Logic is Variable

Spanking new Krakoram Express (42 Down) running between Lahore and Karachi is already old and no more a rarity in Pakistan. When i traveled, all the original fittings like coat hooks, locks, handles and seat covers were in place. No more.

Six passengers have a compartment to themselves. No streams of persistent vendors. No one can have the pleasure of hanging from an open train door as they are locked stop to stop. Like Lahore-Islamabad motorway the train is for many a symbol of modernity and progress.

Most of my journeys begin from the hinterland and on foot with very little provisions on back. But this one began on the train. This time suitcases were packed instead of backpack days in advance and phone calls were put through to friends and relatives en route to alert them to our arrival. My starting point, the Lahore Railway Station, fourteenth gateway of Lahore, is sturdy and imposing. It is an interesting place to hang around in any time of day or night. At the Station there are bookstores stocked with spiritual tracts, Internet guides, archetypal books of love poetry and Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Other shops sell everything from souvenir (crude) clay ware to artificial jewellery, not to mention a fast food chain outlet and countless tea shops. The platform is always clogged with goods going and coming to and from up and down the country. There is a grumble of departing passengers’ trains and the maddeningly frequent station announcements and attacks of red shirt porters (called cullies) and cab drivers on every passenger. Every porter has per trip rate written on the shirt but none charges that. Every one asks for more. In all this, behind one barricade of luggage on the floor of the station slept a family with their belonging tucked under their heads. This is because the utility of waiting rooms has been excessively marginalized over the years. In the holy month of Ramadan, the station becomes a huge eating joins. Every tea stall is shrouded in curtains. And, if you have seen one railway station, you have seen all.

People try to hunt out the most alluring and the most fascinating places that they can find to visit. The thrill or idea of a place is what inspires curious and quirky travels further and deeper. Locale of twin villages Ucchali and Dhadhar is one such place for anyone who can be happy just being closer to the raw nature and it is off the beaten track.

The Mud Housing Project is being currently implemented by SPARC in Lahore.

SPARC had taken up the initiative years ago in order to remind of the importance of mud as construction material and to sensitize the general public in this respect.

Mud is not a construction material of the past; that steel concrete and bricks have pushed back such good construction material is a story in itself. Considering the enormous costs of cooling and heating the current form of buildings, it becomes quite clear that mud is environmentally friendly, energy efficient and biologically far superior.

Societies pride in different strengths: Some give importance to bravery, some to democracy, and some nations think that freedom of expressions, development and or education are the hallmarks for their long-term sustenance. “The nations should be judged on how they look at their women,” writes Abbas Khan, the author of Urdu novel Mein Aur Umrao Jan Ada, his eleventh, that I have had the chance to read.

Helen of Troy was the daughter of Zeus and Leda and wife of Menelaus, considered to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Her abduction by Paris caused the Trojan War and made thousand ships drown.

Cleopatra (actually Cleopatra VII) was the last of the Ptolemies, the Macedonian-descended pharaohs who ruled Egypt beginning in 304 B.C. Cleopatra has come down through history less for her administrative skills than for her beguiling ways, which she used in an attempt to keep Egypt free from Roman domination. Among those whom she charmed was Julius Caesar, with whom she had a son, Caesarion. After Caesar’s death, Cleopatra joined forces with Caesar’s colleague Marc Antony; they became lovers and political allies against Antony’s rival Octavian. Octavian’s forces finally defeated those of Antony and Cleopatra in the naval battle of Actium in 31 B.C. The two lovers fled to Alexandria and, faced with defeat by Octavian, committed suicide. Legend has it that Cleopatra died by the self-inflicted bite of a poisonous snake called an asp, though no firm evidence exists to support that claim.

Imagine Lahore only ten years ago: It was a different city; socially cohesive, closely knit. Young children could go visiting neighbors or to nearby shopping centers to get groceries and other things but not now. People then knew each other personally and had strong social bounds; hence courtesies for each other.

Things started changing with an exponential increase in urbanization. Large number of outsiders started moving in Lahore to live and or work. Now even the immediate neighbors do not know each other and people act like total strangers. Garish housing societies have come up on all the open spaces inside the city and Lahore has expanded much beyond what used to be municipal boundaries. The crime rate has grown with mush faster speed than the city.

My Abode

I don’t live in hell of this world.

Then where you live?

In my thoughts.

Approach to acceptance

No doubt you love the girl but she doesn’t listen to anyone. How did you succeed in winning her over?

I asked her to hate me, treat me real bad instead.

Why?

Because she has destroyed me; made me worthless. All the time I keep thinking of  dreaming about her. I want to get rid of this miserable condition I am in. I have so much to do in life. May be I will get back to normal if she behaves badly with me.

Did she do accept your request?

No. She accepted me instead.

Net result

No one comes to my rescue in sadness, hopelessness. Assurance by religion, society, family and friends, strength of the wealth, countless mediums of attractions all fail.

What happens to you then?

Sadness, hopelessness pass by thinking this person is totally powerless.

Short stories from Sitaroon Ki Bastiyan by Abbas Khan

Facebook has grown fast over time. I started using then not very popular social site when it was young, meant only for students who had .edu email address. Later it was opened to general Internet users and now one finds everyone (ok, almost everyone on facebook) including old people, businessmen, celebrities, writers, artists, political activist, governments, organizations, NGOs and a whole lot more promoting and pursuing their concerns.

It is hard to categorize who people use it? Adam N. Joinson (University of Bath) who studies Facebook users says, “The main use of Facebook is the recreation of social connections between people who had, or still have, a connection in their everyday lives. So, people mainly used Facebook to reconnect with people they went to school with, worked with, or friends they lost touch with. But, the key question is 'what do people do once they have created this network?' The results of the research suggest that this can be divided into four main activities – they can use applications within the site to interact with their network, they can browse their friends' friends and learn more about them, they can join groups and express their identity via shared social experiences, or they can use the site to inform others of their news, and keep up to date with others' actions.”

Adam N. Joinson’s work urged me to observe what users in this part of the world are doing. My personal scouting and spending some time on Facebook reveals two groups: some local members are using facebook purposefully promoting what they like (products, services, ideas). Other group uses facebook simply to have their presence, tagging other simply or replicating what catches their fancy. And ironical, I know of children who interact with their parents through facebook (pun intended).

Interestingly, I know facebook users who have created online profiles, displaying whatever biographical information they want, locations, workplaces, photos, hobbies, interests and some who simply don’t display any of the information through which someone can recognize them to become a friend. I know a few who update their status and sit by connected computers to wait for who comes and likes what they have done.

How you use facebook? Care to share here.

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