OCCUPY F3! A note to all Alumni and Mentors...

Timm Doolen teaching directing ... what an appalling situation! So I myself might be able to teach there in a couple of years :)

Richard Hearsey and Mark Gary were like the two balls of the school. The penis had already been severed with Keith Sensing and Jeff Bacon leaving. Anything that remains is just pubic hair.

I can't imagine graduations and T.V. production without Richard. Can't imagine not running into Mark Gary in the lobby and having a random laugh. What will Producing 101 be without "Burden Of Dreams"and "Extras"?, or Directing 301 without discussions on "Antichrist" and "Hubad"? Who will support the students? Who will make them feel at home and comfortable as an artist in the midst of sheer mediocrity and a Stalinist environment, not to mention the usual pressure of deadlines, shoot-week and term-ends?

Mark Gary inspired me as a writer/director to explore the human condition. To explore the extraordinary cracks in ordinary relationships and to discover what makes people tick. The pursuit of truth is the essence of independent filmmaking and Mark made me dig deep by asking tough questions and testing my resolve. Richard, on the other hand, taught me how to apply myself practically so that I don't burn out or become insane while balancing my creativity with professionalism as an artist working in the industry. These are invaluable lessons for a budding filmmaker, and the new batch of students will miss all this so that Bigfoot can save some extra dollars to make another Deep Gold(there is a HUGE difference between a disaster movie and a disaster at the box office, which they don't seem to understand).

Great mentors have come and gone, but IAFT will not be the same without Alex Murphy's early morning antics, Richard Hearsey's stand-up props(para-ducks, foot-lights, alphabet-grenade,shiny pink suit, etc.) and Mark Gary's snoring at screenings.The stalwarts of the institution. Moreover, they are just nice people to hangout with and have a laugh over some drinks, exactly what a nervous young international student needs when feeling suddenly out of place in an alien environment.

Our equipment, mentors and teaching standards used to be world-class. Our student films could compete with the best film-schools in the world. I am a proud alumni and I had the best year of my life in IAFT, thanks to the awesome people there. Most of them have left or were forced to leave. It is a very different and far inferior film school than the one I studied at - inferior because it has lost its balls.

Just my two cents. Peace and love.

i carry your heart

i carry your heart with me
(i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it
(anywhere i go you go, my dear;
and whatever is done by me
is only your doing, my darling)

i fear no fate
(for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world
(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root
and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky
of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope
or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder
that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart
(i carry it in my heart)

-- e e cummings

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master. 

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied.  It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

                             --Elizabeth Bishop

Note Autobiographical

Kashmir was damp
With the damp of dreams
Autumn's funeral
With a coffin of leaves
I asked Grandma,
"Is God a Muslim?"

No one taught me the Koran
My father mouthed Freud and Marx
Something about recognizing necessity
Mother had long since discarded the veil

Grandma read me the tale of Job
"The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away

Then God came:
A poor eyesight, a silver beard,
Ninety years old
My Grandfather

I worshiped him
Proud and gentle
But he crumpled
Like a maple leaf

Dust unto dust is his will.

Then our servant lost his shoes at the mosque
I had nothing left to ask.



My voice cracked on Ghalib
As dreams of God crumbled for me

Our servant, his shoes stolen at the mosque,
Turned deaf to the muezzin's call

The calligraphed dome gave way to the sky
Autumn caved into me with its script of flames
And ignited my dry garbage of God

I varnished my face with the sun,
My tongue forgot the texture of prayer.

--Agha Shahid Ali

Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayaal aata hai...

Ke zindagi teri zulfon ki narm chhaon mein
Guzarane paati to shaadaab ho bhi sakati thi
Ye teergi jo meri zeest ka muqaddar hai
Teri nazar ki shuaon mein kho bhi sakati thi

Ajab na tha ke main begaana-e-alam reh kar
Tere jamaal ki raanaaiyon mein kho rahata
Tera gudaaz badan teri neem-baaz aankhein
Inhin haseen fazaaon mein mehav ho rahata

Pukaratin mujhe jab talkhiyan zamaane ki
Tere labon se halaawat ke ghoont pi leta
Hayaat cheekhati phirti barahana-sar, aur main
Ghaneri zulfon ke saaye mein chhup ke ji leta

Magar ye ho na saka, aur ab ye aalam hai
Ke tu nahin, tera gham, teri justajoo bhi nahin
Guzar rahi hai kuchh is tarah zindagi, jaise
Ise kisi ke sahaare ki aarazoo bhi nahin

Zamaane bhar ke dukhon ko lagaa chuka hun gale
Guzar raha hun kuchh anjaani rahguzaaron se
Muheeb saaye meri simt badhate aate hain
Hayaat-o-maut ke pur-haul khaar-zaaron se

Na koi jaada na manzil na roshani ka suraag
Bhatak rahi hai khalaaon mein zindagi meri
Inhin khalaaon mein rah jaoonga kabhi khokar
Main jaanata hun meri hum-nafas, magar yun hi

Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayaal aata hai...

