Guests At a Pakistani Wedding

I being a Pakistani by birth have attended numerous weddings all over the most of the country. I even organized the whole functions of my brother's wedding, so I am speaking with experience here. For instance, If you have invited 300 people to a wedding, be sure that there will be at least 400 folks, starving since the beginning of time, having their eye on this particular day, so never expect a figure of food for 500 people to be enough. But food is one thing, there are many important affairs going on at a Pakistani Wedding.

• The Political Aunts' circle.

-Is that Marium's son ? By God he's grown, look at his face, cunning as a fox, i bet he's got a girlfriend, I bet he smokes, I bet he's a gang member.

-Look at the bride's mother. Seems as if she is getting married. Look at the colour of her dress, yukhhh, so prominent.

-Oh look there's Sara, did she look at me, I bet she did, and she purposely ignored me, she is like this isn't she, yeah she's a real mean brat.

-Did you know her daughter dot a divorce, yeah i know, but the nature works in strange ways, i mean i know i'm grieved and all but serves her right for being such ignorant towards her affairs and meddling with other people's matters. (look who's talking)

• The Food Consumers

-There is not such thing as good food or bad food. If there is food, we must eat it.

-What they say "Hello, my name is Ali, congratulations to the couple and their families, its a beautiful event". What they are thinking 'I'm here for the food'.

-Hamza, my son, find a table close to the buffet, grab a couple of plates too just to be safe for the future.

-Okay son its starting, stick close to your old man, watch and learn. (The buffet starts)  YALLLLLAAAAAAA HABIBIIIIIIIIIII !!!!!

-Grab that chicken piece, yes the one with the handle, its softer, so you can eat more, what do you mean you're stuffed,  Thappar na khaa lena mjsay  (Don't make me slap your face)

-Okay the trick is to take the sweet first because it wont last till the end, then move towards the dinner, there's plenty of it don't worry.

-Its a stampede son, come on, we don't need to sit here, standing close to the buffet is a better option.

-Serving spoons are occupied, quick use your table spoon.

• The Witty Uncles' table

-This is your son right, yeah, he's got your looks, let's hope he doesn't get your young habits . They all laugh, including the one who got insulted, thinking how to get back at him.

-When's the food gonna be served, I'm starving man, are you starving (asks everyone), I hope the food gets served soon, I hope its good. Hand me the water bottle, or the soft drink, hey look the salad's being served.

-The intellectual one, with a cigar in his mouth, sitting back in his chair, everyone praising him in form of a circle and trying to be him by copying his acts.

• The Kids

-Run, play, break objects, we are sheep, set free for the very last time, enjoy, run for no reason.

-Bump into every one's legs, and they cry the hell out, embarrass the idiots.

-Oh the food's gonna be served, it would be a shame, if i, answer the call of nature, in my pants, and engage my mother in cleaning and washing me.

• The Punks Looking for The Eye Candy

-Oh look, is she looking at me, i know she's looking at me, dude, she looked at me, im so awesome, i know she wouldve noticed the tight pink shirt or the LV belt. (she didnt look at him)

-Okay, find a table close to the table with the girls, yeah done okay, now laugh out loud for no reason to gain attention, good every one's looking at us, now do something cool, for instance, start whistling, we need to be distinguished from the common man. (They look extremely idiotic and Pindi / shabby )

• The Senior Citizens

-the host :Assalamoalaikum (Hello) Auntie,

the elderly woman: 'What ?'

the host: I said hello Auntie,

woman: 'Oh WalaikumAssalam'

host: Do you recognize me?,

woman: 'What?

host: Do you know who I am?,

woman: 'No thanku, yes I've been ill for a while, please pray for me'.

host: Can I get you something ?

woman: ( doesnt repy)

host: Do you need something ?

woman: Oh you're Marium's boy aren't you ?

host: Yes auntie, its a pleasure to meet you

woman: Oh yes the food was quite nice.

And there are several other categories, in which the good guys, the cute girls, the really cute girls, the ones who think they're cute girls are included.

