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Archive for the ‘All My Posts’ Category
Islamabad is burning - down with terrorism
What jihad, what Islam and what kind of Muslims these butchers are - they kill innocent people, the underclass outside a posh hotel in Islamabad and think that they are serving some cause. And, this is the month of Ramzan when the Satan is apparently locked up….
The numbers of dead and injured are mounting - there is blood everywhere and a commentator has termed it Pakistan’s 9/11.
About time Pakistani government weeds them out and saves us all from this menace.
Horrific. Barbarity at its worst.
ISLAMABAD, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) — A blast occurred outside Marriott hotel in the center of Pakistan’s capital Islamabad on Saturday evening, leaving at least 30 dead and scores of people injured, said the Pakistani Adviser to Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: blast, islamabad, pakistan, suicide, Taliban, terror, terrorism
From Persia to Pakistan, via Mysore
Zafar Hilaly recounts the history of his distinguished family, amongst whom were Sir Mirza Ismail, Agha Hilaly and Agha Shahi
Family legend has it that my great grandfather, Ali Asker, fled the court of the last Shah of the Qajjar dynasty of Iran sometime in the late 1800s. No one quite knows why he did so but he must have had good reason because he did not stop running till he reached Mysore in Southern India. And only when several thousand miles separated him from his nemesis did he pause for breath.
Alerted to the arrival of a disheveled Iranian, along with some horsemen, the Maharaja of Mysore enquired about the purpose of their visit. When told that they sought asylum, the Maharaja enquired what could they offer in return. “We will train your cavalry and supply it with horses,” Ali Asker responded. A deal was struck; and he never returned to Iran. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: family, India, Mysore, pakistan, Persia, Travel
Hyderabad - Past And Present
The Untold Charminar -Reviewed By Asif Noorani
Way back in 1954 when I greeted a grand old lady, who had migrated to Karachi from what used to be Hyderabad Deccan, with the customary Assalam Alaikum, I was admonished for my ‘bad manners’. She reminded me that I was not her age, which was why I was supposed to say Aadab and bend my neck slightly.
That was the Hyderabadi tehzeeb (a combination of good manners and courtesies). A recently published collection of writings Hyderabad: An Untold Charminar, imaginatively compiled and intelligently edited by Syeda Imam, has much more to say on the subject. The old-worldly charm in Hyderabad co-exists with the great strides that the city has taken in becoming a high profile IT city, which is why it has been nicknamed Cyberabad. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: books, Charminar, Deccan, Hyderabad, India, Maharaja Kishen Pershad, Quli Qutub Shah, Sarojini Naidu
Through a screen, darkly
My piece published in the Friday Times last week.
Pakistani cable operators, following the cyclical escalation of imagined hatreds, discontinued the transmission of Indian satellite channels in 2002. The absence of Indian TV soaps, fodder for an entertainment hungry populace, was widely mourned. Once, not long ago, the axiomatic edge of Pakistan’s TV serials was widely acknowledged both in Pakistan and in India. No longer. This is the age of the market, of selling dreams and drama, of converting the stereotype into a saleable commodity and citing it on the cultural stock exchange.
The popularity of Hindi language soaps is not limited to Pakistan. I have seen squatters in Dhaka’s decrepit Bihari camp, Bangladesh’s largest no man’s land, glued to their colour TV sets. Here, Biharis lack citizenship; they are technically Pakistani, having opted for the Land of the Pure at the cessation of Bangladesh in 1971. But Pakistan doesn’t want them and so they continue to live in limbo. Yet, Star Plus is still beamed 24/7 into their tiny, cramped, leaking shacks. Indian soaps have made inroads even into Afghanistan, that newly liberated project of global corporate interests. They were wildly popular until the Afghan government banned them as inimical to Afghani values.
The soaring audience of Star Plus and Zee TV serials, with their in-your-face parivar mantras, is known all too well. The hype is also a constructed story of success and market acquisition. On the face of it, the commodification of entertainment is a global phenomenon. So what’s the problem, one might ask, given that most of us post-colonial wannabes in South Asia want to integrate into the global economy and its uniform cultural variants? Junk food, designer brands, pop music and the corporate media ethos are all “signs of progress.” Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Balaji, Bangaldesh, Bhutan, corporate, Ekta Kapoor, Globalization, India, media, misogyny, pakistan, patriarchy, Rama, Ramayana, Richistans, Sita, Television, televisual, TV soaps
Sachal Sarmast’s sufi kalaam - live recording
Cross posted from here
I recorded a few bits of performances of sufi siant Hazrat Sachal Sarmast’s kalaam (poetry) at his tomb in Daraza Sharif, some 50 kms outside Khairpur Mirs.
