There is an Urdu metaphor ‘Navishta e deewaar’, that roughly states that wise men should make out the present and expected future by reading the graffiti on the walls. The graffiti that’s usually found on the streets and roads of Karachi is either a public service message that forbids you to use these streets like a public toilet or mass marketing campaigns from “wizards” (last name usually ends with Bengali) who guarantee to solve our problems, especially if they have anything to do with our love life, in 6 days. Why six? My wild guess says, they don’t work on Sundays.
Few months ago the two major parties of Sindh were going through a rough breakup, again (no, they don’t remind me of Ross and Rachel from Friends). It was the same time that target killing was at its peak and the walls of Karachi revealed that the Urdu speaking community aka ‘Mohajirs’ wants their own province all of a sudden. That was funny because, I belong to the same community but I wasn’t informed of any such arrangement. Not a single memo, urgent email or a petition for formality sake was forwarded my way to have my consensus on a demand of such significant nature. After all I am the member of the same community and I pay more tax than Nawaz Sharif. Anyways, I decided to let go when Ross and Rachel, oops MQM and PPP decided to put their differences and death of hundreds of Karachiites aside.
In the whole process I learned an important lesson; you can tell a great deal about a society by just looking at the billboards hanging at their streets. So whether it be Dr. Shaista Wahidi (sister of SRK-P) selling lawns or Dr. Ghulam Mujtaba advertising his Facebook fan page we can declare that Pakistan, a nation where retired railway workers take their lives because they don’t get the pension money of Rs. 4000 on time. Rich aunties won’t think twice about it while buying lawn suits worth twice the mentioned (pension) amount. Also the same billboard phenomenon tells us that people like Dr. Mujtaba find it easier to buy their way into popularity instead of constructing a medical college or a hospital in Thatta or Pishin.
This brings me to the talk of the week: Nabeel Khokar. The man, inspired from cheap Hollywood chick flicks came up with a new trend (at least the first in Pakistan). We have come a long way from romantic graffiti’s or wall chalking on school walls with initials like “A + R”.Will it win the heart of the mentioned lady? Or bring a revolution to roadside advertisement? These mysteries of life will take their time to solve. Maybe this bold and costly stunt won’t bring Ms. Princess back, but it tells us another important lesson:
“Money might fill the empty space on a billboard but not the emptiness in your skull.”
I wonder how the mullahs are reacting to Nabeel Khokar’s message on the wall. Maybe the use of ‘soon to be husband’ bit makes the message Shariah compliant. After all nothing wrong in apologizing for being dirty, sneaky, immoral, poorly-endowed slimeball? Not like he killed someone in cold blood or is responsible for spreading religious hatred and extremism, right? But then who ever apologizes for that kind of a thing in Pakistan. We hardly consider it a problem, so what if more people died in Pakistan because of religious extremism than dengue or drone attacks? Problems that are only considered real today are those that will help politicians multiply their votes in the coming elections.
So what if we allowed the man responsible for the attacks on the Sri Lankan team back on the streets? So what if Sunni Tehrik can place billboards all over Karachi in favor of a cold blood murderer? Not like anyone on these roads have any problem with it or the liberal\secular coalition Govt. of PPP, MQM and ANP is doing anything to remove the billboard. So why should I or 2 out of 10 people out there should give a crap. There are important issues out there we should be worrying about. After all haven’t we heard that both extremism and terrorism from Pakistan will automatically evaporate once USA and its allies leave this region? I am sure you don’t believe me, despite the fact that I pay more tax than Nawaz Sharif but you will believe Imran Khan don’t you and he will tell you the same.
No USA (in the region) = No suicide attacks + no hate crimes against minorities + No hate speeches in the Friday prayers + No targeted sectarian killings
Yes, it’s that simple.
Any idea what the billboards of Nabeel Khokar, Mumtaz Qadri, Dr. Gholam Mujataba and summer lawns have in common? If you look into it carefully, it has the same relation that we find with the Jewish conspiracy in our daily life routines. Think about it.
Posted by عمار - aMmAr | Posted in Cricket, Weekend whining | Posted on 25-09-2011-05-2008
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Akhtar to Lara.. Are your scared?
The time I was introduced and instantly fell in love with Cricket was such an excellent time for the game, most probably because that time Cricket was a professional sport and players concentrated majorly on Cricket. Now when I look around I see fairness cream models capitalizing on their genes, politicians taking soul credit of a glorious victory, of what was a team effort, priests who engineered the concept that it’s okay if we underperform in Cricket as far as we appear religious. And to join the bandwagon is a new category, introducing.. wait for it..drum roll… ‘Book Authors’ (tada!).
