Filling up the horizon of the minds of the masses

“Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult…. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations. And when they become discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontentment led nowhere, because being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances.”

– George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four 

Is this not the current reality that we are living every day

A State, Corruption, Elites and Laws

 

The Old Script!

 

Questioning age and wisdom..

 I'm not sure that age brings wisdom. I see more evil, fights, wars, and killings by older people than by young people!

(one comment made during all the wars happening around the world)

Education!

 

America is Changing

 

Election 2024

We have a choice between the devil and dementia.

Power of nonviolence and humor

 

Right or left extremists

 

Paradox of history

As I was watching the USA's election in the doctor's lounge, one old-timer physician made an interesting comment: 

"It is interesting that in history, people have switched sides. In the Civil War, Republicans were in the North led by Abraham Lincoln and were anti-slavery. Pro-slavery conservative white democrats dominated the South. One hundred sixty years fast forward; the North is full of socialist democrats, and the South is red, more conservative states. Unfortunately, this is true throughout human history. Victims turned into aggressors; defenders became attackers; pacificists generated into warmongers; anti-this and pro that switched to anti-that and pro-this; and builders turned into destroyers or vice versa. Pick any nation, religion, or culture - you will see this phenomenon perpetually happening".

*

It's true

Don't know - who this sage is but what a correct quote

Brexit, immigrants and my learning point

Living as an immigrant in the USA under Trump, I thought most immigrants in the UK will be opposing Brexit.

To my surprise, I met a person who himself immigrated to the UK somewhere around the year 2000, was highly defending Brexit on the pretext that people from eastern Europe are taking over jobs and are changing the good English values. I was taken aback but later did a little read on the internet, I fount that a large number of Asians voted to leave EU.

I learned! We try our best but second or third generation eventually lose their roots.

  ~ aur us se bhi ziyada - insaan bara Kamina hai - Bohat jald apna bura waqt bhool jaata hai

Bathroom

I was in a departmental store to buy regular stuff for the house. As I was passing near the bedroom/home decor section, I saw the slogan: "World is turning into a bedroom", is graffiti by a marker. Someone cut the word bed and replaced it with the word bath to make it: "World is changing into a bathroom".

I am genuinely worried about the wave of populism and intolerance right now at every part of the world, and the world we are leaving for our future generation. The only hope I see is the more tolerant and educated new generation. I have to confess that,  the baby boomers and my generation never made from a crying baby into real manhood.

Tashkent Files

Lately, I am not getting much chance to go out and watch movies in the theater, but I heard about this Indian flick "Tashkent Files," so I made an effort to go and watch this movie. Least to say I was disappointed.

It was a pure character assassination attempt of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. I am not a huge fan of her as she was also trying to perpetuate family politics. Her act of 'emergency' was a shameful act. But she was a smart lady. She won the 1971 war with Pakistan and gave Pakistan a psychological blow which they can never be over with. She gave her life fighting to save Indian Panjab. (Director shamelessly omitted her work for the country). To label her as 'traitor' and 'KGB agent' was very unfair in the movie. Putting out the film at election time put a BIG question mark on the sincerity of the movie maker. Subtly message was given not to vote for Congress.

In one of the interview, the director was bagging to judge movie only from the cinematographic angles. It was a mediocre work even from the camera and screenplay point of view. The script was mostly written from Google search of conspiracy type web pages. Mitrokhin archive itself is controversial. There was no reason to transport the main character of the movie between Dehli and Uzbekistan every 15 minutes like she is traveling to Chandni Chowk. 

Said that Mithun proved himself to be a magnificent actor.

Only two stars as a movie.

The Lowland

I think "The Lowland" is so far the most mature work from Jhumpa Lahiri, taking theme from Naxalite movement in West Bengal in 1960s. It is not that she came up with an idea and wrote a novel sitting on desktop, but she researched it well. It was apparent that she did make sure that all historical events can be substantiated by references. I am sure, she made travels solely for the sake of novel. (Her control over city of Calcutta, Rhode Island, California and even Ireland was amazing). She poured her heart out. Immense emotional intelligence. She was able to touch every cord of my heart. The way she wrote chapter 4 of part V11 of novel is really a work of art.

