For the lost traveler
Without hope,
An oasis will always be just a mirage.
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Then, Love arrived, and set the whole world on fire.
Early in the morning, around 8:30 a.m., my innocent room mate decided to make this complicated Nigerian dish, called Jollof. He's not a good cook. I'm not a morning person. Our small kitchen is right outside my room's door. That should explain all.
Anyway, he continued to clatter pots and pans, and run the blender for about an hour, while I writhed from my headache courtesy last night's overindulgence in jelly shots and cheap beer, and tried to go back to sleep. I did succeed in the end, and he failed.
When I woke up again it was noon. Around two, I went out to play football with friends at the Stephens Lake park. I had never played American football before, and I hadn't worn running shoes for about a month since I injured my foot. Anyway, I went ahead, and although there was some discomfort in the beginning. But, my foot didn't hurt once I started running.
The game was great. My good catching skills (from Cricket) came in handy. It was a fun afternoon, and the weather eased out after a slight drizzle. I scored a couple of touchdowns too.
Later, we decided to head to the Roots 'n' Blues 'n' BBQ festival that was being held in town. It's an annual thing, and last year I actually covered it for the Missourian. This year, the tickets were quite expensive, and we decided to head to the free music stage area. We were disappointed by the limited options of food in the free area. I got some Jamaican Jerk Chicken, which turned to be expensive and delicious. In the end, we decided to sit at a local Mediterranean restaurant nearby.
That's where my Nigerian room mate, who had been harping about some International Students dinner at the Student Center that night, told me it was open for all International students, not just new ones. So, we decided to head there.
We were expecting a regular meal and maybe a few stalls or some. But, a world of gimmickry awaited us.
Turned out that different student organizations, and students from different countries, had set up stalls around the hall, and we were each given a "passport" we had to get stamped from those stalls. Eight stamps were required to get a free plate to put all the free food on. Each stall had some games you had to play, or quiz to take, before getting the passport stamped. The idea was to learn about new cultures and countries. I felt it was great. Most people didn't agree because there were long queues in front of each stall. I, being a true Pakistani, broke all the queues, and got the hell stamped out of my passport.
I learned a lot of new things during this activity, like how to say hello in Thai ("Sawatdee Khrab"), how to write a Mandarin character, that Quran is the holy book of Islam (OK, OK, I already knew that!) and Odissi dance moves.
The highlight of the day, though, was when I walked past the Iranian stall and noticed, in addition to four beautiful Iranian women, a copy of Diwan-e Hafiz sitting on their table. I totally freaked out with happiness at the sight of this book. Approached the Iranian contingent, silly smile plastered on my face, and told them in my broken Farsi how glad I was to see the poetry of Hafez at their stall. Then launched in to English praising the poetry of Hafez. Then, when I told them I could actually read Farsi, but not completely understand it, one of the guys opened the book and made me read this verse aloud:
"Dar azal partov-e hosnat z tajali dam zad/
Ishq paida shud o atish beh hameh aalam zad"
One of the ladies explained its meaning, something along the lines of "in the beginning, beauty manifested itself/ Then, love arrived and set the whole world on fire." Exquisite!
(I think I should have asked one of them to teach me Farsi. Oh, well!)
The verse made me think (something I don't do often). Beauty, without love, wouldn't really amount to anything. And love, perhaps, can never exist without beauty. Maybe not in the sense of the kind of physical brilliance the word "beauty" generally connotes. But, you need to find something to be beautiful to love it, right?
And maybe this relationship of Beauty and Love, of Love and Beauty, is what drives the Universe.
The sky, and writing in Urdu.
Sept 8, 2011 - Today, when I was walking across Lowry Mall, the bells of Memorial Union's bell tower chimed and took me by surprise and made me look up toward the tower.
Memorial Union's building reminds me of some medieval European cathedral. I have learned that it was constructed in three phases between 1923 and 1963. I wonder if the architects were inspired from medieval English cathedrals. I feel they might have been. These days Memorial Union serves as a sort of community center for students. It houses student union offices, and is used to hold events on special occasions. There's a chapel in the South wing, where I have seen wedding ceremonies being held quite often. Originally, the Union was constructed to honor those Mizzou students who had lost their lives while on duty during World War I. Their names are inscribed on the inner wall of the archway of the Memorial Union tower.
Anyway, as I raised my eyes to look at the tower, I was immediately captivated by the Eastern sky behind the tower. The sky was clear blue. It had a certain purity about it, which I loved.
The sky is really beautiful here. On clear days, it is a treat to look at it. On some days, magnificent clouds make the view even more beautiful. Might I say that I love clouds. They are so majestic and ephemeral from up close. Vapors. Water. Life.