A trip to Khairpur cannot be complete without exploring many of its spiritual treasures. Khairpur itself is a calm, quiet city. You can feel the stillness of the air.
The Dating Season
I have heard that this stillness becomes slightly oppressive at around this very time of the year - the hot summers - when the area transforms into a gigantic dates bazaar. In the heat and stillness, dates - the prime agricultural product of Khairpur - come to ripen. Temporary shack cities spring up in the area as pickers and traders come in droves. Many use the by-products of the dates industry - the barks and the gigantic leaves - to make woven baskets, sweepers, and other handcrafted products.
Sufi Music - Live Recording at the Tomb
But I digress. I recorded several bits of music and this one is my favorite. I used an iRiver MP3 player+radio+recorder to capture the music. The night was calm and beautiful, and our small circle sat with their heads one their knees and eyes closed - in a state of absorption. in our group was Sindh’s popular activist Amar Sindhu, her faithful friend the gentle-natured Arfana Mallah, my journalist friend Afia, and our kind hosts the Joyos.
The Real Sufi was Standing Up
I shouldn’t forget to mention that I went to the tomb to learn more about “sufis.” I found that we had a Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Music, pakistan, recording, Sachal Sarmast, Saint, Sindh, sufi, Urs
Two pictures- Breaking the Fast and Desecration
Two pictures with captions tell many stories
I Breaking the Fast
A lone man eats in a soup kitchen set up for Ramadan outside a public housing project in Paris. Source
II Desecration
A damaged portrait of Jesus Christ hangs on the wall of a demolished home after an anti- Christian mob attacked it in Barakhama village in the eastern Indian state of Orissa. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Christian, fast, fasting, India, Jesus, Orissa, Paris, ramadan, ramzan
Closing the gap
Delhi based writer Tridivesh Singh Maini sent this piece that was published here
The Indo-Pak relationship has been so enmeshed in political issues - mostly disputes - that often both countries tend to neglect important developments which facilitate cultural cooperation between them. Foreign ministries in both countries are engrossed in thinking of CBM’s, though if one were to look, not much progress has been made with regard to educational and cultural exchanges. Meanwhile, a Washington-based non-profit organisation named APNA, (Academy of the Punjab in North America) has taken a significant step — publishing a quarterly Punjabi magazine by the name of Saanjh (which means commonality in this context) in both Gurmukhi, the Punjabi script used in East Punjab), and Shahmukhi, the script used in West Punjab. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Academy of the Punjab in North America, APNA, Baba Farid, Bulle Shah, India, pakistan, Punjab, Saanjh
Pseudo-Messianic Movements in Contemporary Muslim South Asia
This new book by Yoginder Sikand has been published by Global Media Publications in 2008.
Messianic hopes and expectations are common to almost all religions. Jews expect the Messiah to arrive to re-establish their temple in Jerusalem; Christians pray for Jesus to return to earth in his ‘Second Coming’; Hindus believe that Kalki, the tenth and last avatar of Vishnu, would appear just before the end of times; and the advent of the Imam Mahdi, who will usher in the end of the world, is a cardinal tent of the faith of Shia and many Sunni Muslims.
The messianic figure that almost all religions expect to arrive some time towards the end of the world is generally portrayed as representing the forces of good, as an agent of God and as eventually vanquishing, in a war of global and cosmic proportions, the forces of evil.
Tags: book, Messianic Movements, Muslim, South Asia
Thou art the sky and the deep sea (Rumi)
When you fall asleep,
you go from the presence of yourself
into your own true presence.
You hear something
and surmise that someone else in your dream
has secretly informed you.
You are not a single “you.”
No, you are the sky and the deep sea.
Your mighty “Thou,” which is nine hundredfold,
is the ocean, the drowning place
of a hundred “thou’s” within you.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: mystic, mystical, poem, Poetry, Rumi, sufi, Sufism
The Feast Of Roses
The Feast Of Roses is a sequel to Indu Sundaresan’s widely appraised novel The Twentieth Wife. As can be expected it is the story of Mehrunnisa, the powerful woman in Indian history as well as in Mughal dynasty. The novel begins where the other novel ended with the marriage of the long separated lovers Emperor Jahangir and Mehrunnisa.
Mehrunnisa’s long cherished desires come to life as she enters the Mughal dynasty. Even though she is the last wife of the emperor in the harem, the union of love makes Mehrunnisa into Empress Nur Jahan. As time goes by Emperor Jahangir is given into drinks and Nur Jahan takes the reins into her hands. It was not that easy. She forms a junta with her father, brother and the heir-apparent to the throne, Shah Jahan as well with their supporters.
