‘.
Do you know that you are at unnees (nineteen), and all you have to do is set up a process to take it to and keep it at bees (twenty)? Let’s hope this snooker club is based on a few processes rather than ‘daikhee jayae gee‘.

The reason the basant was and is still banned is not because the festival has turned deadly, it is because some people have invented and then sold this killer string to a lot of unsuspecting people. In fact, the real reason is that the administration has found it beyond them to crack down on the few string producers that manufacture the deadly string.

I have never traveled on a bus, although I did traverse the Mall road for almost a year on the suicidal vans while doing my time at Government College. The vans were knocked up, were filled up till someone fell out through the windows and every once in while you’d get a seat next to a confused pedophile. But one thing good about those vans were that they were on a route that happened to be mine as well. Then I got upgraded to a motorbike and have not used public transport since. Not even a taxi. But there has been a desire to do so, a desire tainted with economic motivations. The desire hit me first when I started making money (while at University) and calculated the total cost of ownership of my then vehicle (a CNG-kitted Suzuki Swift – not a Khyber, a Swift!). I wished for another go at riding the public transport monster but that is when luck ran out; there was no convenient way of getting from my university to my home, other than hop twice between buses and then walk a total of a bit-more-than-one kilometer(s). So I stuck with my car. Besides, possessing a vehicle that can fit more than two individuals during college days was as cool as Fonzie.

But now I keep reading about how bad it is for the environment that the Punjab government is cutting down an estimated 1500 trees (somewhat-official figure), some hundred years old, to widen the 14 kilometer stretch of the Canal road. Environment? What? We have an environment, and no one told me about it?

But folks, seriously. Apologies to all environmentalists and ‘tree huggers’ in here and out there, but the idea of widening the Lahore Canal Road is not a bad one because we will be losing around 6,000 trees (WWF figure). Chopping trees ‘heartlessly’ can be a good thing if it is done for a good cause. But widening the canal road is not exactly a good cause.

“But look at the Lahore Canal,” you say, “the underpasses have really solved the traffic problem!” Are you on crack? Have you ever been on the Canal at rush hour? This underpass is on the left, that one is on the right and cars are all over the place. The Canal road is being widened BECAUSE there is a traffic problem that is only fuelled by the ill-planned underpasses. “But there are too many cars on the road because of them banks,” you say. Right, and there are still more cars out there, and widening the road will not leave ‘room’ for the ones already there, it will invite in more cars to fill in the space. I am sure there is some principle as solid as Archimedes’ to prove this point here. (get it? Solid principle, Archimedes? No? Never mind.)

My problem is this: you are planning to spend a tad more than 3 Billion rupees, and you have two options. Behind door number one is that you spend it on widening the Canal road (forget about the tree chopping for a moment here). You will solve nothing. Interesting.

Behind door number two is the real reason road-widening is not a good idea: public transport. Giving the city of Lahore, that keeps growing in size by the millisecond, some semblance of a public transport system in the form of buses and trains sounds like a brilliant idea, ESPECIALLY when you compare it to the dead-end canal-widening idea.

If you think, or doubt, that widening the canal road will be a good thing to solve the traffic problem, I think one of our very own Metbloggers, Mr. Rafay Alam will be in a much, much better position to answer that. The problem that I see, which is much bigger than environment and planning, is that of displaced priorities. Our job as citizens is to remind our government to do there’s.

So, there you are, 3 billion in hand. One solution is to burn it, and the other is to invest it back. A very tricky answer to this one, I assure you, right?

P.S. Anybody here knows how to embed the damn videos on the metroblogs? The embed code just disappears after I save. Help on this, anyone?

MQM Rally photoshopped

Thanks to this keen-eyed blogger, we have now a ‘large presence of MQM in Baltistan, Skardu’. The image is photoshopped to show a larger crowd. More details here

Yours truly happened to be there, armed with a camera.

For more pictures and updates, with videos, of this event with burnouts and screaming tires, do check out CarAdvice.pk. :)

Sitting here, fogged down and cold, it becomes easy.
But it should not be.
It becomes easy to just let it slide. Wear the ‘so what?’ cap and change the channel.