Sometimes the thought comes to my mind…

That life spent in the soft shadows of your tresses

Would be so joyful if it could be so; that

This sorrow, which seems to be the fate of my existence

Could have been lost in the radiance of your eyes.

It would not have been strange if I, forgetful of the world

Had remained lost in the flashes of your beauty.

Your lithe body, your half-shut, dreamy eyes—

If I had been occupied with such beautiful fantasies.

And when the bitter realities of life called me

I would have drunk the sweet nectar of your lips.

Life would be shouting and shrieking about me, and I

Would have hidden in the shadows of your thick tresses, and lived.

But alas this could not be and now such is my condition

That neither you, nor sorrow for your loss, nor longing for you exist.

My life is passing by in such a manner as if

It has not even the aspiration for anyone’s succour.

I have embraced the sorrows of the world.

I am travelling through unknown paths

Terrifying shadows are coming toward me

From the frightening planes of life and death.

I have no place, no goal, neither a ray of sunlight.

My life is being wasted in desolate wildernesses.

I will remain lost in such desolate places for ever

I know, o my soul-mate, but still, out of the blue,

Sometimes the thought comes to my mind…

Star Trek

Beyond the rim of the starlight,
My love is wandering in star flight
I know he'll find
In star clustered reaches
Love, strange love
A star woman teaches
I know his journey ends never
His Star Trek will go on forever
But tell him while
He wanders his starry sea,
Remember,
Remember me.

White Nights by Dostoevsky

"But that I should feel any resentment against you, Nastenka! That I should cast a dark shadow over your bright, serene happiness! ...That I should crush a single one of those delicate blooms which you will wear in your dark hair when you walk up the aisle to the altar with him! Oh no — never, never! May your sky be always clear, may your dear smile be always bright and happy, and may you be for ever blessed for that moment of bliss and happiness which you gave to another lonely and grateful heart ... Good Lord, only a moment of bliss? Isn't such a moment sufficient for the whole of a man's life?"

Pablo

There in Rangoon I realized

that the gods were enemies,

just like God,

of the poor human being.

Gods in alabaster extended

like white whales,

gods gilded like spikes,

serpent gods entwining

the crime of being born,

naked and elegant buddhas

smiling at the cocktail party

of empty eternity

like Christ on his horrible cross,

all of them capable of anything,

of imposing on us their heaven,

all with torture or pistol

to purchase piety or burn our blood,

fierce gods made by men

to conceal their cowardice,

and there it was all like that,

the whole earth reeking of heaven,

and heavenly merchandise.

- Pablo Neruda

is it fair? by Urma

is it fair

to be caught in the middle

is it fair

to be shaped by your needs,

is it fair

to be told but not be listened

when it hurts

is it fair

to quit life for a living

is it fair

to be safe but not close

is it fair

to deny when you can't reach

the outside world

for the friend you haven't met

for the smile that never ends

for the one who'll never let you down

is it fair

is it fair

to become a survivor

to forget how to listen your heart

is it fair

to stay out of your trouble

can't forget

is it fair to pretend that you live

without fearing your guilt or your needs

can you give the best in all, for free ?

is it faïr?

Excerpt from Ebert's review of Eat Pray Love

Here is a movie about Liz Gilbert. About her quest, her ambition, her good luck in finding only nice men, including the ones she dumps. She funds her entire trip, including scenic accommodations, ashram, medicine man, guru, spa fees and wardrobe, on her advance to write this book. Well, the publisher obviously made a wise investment. It's all about her, and a lot of readers can really identify with that. Her first marriage apparently broke down primarily because she tired of it, although Roberts at (a sexy and attractive) 43 makes an actor's brave stab at explaining they were "young and immature." She walks out on the guy (Billy Crudup) and he still likes her and reads her on the Web.

In Italy, she eats such Pavarottian plates of pasta that I hope one of the things she prayed for in India was deliverance from the sin of gluttony. At one trattoria she apparently orders the entire menu, and I am not making this up. She meets a man played by James Franco, about whom, enough said. She shows moral fibre by leaving such a dreamboat for India, where her quest involves discipline in meditation, for which she allots three months rather than the recommended lifetime. There she meets a tall, bearded, bespectacled older Texan (Richard Jenkins) who is without question the most interesting and attractive man in the movie, and like all of the others seems innocent of lust.

In Bali she revisits her beloved adviser Ketut Liyer (Hadi Subiyanto), who is a master of truisms known to us all. Although he connects her with a healer who can mend a nasty cut with a leaf applied for a few hours, his own skills seem limited to the divinations anyone could make after looking at her, and telling her things about herself after she has already revealed them.

