Keeping It Real

This blog was originally published in the Express Tribune Magazine. It was meant to be published in the Dawn blog, but someone there felt it wasn't relevant. My special thanks to a great fan of the blog who had my back, and to @Nadir_Hassan for offering and succeeding at publishing it at ET.

According to this article, bestiality is a rite of passage in parts of Pakistan. Considering that sexual depravity, even in innocuous terms is no stranger to young, virile Pakistani men, I am reluctant to dismiss this claim as another journo out to malign the image of Pakistan.

Rites of passage after all, are essential to human life. 

Take for example the rite of passage involving young bloggers in Pakistan. At some point in their blogging career, all of us write this post.

This post?

You know, the one in which we deride, mock and seek to humiliate the ‘elites’ of Pakistan, their obsession with material goods and facebooks, their cluelessness regarding the local transport network, their obliviousness to the rampant poverty faced by the unclothed majority, their contempt for our local vernacular.

Inevitably, these rants exhort the elites to pacify their ‘liberal extremism,’ to nullify their ‘western-boot-licking’ to pop out of their ‘bubbles.’ Words like ‘reality’ ‘common man’ and ‘masses’ litter these posts like plastic bags in Clifton Beach. 

Let us lay aside the implicit irony of English speaking, computer using bloggerati railing against people who are essentially their own friends and family. 

Let us look instead, at something far more intriguing.

What makes someone a ‘real’ Pakistani? What makes something a ‘real’ Pakistani experience? From what these posts imply, being rich and privileged strips you of the ability to be real.

What a fascinating idea! 

It appears that the venerable Defence Housing Authority is no more than a figment of my imagination, that the Fez nights at Sindh Club are merely a mirage concocted by misfiring neurons in our elitist brains, that those of us going to ‘dance parties’ and ‘social clubs’ are merely computer generated holograms, created to incense the fevered blogger and implode Pakistan from within.

On the flip side, it also implies that the poor are one coagulated mass of noble, wretched, helpless, nameless limbs and faces whose entire destiny depends on whether or not we stop watching ‘Jersey Shore’ and sipping skimmed milk espressos.

What a load of bull.

For starters, while there is no reason to defend the oblivious and corrosive actions of the elites in our country, pointing the fingers at people essentially from the same background as yourself displays stunning self-delusion.

Secondly, holding up the ‘poor’ as some paragons of virtue, as being common or part of an undifferentiated mass, robs them of their individuality, their diversity, and only further intensifies the differences between ‘us’ and ‘them.’

And most importantly, defining some things as ‘real’ and others as not only deludes us from taking responsibility of the fact that every action, every moment, every experience is as real (or not) as any other. Eating out in Burns Road or Anarkali is not more any more ‘real’ than the same activity being done in Zamzama or MM Alam Road. Spurning the advances of nefarious corporations might be healthy for your wallet, but falling to their embraces does not cloak you in a halo of ‘unreality.’

So much like young men allegedly deflowering unsuspecting four-legged mammals, bloggers railing against the elite is one rite of passage we can all do without. 

Copy Pasting Copy Paste

"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research."

I read this quote today on a friend's facebook status. when i started to write this blog, i googled the phrase, and found this:

The quote "If you copy from one author, it's plagiarism. If you copy from two, it's research." has been attributed to playwright, raconteur  and entrepreneur Wilson Mizner. The exact wording to which you allude has been widely attributed to comedian Steven Wright. Did he plagiarize Mizner?

it was an interesting example of fate stepping forward and stealing my punch line.

you see, when i saw the quote, it managed to provide a pithy summary of why i had decided to name my blog "copy paste material." the decision had come a year of being a journalist, and three years before that of being a student at LUMS.

what i had come to see was that in both cases, one needed to essentially plagiarise in order to be credible.

as a student, i often felt that i had read and seen enough to hold certain views. but in order to be taken seriously, i had to present it in light of what others had said or done.

as a journalist, i was starting out as a copywriter on the international desk. so yeah, i covered three wars - i'm a regular robert fisk. anyhows, being on the international desk meant sitting around, reading the wires, and - wait for it - copy pasting them into your story.

in both cases, the mark of quality was demonstrated by, amongst other things, a variety and depth of sources. in fact, an out right copy-paste was inacceptable. but reframing et al the stuff constituted quality.

hence the title - copy paste material.

why do i bring up this now?

i read a blog recently, which ended thus:

"undeniably, and unfortunately, there is a little bit of Zardari in all of us."

which reminded me of this:

"Asif Ali Zardari did what every Pakistani does – he looked at how the game was being played, sought out its soft spots, and then cut it to pieces. Its why he’s here. He does what all of us do. It maybe at a different scale, but it’s the same scene.

