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A Letter to Lala

Posted on February 28, 2011 //

At this precise moment in the world cup no one is doubting the fact that the dark horse of the tournament team Pakistan has more than demonstrated their ability and prowess to win in their match against Srilanka. They have beaten one of the hosts of this world cup in front of a packed crowd of their own fans on their own turf.

Now since our captain has made it clear post-match that this is everyone’s team I feel that we as a nation need to give him a few suggestions and who knows perhaps he will hear the call of us rabid green fans.

First of all, to anyone who watched the Pak vs. Sl match it was more than abundantly clear that one person was involved in most of  the mishaps that team Pakistan went through on the field that day. From the run out from a comic strip to the missed stamping’s to the dropped catch one akmal was always in the mix and it wasn’t the guy called umar. See its quite simple, with the Sri-lankan top order removed at 96/4  in a 277 run chase they should not have gotten as close as they did to the target in the end. They could have done what England did to India yesterday (had to mention it) For that to happen our team needs to bungle less in the field and finish off opponents quicker. Yes Akthar was brilliant in bursts, yes you our captain rocked the ground with your bowling but it was not totally our effort in the end when Srilanka lost but more a combination of chance and circumstance. Thus we need to remove the chief bungler, trust me he isn’t doing nothing for us lala!!

Secondly in this match Abdul Razzak who has the ability to knock any team out of the match with his straight batted cudgel of the norse gods faced four balls at the death. Now I do understand that this was due to the fact that Misbah and Younis had to play a Miandadesque effort to repair our innings and they did that to perfection I might add, but Razzaq should have come sooner than later after one of them departed. In fact here is an idea, since Misbah has picked up a hamstring strain (yes I have chewed all my nails off at this) why don’t we rest him for the next match which is against Canada and play Razzaq in his position. Imagine what he will do to the team from urbania? Who knows if he fires he can carry over his form to the next match?

Thirdly there is this guy in our dressing room called Junaid Khan, obviously the match against big gun srilanka demanded all the old heads at the table, however Gul is not firing at all. So why don’t we give Junaid a chance with Akthar? See if the phoenix to be can pass on some tips (cricketing one’s please) to the young talent as they bowl side by side? We will need someone for the future to spear head us too, a guy wearing a marijuana leaf T shirt at an ICC tribunal hearing deciding on his career has ensured us of that.

Last but not the least Lala we call you boom boom for a reason, and if you were wondering why the crowd goes nuts when you walk out, its in expectancy of what is to happen. So can it happen please, preferably in the semi final & the Final? Pretty please?

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A version of this post has appeared on the Dawn blog on 28/2/2011

Filed Under: Cricket // Tagged: , , , ,

How did BBC Asian Network allow this?

Posted on February 17, 2011 //

The BBC Asian network has generally been regarded as a standard in the world of radio broadcasting since its inception on 20th October 1988. Its focus being on news and programmes featuring the music, culture and diversity of England’s asian community.

Listeners to this network were thus understandably shocked when on the 1st of Feb in a radio program hosted by Mr Nihil Ashanayake whilst discussing the different religions of Hindus, Sikths and Muslims a caller Mr Guramit Singh (event organizer and spokesperson) of right winged EDL group was allowed to rant and rave against Muslims and degrade their religion in a manner which should never have been allowed on air.

This has been an instance which has come true in many areas of the world after 9/11 when presenters and hosts of a non muslim nature usually tend to increase their ratings in the lieu of Islam bashing or spreading Islamophobia in various degrees.

When it occurs on a forum as widely heard as the BBC Asian network, it just goes to back the belief many Muslims have today that they are treated as a second class of citizens on the basis of their religion in countries they emigrate to.

“If there was nothing wrong with the program then why has it been removed from the networks website”   would be one of my first questions to any justification of airing this vitriolic rant. It is still available on youtube however for all to hear for themselves just how vicious an attack was allowed on air.

A law suit has thus been rightly filed on this network by the “Peaceful Arts Association” a copy of which can be read here

I condemn this program and the views exercised in it  by the EDL spokesman in the most vociferous manner possible and appeal to the BBC to stop letting people like this on air, because they are tainting the image of the network being neutral and are dehumanizing Islam for their own twisted agendas.

Filed Under: Current Affairs // Tagged: , ,

Rise & Reclaim

Posted on February 14, 2011 //

I am not a cricket analyst and will never claim to be one but what I am, is a fan of the game itself. As a fan of the Pakistan team I have had the pleasure of witnessing our victories in some unusual circumstances. For instance the match against India in Sharjah where Javed Miandad hit a smashing six on the very last ball; I was at the beach with my family at that time, we were all glued to the radio and so was everyone else around us. When he hit that last ball out of the park, cheers were heard from all the huts, people ran out celebrating – singing and dancing along the beach. That is one cricket memory I will never forget.