In the name of the great TED MOSBEY "But more on that later"

Awkward Moments

Yeah, I know what it feels like when you come across that friend out of no where whom you bullied in the school for being fat, now he seems amazing and you, well not even can you not touch your toes, but cant even see them, Or that bureaucrat uncle who always asks you to join civil services and frowns at any other achievement of yours or when you’re sitting on the dining table with your mum and dad fighting over you.

Well here are some of the most awkward situations I have encountered:

When Someone Hands You a Newborn Baby

“Here go on, hold the baby, awwwwww he looks so cute holding the baby”

For crying out loud lady, I’m about to drop this creature !

And then someone asks “Who does he resemble in the family?”

He was born 20 minutes ago, he looks just like a potato for God’s sake !

And then the baby starts crying.

“Awwwwww it seems the baby doesn’t like you”

Umm yeah, he’s really developed his sense of hatred in his life span of 20 minutes.

When Someone Asks “Who do you like more, mum or dad?” 

Many a times, the relatives with some idiotic traits ask in front of your mum and dad, Who do you like more, mum or dad ?

What they see is the mother and father smiling at me saying go ahead son, tell him.

What I see and what actually is:

Dad- Go ahead you coward, say you like me or you’re dead meat.

Mum- Yeah, tell em, look me in the eyes, tell em you like me, tell em how I’m the best mom.

When You Realize You Were Not Invited

You enter a gathering, you are suited up, you think everyone will warmly greet you, you have a big smile on your face.

You look at the host. Ohhhh that look, explains everything, he sees you, he’s confused as to what to do, how to react, whether to send you back, whether to say you’re not invited, whether to say he forgot to send you an invitation. During that confusion, he makes a face, neither sad, nor happy, neither excited, nor apathetic giving you a signal so abstract that he almost looks like he’s gonna die soon. And during his making that face, you catch up that the next hour or so is not going to be nice. Every one looks at you as if: ‘Yes this is the fellow, look at him, look the hell out of him’

 When Someone Beautiful/Handsome Talks to You

Oh my God, she’s coming this way, okay I have to stay cool, okay how do I stay cool? Shit I don’t even know how to stay cool, okay just be yourself. How can I be myself, I hate being myself. Okay just stay classy, just don’t over do it. Just stay calm and act natural. Start off with a smile, without teeth, no with teeth, no without. Okay don’t mess this up man. Here she comes.

What I imagine:

She says hi, I say hello, how are you? She says I’m good, how about you. I say, I’m fine, what’s up these days, she says nothing much just studies and stuff, how about you? I say ohhh nothing interesting really, just saved a couple of children from an accident, helped a homeless guy, donated a bottle of blood, just the usual. And then we’d laugh.

What actually happens:

She says Hi, and in the words of Eminem, ‘He opens his mouth but the words wont come out’. A silent voice comes from inside, which say hello. She says how are you, My world spins round and round, My soul faints leaving my body to this situation at the disposal of my idiotic brain. And then a voice from inside my mouth comes out, “hi me name potato”

And then I seek my leave for not embarrassing myself any more, I ask for my departure in the words:- “I go now, I go and use toilet to answer my call of nature”

When You Insult Something In Front Of Someone Who Loves It 

Me:

Yeah man, and seriously speaking, I just hate the accountants, I mean come on, what they do is sit behind a desk for the whole day, that’s it. They are the most self centered, boring and arrogant beings on the earth. Whenever you ask them about their work, they start an endless chain of boring stories where they are being used by the high officials, and those poor souls don’t even realize that. Right ?

The Other Guy:

I’m an accountant ……..

Awkward silence……..

Me:

I mean the other guys, not you, you’re awesome man.

He begins to realize his life is boring

Another awkward silence……..

Me:

I mean look at me, I’m a lawyer, I’m boring too, I mean what do I do all day, I just justify people’s innocence in different ways, appear in front of judges, convince them with tricky arguments, attend dinners, meet new people everyday.

He looks pale and seems like a man who’s going to commit suicide.

Another awkward silence……..

Me:

I’m sorry man.

When You Use Someone’s Computer And You Look At The Browsing History With Them Sitting Beside

Hey man, can I use your computer, I need to email a link ?

Yea sure, go right ahead.

Okay I think I opened that website once on your computer last week, *opens the web history.

The friend sitting beside.