You have to admit - we all have a little Zardari within us."

yesterday, i came across this:

Every time I bribed a policeman, ignored the traffic signals, sent gifts to judges, made phone-calls to those in power to seek favors, I kept this in mind. Every time I willfully weakened the justice system for my benefit, I knew what I was doing. I knew exactly what kind of crop I was sowing. Some other people did too, but I don’t want to name any names.

a sort of like this, i wondered:

"Every day, as we break red lights and jostle with vehicular madness, as we consume tainted water and questionable food, as we bribe and barter, we live in existence where the possibility of the consequences of our actions can not hope to be considered, because perhaps we know of no other way."

now if you are getting my flow, i suppose there are two ways i can go with this. i can get all egoistical, and claim that people are copy-pasting my ideas. or i can face up to what i believe myself - that these are signs of people waking up to the massive contradictions that lie within us.

moreover, i could make sense of the 'copy-pasting' being employed in academia and journalism - because in a society overflowing with ideas, their repetitions and their regurgitations, the only way of making sense, the only skill is one of bringing together references that your audience can relate to in order to create a narrative, or an opinion that makes sense.

a part of me wanted to believe that i was being plagiarized, but it would be egoistical folly. surely i was not the first person to realise that pakistanis can often be in denial about themselves, that change lies within us all. moreover, a lot of my own blogs have been basically copy-pastes of my wife's ideas and thoughts. so it would be hypocritical.

but what provides irrefutable evidence of the fact that all these are original works is when you step back and read all of them in their context. the second link for example, works the same motifs i used to examine afridi into a haunting account of the sialkot lynching. i doubt if he/she had ever even come across what i had written. the reason both ideas work is that they allow their readers to make sense of their society using examples of their own experiences - the bribing, the bartering, the wheeling and dealing.

to get a much better example than all of this, take a look at this magnificent video. umar sharif, in about a few minutes, weaves together references from silent-era Hollywood to post-Cold War geopolitics, from one style of qawwali to the next, from one generation of sub-continental romancing styles to an eerily prescient version of another (i am referring to the line about giving out phone numbers.)

(thanks to tazeen for the link)

and it gets even more interesting. there is for example an indian version of this song currently out:



according to twitter user @Mehmal, both songs are versions of an older song, known as "Launda Badnam Hua, Nasiban Tere Liye." an indian website meanwhile says that the song was a "famous Bhojpuri song "Launda badnam hua naseeban tere liye", which was sung by Rani Bala"

Soon enough you come to realise that there might not be anything original in the world. so what?

each idea flows from somewhere, and flows on to somewhere else. attributing your sources is always great, but you can't very well put footonotes in a song or a movie.

the whole point is to make what ever you do your own. you're going to be copy-pasting whether you like it or not, whether you realise it or not. but you do have the choice of making it in your own style, in your own image.

A Quick One While You Were Away

why do we - pakistanis - discuss politics non-stop? before you perform some vigilante justice on me, hear me out.

a few hours ago there was a lot of anguish over politicians and journalists baying for another coup. i realise the need to speak out against this. yet i can't help but feel a great futility in such practices. to me, they seem like a way of venting frustrations. since we on the internet are not concerned with the next meal, our drowning lifestock or our dying, starving children, what is the basis of this frustration?

a hopeless future? a poor national image across the globe? a desire to feel superior and important? a reflection of our own personal conflicts - which we have failed to resolve, so we turn to battering the politicians, the generals, the journalists?

there are those who will dismiss this as another example of our elitist chattering class professing disdain for the downtrodden masses. you will paint my rants as belonging to a fiddling feudalistic nero.

i don't give a shit.

because i personally believe that at the end of the day its a question of intelligent. an intelligent society can be trusted to find intelligent answers, and not just those that think-tanks and pol-sci textbooks deem correct. and i don't think people discussing politics are not intelligent - its just that discussing the same old shit repeatedly is an insult to said intelligence.

but ahsan at fiverupees has an interesting point. perhaps my grievances are down to the fact that i don't know the right places to look. there may well be amazing blogs out there discussing non-political stuff, or at least a non-nauseating amount of it and are also written by intelligent people who aren't resorting to copy-pasting whatever the Big Blogs are currently discussing.

so here is my clarion call - do we have intelligent, articulate people out there talking about pakistan, but not about whats on the news, whats in the papers and whats in their faces?

post recommendations and suggestions in the comments below.