I witnessed our last victory (amazingly) through social media in 2009. I was in the lobby of the Equatorial Hotel in Shanghai but the Wi-Fi connection was a little temperamental. So I ran around the lobby, laptop in hand trying to find a constant connection. I did not have access to TV or radio in China so had to rely on Cricinfo’s live feed and my own Twitter feed. Through spurts of internet connection, I realised that my Twitter feed was overwhelmed with songs, chants and cries of victory and we had succeeded in making #Pakistan trend that day. Even via social media the atmosphere was so electric that it felt like we were all together in one room from across the globe watching the T20 final.

The 1992 Pakistan team was missing an incredible bowler and a legend – our current coach Waqar Younis – but even so, they managed the impossible and brought home the cup. I do not know a single Pakistani who will not feel pride and nostalgia each time they hear the 1992 World Cup song.

No one, except Pakistan cricket fans know what it feels like to have our hearts torn and trampled upon. No one has hurt more than us in the last couple of years as we have been dragged through the muck of despair. We witnessed anything and everything that could have gone wrong. But you know what? I was watching a sports show with Moin Khan and Imran Khan as guests. where Imran stated that our current team has the worst preparation he has ever seen at the onset of a World Cup. But he also said, and there was a glint in his eye as he said this,  “If we click, who knows?”

This is the “if” we dare not speak of in case we jinx the team where our fate would be similar to that in a match against Ireland in 2007. This is the “if” that will always remain with our team. I know our unpredictability has been spoken about to death, but if we look at our team we do seem to have a good balance of the old and young. Between Shahid Afridi, Misbah-ul Haq, Younis Khan, Abdul Razzaq and Shoaib Akhtar, we have the experience of more than a 1,000 ODI’s. Like the 1992 World Cup we again lack one of our main strike bowlers in Mohammed Aamer, but we do have the new left arm pace bowler, Junaid Khan and there is always the fast medium pace of Wahab Riaz and Umar Gul. And we should definitely not dismiss the weathered prowler Akhtar; a few overs of crazy pace here and there, and who knows? Then there is the batting of Umar Akmal and the hushed prowess of Ahmed Shehzad. The only thing we lack in my opinion, is a quality specialist spinner and a good consistent wicketkeeper, both of which India have shown off to a maximum in their opening route of the Aussies.

Our captain Afridi, Lala as we fondly call him, has been the most carefree athlete I have seen in a lifetime of watching this sport. Hearing him state that the Pakistan team is the “most dangerous team” in the world makes one hope … makes one dream.

Come on team Pakistan, there is no place left to go but up!

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As published in “The Dawn Blog” on 14/2/2011

Filed Under: Cricket, Published Articles, Sports // Tagged: , , ,

Access denied!

Posted on February 7, 2011 //

Most of the best statistical analysis about our country is present with our telecom operators who invest in and maintain extensive data on our population as it is to their intrinsic benefit. In a very recent survey according to“Teletimes International” Pakistan is a country of 169 million people with 2.49% of its populace falling under the “disabled” category. This includes both visually and physically challenged people( I find handicapped and disabled too crude).  Quite a  large number of us who are treated by the rest as completely invisible and ignored.

Harsh words I know, but the life of person who is challenged in any way is the very epitome of misery in this land. Right from the very start if a person is noted to be a little slow or has difficulty in coping with the ways of normal childhood they are shunned mostly by their family at first and then by those around them. They grow up knowing there is something wrong with them and when they enter an age where they should become part of society they learn that Pakistani society has no space for them. Even if the parents of such a child chose to act in defiance and care for their children society looks upon them as they have suddenly sprouted some sort of disease and it is somehow their fault that their child is challenged.

We often point fingers at the system but we do not want to look in the mirror and realize we are the system. Does anyone know how many private restaurants in the city of Karachi have accessibility options for physically or visually challenged individuals? How many of them have menus in braille? If someone in a wheel chair wants to go out and eat, people accompanying him/her would have to first literally carry them in and then would be subject to our innate ability to stare down anything slightly out of the ordinary. Confortable thought no?

Lets pick up another area of normal life for the rest of us”income” There exists a quota for physically or visually challenged people in Pakistan in both corporate and government jobs but its more or less on paper only. As far as I know people who do not measure up to our standards of normal are usually shunned by most avenues of employment. So what are they supposed to do? Just because a person has lost or does not have one sense does not mean he or she is less intelligent then you and I, or cannot make the next breakthrough or achieve a name for themselves? We however deem it proper that they should sit at home and think some more about what they cannot do.