At dusk, the Western sky appears wrapped in such rich and unique colors, I don't think I have the words to describe them. There's a strange lava-esque quality to the dusk here, sometimes. Often waves of bold crimson, sombre maroon, calm saffron and effervescent orange-red join and then separate to paint a masterpiece in the evening.
But, this azure sky today had some amazing clarity in it, which influenced me to take up writing again. And writing in Urdu. Yes, I thought I should start writing in Urdu. I feel that Urdu writing is getting more rare day by day, and if everyone starts to, or aspires to, write in English, it won't be long before the art of Urdu writing would be extinct. So, I decided to buy a journal and start writing a diary in Urdu. If not every day, then every other day. Obviously, I wasn't ambitious to start writing a novel or short story. Actually, I'm glad I was realistic. I would have totally failed on day one had I attempted a literary work.
Then, I thought why not turn those diary entries into a blog post in English just to keep this stagnant blog running. This way, I'll get two birds with one stone, which is always nice. Hopefully most of my entries would be in plainspeak because I'm no intellectual. But, maybe someday I'll dabble into something more sophisticated.
Simmering Nights
Wide awake nights
Simmer in the sweltering heat.
Dusty dreams sweat out their colors
And rise in a sultry mirage,
Which shows an unknown splendor to unbecoming thoughts
A strange silhouette
Enters silently through the curtains.
The warmth struggles to sink in,
Its presence not welcomed,
But it persists.
The darkness erupts
To uncover yet more unfazed darkness.
Breathing through the senses that should have been asleep,
The mantra breaks between the blinking
And resurrects to unravel secrets of the night - Stories carried by the warm air
From distant lands all tied, now, in a bond of darkness.
Secrets,
Which now swirl with the smoke of the cigarette
That refuses to die,
Like the traveler,
Who, lost on the path of an ostensible reverie,
Knows that braving the tumultuous tempest will only give way to searing doldrums
But still, moves forward
On her implacable journey
Towards the end.
The fading light bulb, in front of the door across the street, winks.
A signal, perhaps.
The disenchanting night yawns
And trembles on.
Buried at Sea: OBL, the Celebrations and Pakistan's Role in the Operation
Right at the Western edge of the University of Missouri campus, Greektown erupted in celebrations shortly before midnight on May 1. The celebrations started less than an hour after U.S. President Barack Obama had issued a statement confirming that a U.S. security team had killed Al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, in the city of Abbottabad, Pakistan.
People cheered, shouted slogans, and sang the national anthem - some of them patriotically clad in the U.S. national flag. There were similar celebrations outside the White House in Washington, D.C., as well as in the Times Square in New York. At the site of the 9/11 attacks in lower Manhattan, crowds gathered near the memorial to celebrate and shout "NYC! USA!" at the top of their lungs. However, I had not anticipated such fervor in Columbia, Missouri.
Emotions were running high, no doubt.
I don't know how personally these cheering crowds were attached to the war on terrorism. Perhaps some of them, if not all, knew someone or the other in the U.S. forces fighting in Afghanistan currently. Perhaps, they or someone they knew had lost a dear one in the World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11. Nonetheless, their celebrations were symbolic. They were cheering a victory in their country's long and expensive war that they could all claim as their own. I wasn't there actually so I couldn't interview anyone to get a definitive reaction. However, it is my assumption that most of them really didn't know about the actual on-ground conditions in war-torn Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. Almost ten years after the siege on Afghanistan began, the deadly drone attacks and the suicide bomb blasts are only a problem faced by people living in that part of the world, not so much by U.S. residents. The celebrating hordes, for example, might not be aware of a bomb explosion in a Pakistani city that took four lives just a few hours after news of Osama's death broke, in what could be an immediate reaction to Osama's killing.
Some have also suggested that these celebrations were in bad taste; that loss of life should never be celebrated. I'm inclined to agree with this point of view.
I also think these celebrations were premature. Because, despite this being a huge event in the U.S.-led efforts against global terrorism, the terrorists spawned through bin Laden's ideology are still at large. In other words, the war is far from over.
Regardless of what the future holds, it was definitely a dramatic night.
I first heard about the possible killing of bin Laden through a friend's facebook post. At that time, I had no idea that he could have been killed inside Pakistan. I hurriedly checked my regular sources of news. The New York Times had a short confirmation from an anonymous public official. AP had a similar report, suggesting President Obama would address the nation shortly. On Facebook, several friends were making fun of the editing errors in the news bursts on the FOX news website. Links to a live telecast of Obama's statement appeared on my twitter feed. Meanwhile, Pakistani journalists on social media were warming up to the news.