The hands shake, the eyes tumble, the mind says, ‘oh you sick man’, the fingers keep scrolling but the lower I go the sicker it gets.

Ummm I think I’ll get to it when I get home.

Yeah okay.

A biggggg Awkward silence……………

Impassiveness

What is Impassiveness ? It simply means that one may be devoid of or not subject to emotion. In Principal, the very concept is unimaginable as it sounds inhumane and unnatural. But I came to realize that neither is it unimaginable nor impossible, rather we practice it more often than we think ! I will try to explain how I got the real concept of impassiveness by an incident…

About a month ago, I was out at a market place purchasing groceries. It was a friday so it was particularly busy day for business, hence there were people of every sort in the marketplace. There were cab drivers, civilians, beggars, bikers etc etc. Every one was busy in their own matters. When I had bought all the required stuff, I started towards my car.
Right at that moment I heard a scream coming from the busiest and farthest end of the market. A woman was screaming her lungs out. She was shouting some words. I did not clearly get those words as I was at a fair distance from the spot. So I decided to move closer to the place of all the excitement. A few seconds later I quite distinctly comprehended what had happened.
She was shouting, “They snatched my purse, there were two of them, on a motorcycle, I had every thing in my purse, Please catch them, Please Somebody? “.
Now I was absolutley shocked and terrified because that was as busiest as any place could be! I mean there were people with every sort of vehicles but no one, absolutely no one decided to follow them. When the lady was unknowingly or maybe knowingly screaming and shouting with mental agony and shock and was crying out for help, every one stopped every movement and started enjoying as if she was a charmer of some sort or some circus was going on. But when she came to the cry for help, every one started demonstrating a state of apathy as if they were too busy in their own very important affairs to notice any thing unusual and as if they had’nt witnessed any thing. Most of them were on cars or motorcycles, they could have gone before them but they did’nt !
Is this Impassiveness ? No, Not yet. Let us conclude why they showed no interest in helping her catch them. Is this so because they were too busy ? Possible but most most probably not. Did they suddenly think that taking law into their own hands is not a good option ? Were they too afraid to go after criminals supposing they carried firearms ? or were they simply selfish ?
The truth is that it could be all or none of the above.
Well the saddest thing of all is that we cannot empathize with them or maybe we do not want to imagine being in such a position. And we try to forget such an incident as quickly as possible otherwise we will actually have to make a decision that would we have gone after them. But we try our best to avoid being in such a position, and this basically is called Impassiveness !

Fruits of nature

When they opened their eyes for the first time, my views towards life changed completely. The joy of looking at them crying, screaming and playing for the first time can never be depicted in words. That sheer moment of happiness was one of the best things that has happened to me all my life. Their eyes, all deformed and crossed, their hair very tiny, their meows, so beautiful.

I named the white one bubbles because of his bubbley eyes and the grey one BAROOD KHAN (gunpowder) because of  his colour.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman

Maulana Fazlur Rahman, with a gray beard and wearing a yellow turban, is a powerful man. He was born in 1952 in the southern district of Dera Ismail Khan (NWFP) and comes from a religious family. His father, Maulana Mufti Mahmood, was a well-known Islamic scholar and seasoned politician who was the NWFP’s chief minister in the 1970s during Bhutto’s government. Fazlur Rahman took over the JUI’s reins as secretary general after his father’s death. The JUI, which represents the Deobandi school of Islamic thought, split into two factions in the 1980s on the question of joining General Zia ul Haq’s military government. Fazlur Rahman leads the main faction, the JUI-F, while JUI-S is led by Maulana Sami ul Haq, another pro-Taleban Islamist leader. A veteran politician, the Maulana has been elected to the National Assembly three times since 1988. Maulana Fazlur Rahman is a fundamentalist with a difference, known for his proximity to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Despite his fundamentalist orientation, he supported her right to become premier and opposed the campaign of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) in the 1990s against a woman heading the government of an Islamic country. Benazir Bhutto duly rewarded Maulana Fazlur Rahman by appointing him as the chairman of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee. Maulana Fazlur Rahman, who heads the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam and presently Secretary General of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) is presumed to have close ties with Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime. When US and allied forces began bombing Taleban strongholds in Afghanistan, he led large anti-US, anti-Musharraf, and pro-Taleban rallies in Pakistan’s major cities and threatened to launch a jihad (holy war) against the US if the bombings continued. He loves foreign travel and the good things of life, and during Bhutto’s second tenure as prime minister he spent more time abroad than in Pakistan. He also traveled to the United States and met senior officials. During his visit to the Middle East, he built up an extensive network to gather both moral and financial support for his cause. Recently during his visit to India, he was most diplomatic in his statements and proved that Pakistani politicians, even if they are in the opposition, could conduct themselves as worthy unofficial representatives of the country. 