Now she has found Balance, begins to dance on the high wire of her life. She meets Felipe (Javier Bardem), another divorced exile, who is handsome, charming, tactful, forgiving and a good kisser. He explains that he lives in Bali because his business is import-export, "which you can do anywhere" — although later, he explains she must move to Bali because "I live in Bali because my business is here." They've both forgotten what he said earlier. Unless perhaps you can do import-export anywhere, but you can only import and export from Bali when you live there. That would certainly be my alibi.

The audience I joined was perhaps 80 percent female. I heard some sniffles and glimpsed some tears, and no wonder. "Eat Pray Love" is shameless wish-fulfillment, a Harlequin novel crossed with a mystic travelogue, and it mercifully reverses the life chronology of many people, which is Love Pray Eat.

Fascinating History

Losing the Crimean war was one of the reasons Czar Alexander II (The Liberator) emancipated the serfs in February 1861, realizing, as he did, that Russia would need free men to defend the country in the future. No doubt this influenced Lincoln's decision to emancipate America's slaves in 1863 and have the freed men help fight on the Union's side - which they did.

Other Lincoln/Kennedy coincidences to Czar Alexander II are that all three were assassinated to thwart their policies of freedom and equality for their people, and all three were conjectured to have been assassinated by the same forces, ie an ancient global brotherhood conspiring toward tyrannical world domination.

If Lincoln had lived to fulfill another term, his 13th Amendment would have enforced the abolition of slavery and his policies for post-war Reconstruction would have disempowered the masterminds behind the South seceding from the Union and causing the Civil War. Instead, Lincoln's successor - coincidently Johnson - pardoned high-level Confederates and allowed them back in Congress.

After Czar Alexander II's assassination in 1881 some of his emancipation policies were thwarted by his successor, his son Czar Alexander III, who was intimidated by the brotherhood who had assassinated his father and who, after his death in 1894, assassinated his son and successor, Czar Nicholas II, in 1917.

This same brotherhood put the Communists in power in Russia in 1917 and it was their war ships that were threatening America during Kennedy's presidency in 1962.

Other uncanny coincidences:

- Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846

- Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946

- Lincoln was elected president in 1860

- Kennedy was elected president in 1960

- Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln

- War was thrust upon Lincoln almost immediately after inauguration

- War was thrust upon Kennedy almost immediately after inauguration

- Lincoln ordered the Treasury to print its own money

- Kennedy ordered the Treasury to print its own money

- Lincoln gave African Americans freedom and legalized equality

- Kennedy enforced equality for African Americans

-Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863

- Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963

- Lincoln was succeeded, after assassination, by vice-president Johnson

- Kennedy was succeeded, after assassination, by vice-president Johnson

- Andrew Johnson was born in 1808

- Lyndon Johnson was born in 1908

- Andrew Johnson had a pug nose and slicked-back hair

- Lyndon Johnson had a pug nose and slicked-back hair

- Lincoln was shot on a Friday

- Kennedy was shot on a Friday

- Lincoln was shot in a theatre named Ford

- Kennedy was shot in a car named Lincoln made by Ford

- Lincoln was shot in a theatre and his assassin ran to a warehouse

- JFK was shot from a warehouse and his alleged assassin ran to a theatre

-Lincoln's assassin had a three-worded name, John Wilkes Booth

- Kennedy's alleged assassin had a three-worded name, Lee Harvey Oswald

- John Wilkes Boothe was born in 1839 (s/b 1838)

- Lee Harvey Oswald was born in 1939

- Booth was shot and killed* in police custody before going to trial

- Oswald was shot and killed in police custody before going to trial

- Andrew Johnson was a heavy drinker with crude behavior

- Lyndon Johnson was a heavy drinker with crude behavior

- There were conspiracy theories that Johnson was knowledgeable about Lincoln's assassination

- There were conspiracy theories that Johnson was knowledgeable about Kennedy's assassination

- Lincoln lost a child (12 year old son) to death while President

- Kennedy lost a child (newly born son) to death while President

-Lincoln had 2 sons named Robert and Edward. Edward died young and Robert lived on.

- Kennedy had 2 brothers named Robert and Edward. Robert died young and Edward lived on

-Lincoln was sitting in a rocking chair at Ford's Theater when he was shot

- Kennedy had a special rocking chair he sat in at the White House

- Henry Ford bought the rocking chair Lincoln died in and put it in his museum in Dearborn

-John Kennedy is the name of the real-life detective who traveled in the train with President Lincoln in 1860

-In 1863, the Tsar sent the war fleet of the Russian empire to President Lincoln during the American civil war.

Lincoln was influenced by the Tzar's emancipation of the serfs.