A year back when I switched writing mediums from web to print by writing for a local technology magazine, it made me realize one thing the most: the writing business is not as easy as its generally perceived. Especially if your words are on a piece of paper and you have made an factual error, then it gets really difficult to rectify it. All in all being a writer is not as easy Musharraf and our favorite bowling icon Shoaib Akhtar has made it look.
Following Shoaib’s zigzag career one could picture him in many roles (model, actor, biker, cricket coach, commentator etc) but not as an author. Before the release of the book the only piece of known writing that came from him must be on some autograph or on Kolkatta Knightrider’s contract form (). But he pierced into the writing business like he started Cricket; with a bouncer.Commentators and critics especially on the other side of the border are calling context of the book a gimmick, a ploy to make a lot of dough ($) by telling stories that are far from reality. It would be unfair to comment on the book without reading it. So I will stick to comment on what Shoaib has commented on the book launch and how other reacted.
1.Shoaib Akhtar accused Waseem Akram for ruining his career and delaying his debut in international Cricket.
Now in all honesty Shoaib Akhtar is not the first Pakistani cricketer who came up with such an accusation. Atta ur Rehman, Waqar Younus, Basit Ali, Rashid Latif are the known names who came up with similar claims over the period of time. Wasim Akram might be the most talented bowler in the history of cricket but he didn’t always adapt fair means to enjoy his Cricket reign. Only, if Justice Qayyum’s report was taken seriously at that time or the management in the 80’s and 90’s had the stomach to end dressing room politics, Pakistan Cricket would have been quite opposite today.
2.Sachin and Dravid are not match winners:
“….Vivian Richards, Ricky Ponting, Brian Lara and the likes of them are great batsmen who dominated with the bat and were truly match-winners. Initially, when I bowled against Sachin, I found these qualities missing. He might have had more runs and records, he lacked the ability to finish the game,” – Shoaib Akhtar
Now you don’t need Shoaib Akhtar’s words to prove the mentioned fact, 20 minutes of browsing on CricInfo will statically prove the number of times high performance of Sachin (here, here, here) and Dravid (here, here and here) failed to secure a win for their team especially if they are not playing in India. Shoaib in his interview also quoted the recent England series. There was a joke floating on twitter when the Pakistani team dropped Sachin in the recent world cup semi final, the idea was to allow Sachin to score a century because we know how that turns out for India.
3.Tendulkar was scared of me
“…We bounced the ball at him and were able to unnerve him. I returned to the dressing room that first day with the knowledge that Sachin was not comfortable facing fast and rising ball. He was distinctly uncomfortable against me. That was enough to build on..”
“I bowled (Sachin) a particularly fast ball which he, to my amazement didn’t even touch. He walked away! That was the first time, I saw him walk away from me– that, too, on the slow track at Faisalabad. It got my hunting instincts up and in the next match I hit him on the head and he couldn’t score after that”, Akhtar wrote.
Considering Tendulkar’s God like status in India and in majority of the cricket fans, the above statement is plain blasphemy. But unlike the real life, Cricket matches are televised and easily found on youtube. One of the video that I found gives us some understanding of what Shoaib is talking about.
Some of the other compilations that I found on the internet tells a story that matches Akhtar’s stance.
I know, what you all are thinking. Sachin’s reign over Cricket that longs around 2 decades cannot be judged by a 5 minute video compilation or a book which has controversy writen on its cover. But just because Shoaib Akhtar failed to build a respectable status on media or the cricket world as an individual does not mean that the bowling skills that made world’s greatest batsmen (Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting or even Sachin Tendulkar) ‘thoroughly uncomfortable’ is a work of fiction. The fact that it actually happened some time ago and considering the number of cricket that is being played every year now leaves us with no memory of the last series we watched and enjoyed should not rule out how awesome Shoaib Akhtar once was.
Having said that, he should not have chosen the controversial route to re-claim popularity. It might get him reasonable book sales but not respect in the long term. Wish the book was more about his intense training, his resilient comebacks, his natural speed defying his physical disparities and his not much discussed honesty in a team known for match fixing and related corruption. Commentators on twitter are calling him Zulfiqar Mirza of Cricket but we all know that exposing people is so August, 2011. It didn’t work then and might not work now. Are you listening@iamshoaibakhtar?
). But he pierced into the writing business like he started Cricket; with a bouncer.