Fundos vs Nouveaus

Here is a pictorial representation of the big bang. it's an intriguing image which charts our momentous journey across time and space. and with regards to our notions of 1000 words, it is an eloquent manner of comprehending the vastness of the passage that creation, or matter, or reality has seemed to take.

yet the first thought that struck me when i saw this picture – i think it was the first thought – was that why is it all only traveling in one direction? it seems to be pretty obvious that explosions travel in a vaguely circular manner. this seems to depict a cannon shooting in a particular direction.

i think that there is a reasonable, rational scientific explanation. for example, the axis for time follows a path from 0 to Now, and as such requires a liner view of the events. but it reminded me of a physics lesson from my IB's. our professor, who at times appeared to be exasperated at inquisitiveness, was trying to explain something about the universe and its finite boundaries. and me and a couple of other kids kept asking him - “but if the universe is finite, isn't it in something?”
i don't know if you get this. the point was that if there is some object that constitutes of matter, then surely it is within something else. the end of its boundaries must mark the beginning of something else, something which is not the object in question.

(it may be interesting to note that all those asking the question were from developing countries.)

his stuttering rebuttals, and pleading assertions that he was telling us what was right left me with a certain skepticism about the whole thing. and before you all go up in arms, i concede that I'm not a creationist or a proponent of intelligent design. i'm confused. and it seems to me that a lot of us are. certainly everyone i know seems to be.

but while the people i know may be confused, humanity in general doesn't seem to be so. in fact, when you look at the world, and not the people you know, you get the idea that everyone seems to have a really good idea of what they're doing, and why its right. predictably, as a pakistani, my first thoughts go the taliban and the fundos and all their like-minded brethren.

they seem to be pretty damned assertive in their self-righteousness. they're so sure that it allows them to justify blowing up bombs in political rallies, cd markets, prayer halls and us-assisted governmental investigative agencies. the idea being that the fear and terror spread by such acts would convince their targets to change their ways. now before you get washed over by your instinctive reactions (and the fundos always elicit instinctive reactions) consider this image.
i don't know who caused this boy to lose his leg, but its what happens every time there is some carnage filled catastrophe. and at some level they must know that this is what they are doing, and not all of their victims are scum-infested infidels as i'm sure they've realised. but yet it hasn't stopped them, and while you can identify with their rage at some level, it staggers the mind to think of the unadulterated violence perpetuated in the name of islam.

but what intrigues even further is that they are not alone, but rather their compulsive attitude seems reflective of our times. if we stay within pakistan and move towards the newly affluent middle class we see the same problems. pakistan in many ways is watching its infrastructure and its amenities simply melt down. we don't have enough power, enough water, enough security.

but we the rich buy bigger generators, install larger power pumps, bribe more important water officials, hire more security guards. maybe the problem can't be avoided, but wealth allows us to circumvent it. we are blissfully oblivious of the fact that our actions are only speeding up the process of our own annihilation. its a sentiment that echoes well with the actions of the fundos as well. we complain of the heat as we douse ourselves in flames.

( if we return to the picture from the start, sometimes it seems to me that the truth lies on the other end of the big bang, maybe just a few steps away. yet we've spent all this time rushing towards the opposite direction.)

but if i go back to my point, one remedy that we choose to seek in pakistan, regardless of age, wealth, ethnicity, literacy, gender or religion, is that we choose to blame this on some sort of endemic, systemic, institutional reason. and consequently, the very few who feel compelled to address these problems look for systemic, institutional answers.
if you allow me to digress, i have worked with various NGOs headed by extremely able and intelligent people. yet their children were educated abroad, drove their own cars and got addicted to cocaine. now don't get me wrong, these are not your aunty NGOs. one was probably the most successful NGO model in all of south asia. and despite their foreign education and drug habits, their kids were fun, intelligent, compassionate people. but their manners and habits were consumerist and compulsive, and led to self-destructive ends.

and so the question arises. why have these people failed at their children even when they have achieved so much in a country notorious for its failings? why have the taliban sought to bring a return to the islamic ideal when their methods lead to the deaths of so many of the innocent?
the answer lies in an interview i read today of Syed Hossein Nasr, a Muslim American scholar who's also a Sufi. this is what he said

“What is tragic today is that there is a number of Muslims who think that all the solutions are to be found simply by external actions. They don’t have to do anything within themselves. This is a deeply Western idea – modern, Western idea, where you try to improve the world without improving yourself.”