That's when the first real shocker came. CNN reported Osama to have been killed in a mansion outside Islamabad, the federal capital of Pakistan. Damn! I thought. That's so close to home. I have spent almost all my life living in Rawalpindi, and I worked in Islamabad for a good one year after graduating from college. The only mansions I could think of outside of Islamabad were almost a few miles away from my city. Not only was this a surprise for me, but for many others as well, because I guess not many had ever suspected Osama of being found outside of Pakistan's tribal belt.
That's when the first real shocker came. CNN reported Osama to have been killed in a mansion outside Islamabad, the federal capital of Pakistan. Damn! I thought. That's so close to home. I have spent almost all my life living in Rawalpindi, and I worked in Islamabad for a good one year after graduating from college. The only mansions I could think of outside of Islamabad were almost a few miles away from my city. Not only was this a surprise for me, but for many others as well, because I guess not many had ever suspected Osama of being found outside of Pakistan's tribal belt.
Later, after actually watching some CNN coverage, I reached the conclusion that CNN presenters sucked at geography and had no clue what they were talking about.
I don't have a T.V., and being afraid there would be too much web traffic to watch a quality live stream of Obama's statement, I literally ran to the Future's lab at the Reynolds Journalism Institute on campus. I think it didn't take me more than five minutes to get there. Downstairs, there were at least a dozen people huddled in front of the four TV monitors; all of the screens showing CNN (Ah, well).
Most of the Pakistani news websites had crashed due to a surge in traffic. But, by then, Al Jazeera English was suggesting that the actual site of operation could've been Abbottabad. The Obama speech came on shortly afterward. He confirmed the operation to have taken place in Abbottabad. There was a brief acknowledgement to Pakistan's help in intelligence matters over the years. However, there was no mention of Pakistani special forces taking part in the operation. Obama did mention that President Zardari had been informed, further giving credence to the idea that this could have been a unilateral U.S. mission that overrode Pakistan's sovereignty.
On the Pakistani media, anonymous ISI officials were being quoted as saying that this was actually a joint operation. There were speculations on twitter that something of this nature couldn't have been carried out in Abbottabad without the Pakistan Army being aware of it. Abbottabad, after all, is home to the Pakistan Military Academy where future soldiers of the Pakistan Army are trained, day in, day out.
It's plausible that the President Zardari's civilian government was not in the loop. The lack of an immediate response from the government might be explained on this basis. President Zardari has maintained the stance in a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post.
I don't have a T.V., and being afraid there would be too much web traffic to watch a quality live stream of Obama's statement, I literally ran to the Future's lab at the Reynolds Journalism Institute on campus. I think it didn't take me more than five minutes to get there. Downstairs, there were at least a dozen people huddled in front of the four TV monitors; all of the screens showing CNN (Ah, well).
Most of the Pakistani news websites had crashed due to a surge in traffic. But, by then, Al Jazeera English was suggesting that the actual site of operation could've been Abbottabad. The Obama speech came on shortly afterward. He confirmed the operation to have taken place in Abbottabad. There was a brief acknowledgement to Pakistan's help in intelligence matters over the years. However, there was no mention of Pakistani special forces taking part in the operation. Obama did mention that President Zardari had been informed, further giving credence to the idea that this could have been a unilateral U.S. mission that overrode Pakistan's sovereignty.
On the Pakistani media, anonymous ISI officials were being quoted as saying that this was actually a joint operation. There were speculations on twitter that something of this nature couldn't have been carried out in Abbottabad without the Pakistan Army being aware of it. Abbottabad, after all, is home to the Pakistan Military Academy where future soldiers of the Pakistan Army are trained, day in, day out.
It's plausible that the President Zardari's civilian government was not in the loop. The lack of an immediate response from the government might be explained on this basis. President Zardari has maintained the stance in a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post.
This position will leave Pakistan with little credibility in the eyes of the International community. Some would argue that Pakistan doesn't have any credibility to begin with. Well, I guess if the Pakistani authorities have the same opinion, they probably feel no shame in sticking to this version.
So far, the statement issued by the Pakistan Foreign Office is weak. It states that the U.S. took this action according to publicly announced U.S. policy. So, the U.S. can do whatever it wants within Pakistan? That's not a strong defense from Pakistani authorities at all. No qualms about sovereignty, no concerns about national security.
The U.S. has maintained that it was a unilateral operation, and the helicopters used flew into Pakistan, were somehow not intercepted by the Pakistan Air Force, the Navy seals finished the operation, and despite one helicopter going down because of technical malfunctions, the team returned from whence they came, safe and sound, bin Laden's body in their possession and all.
Now, people in the West might believe that the Americans got their information independently, without the help of the ISI, and conducted an unauthorized raid on Pakistani soil, and perhaps the ISI didn't even see it coming. But, Pakistanis would have a difficult time in believing this.