Why this novel was important to me?

I grew up in Karachi in Zia Martial Law. I have seen student politics from very near. Later I saw rise and fall of MQM in my own backyards. Many jiyalas of PPP, Sindhi nationalist and leftist parties and later of MQM were killed in fake police encounters (or fighting with each other). These were politically conscious kids who were misguided by their leaders. They were foot soldiers who were used as pawns by their self-centered leaders.. and there is no trace of those unnamed poor souls. (You may project this to suicide bombers now grooming in Pakistan).

This is a tale of psychological suffering of many people, even generations, when a person dies in this unnatural way. Udayan died but his parents, his brother Subhash, wife Gauri, daughter Bela and even grand-daughter Meghna suffered in her own way. It took 40 years before there was a silver lining on clouds. This novel was a story of different dimensions of love, intricacies of relationships, heartbreaks and promises.

The most heartbreaking (and simultaneously heartwarming) highlight of the novel (for me) was - how Gauri kept secret of her husband hidden from every single soul. Throughout novel, I kept questioning the behavior of Gauri, and in last few chapters, I was even thinking that all this is now redundant but at last it turns out that there was something she knew as a wife which no one knew!

I was little turn off at one point where meeting of Bela and her mother Gauri was made little filmi/Bollywood. I think that part went too loud. Also, its hard to explain to me that why new generation Desi-American authors are still not out of fatalistic approach? - But overall, I loved this novel.

On Today's most political leaders (an Urdu post)

سکندراعظم فتح کے بعد یونان گیا، وہاں ایک آدمی دنیا سے بےخبرسورہا تھا

سکندرنےاسےلات مارکےجگایا اورکہا: "تو بےخبرسو رہا ہے۔ میں نےاس شہرکو فتح کرلیا ہے".

اس نےسکندراعظم کی طرف دیکھا اورکہا کہ: "شہرفتح کرنا بادشاہ کا کام ہے اورلات مارنا گدھےکا، کیا کوئی انسان دنیا میں نہیں رہا، جو بادشاھت ایک گدھےکو مل گئی ہے؟"

(Send to me on Pakistan's election day)

Habib Jalib's Mainay Uss Say Yeh Kaha

Habib Jalib's famous poem sung so great by UK based band "Laal"

You can hear same poem in Jalib's own voice here

My other post on Habib Jalib here

Philosophies of Rule

(As described by a friend)

I found 2 philosophies to rule in history

"Divide and Rule" - as practiced by British
"Provide and Rule" - as practice by Americans

On Obama's win

As written by Adnan:

"I do have to say, the Americans have impressed me. This is the same country that let Bush be president for two terms, and clearly elected him for one (the second) term. And despite the smear campaign run by the Republicans, they still elected Obama.
Muslim. Arab. Pals around with terrorists. Socialist. Marxist.
And still, they elected him. Thank you for showing politicians that smear campaigns are awful, and they should not work."

Read very intelligent full post here

Unique view

Few months ago I did a post titled Psychological Dyslexia . Few peoples have ability to see angles of thing, which are present for centuries but nobody ever discovered it.

When first time I read Arundhati Roy, I was not very impressed with her writing skills but was blown away with her unique views to different aspects of life and relationship. She had immense emotional depth. Lately, she created stir with her comment on disputed region of Kashmir. Read her unique view:

"India needs azadi from Kashmir just as much as - if not more than - Kashmir needs azadi from India. The unimaginable sums of public money that are needed to keep the military occupation of Kashmir going is money that ought by right to be spent on schools and hospitals and food for an impoverished, malnutritioned population in India. What kind of government can possibly believe that it has the right to spend it on more weapons, more concertina wire and more prisons in Kashmir?"