On the way Nur Jahan ruthlessly exploits Jahangir’s love to seize ever-increasing authority and power. However, she has tom pay the price for it. A well-contrived accident in the harem terminates Mehrunnisa’s pregnancy and her potential for mothering a dynasty…
Read more here
Tags: book, dynasty, History, India, Jahangir, Mehrunnisa, Mughal
Weird science - the perils of Muslim scholarship
I am posting Ziauddin Sardar’s article published in the New Statesman (August 21,2008) that explores the ‘nonesense”of some Muslim scholars who claim that everything from genetics to robotics and space travel is mentioned in the Quran.
Science has acquired a new meaning in certain Muslim circles. When classical Muslim scholars declared that “whosoever does not know astronomy or anatomy is deficient in the knowledge of God”, they were emphasising the importance of the scientific spirit in Islam and encouraging the pursuit of empirical science. But today, to a significant section of Muslims, science includes the discovery of “scientific miracles” in the Quran. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Islam, Muslim, Quran, scholarship
Bulleh’s virtuous thoughts-
Shahidain has sent these couplets
Main NeevaaN Mera Murshid Uccha
Main UcchiyaaN naal sang laayee
I am lowly my spiritual guide is lofty!
I have tied my fate to such lofty ones!
—————————————
Bulleh naaloN chullaah changaa
jis te ann pakaaee daa
ral faqeera majlas keetee
bhora bhora khaaee daa
A stove is better than Bulleh
because at least you can cook food on it
Saints sit together to eat
and share their food with each other.
Tags: Bulleh Shah, Punjabi, Sufi poetry
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?
And there’s a hand my trusty friend!
And give us a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne
Tags: auld lang syne, poem, Robert Burns, Scottish
Would you permit me?
Nizar Qabbani
In a country where thinkers are assassinated, and writers are considered
infidels and books are burnt,
in societies that refuse the other, and
force silence on mouths and thoughts forbidden,
and to question is a sin,
I must beg your pardon, would you permit me?
Would you permit me to bring up my children as I want, and not to
dictate on me your whims and orders?
Would you permit me to teach my children that the religion is first to
God, and not for religious leaders or scholars or people?
Would you permit me to teach my little one that religion is about good
manners, good behaviour, good conduct, honesty and truthfulness,
before I teach her with which foot to enter the bathroom or with which hand she
should eat? Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Arabic, Damascus, Islam, Musims, Nizar Qabbani, poem, Poetry, Syria
A voice for peace from the other side
My friend Sidhusaaheb across the border wrote these poignant lines some months ago - just discovered these musings in my files:
A little less than two years ago, I visited Pakistan along with my family. This was a unique experience, not only for me, but also for my parents and younger brother. None of us had been to that country before and, given the mercurial relationship between India and Pakistan, it is always difficult to say as to when or if at all there would be a next time.
Being Punjabis visiting the part of Punjab that lies on the other side of the border, we were glad to note that almost everything, apart from the religious faith that most people practise over there, is very similar to that in the Indian part of Punjab. There were a lot of interesting asides too, in addition to a heavy dose of nostalgia and a nice, warm kind of feeling inspired by the shared Punjabiyat.
So, when we returned home, after having spent ten days that were among the most memorable ones of our lives, enjoying the neighbours’ hospitality, I wanted to share the experience with friends and family. I would have written a series of emails to them, but then I discovered blogging and it offered the prospect of not only sharing a lot of all that I had seen and heard with a lot more people, but, possibly, could also afford me the chance to make a tiny contribution towards the promotion of peace and friendship. So, here we are!
And these are the lines he wrote on another blog:
“… the only time the West hears of the borders you speak of is when there’s fighting. This leaves the impression that all that exists is violence. We know this not to be true, of course, but every message of peace, understanding, acceptance and tolerance counts massively.”
Indeed Sidhu-ji, it does!
Read the full post here and enjoy….
O my Lord, if I worship you
Today I was directed to this excellent blogsite devoted to Rabia Basri’s poems - found this bold poem by Rabia, an early Sufi from Iraq and one the better known women Sufi poet:
O my Lord,
if I worship you
from fear of hell, burn me in hell.
If I worship you
from hope of Paradise, bar me from its gates.
But if I worship you
for yourself alone, grant me then the beauty of your Face.
