14.4.2009 (supplemental)

Well its been one hell of a week. I make reference to hell because of the weather Karachi is experiencing these days. Not that I have been to hell or know the temperature there *shudder but it cannot be a lot hotter than it is right now.

Things have been happening so quickly this week that I have had to be on the run constantly just to keep up, first there was the whole Shanaakht thing and the shock I experienced at the brutality of the regime we live in. Then endless armchair activism as people took one stance then changed then went back to their first one and what not. During the process though I think I made a few friends and so I consider the whole exercise a fruitful one. I am just sad because I promised my daughter to take her to the festival on Sunday and then I had to explain to her why it was finished. You know what she said? She said “Baba if the picture was not good they could have taken it down right?” a 5 year old can think this but……emotions count more for some folks eh?

Anyways the whole thing got canceled and some people still have the nerve to make fun of the people who worked for months to make it happen. I would like to see them actually do something in their lives rather than eat off this country. That being said, there was even more happening in addition to this, namely a huge mega bloggers conference which will kickoff on the 18th of April at 4pm in Regent Plaza. It has been organized by the Ministry of I.T and it is one hell of a pleasant surprise. Why? ummm well unless you have been in a cave the last few years you would know that no one and I mean no one in our region of the woods from governmental circles even acknowledges blogging as an alternate form of media.  The mainstream media considers it something of an evil twin amply witnessed in cliches like “Bloggers have no integrity” and what not. So when such public acknowledgment takes place it makes a blagger proud man!! The funny part is though that internationally blogs are now the most read news source according to google and the like. This happened a few months back as well. So umm move over sport.

Today to top it all off our parliament, yes those people we elected into power to represent us, agreed on the Nizam E Adal enforcement in the Swat and MAlakand division. Basically what was agreed upon in the peace deal between the government and the PTT is now officially recommended by our house of politicians. I do not have a problem with the implementation of this system, however I now would like to know what if tomorrow Sind or Punjab or Baluchistan stood up and said we want to implement some other form of law, what supremacy does the supreme court enjoy then? In fact why have a supreme court when parallel systems of justice can exist in one country. That is if you still consider Swat to be part of Pakistan..

In the midst of all this here I am, working playing, living and doing what I can to keep my head above the waters of sanity here, sometimes I wish I could just vanish to a tropical paradise, I could catch my dinner and write, or maybe to a huge library with constant electricity and tomes of paper and the smell of books…then i wake up and its back to the grind man. As they say no rest for the wicked eh? What I would like most of all though is for each one of us to remember the next time we sit down to chomp, is that a man died at the press club today, protesting the takeover of his land by a fuedal. He was on a fast of protest for 20 days and he died…while there were 3 press conferences at the same place…lots of activists and protests and he sat there on the footpath in front of all of us and he died.