At where we are headed, if headed anywhere at all.

Someone in the office very rightly said, we should use our nuclear bomb on ourselves. Better to die once and for all than watch our collective soul die bit by bit each passing day.

Sugharean Sath

It's amazing how strongly nostalgic the sense of smell can be sometimes.
Today I went to ada Arshad's (my lawyer cousin) office in Saddar for some informal advice on a corporate issue. As I went inside the building, just beside the stairs some people were unloading stacks of a new magazine issue - that smell of freshly printed magazine paper transported me to over 15 years ago when my mother and aunt got together to launch Sugharean Sath - a Sindhi magazine on women empowerment. For about a year and a half my house was a makeshift office and a storage area for the magazine.

This smell is associated with hard work and courage - the frequent meetings that they used to have with various stakeholders, the constant running around to gather material and pick up articles, endless writing, editing and proof-reading sessions late into the night, letters and mails from readers all over Sindh, the constantly brewing tea, sales and marketing efforts, and towards the end of it all, the tension around the ethnic riots that impacted operations, the ensuing lack of funds and the final stop to the publication work as they ran out of the money they were putting in themselves to sustain the effort.

I would love to be associated one day with a publication - or a similar worthwhile effort with a cause.

Mumbai Terror

My travel jinx is common knowledge to most friends, but I could never have been prepared enough for the horrific episode on Nov27 in Mumbai. I was there to attend a few board meetings, followed by a quiet management day out on 27th. The horror began just about the time we were coming out of a management dinner Wednesday night at the Four Seasons, where I was staying this time thanks to good rates agreed between this newly opened hotel and the Company.

Lynn, our HR Manager for South Asia, was expecting her husband to pick her up, and we were chatting in the lobby while waiting for him. When he hadn't arrived by 11pm, she called him only to find out he was held up on the way because of a reported bomb blast in the city. Worried, we hurried up to my room to check the news which was reporting exchange of fire between Nigerians and the police at the famous Leopold Cafe some kilometers away. There was also news of a blast having been heard, however there was uncertainty about where. Within the next hour the the number of blasts had become three, number of casualties about 10 or so and armed attacks on two top hotels, Oberoi and Taj. Lynn's husband managed to arrive some time after midnight, and we agreed to stay in touch over the developing situation.

I called up my worried folks back home to let them know I was okay, and followed the news till around 2am by when there were already 25 or so deaths reported, 5 bombs and a hostage drama unfolding in the two hotels. Worried and feeling helpless, I fell asleep. At 8am on Nov27, I woke up in a fear-gripped and paralysed Mumbai to the news of over 100 people dead, scores more injured and continuing hostage crisis. Lynn called to say the management outing was obviously off, our Mumbai offices had been declared closed and that we were to stay indoors till further notice. Being a Pakistani in India, and aware of the history of traditional finger-pointing between the two countries, I decided to check on flights and get the first available one back to Karachi. The hotel staff were all very helpful, and with Lynn calling every quarter of an hour to check on progress, I managed to get to the airport, arrange a ticket and head back safely in the afternoon. In the absence of traffic it was probably also the quickest ever trip between the hotel and the airport.

Sure enough, the blame-game with Pakistan has now begun. This whole incident and the situation developing is a terrible thing to happen, especially at a time when relations between the two countries were at a high. The way the media on both sides is behaving, it seems that regardless of how much we work together to build a good relationship, it is all really just a farce - scratch the surface and just underneath there is so much ill-will, distrust and resentment on both sides, built up in all our years of animosity and war, that no amount of effort can really seem to wash it away.

We need to wake up to the fact that terrorism is not only a global problem, for Pakistan it is our single biggest national problem. We know the fear Mumbaikars are facing, because we live through it every day. And those who know this fear would never will it on anyone else. Pakistan has its hands full in dealing with this threat internally to think about unleashing it elsewhere. Instead of talking of troop buildups at the border we need to collectively put our best brains together to solve this issue.
I hope and pray that sanity prevails.

Winds of Change

I felt it this morning, the dry air and scorching heat. It was as if there was a huge fire raging not far away, eating away all forms of life. Autumn is finally here. The temperature today was no less than 45C and one could potentially fry an egg on a car bonnett outside. I love it. And as crazy as it may sound, I love being outdoors in this dry weather when people would much rather stay put in their homes with the air conditioning on full blast.

People associate Spring as the start of life and love and happiness, but somehow for me even September has a powerful effect. For if it were not for the falling of leaves and the destructive forces of Autumn, there would never come the new life associated with Spring. A sense of quiet urgency grips me, the feeling that I must also act quickly to change my state and surroundings the way Mother Nature is doing all around.

In a way I always find myself falling in love in September. Be it with a person or a new idea, with the beautiful earth and with humankind in general. Somehow it is always Autumn when the realization hits hardest - that life is simply beautiful.