Foreigner

When i was younger, my parents would come back from parent-teacher meetings sick of stories about how their son kept claiming to everyone who bothered listening that he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. in many respects, i really haven't changed that stance on myself.

partially it is because i am a glutton for attention. you can pin that on having working parents, or a quiet childhood in an obscure gas producing hamlet in balochistan, or the fact that i am a glutton full stop.

but part of the reason is also because i am supremely talented across a range of fields.

take blogging for example. unlike most people, i don't blog about my day, or my friends, or link some bull shit article and make a few comments about it. i blog about stuff that makes you think, that takes your breath away, that puts your life into perspective. mostly, i plagiarize it off stuff my wife tells me, but that really doesn't make me any different from millions of other men, so i'm not going to be too hard on myself.

when i started blogging, and even now, i really cared about the number of hits and comments on each post. its such a sense of validation. soon though, i realised that absolute bullshit bloggers get millions of people going ga-ga over their inane drivels which lack any sense of intelligence. it made me quite sad, since i never stooped to such levels.

but then again, over the year and some that i have been blogging, i have actually had moments far more valuable than any number of bullshit comments by teeny-boppers bemoaning the loss of our soverignity to the US and praising ahmed quraishi. a lot of people who i respect as writers, bloggers, and even as people, have been quite enamoured by what i write (people such as sherry, awais aftab, tazeen, imran yousuf etc). when ahsan compared this blog to Mother Love Bone, it was quite a thrill. when i found out that Mohammad Hanif knew about my blog, i was over the moon.

i have known that writing is something that comes naturally to me, and i have been told that i am quite the master at narrative. i know also that i have a knack for taking disparate ideas and linking them together in a way you would have never imagined. i know that i can be witty and incisive in equal measures...

...i also know that i can be modest, but then i'd just be lying.

anyways, recently my life took several important turns. one of these turns involved a rather drastic decision regarding my future career. i am beginning to do something i have always dreamt of doing, though i am not sure how good i will be at it. (ok that's a lie, i'll be fucking good at it.) its something that i will do in pakistan, which poses a far greater deal of uncertainty than anything else. and its something that i plan to be just as good at as anything else i have done, which may not equate to a lot of financial or material success.

but those of you who have been kind enough to follow the travails of this blog, and to appreciate my work, i would like to show you where this new direction has taken me.

here it is, my first film (video really) "foreigner".

Foreigner HD from ahmernaqvi on Vimeo.

the entire thing was made as a project for the film degree i am currently doing, and was made under several specifications.

1. it had to be shot on DV cam only
2. no special effects were allowed, not even fades
3. the audio and video had to be synchronous i.e. we could only use the sound that had been recorded with the video, couldn't record it later, or use other sound, or use anything as a soundtrack
4. it had to be a profile of a person, place or event

as you may be able to tell, i have cheated a couple of times, but not by much. also, let me know if you didn't get the end, and whether i need to change the last shot to make it more obvious. i doubt i will, but it would be instructive to hear nevertheless.

The Joys of Quality E-Mail FWs

You are definitely staring at a monitor right now. but you may or you may not have your speakers on, or have headphones either.

Similarly, when you are watching the tv, there is a way to mute the sound, but you can not mute the picture.

it is perhaps why music aficionados don't like videos - those who access videos inevitably become viewers, rather than listeners.

but even the visual sense has its own class markers - much the same as everyone on the blogosphere cares more about the class and ideological differences amongst themselves rather than realizing that they are all part of the smallest pyramid on the income distribution chart.

so, there is text, images and moving images. clearly, text is the clear loser, because it is slower, useless unless focused on and thought about, and requires the greatest effort.

the difference between the image and its moving counterparts may be difficult to split on aesthetic differences, but the moving image category provides you the most bang for your buck, so that's where people end up going the most.

so, it's all about what you see, often over what you read.

now, i received an e-mail this morning proudly exclaiming that

"FW: Most Good Looking Man In The World Is a Pakistani! (Internal)"

now my eyes saw, but they did not believe. but, as the Oracle says "Believe"

but why take my word for it. who am i to tell you what to believe and what not to. 

why.

don't you see.

for yourself.