i found it to be a brilliant observation. because what the fundos and the nouveau riche would like you to believe is that the other side is deluded and their vision dystopian. that allows you to believe that the Other does nothing but act in its pure self interest. and its either completely oblivious to their acts of destruction, or worse yet, totally aware of them and hell bent on perpetuating its sadist ideals.

the truth i feel is that both sides, and everyone in between, finds refuge in their compulsions and addictions. whether that addiction is towards consumer driven materialism or religion fueled fundamentalism, they feel that they can sacrifice a little part of their souls to achieve that end point ideal, which can either mean vanquishing the infidels, or attaining the most desirable set of status symbols.

its a path that is driving us, me, to destruction. for my part, i pledge to try and change myself. the rest of the world can follow, if it wants.

What do They Know of Cricket, Who Only Cricket Know?

How does one understand the meaning of something? words or expressions for example. you could go through the tedious task of employing dictionaries for the purpose, which tends to breed those kind of people who are absolutely unable to comprehend context or sarcasm. of course i submit that this may entirely be the problem of those who are speaking in english as a second class citizen, or those who have acquired the language as a sort of a foster home, with no where else really to go to.

perhaps the way you make do is through context. you listen to words, or expressions long enough, and you can start placing together when it is appropriate to say the "chickens are coming home to roost" when someone is talking about 9/11.

but there is one expression which despite repeated attempts, no, a vast multitude of attempts, i have failed to understand what exactly it means. i can clearly estimate the sheer importance accorded to it, but what it exactly means remains a mystery to me.

what do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?

these words were written by CLR james. I really haven't read as much of CLR James as much as the tomes i have read about the man. who was he? without delving in to too much detail, James was a preeminent Caribbean socialist scholar who also wrote eloquently about cricket. he managed to write one of the most overused expressions in cricket literature

what do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?

it doesn't count if i use it. the only work of his i - admittedly lazily - came across, was in some reader in some psuedo-leftist lums course. i also read that he wrote something along the following lines (heavily paraphrased reproduction here):

cricket, was always a colonial sport, which much like the process of colonization itself was something that was inevitably imposed. and the native's dilemma is that once he has to accept this reality, or the game, he can never be considered to have excelled in it if he wishes to emulate the colonist, as the colonist would always lay claim to ultimate judgement. the way to express both excellence and resistance towards the colonist was to take their the colonial culture and express it with your own particular stamp of identity upon it - the process allows the native to exert control over the colonists culture, in the process changing it against the will of the latter.

i believe clr james explained that with the help of the following example. the late cut. it was a shot no english player would ever play. it was quite a difficult shot, and much worse, it was an extremely risky one. one could easily lose their wicket playing the shot, and it would often realise no more than a single if third man was in position. and it was a shot batsmen from the west indies would play with panache and repetitive ease. it was in effect their way of expressing their identity through their cricket - so even if they couldn't own the game as their own, they could however make it all their own.

the reason that's possible is that cricket - like art - manages to be representative of the times its conceived within. take for example bodyline. the notorious leg side body threatening bowling was just the most logical way of combatting the juggernaut which was bradman. in an era where humanity would extend its logic and crudely understood sciences to their logical extremities*, the much maligned practices of douglas jardine were exactly what made sense at the time.
*(This was a time of Nazis amongst others employing eugenics, barely a decade away from the use of nuclear weapons against humans, and between wars which introduced trench warfare and carpet bombing of civilian targets. The world was introduced to the wonders of chemical weapons and assembly lines - the brutality of modernity was being wholly unleashed)

and the journey of cricket has repeatedly proffered such telling examples of life being replicated on the pitch. take for example the west indian pace battery which would dominate cricket for about 15 years following 1976. that was the year when tony greig had made his infamous comment about intending to make the touring Caribbeans 'grovel' into submission.
the windies prior to this series were a stuttering sort of a team and had been thrashed 5-1 by australia in their previous series. and while the groveling comment made the headlines, the tour changed the way cricket was played.

once again, the bowlers, long the proletariat of cricket, shocked the life out of the fat and lazy batsmen by employing fast, furious, and short pitched bowling. during a time of apartheid and white smugness about their superiority the new style of cricket employed by clive lloyd's men would revolutionize cricket. and in a time of punk and the middle eastern oil crisis, it was the kind of cricket befitting the epoch it was being played in.the list goes on and on. kerry packer's big money gambit with the world series came at a time when the world was witnessing the old order of welfare and bureaucratic niceties crumble in the face of free markets, cocaine binges, celebrity worship and global television.