- In 1962, during the Kennedy presidency, a fleet of Russian ships transporting instruments of war were steaming towards America with less benign intent

View and Counterview

Actual History: http://www.dismalworld.com/disputes/kashmir.php

Noted writer Arundhati Roy Tuesday said her speeches supporting the call for azadi were what "millions" in Kashmir say every day and were "fundamentally a call for justice". Following is the full text of the statement that she has issued.

"I write this from Srinagar, Kashmir.

This morning's papers say that I may be arrested on charges of sedition for what I have said at recent public meetings on Kashmir. I said what millions of people here say every day. I said what I, as well as other commentators have written and said for years. Anybody who cares to read the transcripts of my speeches will see that they were fundamentally a call for justice. I spoke about justice for the people of Kashmir who live under one of the most brutal military occupations in the world; for Kashmiri Pandits who live out the tragedy of having been driven out of their homeland; for Dalit soldiers killed in Kashmir whose graves I visited on garbage heaps in their villages in Cuddalore; for the Indian poor who pay the price of this occupation in material ways and who are now learning to live in the terror of what is becoming a police state.

"Yesterday I traveled to Shopian, the apple-town in South Kashmir which had remained closed for 47 days last year in protest against the brutal rape and murder of Asiya and Nilofer, the young women whose bodies were found in a shallow stream near their homes and whose murderers have still not been brought to justice. I met Shakeel, who is Nilofer's husband and Asiya's brother. We sat in a circle of people crazed with grief and anger who had lost hope that they would ever get 'insaf'—justice—from India, and now believed that Azadi—freedom— was their only hope. I met young stone pelters who had been shot through their eyes. I traveled with a young man who told me how three of his friends, teenagers in Anantnag district, had been taken into custody and had their finger-nails pulled out as punishment for throwing stones.

"In the papers some have accused me of giving 'hate-speeches', of wanting India to break up. On the contrary, what I say comes from love and pride. It comes from not wanting people to be killed, raped, imprisoned or have their finger-nails pulled out in order to force them to say they are Indians. It comes from wanting to live in a society that is striving to be a just one. Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice, while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor, roam free."

COUNTERVIEW:

Sunny N. says:

October 28, 2010 at 12:09 PM

Well the freedom movement did not ask the British to get all of us together on the same platform. If Kashmiris want all of J&K to be freed why don’t they first talk to each other. The Valley Sunnis , the Bakarwals and Gujjars , the Pandits , the Jammu Dogras and try and form an informal body that has one common aim. It is the easiest thing in the world to throw stones , any boy who throws them on dogs knows it. The problem is taking the dog for a walk , to the vet and feeding it. Arundhati Roy and her ilk are hysterical abstractionists who refuse to see strategic realities.Arundhati Roy is a “gutter-inspector” . She and many others like her float on the slick they form on India and the garbage they endlessly chuck on her.I pity the Nation that has an intellectual class that has no love , passion or understanding for the land – they either want to be somewhere else or want us to be someone else . If they knew the soul of this land and sang in its languages they might still have a chance to experience “Azadi” . They are brides of Angst . These Perpetually Self-flagellating Endlessly Unhappy and Despairing Oracles – P.S.E.U.D.O.People like Arundhati Roy are town-criers who have no patience with solid-detailing. They live in a fantasy land where either revolutionaries will find answers or you keep screaming blue till the day of judgement happens. They have no experience of running any income generating project or the managing of any business/farm or administering/governing a village . So called “creative” people are free from the daily logistics of running a society so they can easily like big consultants keep setting unreal parameters. I know people who have done solid path-breaking work on local solutions and without much hoo-haa.

Arundhati Roy , if she was not a sensationalist would have seen thousands of such experiments where people have thought through on how to create sustainable communities . Like that soldier-villager Anna Hazare who transformed a village Ralegaon Siddhi and now runs a Village Planning Institute in Maharshtra.

People like Arundhati make violence fashionable and run from one movement to another because they have no staying power. She can stay on course with Narmada or Kashmir or Chattisgarh. She dreams of being the voice of all oppressed everywhere. There are many better representatives in all those areas and as for strategic or seminal thought , she has not given a single one. She is the disease of our age , all packaging.

Facing Windows...a letter

My dear Simone.

After you, red is no longer red.

The blue of the sky is no longer blue.

The trees are no longer green.

I have to search for colors in the yearnings I have for us.

After you, I miss even the pain that made our love timid and secret.

I miss the waiting, the relinquishing,

the coded messages.

The stolen glances in a world full of blind people

who didn't want to see,

because if they'd seen us it would have been their shame,

their hatred,

their cruelty.

I regret I haven't had the courage to ask your forgiveness

and that is why I can no longer even look inside your window.