TA-DA!

it's ok. 

you can scroll back up.

do i really need to write anymore?

well, what you saw up there was the straight-on to camera, look-me-in-the-eyes, understand me, know me, luuvvee me style. it's important to note that even if not visible, the hands are not on the hips, in a threatening or aggressive manner, but probably pressing lightly against the thighs. it suggests a laid-back, lackadaisical, almost bohemian approach sprinkled liberally with good-clean-fun. but that is not what is arresting you.

it's the eyes. 

as mansoor malangi put it so eloquently, "teray naiiiiin, tere naaiiiin, te-ray naiiiiiin..." 

a set of eyes almost perpetually behind some dapper set of shades are presented in all their un-tinted glory. and it's a sensual, almost holy experience. these are not the eyes of a politician, a statesman, a deeply respected icon... 

 these are the eyes of a young boy, 

playing on a karachi street, 

in the blazing afternoon heat, 

and he's asking you...

... to love him

but it doesn't end there.

Chotay, agli slide lagao.

After all the eroticism, it is perhaps almost a relieved soul that greets this image. the maddening ecstasy induced by the last picture can now subside into a calm ocean of wisdom and gratitude, the waves of reverence gently lapping on your grateful feet. 

when the continued encroachment of the Taliban *coff* Pathan*coff* worries you, when the hollow words of the media and Imran Khan compel you to take the streets in the month of May, when the issues of federation, feudalism and fucking-staying in power are not to be found in any political party's manifesto, you need not despair. 

because somewhere, in England, in a small garden, in the morning, a well dressed philosopher is slowly composing his daily voice-mail,  issuing instructions for you, your family and your friends.

and it's not just there, in the garden, where the creative grapes are fermenting to produce the intoxicating wine of wisdom. the thoughts are just as powerful when composed in a coquettish glance away from the lens, into the lookspace of the mysterious realms of the metaphysical world

and now, what do we have here...

as mentioned above, the placement of the hands is a lovely indication of the disarming, unarmed, welcoming tone of the body language. but here again, one sees the vision on display. that glorious path towards fascist emancipation that we all await deliverance upon. and that smirk - that gentle, mirth-filled little scrawl made by the positioning of those full lips that signify hope, elation, contentment and eventual salvation. 

but it's not all about being a leader, forever frozen in thought amidst middle-class English town surroundings. a leader also immerses himself in the cultural milieu, a leader's heart beats with the passions of the masses, a leader is he who lives the lives of his people.

i'm not sure if he's dressing like Osama bin Laden would at a qawwali. i am even further unsure about how much i like the people around him - i hope they are not his companions. the guy on the right seems to be sleeping, and has a large camera bag, which surely has no place at a performance such as this unless it involves a cameraman, which snoozing beauty over here clearly isn't. and those guys on the left - what is the guy in black wearing, and why are they talking. i mean, what the fuck is so important that you have to talk about it during what was clearly early-era Salman Ahmed doing the solo for "Do Pal Ka Jeewan". I mean, what else would move the Bhai of all Bhais and their Behens to such a pure moment of bliss? 

The eyes are focused in concentration, the arm extended in simultaneous appreciation of the sound, as well as creating a symbolic connect - like an antenna - with the fabolous energy floating in the auditorium. 

Rock on Altaf Bhai, rock on.

At first, this picture seemed to have too many colours that the BJP likes to wear. That can never be good. But then, it becomes obvious that Pir Sahab is visitng another Pir and the ecsatsy of the divine union has climxed into an orgasm of colours which have flocked to  the shareer of the Bhai who is Pir.

In fact, such mortal divinity causes collective cumming across the confounded devotees, and they often like to express their honor and love. Sometimes, they do that through a placard. 

"Welcome In Delhi, 

Mr. Altaf Hussain

A Man Loves To All Folks

By - Indo-Pak Friendship Forum"

A Man Loves to all Folks. 

How true. How poignant. 

No other man has the amount of loves that he can dispense upon all folks like my Saathi. So many loves, so many folks. It is truly incredible. And don't be put off by the cringe binge expression he's carrying, he likes it - he likes it a lot. 

but sometimes, a man who loves to all folks also sends his love to all tribes. and the nomadic peoples of the desolate stretches that is Bumfuckistan, Pakistan. and as i had mentioned, the leader is one with his people, and his people are the Mohajir. Those who migrate. And since all of us are forever migrating, forever in transit, across time, space and the ether, we are all migrants, we are all Mohajirs, and we all have one leader - a man with the ability to effortlessly lose himself in to costumes of any one. His visceral link with the common man means that even in strange costumes, he immediately appears as the perpetual native. it is only when you look at that visage, that self-content mystique of the seer that you realise it is not just a common man, it is the Common Man. 

