Junior Model School Mianwali

I was born in Lahore but my father owned a bus system based out of Mianwali so we moved to Mianwali and my earliest education started there.

I don't quite know what it looks like now, but Junior Model School in those days was a typical small town Pakistani school. It was the ONLY "English Medium" school in the city. They took me in in class I, directly because my mother, an obsessive and strong willed young woman at the time had taught me a little too much for my age.

Mianwali was a very simple town in very simple times.

We had a car but cars were not used to drop kids off to school. Instead, a tanga or a horse drawn carriage came to our house early in the morning and picked up me up for school. There would already be a few students in there and the fun journey to school started. I don't exactly remember what we did on that journey except that the tanga driver would keep asking us to behave and to sit still. Of course we would do anything but! We would envy the bigger kids who were allowed to stand on the step like the boy in this picture. One day, when I grow older, I will stand on that step like that, I thought to myself.

Just short of the famous Mianwali canal, the tanga would turn left and arrive at the school gate where many other tangas would be dropping off other students.

The school assembly was a typical "lab pe aati hai dua" to quomi tarana affair and then the classes would begin.

I learnt English at school. We did not speak English in the house in those days ... we spoke Urdu. I refuse to speak English to my kids in the house even today. My early English education was in that school. I remember my parents were very amused when I translated the phrase "well done" to "کنواں کیا ". If you cannot read Urdu (pity), it was the other "well", the noun, the one with water. Don't laugh I was only 4.
Then there was the takhti writing. Takhti was a wooden tablet that you practiced your Urdu calligraphy on. I was really bad at it. Still am. Never could learn calligraphy. My father was so good at it. He tried to teach me but I just could not get any better at it.

Preparing the takhti was an intricate affair. You would wash it, and then cover both sides with a very thin and even coating of fine clay mud and then let it dry. You would then use reed pens dipped in ink to write on it. When you went home, one of the things you had to do was to wash out the clay and therefore the writing on it and re-coat your takhti with another layer of smooth fresh clay. I can almost smell the Multani clay even as I write this.

Takhti was also used for practicing your swordsman skills after school. I ended up breaking mine at least once a week in those sword plays.

In the half time (break) we played kho kho. It was a game which involved two teams each trying to catch a player from the other team and put him in a jail guarded by a couple of men. A player from the other team could break out his fellows by dodging the guards and touching the captured players while shouting "KHO!!!" We debated if it was "go go" and not "kho kho". Where ever the name came from, the game was a lot of fun and it was the closest thing to a game of tackle.

In the evenings, one of my uncles, Chacha Anwar, Chacha Aslam or Chacha Afzal would take me for a walk to the main bazar. I was full of questions and very inquisitive. We would grab some faloodah and then walk to the station chowk. We would time it so we could catch a train crossing the town. I loved mall garis (goods trains) because they went on for ever.

By the time we got home, I would be tired and ready for bed. We slept indoors in the winters and in the court yard in the summers where a couple of strategically placed pedestal fans would keep us cool during the night. I remember that even in the summers, the nights would be cool and we would need a thin sheet to sleep under.

The night sky was bright and vivid. Full of millions upon millions of stars. My father knew his stars. He would teach me and my brother Ali about the Great Dipper and the North Star and the Venus and the Milky Way. My father was very good at science and maths and he taught me my foundation sciences.

As I close this, I can't help but wonder why life was so much happier in those days when there were such fewer needs and people were so much simpler. Why was riding to school on a tanga more fun than the drive to work in my Cadillac Escalade today? Why did a reed pen on a wodden tablet feel so much smoother than my Motegrappa today? Why did the faloodah of Mianwali main bazar taste so much heavenlier than the best gelato around today? And why did sleeping under the night sky with a couple of pedestal fans bring so much more peaceful a sleep than my central air-conditioning today?

I am not certain of the answer but I suspect it had to do with the person I was and the people that I used to be with. The tanga journey would be nothing without my friends. The pen on the wooden tablet and the night sky would be nothing without my father. The faloodah would be nothing without my Chacha Anwer or Chacha Aslam or Chacha Afzal and the pedestal would not bring on a peaceful sleep if it were not in the knowledge that I was sleeping safe between people who loved me to bits.