I think it is highly unlikely that the Pakistan Army and its intelligence wing, the ISI, didn't know anything about Osama bin Laden hiding in its backyard. The civilian government might have not known about this, but it is implausible that the Army was unaware. For one, a perimeter sweep of the Pakistan Military Academy is essential for the security of the officer cadets. Moreover, each year the Pakistan Military top brass attends the passing out parade of the soldiers. The notion that they could be sitting there, watching the parade, with no knowledge that the world's leading terrorist is lounging in a house nearby defies logic. If, for a moment, I believe this idea to be true, it's probably the biggest security lapse/intelligence failure ever.
So, what does this mean for the Pakistan Army then? I think it kind of puts them in a double-bind.
If they knew about Osama's whereabouts and willingly gave the information away to the U.S., they can expect some backlash from Al-Qaeda, local terrorist outfits, the fundamentalist elements in the country and the religious parties. Additional questions about how long they knew about this and whether they were holding this information as a bargaining chip in their dealings with the U.S. also arise. These questions raise further doubts about Pakistan Army's unholy alliance with the terrorists. I mean, forget low-level militants, this was bin Laden himself.
So were they hiding Osama? and did they give up on him now for a bribe? Tariq Ali asks the same questions in his post on the LRB blog.
If they didn't know about Osama's hideout, then it's not difficult to imagine how easy it might be for terrorists to roam around the country. So far, the Pakistan Army, like the government, has held up the same story as the Obama Administration, even citing an intelligence failure according to one media report.
I don't think taking this route will be a success, because firstly, it defies the recent angst the Pakistan Army has shown over the U.S. drone attacks, and secondly, it just gives the impression that Pakistan's borders are open to U.S. intrusion and it is quite helpless if the U.S. forces fly their helicopters within its airspace and carry out such operations.
Osama bin Laden, we are being told, is dead and buried at sea. However, the repercussions of his death, and the questions raised regarding his killing would not drown easily. Obama's re-election bid might get a double boost from this, but I don't know if we'll ever be able to completely dispel the doubts regarding Pakistan's role in this whole affair.
As for the celebrations, there's a verse in Saif-ul-Malook that goes like:
Dushman maray tay khushi na kariye, sajna vi mar jana...
Translation: Don't rejoice when your enemies die, for friends will eventually depart as well...
The Arch within the arch.
I was reorganizing my photo albums on my laptop, yesterday, when I came across this photo I had taken in St. Louis last year.
It was Thanksgiving Day, and I landed at St. Louis Airport from Las Vegas in the morning. The bus that was going to take me back to Columbia, Mo., was supposed to leave in the afternoon from Downtown, St. Louis. So, I decided to take the Metrolink to the city center and hang out there till my departure time.
But, the weather gods had other plans.
As soon as I left the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, it started to pour down heavily. The temperature dropped to 20 F, and every time the train stopped at a station, the doors opened to fill the compartment with a chilling wind. After a ride of around thirty minutes through some really interestingly decrepit places, I got off at the Arch-Laclede's Station. The rain was too heavy at that time, and like I said before, I was on my way back from Vegas, so I only had a light jacket on. It was literally freezing. But, the idiot that I am, I decided to brave the elements and walk in the rain to look around for a coffee shop. Much to my dismay, everything was closed. Everything.
And then it dawned upon me. It was Thanksgiving Day. A national holiday! What in the world was I thinking before?
So, drenched from head to toe, I returned back to the covered safe haven of the Arch-Laclede's Metrolink station, which is situated on the lower deck of the nineteenth-century Eads bridge. The historical bridge that crosses the St. Louis riverfront (of the Mississippi) to the East and connects Missouri to Illinois. There, I waited for fifteen minutes or so for the next train back to the airport. It was during this wait that I took the photo. I just felt it was a really nice frame. The Gateway Arch stands to the South of the station and can be seen through its many old brick arches.
The wet concrete floor of the Gateway Arch parking lot in the photo, the forlorn autumn trees and the grey, cloudy sky in the background are all vivid reminders of that cold, wet and foggy St. Louis morning and everything else that went terribly wrong afterward.
Yes, the day went from bad to worse when three hours later I rode the train from the Airport again, this time to the Union Station. It started to snow on the way. In severe snowfall, I walked six blocks from the train station to where the bus was stationed on Market Street. Later, just after ten minutes into hitting the road, the windshield vipers of the bus gave way. The driver refused to take a risk and returned back to the stop. After his attempts to fix the electronic system of the bus failed, he asked the company to send a new bus. It took five more hours for that new bus to arrive. All in all, it was a day to forget, but this photo just brings everything back. Perhaps in a good way, since I survived the onslaught of that day's weather to reminisce about the frigid experience from the warm confines of my apartment.
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