That is where I always saw you, even when I didn't know your name,

and you dreamed of a better world.

A world where a tree was not forbidden to be a tree.

Or for blue to become the sky.

I don't know if this is a better world.

How can I say this is a better world?

How can I say that without you?

Your Caring Beloved

A gift of a diamond and your burnt heart’s wound has arrived

Congratulations, Asad! your caring beloved has arrived

jirdhat tohfih, almas armughan, dagh-e-jiggar hadiyah

mub arkabad Asad, ghmamkahr-e jan-e dardmand aya

~Original in Persian by Ghalib

The news came today my lover by night might come.

I lay my head on the road by which he would come.

The desert gazelles were holding their heads in their hands,

Hoping he would hunt the day he comes.

The pull of my love will not keep him still.

If to my funeral he couldn't make it, to my grave he'd surely come.

My soul has now come to my lips, come so that I may live

After I die, what purpose if you come?

Khabaram raseed imshab ki nigaar khuahi aamad;

Sar-e man fidaa-e raah-e ki sawaar khuahi aamad.

Ham-e aahwan-e sehra sar-e khud nihada bar kaf;

Ba-umeed aanki rozi bashikaar khuahi aamad.

Kashishi ki ishq daarad naguzaradat badinsaa;

Ba-janazah gar nayai ba-mazaar khuahi aamad.

Balabam raseed jaanam fabiya ki zindah maanam;

Pas azan ki man na-maanam bacha kar khuahi aaamad.

~Original in Persian by Amir Khusrau

A song stuck in my head

it's a little bit like Sun when your smile is focused on me

with Stars in your eyes

it reminds me of Summers up north where the clear winds will blow

through the mountains with Snow

but it can all turn Around as i know

with the words You say before you go

nothing can change us from Being ourselves

and i'm left here in town with Nothing as help

sometimes your Words make me Happy or Angry or Sad

it depends, how i Feel

if i feel Strong there's a Chance that i'll laugh at your notes

that tells me you're Gone

but it can all Turn around as i know

with a change of weather, yes then i'll be Low

anything Done and said on my part

can keep us together or pull us Apart

i know there is Something between us, my love

it's Stronger than what we can break

it'll keep us Together forever, my love

it's like we have Nothing to say

it's raining in new york

and i know what it feels like

cause i've walked 3rd avenue

with tears in my eyes

it's raining in l.a.

and i know what it feels like

cause i see those tears

come through when we try .....

--Oh Laura

One of the best-written songs of all time, by Bob Dylan

Just a minute before you leave girl

Just a minute before you touch the door

What is it that you're trying to achieve, girl ?

Do you think we can talk about it some more ?

You know, the streets are filled with vipers

Who've lost all ray of hope

You know, it ain't even safe no more

In the palace of the Pope.

Don't fall apart on me tonight

I just don't think that I could handle it

Don't fall apart on me tonight

Yesterday's just a memory

Tomorrow is never what it's supposed to be

And I need you, yeah.

Come over here from over there, girl

Sit down here, you can have my chair

I can't see us going anywhere, girl

The only place open is a thousand miles away and I can't take you there

I wish I'd have been a doctor

Maybe I'd have saved some life that had been lost

Maybe I'd have done some good in the world

'Stead of burning every bridge I crossed.

Don't fall apart on me tonight

I just don't think that I could handle it

Don't fall apart on me tonight

Yesterday's just a memory

Tomorrow is never what it's supposed to be

And I need you, yeah.

I ain't too good at conversation, girl

So you might not know exactly how I feel

But if I could, I'd bring bring you to the mountaintop, girl

And build you a house made out of stainless steel

But it's like I'm stuck inside a painting

That's hanging in the Louvre

My throat start to tickle and my nose itches

But I know that I can't move.

Don't fall apart on me tonight

I just don't think that I could handle it

Don't fall apart on me tonight

Yesterday's gone but the past lives on

Tomorrow's just one step beyond

And I need you, yeah.

Who are these people who are walking towards you

Do you know them or will there be a fight ?

With their humorless smiles so easy to see through

Can they tell you what's wrong from what's right ?

Do you remember St. James Street

Where you blew Jackie P.'s mind ?

You were so fine, Clark Gable would have fell at your feet

And laid his life on the line.

Let's try to get beneath the surface waste, girl

No more booby traps and bombs

No more decadence and charm

No more affection that's misplaced, girl

No more mudcake creatures lying in your arms

What about that millionaire with the drumsticks in his pants ?

He looked so baffled and so bewildered

When he played and we didn't dance.

Don't fall apart on me tonight

I just don't think that I could handle it

Don't fall apart on me tonight

Yesterday's just a memory

Tomorrow is never what it's supposed to be

And I need you, yeah.

really nice article...wish someone would have written it in India...hats off Fasi boy!