Pir Saab can also be the Nawab, the Khan, the Malik, the Makhdoom, the Chaudhry, the Mian and the Malik, the Syed and the Thakur, the Saeein, the Saaaaaaaaaattttttthhhhhhhhhiiiiiiii...

But then there is one pitcure I can't really say much about. Only a question, if you were the handsomest man alive, and you went online, what would you look at?

A Case of Exploding Aaloos or "What do they know of Pakistan, who only Pakistan know?"

This post is long. It's also kick ass. Relax and enjoy it.

So there i was, enjoying a feisty comments-debate (on a blog i gave props to in my last post, so i'm not going to do so again. i'm very much like this) when suddenly, it felt like an intense deja vu.

it was something that has happened so often during the past year i have been an active participant in the blogosphere that i wonder if i should even partake in it any more.

it goes something like this - a blogger puts forth the idea that the country should be democratic, it should be modernized, it should have peace with its neighbors, it should not be forever insecure, it should be secular.

that leads to much controversy, inevitably, because such an opinion OBVIOUSLY means forsaking our islamic identity, NECESSARILY implies that we become closer to the americans or the west and accept the superiority of the indians. it dictates that we lose our national sense of morality,
sell our women to be ravaged and ravished by uncircumcised RAW agents,
send our poor to be melted in vats of acid, collectively desecrate the memory of the Holy Prophet, start listening to "Stairway to Heaven" in reverse and believe that Ajit Agarkar was a good bowler.

In short, such an option for pakistan would mean that we would become the most despicable excuses for humanity possible.

you also notice that the people who draw such conclusions at even the slightest hint that pakistan should be anything other than mullah omer's wet dream
are people who are not living in pakistan. a majority of them are those who are living, working or have emigrated abroad. is this a huge generalization? perhaps...

now if we come back to the comment-debate i was talking about, the person in question was someone who indeed lives abroad. during two-month long vacations that he/she takes to pakistan on an annual basis, this person achieves the superhuman feat of empathizing, sympathizing, and most importantly, relating completely with the "average" pakistani. the "common" man.

doesn't it suck that someone like me who has never stayed in pakistan beyond a 2-month period would be more accepted by the general people than someone like you? doesn't it suck that if i went to chill with some of the poor at orphanages in balochistan or went to the villages im from in punjab or visited schools we've help build in kashmir that you, and not I, would be the obvious misfit?

let us discard for one moment the fact that such a person - the common man - doesn't exist beyond drawing room, and by extension, blogosphere conversations or celebrity op-ed contributions.
now these expat pakistanis feel that pakistanis from similar class/social status as themselves are becoming increasingly baysharam, bayhaya, that they have sold out the values and identity of the country and the nation, that they have committed sacrilege and blasphemy, that they have become traitors to the country as a whole.
when they combine this impression with the depressing social, economic and political news they read and watch about pakistan, they come to the conclusion that because of the actions of the "elite" that they encounter, the country is at its current impasse of being absolutely fucked up.

i'll put it in simpler terms - because the elites they meet are all fucked up, and the country they live in is all fucked up, it stands to reason that the former is responsible for the latter.
now, i'm not saying that the actions of the elites are not responsible for pakistan being bum-fuck crazy. but such a deterministic and ultimately simplistic argument never appealed to me. how can it be that 5% of a country half the population of Europe can be the sole purveyor of blame, while the rest of the 95% are idiots and simpletons who can not exert any control over their lives?

however, thinking like that leads one to the idea that pakistan somehow needs to be saved. can't argue with that. but the savior most people have in mind is either the magical cure of an islamic society, or the globally proven balm of constitutional democracy.

now i wrote to my vacationing in pakistan friend in the comment debate that one thing we must understand is that pakistanis as a people are a incredibly harami lot. i mean we are kanjars par extreme.

this sounded offensive to many, and i can see why. here is what my comment-debate friend had to say

"you clearly pity yourself and your absurd mentality that pakistan is a harami place is part of the problem. self-pity never helped anyone get anywhere and it wont help pakistan. if it is such a harami place incapable of changing, why are you there? or do you, as with most priveleged pakistanis, have a superiority complex and trust in your ability to thrive in a harami environment?"

now i replied to that with an intensely emotional response. this blog is a more rational take on things.


you see, there are a million reasons why pakistan is a harami place. i can go into all of them, but i would encourage readers to give their own examples in the comments section.

