ola!

oh Musharraf you imbecile.

Its nice to also see that the PML is leaving no stone unturned in bringing out attack ads against Benazir. Good going! Why leave your baggage by the side eh?

ah, democracy. My pet peeve, atleast when it comes to Pakistan.

First off though, let me make a few clarifications:

1. Musharraf is an idiot.

2. He has to go, now. I don’t believe he’s got any political mileage in him left, and if he does it will either exist by force; or by biblical miracles; or by such an astonishingly rampant display of stupidity that will put to shame the dumbest of the dumb. All three seem highly unlikely at the moment.

3. The issue of Waziristan still exists, and despite his attempts to link the Emergency rule to Waziristan (which isn’t really the case), it is an important issue that shouldn’t be forgotten nor overlooked in terms of wanting to win an election.

Now, we’ve seen a stunning level of activism since the emergency. The lawyers were out in full flow after the suspension of the CJP, but this time around they were standing alongside a massive influx of students. Everyone, and then some, is rightly appalled with this absolute farce of an attempt by Musharraf to sustain his Presidency.

Now, I for one believe that the Supreme Court was taking some liberties with its abilities and perhaps treading political waters a bit too often (thus citing all those lovely elite theorists like Pareto) – mind you, if it was overdoing it it was Mushy’s fault that he messed with them and let them have that political door open at their disposal – but still doesn’t equate jumping the gun and dissolving your Supreme Court. Forget judicial independence, that’s just ridiculous!

His messiah complex seems to have gotten the better of him, and we should work to get rid of him ASAP. We’ve already descended into a farce, his continued presence will not really do wonders.

Now, democracy. I’m sounding like a broken record when I continue to say that democracy in Pakistan will for a long time not really be democracy. 60 years of our existance, and this was the first parliament that completed its term. And, it was hardly a parliament that held some notion of power, or responsibility.

Will that change in the next 5 years? No. In the next 10? Probably not.

So what are we asking for? What are we screaming about that we so badly want? More farcical elections? More exploitation by feudal lords selling their votes for more under-the-table cash and political influence?

Yes, its an improvement. People will have an elected leader, but in what bastardized sense?

We have no interest groups, no sense of political pluralism, no legitimate checks and balances. The best notion of democracy in Pakistan is a sham in itself, so if we know this, why do we keep on presenting this notion that the best thing for Pakistan is democracy where we’ll choose our own leader?

WE WON’T REALLY CHOOSE OUR OWN LEADER NOW WILL WE?

Spending nearly a decade in exile and with corruption charges still languishing, we’re heralding pillaging leaders from the past as our saviours. What does that say about us as people? Where political rallies aren’t necessarily attended by people who hold the same direction as you on issues, but by people who are paid to stand there and make a ruckus?

It’s still a cause that we should fight for, no doubt, and for what I see as a future that will get worse before it gets better (if it ever does). But we shouldn’t place ourselves in a position where we seek and expect miracles. We shouldn’t believe so blindly in democracy when we will for an age not have proper democracy where your voice and my voice is represented.

So protest, scream, and shout (but not GO MUSHARRAF GO, which sounds unnervingly like we’re cheering him on). And lets hope we can sustain this for elections to come, so that our ‘democratic’ leaders are in a position where they are scared of exploiting us; of exploiting the poor.

We need to inculcate this sense of protestation and activism in ourselves, because we have been both mentally and physically incapable for a long, long time.

Plus, Yeasayer – All Hour Cymbals is just fucking incredible.

unbeknownst to us, the rivers are flooding with bile

By the skin of our teeth! Oh lord! Save us by the skin of our teeth!

Let us shoulder some of the blame. Cast us into the weary fire and let our bones char! Let the self-aggrandizing man lust after our servility, for he shall never possess it. To death and beyond, cast us, oh! cast us into the weary fire!

___
“Check out those legs,” he opined. I was busy playing with the anemic olive to notice anything but the discoloured table, so his words sailed over my head.

“Dude! That chick there, look at those legs!,” he earnestly whispered in my ear. It wasn’t a whisper as much as a scream for my ear though. So I looked, I didn’t want his dude-ness to keep pestering me, so thought it best to acknowledge the ‘legs’ before my primal urge to smash his face in would take over.

She was wearing a blue evening gown, one that accentuated her rather illustrious figure. She had a startlingly beautiful face; her eyes were deep-set but they seemed exude a familiarity only encountered with the oldest of friends. Her nose was hooked, but not so much as to evoke comparisons with birds. High cheekbones further glossed her appearance, and though perhaps a tad unorthodox, her beauty was still remarkable.

“Those are some of the greatest legs I’ve ever seen man, but I’d love to part them!,” he said, facetiously. I suppose anyway, I was hardly paying attention to any meanderings of his. I was fixated.

There was an elegance about her, an air of superiority that for some reason arrested me. Though I was hardly within earshot of her, she just seemed to be talking about something pertinent. Something substantial. Her lips moved with a slight quiver, as if her words were a temptation too strong.

And then I saw who she was talking to. A stout, short man, balding and squinting. He seemed old, but not old enough to be her father. He parted his hair over his head, a futile exercise considering how you could bounce the world of his skull. It was radiant, almost. I could hardly look at him without involuntarily cringing.

He was wearing huge spectacles and they seemed to slide off his obtuse, fat nose every couple of seconds; prompting him to fix their position with his chubby, sausage-like fingers.

Perhaps it’s too acerbic of me to mention this, but i was rather aghast at watching this guy with a woman of such splendor. I tried, in vain, to figure out what might spur two people from such varying degrees of human form to sit at a table together, and chat. Not talk, if you will, but chat.

She looked like divinity on earth. He looked like scum. It was like watching a mammal defecate on a glorious beach, a site not only odd but repulsive too.

Pardon me though, and my discretion; sometimes my ostensible impishness infuriates me as much as anyone else.

cont’d when i can be arsed
_____

Then there’s anguish. So to calm the oncoming storm, do you piss in the wind or do you caress the ghosts?

A lonely wind blows and the chiming bell casts a voice across the square. It bounces off the walls and it strains, but its haunting presence hardly goes astray.

Footsteps at the door, footsteps at the door! The shattering cries of a thousand dying men burst through, but they’re overcome, overcome by the inanimate silence of a town on the last throes of life. Gasping, sputtering.

burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest

burning

- T. S. Eliot

this isn’t good

I have no faith or trust in my parents anymore.

None whatsoever.

And it feels really, really weird.

Wish I could find one of those post-secret postcards to more harrowingly display what i feel; alas.