Tags: God, mystic, Mysticism, poet, Poetry, Rabia, rabia al basri, sufi, Sufism
Makhdoom a people’s poet - a poem
Found this poem and its translation by Makhdoom Mohiuddin here
Our city is strange -
it whispers in the
nights when you
walk on roads
calls you to show
its wounds as if
the secrets of
its heart
its windows shut
alleys quiet
walls tired
doors locked
only the corpses stayed
in rented houses for years.
-tr. Ravi Kopra
————————————————————
apnaa shah’r
ye shah’r apnaa, ajab shah’r hai
ke raatoN ko
saRak pe chaliye tau sargoshiyaaN sii kartaa hai
bulaa ke zakhm dikhaataa hai
raaz-e-dil kii tarah
dariiche band
galii chup
niDhaal diivaareN
kivaaR muh’r-balab
gharoN meN mayyateN thahrii hu’ii haiN barsoN se
kiraaye par —— ! Read the rest of this entry »
The Zardari conundrum
by Raza Rumi ( published in the NEWS)
By all statistical estimates and anecdotal evidence, Pakistan’s middleclass has grown during the last decade. The visible manifestation of this historically significant trend was the spontaneous outrage at the dismissal of the chief justice in 2007 and the robust movement that followed. However, the other side of this sociological transformation has been the capture of the “opinion” in Pakistan by the overdriven urban middleclass segment now backed and voiced through a powerful and not always responsible electronic media.
Amid the torrential attacks and doomsday predictions on Asif Zardari’s candidature for presidency, a few reasoned voices have attempted to remind the country that fortification of a fractured democratic process requires civilian ascendancy. No, say our wise ones. They are enraged at the corruption tales, and media and real trials. There is a deafening silence over the fact that without a single conviction an accused has spent 11-and-a-half years in jails and suffered solitary imprisonment, torture and pressure that could have easily broken a common back. Admittedly, our president-to-be is hardly an angel. But this is not about morality or middleclass affront or even a thousand stories of international media that have suddenly become so credible. Not long ago, the vanguard of middleclass morality were telling us how biased the international media is about Musharraf and how twisted its reporting was on the US-led war on terror. All of a sudden Zardari tales have become legit, true and worrying. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Asif Zardari, Benazir Bhutto, media, middle class, morality, pakistan, Politics, President
Extracts from Empires of the Indus by Alice Albinia
From the Guardian
Water is potent: it trickles through human dreams, permeates lives, dictates agriculture, religion and warfare. Ever since Homo sapiens first migrated out of Africa, the Indus has drawn thirsty conquerors to its banks. Some of the world’s first cities were built here; India’s earliest Sanskrit literature was written about the river; Islam’s holy preachers wandered beside these waters. Pakistan is only the most recent of the Indus valley’s political avatars. I remember the first time I wanted to see the Indus, as distinctly as if a match had been struck in a darkened room. I was twenty-three years old, sitting in the heat of my rooftop flat in Delhi, reading the Rig Veda, and feeling the perspiration running down my back. It was April 2000, almost a year since the war between Pakistan and India over Kargil in Kashmir had ended, and the newspapers which the delivery man threw on to my terrace every morning still portrayed neighbouring Pakistan as a rogue state, governed by military cowboys, inhabited by murderous fundamentalists: the rhetoric had the patina of hysteria. But what was the troubled nation next door really like? As I scanned the three-thousand-year-old hymns, half listening to the call to prayer, the azan, which drifted over the rooftops from the nearby mosque (to the medley of other azans, all slightly out of sync), I read of the river praised by Sanskrit priests, the Indus they called ‘Unconquered Sindhu’, river of rivers. Hinduism’s motherland was not in India but Pakistan, its demonized neighbour.
At the time, I was studying Indian history eclectically, omnivorously and hastily – during bus journeys to work, at weekends, lying under the ceiling fan at night. Even so, it seemed that everywhere I turned, the Indus was present. Its merchants traded with Mesopotamia five thousand years ago. A Persian emperor mapped it in the sixth century BCE. The Buddha lived beside it during previous incarnations. Greek kings and Afghan sultans waded across it with their armies. The founder of Sikhism was enlightened while bathing in a tributary. And the British invaded it by gunboat, colonized it for one hundred years, and then severed it from India. The Indus was part of Indians’ lives – until 1947. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Alice Albinia, books, Buddha, Empires of the Indus, India, Indus, pakistan, River
Anandi Boiragi - the eclectic painter and an urban Baul
With legendary artist S.M. Sultan as his mentor, Anadi Kumar Boiragi from Jessore attended Khulna Art College in the late ’80s, before enrolling at the Oriental Department at Charukala in Dhaka to further his artistic education.
Tags: art, artist, Bangladesh, Boiragi, Dhaka