Today the world has exploded with connections via the internet and social media bringing an almost unmanageable input of info to those of us who can access it . Yet this segment of our society cannot even use the internet because they cannot afford braille keyboards or need special services like text to speech which are not understood by most of their family members. They are in the dark, literally and our telecom companies also choose to mostly ignore them, as per their own data 80% of the challenged people of Pakistan can only access the voice call facilities of their cell phones, 10% of the hearing challenged can only use our sms facilities, there is a total unavailability of text to speech across the board, 30% of all physically challenged persons cannot even use a cell phone due to device design. How is a challenged person supposed to even know what kind of services a carrier or dsl service is offering when they cannot visually or audibly access the brochures these companies make? Are any of the ad campaigns designed to provide access to those among us who cannot see or hear? Does anyone of our carriers offer the challenged people of Pakistan an alternative other than total dependence on those around them to guide them in say getting a sim card?

We do give them one thing though, you see we Pakistanis are very compassionate folk so we show it by showering pity on these challenged individuals, the problem is they do not need our pity! Most of them are content with the way god made them. It is we in our blatant ignorance who are acting like they are lesser mortals than us, hence making them conscious and insecure. Do we know Einstein could not read until he was 8, Edison till he was 12, John Milton went blind at 43, Beethoven became deaf at 28. Imagine how many inventors, musicians & poets do we have enchained in self doubt and mental torture? Imagine what we could achieve if we gave them accessibility to so many things we take for granted…we the “normal” people of Pakistan

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A version of this piece was published in The Dawn Blog on 7/2/2011

Filed Under: Published Articles // Tagged: , , ,

At Crossroads

Posted on February 2, 2011 //

It seems as though the country has been neatly fractured into two visible sides: the conservatives and the liberals. Every incident in the recent past, be it the assassination of Governor Salman Taseer or the Veena Malik debacle, reminds us again and again, that the valuable middle-ground and the people who actually make some sense instead of senseless rants on TV shows and in mosques, are silent. Most of them are sitting on the fence watching how this will play out. By “this,” I mean the future of this nation.

Meanwhile the ranting continues, everyone talks about the mullahs and how they are constantly giving edicts and fatwas against any kind of freedom. However, no one is questioning the liberals about what their actual agenda is. Fine, so they want anyone who can hold a mike and speak, become a national figure but what is the next step? Do they realise that the rest of the country is living in a very different world than theirs? Do they know that most of Pakistan, even today, if asked to  vote, would not want the social system that the liberals are advocating?

We understand, even those sitting on the fence, that for a country to function it needs basic human rights and justice. However the kind of mindset that is being demanded by the liberals is very difficult to achieve in a country with a literacy rate as low as ours and with the mosque not separate from the state.  Is it possible to achieve high ideals like peace and justice for all in a place where we cannot even agree on whether murder is justified? Is it viable to be one of the 7 per cent and stand outside press clubs across the country, when those issues do not even matter to the majority of the nation? Of course, everyone has a right to protest about what they feel is unjust. However, can these protests not be replaced some kind of dialogue, something tangible instead of just crying ourselves hoarse?

Let us look at the other side of the equation. Do the extremists and fundamentalists think that in today’s geo-political age, such hard line views exist? Do they think that a re-formation of the Caliphate has a real chance? Say they manage to gain hold of the reins of power in Pakistan (hopefully not) in the way they took over Afghanistan – do they think that they can do so without any repercussions from our nieghbouring countries, which I might add, are several gargantuan sizes larger than us. Again, the point is: what will they gain after this jihad within Pakistan? More jihad with the rest of the world? Endless wars and killings? Is that the grand goal our peaceful religion has taught us?

In my opinion, both sides of this equation are absolutely wrong. There is no way this nation can go towards one direction without fracturing into many, many parts. The prudent thing here would be to try to heal as a nation through dialogue rather than inflicting new wounds on each other’s intellectual and physical self. We have many serious issues that need to be dealt with immediately. We may have lost our way but that does not mean there is no good in Pakistan.

All international aid agencies claimed that millions of people would be without shelter or clean drinking water in the aftermath of the recent floods, but that did not happen. We stood together as a nation, put aside our differences and lent a helping hand. Is that not proof enough for us that unity works? Those who are silent spectators in this debacle – the onus is on them, to stand up and raise their voices. They need to remind the fractured nation, that we need peaceful dialogue to begin our journey together towards progress. I realise it is easier said then done, but we need to start somewhere.

__________________

As published in The Dawn Blog on 27/1/2011

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Published Articles // Tagged: , , , ,

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