which belatedly brings me to the point of this whole ramble. Twenty 20. the version has been around for a while, but it truly became mainstream when the world cup was held last year. coming on the back of the worst global sporting event in history - the 50 over world cup in the West Indies - it really had to do very little to go one step better.

only it became a smashing success.

the tournament saw big upsets, huge crowds, women and children in the stands, cheerleaders on the boundaries, and a glut of exciting finishes. to top it off, the final was probably the most exciting in a cricket world cup since the inaugural edition of the world cup in 1975.

but of course, there was a whole range of purists who derided the mindless hitting, the slogs, the squeezing out of the bowlers, the sheer vulgarity of it all. but those who see it for just that are missing the point.

the anti-t20 bias is almost a filter for identifying stereotypes. it staggers the mind that cricket fans of such intellect can not seem to understand that twenty 20 is not some freak monster designed specifically to rob cricket of whatever hallowed customs it hold true, BUT rather a response to the nature of modern life.

t20 haters come from a time when hard work was synonymous with heavy labor and lifting - welcome to a world of 12 hour work shifts at boring, cookie cutter cubicles where the idea of excitement will always be closer to a two hour slap dash version of cricket than any other. people these days don't spend hours reading high brow erotic french literature, they download five minute amateur porn off the internet. its just how it is now.but perhaps what is saddest aspect of this whole affair is that if they (those tradition bound idealists who trash twenty-20) really love the game, how can they

a) fail to see the glorious uncertainties of cricket that are thrown up repeatedly in a t20 game?

b) fail to learn that what you love will always survive if you nurture it and liberate it, and will definitely die if you fawn over it and protect it jealously?

----- i had written this piece before the IPL had began. i am finishing it now that its over, and its pretty apparent that cricket would never be the same again. since plenty has been written and said about the IPL, i'll restrict my comments.

but i think the whole event only strengthened my point. cricket, like art, imitates life. and life right now is about gross inequities and small triumphs. about bite sized packets, and fast expirations. fame is not about greatness, but about fifteen minutes. its about in your face brashness, and not about subtlety. its a time when super powers drop cluster bombs on civilians, and yet the most mighty of armies are humbled by home grown guirellas.

the most respected musicians are those who have gold on their teeth and clunky diamonds around their necks. its a world where corporations have more power than entire continents. where a few rich men can rob millions of their homes and get paid grotesque severance packages for the favor. its a world which produces more food than it can consume yet more people die of starvation than ever before. its a world where paris hilton has 16 times the internet attention of the pope.

its a world imploding from the man made catastrophes of climate change and nuclear weapons and overpopulation and bubblegum pop music. nudity no longer shocks, it bores. you can divorce your spouse through sms. episodes are being supplanted by webisodes.

it is not for cricket to serve remedies to this alarming panacea. it is not for cricket to serve as a reminder of how things used to be. it is for cricket to be art, to represent the here and now. it is for cricket to show us who we are, to serve as a mirror to our own selves. to help us understand who we are and how we got here.

so you can go on complaining about the vulgarity, the capitalism, the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am. you can balk at the audacity of the strokes, the spectacle of fast bowlers with slower ones, and spinners with faster ones. you can weep at the flash and the colour and the desecration of all you held to be good and great.

wake up and smell the instant coffee.

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

(this post was written during the first match between pakistan and india in the kitply tri-series cricket tournament)


Its 140 without loss, and its not even 20 overs yet.

If i count 1992 as the year i began watching cricket, the theme of India Pakistan matches was a largely recurring one. we met only in ODIs, the matches took place abroad, and barring inconsequential fixtures Pakistan creamed India.

that was not to say that it wasn't fun watching the auld enemy get their noses bloodied. for starters the matches were so few and far in between that by the time one came around you couldn't wait for it. and there was always the visceral pleasure derived from those matches that would rarely be replicated in any other arena of life, let alone cricket.

it was also a time of diplomatic impasse. compared to now, India of those days was a strange entity accessible only through Bollywood. the solitary pakistani tv channel had a half hour program dedicated to the plight of kashmir which ran every day, during a time slot which may now be considered prime time. no one ever went across the borders other than ISI-trained operatives and RAW agents claiming to be drunken vagabonds until their release two decades later upon which time they would proclaim themselves to be spies.

