when did it happen that we lost our innocence; and our exuberance our joi de vivre; does moving up the corporate ladder mean that your soul is rendered lifeless

a good song to check out is Ranjhan by Ali Shahid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh93CtAqHaU 

what differentiates this track from the teenage drivel proliferating cable channels is the treatment of the sufi theme with a tried-and-tested meekal hasan treatment; the track starts off with MHB on the credits so i am assuming that there was a lot of creative input to the track from him

but if Ali Shahid goes ”jangal bailay dhoondhan phiraindee” (Heer calling out for her Love in desolate wilderness) then vocally this desperation of a futile search is evoked beautifully; the video however negatively impacts an otherwise solid track; it starts off ok and then degenerates to standard boy chasing girl in a shiny car routine;  can some one pray tell me what this car chase is representing here

it is good to see MHB supporting new talent, the obligatory flute transporting the song to a whole new level; have been waiting for their new album for such a long time

 the number of times i have mentioned MHB on my blogs i should be charging commission from the band…oh well.

while the choas of torrential rains battering karachi is a reality one takes with a pinch of salt like everything else in the city, rain is a symbol of the Lord’s mercy depicted in Sur Saarang of Shah Jo Risalo

this tranlation was attempted 2 years ago; i may have done injustice to the original but nonetheless comments are welcome

Daily Kawish, Sunday July 02, 2006

“Slow Poisened” for the sake of Water

The dilemma of Inhabitants of Lar

The inhabitants of LaR are resigned to the fate that has befallen Sindh since time immemorial. When the Sindhu river raged with all its majesty, its playful waves entered the Sea at Keti Bander. From Keti Bander to Ali Bander there was reign of relative prosperity. Older generations speak of their memories of abundance as if it was only yesterday.

However for the last 10-12 year, the continued shortage of water has robbed the inhabitants of their happiness. People are of the opinion that despite the havoc wrecked by the cyclone in Badin and Thatta on May 20^th, 1999, all subsequent devastation is only attributed & compounded by disappearance of water

As if the shortage of the downstream water was not enough, the officals of Irrigation Department closed down the kanals on account of upstream shortage. The kanals remained closed till their kanals banks overflowed while the residents of Golarchee, Kadan, Jaati, Shah Bander, Kharo Chaarn, Keti Bander & Sajan yearned for a drop to drink let alone water to irrigate their land. Have we even started to wonder what people living downstream at the
Indus get to drink?

People living at New Phuleli consume water that is nothing less than “slow poison” fed by KB Feeder. Figures released in a Monthly report by the Environment Unit of the Sindh Irrigation and Drainage Authority (SIDA), the authority run on international funding & is responsible for irrigation reforms, the Pinjari Canal supplies irrigation & drinking water to Hyderabad, Tando Mohammad Khan, Badin & Thatta to the tune of 90 Million gallons has between 25-30 tons of pollutants/garbage dumped into it…

(Continued)

his demeanour is that of some long lost soul on the mall in lahore or more appropriately any back-alley in multan; not quite your average hero that craves public attention and revels in his celebrity status; his was a demeanour of the common man on the street; his desire was that of excellence with complete faith in his lord for which he got ridiculed when pakistan got beat by ireland

inzimam has been the most beloved cricketer of our generation; i have always felt great love for this great hero

what a great gesture by the zimbabweans to bid him farewell & congratulating him and the west indian spectators giving him a standing ovation and inzimam, the greatest of our captains unable to hold back tears leaving all of us sharing this moment of grief with him

why is it when waiting for the elavator in the lobby, people press UP & DOWN both when they only have to go down

why is it that if the DOWN button is already pressed, then people have to tap it repeatedly, does this make it go faster

why is it that people rush to enter the elavator & not wait for people to come out first

no Annie has not made any mark in the market sadly or fortunately…i reserve my rights about the talent bit….suffice to say that with so many music channels on cable there is ample market available for noveau desis like Annie in the form of teenage delinquints with 10 second attention span. She and some others londoners with desi blood have found airplay…I so wish TS that you could watch On The Fringe by Fasi Zaka on MTV Pakistan (Yes Indus Music has been bought over by MTV)  

 But one must not moan about popular music in general; this sort of experimentation is good for an industry in a nascent stage of its evolution

As for Pakistani rock bands give the following a listen and let me know;  their album is out soon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryPdlE_jX88

 my favourite show on the tele is bholee bisree yadain; a show about film songs and the ragas that they are based on…

well i lied there…my favourite actually is the pushto movie on filmazia late evening every day but you have to see to believe why this cannot beat any other form of entertainment..

saturday night…tele on mute…breaking news on CNBC…multan……three suspected suicide bombers killed when their motorcycle goes out of control after hitting a speed-bump….

from the tale of two parveens, the legendery exponents of kafi, i switch on to simple pleasures of sufi qawali; the interplay between “meem” (the first alphabet in the Prophet’s (PBUH) name) and “alif” (The first alphabet in Allah, the name of the Lord) and the build up to the qawali by Nusrat Fateh Ali a celebration; celebration of love between the Creator and His Prophet; the object of Love referred to as ”dholan mahee”; for somelike me who does not care too much for religious rituals, qawali is the best expression of spirituality and far more effective than the mundane preachings of the mullah

does the cursor blinking begging from you a title or subject line not a scary proposition; even if i have to say something, the title part scares me

 an unusual break of weather and the day the president makes it to the city to inaugurate projects in karachi, it rains. would’nt it be a funny sight if one of the underpasses flooded with water. it has taken the city government whole year to build the drainage from bath island to boat basin; clifton road is now much narrower and there is a silly little speed bump just before the clifton underpass; not for slowing down traffic which is otherwise the purpose of speedbumps but to restrict rain water clogging up the underpass

 the logic i believe is that rain water will by some inate god given intelligence decide to stay on one side of the speedbump. there were actually sandbags put in first; then some smart alec decided that they could actually pave the sandbags with asphalt and voila; water proof underpass

got some Nusrat Fateh Ali CDs last Friday that i have been listening to during the morning commute to work; the CDs are brilliant.

talking of rain; the match between South Africa and Pakistan seems to have been put on hold due to rain in Johannesberg; and while it rains outside in karachi, ptv national has shahida parveen and reshma on. need i say anything as to how the evening went after this; ptv national is full of surprises because these are mainly re-runs of provincial programming beamed now to a much larger national audience.

 shahid parveen passed away some years ago at a young age; a gifted daughter of the hugely talented Zahida Parveen; i first listened to shahida parveen during the early days of ziaul haq’s martial; the ghazal was “kiya ghum-e-jan aur kya ghum-e-janan” (what to say of life trails and tribulations & affliction of love); her voice permeated the four walls of our nearly empty house as we had just moved in and i do not even remember when her seraiki kafis made their way into my memory but as if almost subconsciously i find myself humming a few in the morning; you know those tunes that never leave your mind; the one they were playing on ptv national today is the first time i actually watched this kafi in its entirity so much the harddisk of my brain has remnants of my radio pakistan days while doing college homeword….Sun yaar bajoon mairee naeen sardee (Listen!, without my Love, I just cannot live)  How do you even tranlate sardee; only a soul that is incomplete like having a hole in the heart that only Love can fill. I think that is Ghulam Fareed and this is so simple. Without Love I just cannot live or breathe or make myself carry on with life’s trivial chores 

 don’t i wish life was as simple (or maybe I had the talent) to sing aloud a kafi;  and to sing in tune; that is like my favorite dream