As I read and read and read
some of this life and some of that
As we listen with intent, hanging eyes
without forming words
or facing fears

As I sit, and re...
again,
with added colors and twisted frames
I know what you mean
I know it so well...
as i say and write... or just let it breath

And we ll both sing it again
read it again,
others and another's
through tilted frames
and narrow cuts
Disgusts

and we,
see only me

(based on a news in todays Paper)
(COMMENTS: abrupt, and aimless.. focus)
Mudassara is a small dark-skinned girl of average looks. She is the quiet kind, and wears the invisibility hat; except, she knows of its curse. On a fine spring morning, she can stand with five other girls and never get noticed.

life moves in fast forward for mudassara-like characters in stories like this one. there isnt any time to write about the trivialities like the social injustice, mental and phycical torture, and the yearnings and longings of mudassara-likes. noone reads that... its a cheap trick to force readers to sympathize with the main character of the story (if u can call mudussara-likes to be the main charactre). Sad attempts by the writer to keep readers interested and profit. Especially true for those with limited ability with words and sounds. So, getting back to our story....

At age 20, Mudassara is married to Inayat, who's 36, alreay married and without a child. This arrangement is favourable to all parties involved. Her father, Akbar, finds it convinient for not not having to pay any dowry and thats one shit-load off of his back. Inayat is hoping that his new wife will bear him a child, something his first wife failed to do. Samkara, the first wife, is apparently not pleased with this sit-too-a-sun, but she gets the chance to show her true evil colors which might have gone unnoticed by the readers if such a well-crafted arrangment was missing in the story. And then there's Mudassara her self.... but what more can a girl want then a husband that feeds and provides shelter. She must be the envy of all the other smaller, darker-skinned, village girls, with average-er looks and a brighter invisibility hats.
and so time goes by and ...
Mudassara is unable to do the job she was brought in for.And they start noticing her. She can no longer stand in a group of five people at any time of the day or night and go unnoticed. Infact she is no longer allowed to stand in any group. Inayat often fucks her, but only when his first wife is pissed off and wont let him near her. After all a man has got to fuck. And what more should a girl want then a husband who fucks, provides shelter and feeds.
(to be continued/edited/modified)

Whats left there to write? Does anyone care. Do I, do you care what happened to Mudassara? What will you do if I told you that she was screwed over and over and over, by her father, mother, younger sisters, the bright-eyed boy in her school, Inayat-her husband, the unborn child... or by readers like you... or writers like me.

Yet still this is one of those things, that someone has to say out loud, and someone has to listen. Then we can all go wash our hands, go home and watch the late night show.


And one day, she wakes up, turns 26, and decides that enough is enough is enough is enough ... Inayat expects his usuall breakfast to be laid on the table-- two fried eggs, two parathas and a cup of doodhpati. But all he finds is the rotton fruits, and leftovers from last nights dinner. He is furious, and honestly people, who wouldnt be. He does what every rational, logical thinking and sane man would do. Goes to the store room, brings out the old cricket bat and starts beating the crap out of Mudassara. That bitch, she really deserves it though. And I think its good for her.

And then he kicks Mudassara out of the house. Samkara, the faithful, the loyal, the merciful-- dutifully packs all of Mudassara's stuff in it. Except, ofcourse, the clothes she likes, and the jewelry, and all that's valuebale and tickles her fancy and doesnot fit in that tiny suitcase. She asks the house-elf to get a rickshaw, so Mudassara doesnot have to walk with all the lugage and people dont see her in this beaten up condition and point a fingre at her rightuous husband--who, I must once again point it, has acted in the most natural and logical manner.

So one fine afternoon, Akbar returns home to find Mudassara there.

0001 hrs
OAKDF Office, Abottabad.

For the past one week I have been volunteering/living with OAKDF. This has been and educating, frustrating, unproductive, comforting, tiring, a strange mix of a week.
My desire to do something meaningful for the earthquake releif efforts has remained, in a way, unfulfilled, largely because of my own laziness and inability to contribute in a usefull and productive manner. However, the last few days have taught me a lot. The determination and the relentless nature of some of the staff memeber here is applaudable. True heros, risking their lives almost daily, working often 14-20 hrs a day, six days a week.