the countries themselves were much different from how they are now. Pakistan actually spent the entire 90s under democratic rule. well until oct 99, so that's pretty much the entire decade. indian politicians and film stars and everyone else used to drive white ambassadors, elected congress to power and had little global charisma.


then, things began to change.

it took a little while. the new millennium began in earnest for some when the twin towers fell. but in terms of pakistan india cricket, the tides of change truly thundered ashore in 2004. relations between the two countries had changed much. india was rampaging forward as a nascent global superpower. a hyper-nationalist zeal had come to engulf indian politics, and its economy provided much of the justification for those claims. pakistan was led by the khakis again, although that was more of a cyclical, rather than turning point kind of change.

pakistani dramas, which used to be popular in india, were now carbon copies of their indian versions. 'crossover' stars were being created in earnest, with pakistani acts jumping across wagah to bathe in cash, and indian bhangra-pop acts were selling out pakistani country clubs. so sacrilegious was the new reality that the world cup theme song for the “men in blue” in 2003 was sung by a pakistani singer – albeit one anxious to rid his nationality with the same haste he had dropped his bulbous weight.

in fact, the changes run so deep, and are so varied that it exhausts me just to start thinking about them let alone writing about them. but i hope you get the picture. so back to 2004. because i had mentioned that time as when things changed completely.

you see, for most of the time between 1992 to 2004, pakistan had made india pretty much their whipping boys. out of the 48 ODIs that yielded results played between the two countries, pakistan had won 28, including a string of seven wins in a row, and never lost more than two on a trot. indian victories on the other hand, were usually phyrric in nature. the six times the two countries met in tournament finals, pakistan won 4 times. pakistani bowlers, especially wasim and waqar, and to a lesser extent saqlain, made even tendulkar appear like a novice. in fact that period of dominance was the primary reason why pakistani fans are so disdainful of sachin's justified claims of all time greatness. he would rarely get any good scores against us, and even if he did they would not be in consequential matches, and even if they were, he couldn't guide the rest of his sorry team to victory.

indian bowlers were so atrocious they made pakistani batsmen put bradman to shame. both saeed anwar and ijaz ahmed were great batsmen, but would struggle to make anyone's list of the top 10 batsmen of all time. yet they were only two examples of men who battered india senseless to the point of eliciting reverence usually put aside for someone like viv richards. cue anwar's 194 and ijaz's lahore blitzkrieg to understand my point.

pakistan was just better




but in 2004, things were ripe for revolution. for starters, wasim and waqar had retired. no one had played test match cricket in pakistan for so long we had forgotten what it was. while australia humiliated us by dismissing us twice for 50-odd in a “home test” match in sharjah, india had drawn a series against steve waugh's immortals in australia. and there were plenty of new faces in india's new pale blue sahara emblazoned kit.

in 2004, when india toured pakistan, they won both the test series and the odi series. the test victory was the first by any indian team against pakistan on pakistani soil. it was a tour which changed history

as we understood it. (for a brilliant account of the tour, read rahul bhattcharya's pundits in pakistan)

it began a period of cricket between the two countries which is disconcerting, and disturbing for anyone who had witnessed the 90s. the old ways were literally sublimating into thin air.

in the time since then, pakistan india have played 27 ODIs, with pakistan winning 14, and losing 13. (after today that score line reads 14 each, and will probably get worse) more importantly, pakistan has only won one series, while india has won 3. in tests the story has become even more disturbing. india has won 2 series to pakistan's one, and the last series was humiliating in the way indian batsmen would amass gargantuan totals and then watch in amusement how their pakistani counterparts would struggle to match their feats on dead wickets.

in the days of yore, indians would rarely have a good day at the office against pakistani opposition. kumble's 10-for seemed an aberration more than anything else. now yuvraj averages 50 against us, sehwag cracked the first ever triple ton by an indian ever against us. dhoni and pathan both see their averages improve when they play pakistan. balaji made an entire career out of tormenting pakistani batsmen, and no one else.


and in what must be seen as a grim foreboding, pakistan has lost to india in every t20 match played between the two nations. sure there have only been two matches, but the nature of those defeats rankles. one was lost because pakistani bowlers couldn't hit the wicket with no batsmen on the pitch. the second was lost when misbah's id overrode his ego.(actually in fairness, i don't blame misbah, and will forever see that moment as a romantic encapsulation of the pakistani spirit. but still. it was the kind of torture to get the bush administration excited over its excruciating possibilities.)through out the 90s, when each victory over india inspired scenes of nationalistic jingoism, i would hold back, because anti-indianess struck me as stupid and boorish. i would defend tendulkar's greatness even though no one else could fathom why. and there was even a (exceedingly brief) time when a match against australia would be more eagerly anticipated.