Pakistan, you are a failed state. Not because of Zardari. Not because of America. But because you are a failed people, all of us undeserving of sympathy. We are diseased, rotten to every brain stem, world please make an impenetrable fence around us, keep us all in so we don’t spread it to other people, other countries.

These were words I posted on a social networking website. I have an unusually negative mindset these days. It happened after I saw the video of the two teenage brothers brutally clubbed to death by a crowd frenzied with blood thirst in Sialkot. The police watched gleefully. The video has blurs at certain parts, but even this sensible sensitivity does not prevent one from seeing mists of blood flaying from the heads of these teens as they are hit relentlessly, and remorselessly, again and again.

The murderous crowd was truly representative of the richness of Pakistan. Some wear jeans, others shalwar kameez, some were bearded, others clean shaven. The Pakistanis had gotten together to have some fun.

Do not be shocked. This wasn’t isolated, it’s just that the crowd wanted to make sure their orgasmic moment could be captured for later viewing, at one’s pleasure. We blame our ill-educated brethren for the barbarity we witness, but that’s a self-serving lie.

The middle and upper classes are immune to education it seems. They hold opinions of everyday violence even if they have never raised their hand at anyone. If you believe Jews are the scum of the earth, all Ahmadis deserve to die or that Hindus are inferior, well why not two teenage boys?

I want Pakistanis to feel shame, in fact a substantial loss of self-esteem would be great. This is the only way for us to begin to doubt ourselves and the incessant excuses we make. Yes, the world is right to add restrictions on our visas, to see us as dangerous. If for even a while we felt we were the cockroaches of the human race, maybe we would get to the point we stopped the lies we tell ourselves and let this continue.

The fact is, if we had real democracy, there would be no internet in Pakistan, women would not be allowed out of their homes, education would come to a standstill and we would begin a programme of killing off every minority. Thank you corrupt generals and politicians, you keep this at bay with some sense of being answerable to a world that still has some humanity in it, even if you don’t.

And please, no excuses, no excuses. Don’t give us that, “If only there was true Islam they would be better”. I think a thousand years is enough, we can’t wait longer. And there was no America in existence for most of that, or even western colonialism.

You want to know just how sociopathic we are? In response to these killings some are happy to say we deserve earthquakes and floods. Typical. Don’t change yourself, but give credit to the indiscriminate and inhumane forces of nature. The floods are a tragedy, an atrocity and should never be used to bolster an argument that really only demands self-reflection.

And please, in your self-reflection don’t call us animals, most of them are benign vegetarians.

Also don’t blame Sialkot; they were just unlucky because they are subject to scrutiny. There is so much more out there.

There is such a sense of sickening moral superiority in Pakistanis, it needs to be addressed. All we care about is foreign policy, eager to point out the hypocrisies of the world, silent on our domestic, or even local life. Why should the world take what you say seriously, why should you be a regional power, or a leader in the comity of Islamic nations?

Truth is, there is only one way to get change, and it’s not hanging the people who killed these boys. It is raising your voice to contradict people who advocate death for others, no matter who they are speaking of. To internalise that murder of any kind, for anyone is wrong. Sounds easy? Well just try it.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 24th, 2010.

For the original post, visit http://tribune.com.pk/story/42158/pakistan%E2%80%99s-human-cockroaches/

Freedom, a poem from my sister.

i've been broken enough times,

to know the smell of earth

and to know how gracious it is

and each of those shreds have risen again,

stronger than before

not for some mere fight,

nor for the war to thrive,

but for the eminence of independence

for the austerity of one's freedom.

these are not the wings that they thrust upon me,

nor are these granted

these are instead the ones i willed to grow

the one's i've achieved

the faith that every benediction brings along

liberates my flight,

but its the faith coming along unanswered prayers

that reminds me of the soil

and the spirit it leaves behind.

i was given a life

not just to survive

and the day i gain

the virtue of my existence,

when i defeat

the insignificance of my being

they may not know how i lived,

but they will remember that i did.

--gurleen

For Sneh

You left me walking in the rain,
Cold and alone, and the pain
Was like me
A bit unsure of itself..

What happened, how?
Who knows, who cares
Its so cold, I'm so wet
This blood on my fingers
It won't go away

Things left unsaid
Echo about this abyss
Left in your wake
This trail of crimson
These tatters I rake

To the heavens have you gone
From where you had arrived?
To nurse my ailing heart
Such lies I contrive
But still it weeps

I cry all bunched up
Like you were when inside me
Tears fall till I fall asleep
And forget, then I smile

I had dreamed of you
Long before you had come
To live within me
As I dream you now
The last remains
Of a tainted love

I watch you
Lying next to me
Crying
Eating
Sleeping
Smiling
Laughing
Walking
Running...away
And you disappear

I'm awake, and it starts all over again.