There method is not very bookish, things are not done very meticulously or in a highly organized manner. But some of these people, like Ali Asghar Khan, Rashida, Mumtaz Tanoli, Shazia, Asif,... these guys have a lot of experience in the developement sector. Just sitting with them and seeing them work is a great learning experience. I may not agree with the way they do things, but it is easy to see and appreciate that they are working, and working very effectively and efficiently.
Sitting throught the nightly meetings alone makes certain things clear. The planning, done every night, is done rather inefficiently, with either Rashida or Mumtaz first asking the various teams about their days report, discussing the issues, and then planning for next day. The decision is based on various things. Like the availability of goods in the warehouses, the status of releif already distributed, the assessments done by OAKDF, other logistic issues like staff availability or jeep/transport availability, and then also the response of the village PO(which i think stands for Political Organization).
OAKDF and Sungi have been working in this area for a while now. They have identified and developed a very effective way of solving the issues and problems of various villages and communities. And this is by democracy. The NGO only acts as a monitoring and delivering agent, collecting funds from donars and providing it to the villages according to their needs. They are also involved in the accountability and assessment. But they encourage the villagers to form a representing body, or a PO, and then deal only with the elected/selected representatives.
For instance, if going to a village for the first time, and for the purpose of earthquake releif, they will gather people and ask them to provide some names. Then they will make a household assessment for that village. They will later, in the meeting, assign certain values to the village, like poverty, accessibility, seasonal vulnerability, social capital, etc. Then they will provide releif, based on the assessments and the available resources. This relief will be given to the PO representatives, with a request to give it first to the most needy. However, this is not always the case... in which case OAKDF will do a follow up and will make enquires about the deviation.
Much more to right.... later....

smiles at the unwelcomed joke and then furiously embarrassed by the ease-ness, turns red. It. With hollow hatred and despair, looks at its feet.

My horse ran over the village elder and is currently on the loose. People in the district are advised to excercise extreme caution while taking out the garbage as the new stinkonometer will strike down on those who throw away cold pizza.
The wish is trapped in the cold cave of nirasha. Tears will run, run by the qanat, but the shouts will be clinging to my nose. How I must....

. Is it better to put this down here or to blurt it out for tiny paper clowns?

It is what it turns out to be
A same story
With same names,
And masks and floors

It turns out the same
With lame names
With blue beards and nylon cranes

Weary
of wearing Red
and blue socks
Holding a thumb to her head
Leaving slow marks--
dark, right and right below

We write, you and I

We sleep and think, again
And dream the same dreams,
That were left in the oven
Overnight
Version-ed
One
Two
Three point three

Re-view, pre-view
Save and edit
Play it again
That song we've heard only once before
Play it again, only once more

Lets play the same game
With the same names
The same lame names
You, I, and we

Liverpool won; the most amazing comeback.
But a bomb attack in Isb... ppl died...

As I watch the score
and adjust my tie,
People die

...........

A Hope and a smile,
On a sad afternoon,

A Wish in the sky,
glowing, infecting...
illusion of love and madness in view

And evil care
It.
talk your song
On and on
Mumbling rants and
voices of long
Shout.

Black curls and mud feet
rainwashed and reaching out

Cheer, shout, cry
Dance and Run,
as he runs
...when they die

I have
Not listened to this merman rant before.
'Please clear the way'
For my tail
So I can sweep the floor.

Phir wohee, phir waheeN,

1713 hrs (Office)

This has been an eventfull year. A long year if counted by the events. But first a look at the resolutions that I made:

1. Visit India--get hooked up with an indian gal --- Went to India, great trip; enjoyed it a lot. Couldnt hookup with any gal wat so ever :-)
2. Improve my Erdös number from infinity to 3(via Sarmad) --nope
3. Go to Europe--watch a champions league/euro football match. --nope
4. Prove something significant--nope
5. Run a marathon--I was targetting the Lahore marathon, or rather the 10k race. Parr this year there was none. However there is one on Jan 30th, 2005. I am thinking of running the 10k race and doing good speed.
6. Play football, start a football academy.--played a good amount of football, mostly at lums. Was fun. Academy was always a long shot.
7. Shave my head and beard-- oh yeah baby
8. Break someones something-- nope
9. Read more... less tv --read a lot; lesser tv then prev year, but still too much
10. Think more...less hallucination--mixed, maybe, maybe-not
11. Write in my journal more regularly--ya right
12. Teach and learn a lot--learned a lot, but didnot teach

Thats like 4 out of 12. Not bad for first year :-). Lets see what happens to next year.

By the way, other things I did which could have been resolutions like stuff..

• Went to southren punjab and sindh. Great trip
• Did the whole lenght of Karakoram Highway (pakistan side)
• Dived in the Arabian sea at karachi and pissed across the pak-china border at Khunjerab top; all in one jeans and within a week
• Went to Skardu, spent a night at Sadpara lake
• Wrote paper journal during the trip. Some nice portions
• Went to Bhitai's mizaar; also to Lal Shahbaz Qalandar's, Uch Sharif
• Mohenjodarro trip....great
• Started running >3mils 3-4 times a week; also doing some excersise :-) and increasing fitness level
• Left lums, found a job , and
• Moved out of my parents house

...before you know to-o many have died.

I write of peace, love, and life. I write of pain, death, and disease. I shout like him-- a madman,a politician,a poser, a clergyman and her. I sleep like the conscience, guilt, like blood and God. I think of love, death, heaven and earth, and my image in a thousand mirrors. I smile like the child, the winner, the tyrant. I breathe a flame thrower, and a gas chamber, and a cloud of dust and crap. I hear shouts of joy, pain, defeat, malign, wisdom and sacrifice.

I share pain or fake love, I seduce words of no meaning.