Goodnight ...

My Resume on a Wordle

COCK KI BALL

I was considered very brave by kids my age, to be playing with the older kids who played with a hard cricket ball.

If I remember correctly, a cricket cork-ball aka "cock ki ball" cost Rs. 15 in the mid to late 70's.

Rs. 15 was a lot of money especially for a kid at the time. Everyone playing would pool in to buy one, but someone had to take it home after the match; everyone wanted to be that someone.

Then it would get old, and oval, and spongy ... in that order ... and then the stitches would start to come off, and that was a sad moment, but cricket went on, and we played with a ball which looked in-flight like a nucleus with its electrons coming in and out of existence in a probability cloud around it.

Specially proud would be the person who played the shot that finally split the ball into its parts , an uproar of laughter over the confused fielder who couldn't decide what to chase; the two leather halves or the cork core?

There would be a good laughter as everyone high-five'd and celebrated a good end of a good cricket ball but then there was a somber silence when someone pointed out that we needed a new cork-ball. A moment of silence, not in memory of the cricket ball but in realization of what it meant for us.

After the fateful shot, everyone would walk home silently but resolute, to ask for money from their mothers to contribute to a fresh pool of Rs 15 for a new ball... A shiny shiny new ball. Oh boy the way it felt in your hand. 

Luckiest and proudest would be the fast bowler who got that first over with that shiny new ball as the opening batsman stared in horror at the incoming projectile that looked like a glowing red dwarf in the reflected sunlight.

/Slash

Pakistan on 14th August, 2047

As an independent Pakistan, we have completed 63 years of a very interesting existence. No one can argue that we are far from where we should have been. 

It is time that we thought long and hard and planned for what we need to accomplish in the next 34 years. Or we will still be here when we are a hundred; or will we even?

We Pakistanis are a strange lot indeed. Hundreds of things divide us. We disagree on everything.

Seriously literally everything. And yes we all have an opinion on every conceivable subject.

Politics: We disagree on the very system of government that we should have. Who is/was the better leader, how we should be lead, by whom? Should army be involved? Who should have a right to candidacy? How to structure our local governments? What is the most optimal number of provinces? What should be the level of autonomy give to them?

Culture: We can not seem to converge on what makes a Pakistani culture. What is an acceptable code of conduct for our women? How should we educate our children? Should we have a Arab culture or an unapologetic Indo culture is consistent enough with our beliefs? What is a Muslim culture in the first place?

Foreign Policy: We love to argue about how we should meet India; our significant neighbor. Are U.S. our friends or really our enemies? Are Arabs sincere to Pakistan as a state? Are we part of the Middle East or Asia?

Yes even on Islam; most strongly on Islam; I will not even attempt to list out the various factions and flavors, formal and informal, amongst the Ummah of Pakistan. I still shock our Maulvi Sahib when I turn up for prayers in my jeans ... loose jeans mind you. He loves to don an Arab style full length shirt.

There is one thing however where we all are alike; Every time that the Pakistani nation is faced with a threat or a calamity, we change into someone else! We unite and form a People in an almost Transformer'esque manner, not recognizable from the original; or is THIS the original and we are mostly in disguise?

We display a spirit of self sacrifice that astonishes even the most charitable.

Raising funds is nothing, we can raise billions and I don't just mean from begging for it but from within ourselves. Time and time again we have risen to the occasion. May it be the time of formation in 1947, the war of 1965, the earthquake of 2005 or the Floods of 2010, we have done it and we will do it again insha'Allah.

So good job Pakistan once again! We are all proud of us!

But now what? We need our thinkers now as much as we need our doers.

There are multiple levels at which we need to be thinking:

1. What should we do now about the current calamity of floods? Beyond collecting emergency relief.

2. What could have been done to manage this situation better? Readiness

3. How can we change as a Nation to have a better readiness or planning? Temperament.

To disagree is very Pakistani and that is a property that we should be proud of; but we need to agree on something now. We need to agree about what we will look like on the eve of 14th August 2047. We need a concerted thought process to prepare for the next 34 years.