But not this time.

We are not talking about an open gutter somewhere in the streets of Lahore, we are not talking about the lack of drinking water three blocks down, we are not talking about my and my loved one’s deplorable indifference towards all that is important.

We are talking about the lives of millions. We are talking about war.

During the last three days or so, the situation between Pakistan and India has nothing but worsened. The critic – cynical nonetheless – in me reminds me that Pakistan, with her Zardaris, Gillanis and other cronies has actually played their part well. Too well for comfort, but a well-played innings so far. Consider this:

• India gets her major city Mumbai taken hostage by a handful of terrorists. Why were they there? Terror in the name of what? We are not told clearly.
• Then India, as the three day saga is unfolding, goes ahead and blames the Pakistani government. Note, there is a difference between blaming someone ‘from’ Pakistan and blaming the Pakistani establishment in itself. India, it seemed, blamed both.
• Eventually, India names Jamat-ud-Dawa as the main culprit organization that trained and brainwashed the Mumbai attackers. The UN – based on proof – declares the JuD a terrorist outfit. The JuD is closed down by Pakistan, not because India said so, but because UN says so. Pakistan plays the UN card well, reminding the world that Pakistan listens to world elders (Kashmir being the first point in this case). Pakistan asks for the same proof that India has given to UN. None is presented.
• The Interpol representative rocks up, tells the world that no proof by India was given. Pakistan plays the ‘jaws dropped’ look well, revealing the other two parties as being rash and silly, namely India and the UN. (I on a personal note, has given proof that the Mumbai attackers were really from Malta).
• The intelligence outfit of Pakistan is tried in the world media. To no avail. Where as only a slight glance over the RAW of India reveals some glaringly obvious involvements in more incidents than one.

Now, what is all of this?
Pakistan has played the calm, mature ‘uncle’ part well. As in most families, this uncle can be seen as the coward, the one without the ‘heart’ to fight for its right, only later to realize that the uncle was being the most far-sighted. Of course, this uncle can be called the ‘mamoo’ if it turns out that the resolve and calmness was based on cowardice instead of cold logic.
Nonetheless, India knows well enough that the nuclear bombs are not for display only, and much more potently, Muslims would love nothing more than a state-declared Jihad. The centuries old “We hold death more dear than you hold dear your life” line holds true today as far as any Muslim is concerned.
Jihad is struggle, and in the case of war, it becomes an armed struggle. Armed Jihad is valid, as far as pristine Islam is concerned, in self-defense and has to be on a state level. Pakistan has very clearly, very calmly placed herself in a defensive role. And try as some may to portray it differently, Pakistan is still a state. A Muslim state that the world can see has been pushed into a corner by India.
If war does break out, regardless of the result, the world will bear witness to the above perspective being the truth.

Doing business in Lahore is getting harder by the second, thanks to the one hour light show (without lasers sadly). Only a few days back, I realized that all of our collective wealth has been reduced by a whopping thirty percent in a matter of 90 days! (thanks to the dipping ruppee). I have been seriously contemplating generating all my income from online sources, and have been asking people for help and advice. Yours will also be welcome.

Lahore comes to a stand still after every hour. Have any of you been talking to people? Take any industry. Take your freakin’ pick. Textile? The whole night shift, gone (that’s 30 percent productivity right there). How about agriculture? With Rs 950 per Mnd for wheat, we are still cheaper than everyone else i.e. watch how our wheat gets hoarded and smuggled to neighboring countries setting the stage for the mother of all food crises. How about exports? Rice is fetching the lowest expected rate in the market, why? Because the small and medium type shellers can’t work on one hour after every hour basis, that’s why! Count in the record-and-back-breaking inflation coupled with the previously mentioned light show, put some Zardari induced toppings for flavor and some mysterious policies that no one knows about for color and you have got yourself a headache in your stomach folks. This all may be cute in some way, but it is high time we did ‘something’.

Protests are old fashioned it seems. The lawyers I know curse the lawyers movement for keeping their account books empty for over a year, yet the movement is the only protest that bore some fruit. Only to be quietly and quickly sidelined by our I-smile-at-you president and his party.