0320 hrs (Home)
Vanita came an interviewed my father. It was an unusall event, but she told me that it was a great interview. She was impressed by my father's knowledge of things. All in all it was a pleasant event. Met her again after the interview. Nice cheerfull and healthy chat. Its good.
Been spending some time with Sarmad. The other day heard Rinku and Sarmad discussing a lot of issues. Starting from Evolution, moving on to religion and then to feminism. A lot of interesting views. But I need to spend more and more time on thinking. I think I should also start writting some stuff down.
On topic of writting, well i have been trying my hands on peotry lately. Its not coming out too good. But I have written some ok stuff. Maybe I ll put something down here.
Lately fahimz gal has been quite obsessing. I am thinking about getting to know her better....that is starting to talk with her. HOW,,, no idea ...WHY... still no idea,,, WHEN... still no bloody idea...
But for now, here is a poem.

[edit] : deleted the poem, memorized it :-)

2300 hrs(home)
Happy New Year
Here they are:

1. Visit India--get hooked up with an indian gal
2. Improve my Erdös number from infinity to 3(via Sarmad)
3. Go to Europe--watch a champions league/euro football match.
4. Prove something significant
5. Run a marathon
6. Play football, start a football academy.
7. Shave my head and beard
8. Break someones something
9. Read more... less tv
10. Think more...less hallucination
11. Write in my journal more regularly
12. Teach and learn a lot

Will write more on this later.

2220 hrs (home)
I posted this yesterday as well. Atleast I did write it all up.

I am working on the Tree Paking problem(to pack n trees of sizes 1 to n, into a complete graph over n vertices). Open problem. So Asif and I were working on it, trying some ideas, mostly stupid. But last Friday Sarmad got serious about it, downloaded a paper by Yuster. Yuster was able to pack 80% of the trees into a complete bipartite graph with the same number of edges (with partitions n-1 and n/2). Sarmad told us about that and we tried to understand his calculations. That we were able to do. Sarmad got the idea of the thing. Bella had done significantly by packing almost 70% trees into a complete graph.(we dont know how, cant get hold of his paper)

So we worked late... and decided to meet next day. Asif and I met at about 5pm...and waited till 8... Sarmad was sleeping (usual of him). But he got up, eventually, and when we met him Rinku was also with him. He offered us to go to the homecoming dinner as his guest. We were reluctant...but Sarmad has his easy way... So we went there. Got the food...

And then Sarmad went and sat on the same table as Vanita. We also went there. I was embarrased at the fact that I took Asif's advise and filled up my plate with food. Anyways...we sat there and Rinku is a nice person to have sitting around any table. She has a cheerful and sweet way to strike up a conversation. Sarmad has also got some good jokes to share. So it was a nice pleasent dinner. And after that we went to the super store for a cup of tea. I didnt get to talk with Vanita a lot, but did get to see her smile a lot...the color of her eyes fits well with her smile.
Well that was that. Then we went our separate ways.
And then we went to Sramads place... like from 11:30 pm to 6 in the morning we worked on the packing problem. Trying to improve on our appraoch. We were able to pack 60%... way off of Bellas result, but definitely a significant work. Need Bellas paper. Need to work more.


Is this the way its always supposed to end.

1730(work)
Nani amma is better and is back at home. All my khallas and mamoos are/were in lahore.

Semester TAship going good, so far all tasks completed, but the toughest lies ahead. Must study and work harder.

LUMS interview no idea.

14:25(work)
capt ahmed latif was in lahore. Although he had a lot of interesting things to share, but those are not going to be the topic of my journal entry. There was this brief momentary discussion as we were going from lakhshmi to mall road in his brothers car...about death and disease

It wasnt a philosophical discussion about the nature of these things. The point I was making was that if an old person is very very sick--irrecoverable terminal disease, and he is only living in like a semi-dead state...not able to talk or walk or maybe even sense anything other then pain--then its better that he dies, or atleast I would prefer dying to such a miserable state of affairs. Miserable not only for me, but also for the ppl around me.

Then I also remember a discussion regarding profession or maybe would-be spouse's profession. I remember saying that I didnt want myself or her to be a doctor asdont like the peculiar hospital smell; the smell of medicine....of death and disease.
But now nanee amee is in hospital, an old jondius has eaten up her lever. The doctor is saying that it is in advanced stages and there is no recovery. I went to see her in the morning. And to add to her misery, while she was at the hospital, she fell out of her bed and injured herself seriously. Her mouth,lips, teeth, chest, and knees are still badly bruised and swollen. Though she is not on heavy medication but she is often drifting between conscious and semi-conscious sense lessness. Her pain would be terrible and that too at this age, when all resistences die down.

All in all its quite a miserable and unfortunate picture. She is in cmh. So I went there again in the evening, and she looked better. Now all I care is that she does not suffer. She should not suffer. At this age, how can she even be allowed to suffer. Death is inevitable--wat about disease, wat about pain. Cant it be painless, cant these sufferings disappear. We suffer so much even when we are healthy. Isnt mental torture enuff. Shouldnt we all be healthy so that the only problem is the mind--and then philosophy and religion can cure its diseases too.