Truth bent but not broken,

More dangerous than the lie not spoken -Rohan Sarode

Mumbai, August.

The streets have become waterways with hours upon hours of incessant rain. My car literally felt like a boat today. Poor Man's Venice, they call it now. My Dad was the Gondolier...

Brown teen rap! An interesting sociological phenomenon...

I was nerdy and pathetic when I was a teenager. The only Sikh boy in the entire school. Turbaned with unshorn hair with a sprouting beard, I was different from everyone else. Sikhs are a minority in India, and I was in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The capital of Hindutva politics. Needless to say, I got picked on a lot. A lot. I was angry, inside. Someone made me hear Eminem one day, and I got inspired to write my very first original poem. I stumbled upon it tonight and thought it was just silly enough to make public. Please keep in mind that I was a teenage Indian boy who had just been introduced to rap and was by no means an authority on Hip-Hop lingo.

Read it in the funny Indian accent the Americans are getting so good at these days.
Here goes funny:


My Hairstyle Rap

Hey you, asshole, whatcha lookin' at?
Yeah I got long hair, but then, so what?

Hey you, watcha laughing at?
Ya got yellow teeth, atleast I don't have that!

Ha Ha Ha Check Check Check Check
Kiss a snake on its neck neck

Ya gotta have guts to do it
But you can't, 'cos ure so full o' shit!

A dumb, cheap asshole, that's what I 'll call ya
I'll piss on ure dead skull, and then I'll damn ya!

'Cos u don't know no shit about
Where all the cool peeps of the town hang out.

Ure not cool, ure just a fool
Whenever you see a tit you drool.

I'll kick ure ass and ure mother I'll fuck
So get outta my face if you want some luck!

Every dood has the freedom to choose
If he wants to look like a goat or a goose

(A goat or a goose, a lion or a moose!)

Short hair or long hair, it doesn't really matter,
Its whatcha eat that makes yer ass fatter!

Hey you, watcha lookin at?
Turn yer head around or I'll kick your sorry ass!



Hope the intense emotions came through. Sky out.

Gagan Judge, 23.

Things I have learned this year:

1. My sister is a completely different person and I have to accept that as a fact.
2. I need to keep my mouth shut sometimes to avoid getting into trouble.
3. I am smarter than most people but they don't like being told that.
4. I love food and I hate exercise. I will never be as thin as I was in high school.
5. I like watching movies and talking about them more than I like making them. Teaching might be a good career choice.
6. I can't keep a job because I get bored easily and am too whimsical. I need to be my own boss.
7. Being in love and being in a relationship with someone are two completely different things.
8. Writing requires more discipline than talent. I have no discipline.
9. I may not be as creative or as talented as others, but I have my own unique way of looking at the world and understanding its people. The day I find my voice and I really want to express something, it will all come to me.
10. Time spent living is not time wasted.

whatever...

Happy Independence Day!!!

Sixty four glorious years of butchering minorities, blatant corruption, bigotry, rapid industrialization, casteism, green revolution, white revolution, insurgency, emergency, MCVeggie and Maharaja Mac, animal rights protection, humal rights violations, no first use nuclear policy, bullying of neighbors, wannabe superpower, extreme poverty, non-alignment, non violence, honor killings, equal rights for women, female infanticide, great food, religious extremism, discrimination, spineless foreign policies, moral policing, Bollywood, regionalism - and still going strong! This is India, folks. Take it or leave it.

And hey, atleast we are not doing as bad as some other countries(Pakistan). No terrorism, military rule, failed econonmy, failed state, heroin trade, child rape and obstruction of justice here, so shut up! We rape only grown women, and there are no gay people. We are all Hindus. We are all named either Raj or Kumar. All of us are vegetarians. We all speak English, albeit in a funny accent. Like us. Please.

Our forefathers who fought for our freedom; those people who went to jail, were tortured and beaten with clubs and then hanged without a proper trial. Fasts unto death. The Salt March. Civil disobedience. They envisaged a nation of freedom, made by free-thinking people that would be a shining beacon to the rest of humanity. What a shame.

On missing you...

I miss you in parts. Never as a whole. I miss your hair. Coarse and wild and golden, a lion's mane. Miss how it split the morning sun into a thousand shimmering sparkles. I miss waking up to your sea-green eyes looking at me. Those sea-eyes that had drowned so much sorrow that I could see my love in them, floating helplessly on the surface.

I miss your smell, that used to linger on the sheets long after you went into the shower. I miss the texture of your calves, the shape of your back , the back of your neck, the soft skin behind your ears and I miss kissing them. I miss your long, tapering fingers(you used to say you got them from your father) and the way they used to feel on my lips. I miss being. Just being, existing, in your arms. Those mornings were so warm. The world is so cold, now.

