You gotta love PTA

Hats off to the technical wizards of PTCL, I just lurve them. Sometime last week, someone decided that youtube needs to be shut down, because of some content that endangers Islam or something like that. So the PTA issued notices to the ISPs to block access to youtube.

Apparently someone screwed up big time. According to a report by BBC, some brilliant person renamed the DNS entry of youtube to point at some other website. This entry was replicated by other DNS servers around the world and all mayhem ensued.

God I love these incompetent morons. Youtube was inaccessible for a couple of hours, Google screamed blue murder and now, Youtube is back, even to the guardians of Islam who aptly enough live in Islamabad. I hope Google sues PTA/PTCL/PCCW and takes them to the cleaners.

Keep dreaming.

Return of the Pink Panther

The elections came and went. A few surprises there, but not as many as I would have liked. What was clear was that the King's Party was on its way out, the one thing that was not clear was as to who would replace them.

Whether the elections were rigged or not, we will have to live with the results, like we have in the past. I personally think that FL could have played smarter, for himself that is, by not shooting himself in the foot. Last elections got rid of the supporters of BB and NS, and the recent are responsible for the ouster of MMA, which is good news. I wish Sheeda Tully hadn't lost, but then, such is life.

So here it is, PPP has the highest number of seats, followed by PMLN. PPP had no agenda, they are there because the powers that be wanted them there. BB's assassination helped with the sympathy vote. PMLN and ANP are there because they are the replacements of MMA and PMLQ. The rest are just there. They will join the side that offers them more, or rather if the ruling coalition doesn't offer them what they are asking for, they will have no choice but to sit in the opposition.

PPP has made no promises, PMLN has a two point agenda, getting rid of FL and restoring the CJ. The former because it was left out in the cold and the latter because the Ameerul Momineen wannabe wants to atone for storming the supreme court many many moons ago.

I will go out on a limb and make a prediction. After defections galore, PPP will form a government with the motley crew from PMLQ and MQM and other freelancers. PMLN will be back in the opposition. A totally hung parliament suits everyone and their vested interests. FL will stay and the former CJ will remain erstwhile. And the show will go on.

I hope I am wrong.

Run by Amy Macdonald

Post Script

I am attending a creative writing workshop being conducted by Kamila Shamsie on Saturday. I will get my book signed.

Kamila Shamsie - Broken Verses

When it comes to writing a story set in Karachi, the challenge is always how to keep it real, because of the fact that the dialogue can be in English, translated from Urdu, or a mixture of both Urdu and English, which is how we normally speak. The challenge part is for me, the reader, not for the writer. For the first time, I felt as if Kamila broke that barrier for me, this book felt natural. The language her characters spoke was how I hear people talk.

The book is an excellent read, part thriller/detective story, part social commentary, political history, and most of all a love story. But there is no one love story, its about the love of a daughter for a mother, a man for a woman, etc. etc. I can find lots of metaphors, but I am sure they are mostly the creation of my mind and not necessarily that of Kamila.

This is the story of Aasmani Inqilab, daughter of a leading woman rights activist, with the father figure of a poet, who is simply called that. The Poet is killed, and the mother disappears and it has been fourteen years since the latter. Aasmani hasn't accepted the loss of her mother and the story begins with her starting work at a tv station after giving up her job at an oil company.

The setting in Karachi is very real, the dialogue is very real, and the story moves at a pace which keeps one glued to the book. It generally takes me longer to finish books, with work and other commitments, but this one I finished quickly.

And yes, I will read it again, my litmus test of books that I like.

PS. The reason why my reviews are cryptic is that I don't want to give anything away about the story for anyone who might want to read the book.

Charlie Wilson's War Part Two

I have seen the movie.

Very nicely done, I would give all credit to Tom Hanks, who has done a brilliant job in making this movie funny and watchable. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julia Roberts have also played their parts well. I am sure Aaron Sorkin is responsible for how conversation keeps flowing and there is never a dull moment.

Its like a western, the good guys vs. the big bad commie bastards. The cavalry arriving just in time to fight off the Indians and save the poor helpless innocents.

I would end my review right there, if it weren't for the fact that this is supposed to be true. Well, I am sure it is based on facts, but it is a very limited view. The film portrays the big bad American government vs. the big bad Soviets, while the hero is a good times congressman from Texas, so at the end, although the hero tries to do the right thing, his efforts are thwarted by his own people.

I say rubbish to that. Charlie Wilson cannot be let off the hook so easily. He cannot be absolved of his responsibility, if he did all the things he has claimed to have done. As a next step, I am reading the book. Will be back later with my comments.

The movie is a must see, especially for Pakistanis, it is funny and well made. 8 out of ten.

The Geometry of God by Uzma Aslam Khan

Time for a book review, more to follow, two more books that I am reading these days.

I had heard about Uzma's earlier books and promptly forgotten about them. It was only when I found out that she was going to read from her book at The Second Floor that I read up on her and attended the recital. I think I was intrigued by her writings in various newspapers and wanted to hear more of what she had to say. So I gathered a few friends and arrived at the venue.

Before this turns into a review of TSF, which is bound to follow, I would say this, I like The Second Floor and would like to keep visiting the place and attend the various things they do.

Uzma signed my copy, and we chit chatted for a few minutes, she thought I was just there to get the book signed and leave, but being unfamiliar with the etiquette of book signings (since this was my first one), I wasn't sure when that would happen. So anyway, she read a few selected pages from the book. Maybe it was the crowd, that didn't pick up on the humour in some parts, or maybe the crowd was as inexperienced as I was with these things, the reading was a bit tedious. There were a few questions at the end, regarding the fact that the book was published in India and not Pakistan, and about some of the characters. Nothing too exciting.

Note to self: I will have read the book before going to the next recital so that I can enjoy it more.

Now on to the book. It wasn't an easy read. I am suddenly seeing all these books by people who grew up during the Zia years like I did. While I was happily oblivious to everything that went on around me, and only finding out now how bad it really was, and also because we are reaping what we had sown all those years ago, it seems like an awakening of sorts.

The Geometry of God is about a lot of things. It has an underlying and mostly dormant identity crisis, of being different from an ethnic as well as gender perspective. Both of these were pushed to the forefront in the eighties, the creation of an ethnicity based political movement and not to forget, the Islamization by Zia, which meant side lining women by the famous Hadood Ordinance, for example.

The other thing is about how the system of education was affected during this time. This included how history was taught, how Islamiat was changed to fit with the then current requirements of believing in Jihad. This served another purpose, to help with the Jihad happening next doors in Afghanistan. Most importantly, this book talks about evolution and tries to bring the evolution vs. creation debate to us.

In this last thing, Uzma doesn't fare too well. Her protagonist Zahoor is too mild mannered a man to be a zealot about anything. He belongs to an almost extinct breed of people who were able to deal with science and philosophy without conflict. The kind of people who I wish we had more of. Even Amal, the main character, is not a fundamentalist scientist. They suffer in silence, while the world around them crumbles. Thats what real life is like, I suppose.

Nobody takes Zahoor seriously, and even when Amal makes the all important discovery, it really doesn't change anything. It is only because the "Creation Party" and Noman need someone to oppose, that Zahoor gets caught in this cultural revolution. Which can never be a good thing.

So the book could be a political comment as well.

All in all, good read.