(this was mainly during the india-pakistan-australia tri-series, when india was just being woeful)

but now. as india presses for a permanent seat on the security council, and their mainstream movies have started becoming really good, and the whole world flocks to its wonders, and cricket's next big thing was their love child, and when pakistan seems to be sinking into political indecisiveness (again a cyclical thing) and economic meltdown, and each summer promises a new endgame, ranging from power to water to food to health for the entire nation, i can't help but wish for the days gone by.

i'm only 24, too young to be an old fogey living in the past. but the future feels uninhabitable at this rate.

N.B. Pakistan eventually went on to record their worst ever defeat to India in all one day internationals. This joins Pakistan's effort of also losing to India in a test series at India for the first time in 20-odd years last year, as well as recording their worst ever Test defeat against them not so long ago.

Terrorize Pakistan Year 2008

A recent report by the Pakistan Tourism Ministry has announced that the "Visit Pakistan Year 2007" project was a huge and resounding... failure.

The project was launched by former tourism minister Nilofer Bakhtiar. She became infamous during her campaign after pictures of her hugging her parachuting instructor, who was after all a farangi, led to her being awarded an instant fatwa for Mullah Radio.



The endeavor, which was lavishly spent upon, even had the blessings and whole hearted support of both former General President Pervez Musharraf, as well as former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz a.k.a. I-flirted-with-Condi-Rice-and-all-I-have-to-show-for-it-is-this-lousy-feeling-of-rejection.

In true Pakistani spirit, Visit Pakistan 2007 outdid itself by attracting fewer tourists than the year before. Suffice to say, the project failed to meet its mark of attracting one million tourists by the end of the year.

But let's be fair.

2007 was definitely not what you may call a marquee year for Pakistan. Whose idea was it to put Newsweek in charge of the publicity?


The jewel in the PTDC's crown, Swat, was masquerading as Little Kandahar for most of the year.

And the efficacy of Pakistan's suicide bombings was leaving Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia greener than Baghdad's Green Zone.

But as the old Chinese proverb goes, when the winds of Change blow some build shelters, and others build windmills.

So why doesn't Pakistan begin to promote terror-tourism?

It makes perfect sense. With over a billion Muslims worldwide, even if we assume that 10% comprise of the lunatic fringe, that's 100 million marauding mullahs just waiting for a destination to plan their next jihad for.

Our carefully crafted infrastructure in FATA is replete with state of the art facilities, and a derogatory colonial moniker strives to ensure that the vengeful fundo within you remains alive and burning

Allow our specially designated kaffir cleaning crew to indoctrinate you with the latest propaganda from Messers Osama and Co. The extensive ISI training afforded to all our "vacation facilitators" ensures that you are brainwashed to become the most mindless of murderous molvis.


Your stay would be within the most luxuriate stone age settings, complete with panoramic views of ISAF positions across the border, none of them more than a stinger's range away.


And what of those of the academic bent? Has it not been said that Pakistan now hosts a veritable Ivy League of Madarssas within its confused borders?

Prospective students can apply to a range of world class terrorism training facilities, under the tutelage of the planet's finest merchants of death.

CIA Global Report 2007 ranked Pakistan as the world's no.1 sanctuary for delusional nihilist Islamofascists, and they're all ready to provide you with the training YOU need to annihilate kuffars everywhere.

Our alumni have caused widespread death, destruction and chaos across the world, ranging from grandstand events such as the London and Madrid bombings, to small eclectic affairs like Russian Army ambushes in Chechnya and ultra-violent separatist movements in the Philippines.

Plus if you are awarded one of the annual Wahabi Halfbright Scholarships, our urban centers provide the perfect location to vent your years of sexual frustration upon our half-price malls, poorly protected Nordic embassies, oversized political rallies and of course, Chinese whore houses masquerading as massage parlors.

And if you wish to aim for the very top, perhaps its prudent to remember that no self-respecting jihadi megalomanic has climbed to the top without a visit to what we proudly refer to as the "Oxbridge" of Jihadist academia - the stately Binoria Masjid in Karachi, and of course, the world famous Lal Masjid in the Federal Capital.



So come on, what are you waiting for? Join in on all the fun and festivities in "Terrorize Pakistan Year 2008"