I know it wasn't perfect. Except my love for you. So unwavering in its stubbornness, its vanity. What went wrong I do not know. Those are the parts I do not remember. Or maybe I choose not to. It is there still, stubborn and vain. My perfect love.

I miss our mornings and I miss you and I miss loving you. In parts. Always in parts.

Nate's note on Facebook...

If my Memory Serves me Right: Sinulog
by Nate Zona on Monday, April 11, 2011 at 1:58am

When I was in the Philippines, there was a lot of buzz about this upcoming festival called 'Sinulog.' It is the biggest celebration of the year, and I just happened to arrive a month before it happened. The weeks flew by and before I knew it I had made plans to go to a "rave" the night before Sinulog. This "rave" was really more of a house/ebm night, and it was held at the Cebu International Convention Center. I went with my new friends Rozie Reyes, from Australia, and Vũ Ngọc Phượng, from Vietnam. I was very excited to be going out on the town, since I had basically just arrived, and to a rave nonetheless! We took cab to the venue and paid 500 pesos to get in. (Hunter told us later that we actually could have gotten in for free with our IAFT passes! Damn!) The night was still kinda young so most of the crowd was sitting in chairs surrounding the dance floor. It reminded me of a high school dance, but in a much bigger scale. Well the music was playing and Rosie, Vu and I laughed to ourselves at the shyness of everyone else, went directly to the middle of the floor, and just started dancing like fools! Everyone else started slowly making their way onto the floor and soon enough the place was moving! As the night rolled on and the music got "harder," the producers of the show brought out these four ladies in bikinis, holding chains in each hand, with a little cup at the end of them. They stood at the front for some time, and then a guy with a lighter came over and lit the cups on fire one by one. When they were all on fire, the music hit a crescendo and the chains began swinging! The lights were flashing, the music was pumping, the girls were swinging fire back in forth in a hypnotic gyration, and then along the sides of the stage fountains of sparks erupted high into the sky! The crowd was alive!

The night, however, was just beginning for me.

So we partied, danced, drank, and what not until about two-thirty. At this time Hunter Prescott and Gagan Judge had showed up and asked if I was staying until the end (4am or so.) Vu was ready to go home so Rozie left with him, and I ended up leaving with Hunter and Gagan around 3:30. If I remember correctly, Hunter is from Austrailia, but spent some time in the US as well, namely Texas. Gagan, or Sky as he is called, is from India! Both these dudes are super cool, and I had become kinda friends with them over the previous weeks. I would say more like acquaintances really.

Well, at this point, they decided we should go get some food at a fast food place called Andok's. When we got there they told us they weren't selling beer, so of course we went to a gas station, bought some and went back to Andok's!

Hunter and Gagan were adamant that I try Andok's version of the popular Pinoy dish "Sisig."

Sisig, let me tell you, is DELICIOUS! It's a fried/sizzler meat dish, served on a really hot metal? plate. It smells like bacon and has onions, red peppers, and really tasty spices! Needless to say, I loved it. (Only later did I find out sisig is made from carved pig's head meat, chopped liver, and traditionally, pig's brain! I'd still eat it, haha) The night was not over, and we hopped on a jeepney to get back to the IAFT campus. By this time, the school grounds were abandoned, with only the guards patrolling. We walked to the back of the school where the tiki bar is located, and on the way back there we crossed paths with one of the security guards. Hunter was immediately friendly with him, and they shook hands and happily exchanged pleasantries. I was surprised how well they seemed to know each other and as we walked to the back, Hunter said something I will remember for the rest of my life. "Dude, you gotta make friends with everybody. The cleaning crew, the security guards, the lady who does your laundry. When you step out of your own shoes and let other people in, you free yourself, but most importantly dude, you remember you're not alone in this life."

We sat, the three of us at the now abandoned Tiki Bar in the back of the school. The Tiki Bar sits up against a fence that overlooks the Bay of Magellen. You can see a breathtaking amount of sky from this spot. As we drank our Tanduay Rhum and A&W rooter, and our cans of San Miguel and Red Horse, we watched as the sky began to leech color from the sun. Gagan turns to me and says, "Dude, you will never forget this Mactan Sunrise." Even if he had said nothing and I had been there alone, he was absolutely right. The warm air gently blowing though the palm trees, the black water of the bay, slowly turning red and pink and orange, reflecting the clouds above which puffed in the sky like rolls of marshmallows. The sun slowly but unstoppably rising above the horizon, into the day. It was something I'll never forget. I tried to take a picture with my camera but it just didn't look right, and Hunter and Gagan said to me, "This is something that cannot be captured by our gear man, only with your memory."

Last Memory

Dumbledore: "After all this time, Severus?"
Snape: "Always."