here is one reason that i think perfectly encapsulates pakistan's harami-ism.

back in the 90s, when relations with india were a lot more paranoid and closed-off than they are even now, post-Mumbai, cricket matches between the two countries used to be held solely on neutral locations.

for those who don't appreciate the place cricket holds in our hearts, you must understand that cricket in south asia is an extension of nationality, and even religion. for a lot of us, the cricket team is the only genuine thing about this country we can be regularly proud of, and it is also something that helps us punch above our weight. a pakistani cricketer can become a rock star, an intellectual, a prophet, an action hero, a pin-up model, a father figure and a sex symbol all rolled up into one.

the greatest batsman of our generation was inzamam-ul-haq, affectionately known as inzi.

although inzi's list of achievements can go on forever, his first act alone should reserve a god-like status for him for all eternity. if it wasn't for a 37-ball innings of daring genius by this man, we would have never been world champions. simple as that.

anyways, in 1997, pakistan and india were involved in a series in toronto known as the sahara cup. at one point during the second match, inzi - whose demeanor incorporated the zen-like calm of buddha with the laziness of a bored cow - rushed up to the stands with a bat in hand to assault a spectator.

what heinous and despicable acts was this brazen villain committing?

he was calling inzamam an "aaloo."

a potato.
that had been enough to upset the demeanor of a man who ferocious fast bowlers, wily spinners, sledging close in fielders, cheating umpires, vindictive journalists, brutal selectors and everyone in between had never even extracted a raised eye brow from.

so how would a cricket mad country treat one of its most revered stars, who had to face the unimaginable ignominy of being insulted by not just a spectator, but an indian supporting spectator, not just an indian fan, but a dirty, cow worshipping, piss drinking, Babri mosque destroying, Zionist collaborating Hindu?

the next time, and far as i can remember, through out the next 11 years of his glorious and exemplary career, inzamam would be welcomed to the batting crease by his own supporters, his own countrymen, his own people the exact same way.

they would welcome him with the chants of "AALOO, AALOO"

every single time.

please remember that cricket stadiums are overwhelmingly populated by the common man. please also remember that inzi's favourite hobby was rescuing the shame and izzat of the pakistani team over and over again. and finally, please remember that he was one of the kindest, softest, most lovable and huggable pakistanis alive. and yet, every time, every single fucking time -

aaloo, aaloo.

at a moment like that, confronted with a reality like that, how can you not come to the conclusion that your entire country is nothing else if not harami?

i mean, forget the drones based in our own country, forget supreme court stormers upholding the independence of the judiciary, forget claiming that gang-rape gets you canadian visas, forget everything else.

aaloo, aaloo.

Reverberating through the concrete wasteland of the NSK, bouncing off the arched roof of the Gaddhafi, echoing through the male-only stands of the Arbab Niaz - aaloo, aaloo.

but does that mean that pakistanis, and by extension pakistan, are to be hated, or looked down upon, or despised for their innate harami-ness? (harami translates into bastard)

two people helped me realise that this is not so.

the first was this man, my grandfather.


when i had grown up enough to realise that he was not just my nana, but a poet of stature, i would wonder why he chose patriotic poetry. i mean, where is the rebellion, the middle finger to the establishment?
by no means was all his poetry patriotic, but it was one of his central ideas. i wondered if he was just naive, what with his simplistic calls for love for the country.

as i learnt of him, his life through my family, i came to understand the eminence of the man, the trials and tribulations he withstood in the face of the stark reality of supporting a family, and the repeated betrayals of his country and his people. for him to not get jaded, to not let those things defeat him, to still be consumed by the passion of his ideals taught me that there is something worth loving in this god-forsaken land.

the second person is the woman i love.

she taught me a lot about our country, but her invaluable contribution was that she taught me how to love. she made me realise that you love something for what it is, not what you want it to be. that love is not about contentment, but continuous unrest. it breaks you down to build you up again. when we love, it is not out of convenience, not out of intellectual fulfillment, but rather out of need, out of desire, out of a compulsion to love.

"jaan"
for the simple understated necessity it employs,
for placing atop enviable heights,
yet familiar like dew bitten earth to the senses,
bare
embarrassing
vulnerability.

you can not love that which you cannot stand unless it changes. you can not love that whose identity you deny. you can not love what you do not understand. you can not love out of contempt, but through truth and through hope.

yes, pakistan may be harami. but whatever it is, and however i wish to see it change, this is the pakistan that i love.