Every Pakistani today is living Iqbal's dream. What dream will the Pakistanis of 2047 live? 

In the next few blogs, I will be offering some of my thoughts on the questions. I look forward to your comments to guide me.

Today's Wordle

Created using Dawn.com RSS and Wordle.net on 21-Aug-2010

Mein bhi Pakistan hoon ... Tu bhi Pakistan hai

Facebook is a phenomenon; technologically very simple but socially very far-reaching.

One of the things you can do on FB is "tag" people on pictures. Initially intended to let people know that they featured in a picture, now people tag a picture with your name simply because they want you to see it.

I too was tagged in a picture recently which of course did not have me in it. Or so I thought.

It was a painted picture. It was a bleak picture.

It had two portions; the left half with a caption saying "Day", showed people struggling in flood waters while the portion on the right was captioned "Night" and showed a mass of black. The idea was, that Pakistan was moving into a dark future.

The picture was published on FB on this last August 14th; Pakistan Day.

Needless to say it spawned a rather spirited discussion on the subject.

There were two groups; those who said that this kind of view was just depressive and did nothing to fix anything. While the others had a list of complaints against Pakistan which they quoted to support their viewpoint.

The debate went on and I soon started feeling a bit inundated with all the emails telling me that there was a new comment on "my picture".

After two score and ten such emails, I thought enough was already enough and that this had gone on for quite some time and that I had a right not be "spammed". After all I had nothing to do with this picture nor the discussion. I logged on to FB with the intention of removing my tag from the picture so that I will not be spammed anymore.

I almost clicked on the option for removing the tag when a part of me took over and started speaking back to me. The insolent me spoke to me thus:

"It is you", it said to me.

"Does it matter if you think that the people in the flood waters don't look like you?

To everyone else who is not a Pakistani, it is you! For are you not Pakistan?"

And that of course brought back memories of the countless times, that I sang along with my friends, with a lot of relish, the famous song.

Who is this degenerate, corrupt, unjust, cruel, huberistic being that all of us seem to be sick of? Who is this Pakistan that we are all so mad at?

I realized that I was indeed that Pakistan. Pakistan is not the name of the rivers and the mountains within a geographical boundary. Nor is it the bricks and mortar that we plastered on it to build it up.

Pakistan is me. It is you. And therefore it was indeed me in that picture in the reeking flood waters.

What shall I do? To decide upon a course of action, I have to first have an opinion. An opinion is a pre-cursor to action.

So of the two camp, who is right? The people who think Pakistan is a collection of everything that is wrong with the world or the ones who say that everything will be alright with Pakistan?

We need someone to tell us that something is wrong with us. We need them to be bitter, we need them to shout. We need them to jump up and down and wave their hands in the air pointing to everything that is wrong with us.

We also need those with a lot of optimism, with Mega Joules of energy; those who can be cheerful in the face of the fastest floods and the quickest quakes and the crookedest corruption. We need those who can then go and fix everything that this former group points to.

We need both. We should cherish both.

Does this start and stop at these two clubs only? No, there are others ... countless others:

We need our young to do it

We need our old to show us how

We need our educated to figure it out

We need our un-educated to help out with everything that they can muster

We need our Shias, we need our Sunnis and everyone in between

But most of all we need all of us to know that we need the others.

Mein bhi Pakistan hoon

Tu bhi Pakistan hai

/Slash

Aaloo Qeema

One of the greatest dishes that the ancients invented was Aaloo Qeema.

Aaloo Qeema; the essence of life itself.

And if you don't know what I am talking about, then you are missing something that should have been profound ... something elemental in your life.

Aaloo; Potatoes

Qeema; Minced meat

Sound simple? Not by miles! NOTHING could be simpler.

Spice; An ounce ... no ... a microgram more or less and the magic is lost.

Salt and pepper; a vapor more here or there and you may as well just upend the cooking pot in the black (bio unfriendly) trash bag.

Mint and coriander; a flake makes the difference between going to bed well fed or with a still rumbling stomach.

Well I am happy to report that I made some killer Aaloo Qeema. And this cat is definitely going to bed with a large grin on his face.

Bon Apitite and Good Night!