How about correcting one’s self, being in a position to stay on the right course while being given the opportunity to bribe, con or flex some political muscle? How about playing the cards right this time? How about paying those taxes? How about not bribing the buildings department’s bugger to let you keep the third story of your office plaza? Let him doze it down, it is alright, you deserve it. How about conserving your electricity rather than going ballistic on your electricity meter? Naah, it seems we as a collective society, deserve this. We deserve the Zardaris, the PPPs, the MQMs, Jamat-e-Islami’s and the Dark Knights of all flavors. I mean, look at us. More than 30 percent of our electricity is stolen every second of the passing day. Imagine even if half of those thieves had a conscious? We’d have 8 hours of load shedding in Lahore instead of the current 12 perhaps. The milk you drink is as corrupt as the magistrate taking 10 grand for a deal. The illegal scotch 90 percent of the media personal ‘syphon’ out of hotels is as haraam as the maulvi telling you that only and only your sect is the right sect. The irrigation water you steal, the monthly you pay the WAPDA lineman to keep the meter ticking deathly slow, the wink you wink to the cop to make an arrangement for you, the line you jump because you can and the hatred you display whenever given a chance, this all leads up to this. Yes, this.

Welcome to our own doing. Settle in, grab some friggin’ cold popcorns, a warm coke and a fake smile, it seems to be a long show.

P.S. If it is any interest to you folks, do check out the latest review of Toyota Vitz at CarAdvice.pk.

Our country really has a great threshold for pain. We should be proud of that. No, really we should. Not physical pain, but extreme mental torture to our collective intelligence (remember, we are vegetables). The dollar is at its highest ever to the rupee. Zardari, now a teenager without the pimples, thinks that India was never a threat. The biggest money-makers for us, the farmers, are the lowest in the food chain. We essentially now do not have a food chain as such. Inflation has put balloons to shame and our government is perhaps making the animal kingdom proud.

Did you know that the farmer was to be paid Rs 950 per maund for his wheat crop? This was rightly hailed as a sensible decision to first, produce surplus wheat and secondly, to inject billions to the rural economy. A great sign, some would think. No, not really. I have been a farmer for the last three years. The input costs in the form of fertilizers and diesel has grown not linearly, but exponentially. The seemingly large increase from the Rs 650 to Rs 950 per maund does not bring the percentages at par. No one seemed to care about that, of course. We were, being lettuces and onions, overjoyed at the increase in support price. No one cared that the international rate is somewhere at Rs 1200, no one cared that the smuggling will not be stopped, no one cared. Lettuces and pea-pods are not supposed to think about things like that. So, the animals that rule the plant kingdom, hit us with an absurdly crude weapon; they increased the fertilizer prices from Rs 3,100 to Rs 5,500. So, you get 350 per maund increase in wheat price. National average of wheat production is dismal 20 something maund per acre. Let us make that 29 mnd/acre. With 350/mnd increase, the farmer stood a chance of making an extra 350*29= Rs 10,150 per acre from his anticipated wheat crop. The vegetables rejoiced at this higher mathematics. The animals, cool as a cucumber (ha!), saw the anticipated surplus, so they increased the input fertilizer prices. Who cares about the sky-high diesel rate? And water, who needs water for crops? Let our friendly India have some, they are hardly a threat of course. What, you have electricity to take water from wells? Double the electricity rate so your threshold for mental torture stays exercised. ‘Give me some of that 10 thousand now, why don’t you. Although you will be making that in April next year, why don’t you just give some of that cash to me now?’

And as farmers go, they will complain, they will complain some more. You and I will not hear about it, but they will complain. It will not fall on deaf ears, only trained ones. Lahore will have its food on the table. It will a little less, but who cares. Who notices? How many of us know how much lentils cost? Heck, how many know the difference between masur and channa?

Remember, farmers are more than 70 percent of Pakistan. Out of the other 30 percent, a whopping 90 percent or so have their income directly tied to this wonderful sector. Who in his right mind say that Pakistan’s economy is dependent on Agriculture, on wheat, milk and rice? Pakistan is a country of vegetables.

Take the power back, why don’t you.