courtesy: www.storyofpakistan.com

All it takes is an instant (tragedy)

She was sitting comfortably in the big rocking chair with earphones plugged to the cd player at the stereo end and listening to the music carelessly, with a big mug of coffee in her hands, thinking about how perfect her life was, and how she had everything. Her parents were also sitting in the living room, her dad reading a book and her mother watching the television. The scene was perfect and was so cozy that a poet appreciating beauty and comfort could write books on the scene. The gloomy dim light of the room added to its beauty, a very pleasant and comfortable atmosphere. The wooden walls of the living room were adorned with the extravagant paintings, which gave them an extremely classy look. She began to get ill at ease. The world in her eyes was awfully slow, as if she was sedated or drugged. Her mother was saying something to her, but she was too lazy and spoiled to pull out the plugs of her earphones to listen to what she had to say, she kept nodding as if she was getting everything her mother was saying. The beautiful slow music, the caffeine in the coffee, the cozy environment and the gloomy lights made her a bit woozy. She almost fell asleep when she was aroused by an awful stench, she opened her eyes to see what it was, her mom was not there, she tried to get up, and turned towards her father, he was also not present. She got on her feet and went towards the door, it was shut. As she opened it, a flame burst to her face and that was the last sensation she remembered she had before she was unconscious due to the carbon monoxide.

 There had been a terrible fire, which burnt the house down to ashes. The reason was never discovered. Some policemen and detectives deduced that the fire was caused due to a short circuit in the main wiring of the house. Actually her mom was asking her to fetch the servants as no one was answering, she fell asleep and her mother went to look for the servants, when she didn’t come back, her father went looking for her. She was the only person who survived the fire. But the worst was yet to come, when she woke up, actually she didn’t completely wake up. It was somehow ironic, and as an optimist will say, she would not have to see the world without her parents as she could not see the world at all, the fire caused burned walls, which caused the ceiling to fall and which caused a severe blow to her head and this caused the loss of her sight. 

A big conspiracy (media)

They say on the news that the crime rate in Pakistan is increasing day by day. The moment you turn the television on, you see news regarding some crime. If not the crime, then there is the news regarding the corrupt leadership and high officials of ours. And if some corrupt official gets caught on record, each and every person celebrates as if we have been triumphed with some sort of enormous victory, and unknowingly, we deliberately, instead of dignifying, disrespect our country. The red slide of BREAKING NEWS is always blinking on at least one news channel, and the news network that has the most amount of blinking slide time, becomes the most popular in time. Is this because that the particular news network has the most authentic information? Or is it merely due to the entertainment we get when we see some interesting breaking news where someone has been mysteriously murdered or there has been an accident of some high official’s relative or the sort?

The true fact is that when we turn the television on, we are surfing channels for something interesting and what more interesting do we find than the misfortunes of others? In fact we want to see that blinking slide of breaking news on the television; we want to see the others fall, especially the ones more powerful and richer than ourselves. This is called Schadenfreude, it is a German concept meaning the delights or pleasure one gains when he sees someone’s misfortunes. This is not a habit that we have developed or some sort of curse that we have attained; this is the instinct of every being. And the rapidity of our so called schadenfreude is increased significantly with the media’s dazzling array of ways of telling the miserable news in a very desirable manner.

If we are in luck, we will be shown the most absurd, pathetic and non beneficial news which will be given the title of ‘The good news’. And usually it will be relating to some actor’s or actress’s personal or professional life or it will be regarding a very irrelevant matter e.g the hiring of a new official at the city zoo, or some speed racing car owned by a local etc.

Following is some of the research along with the source, and it may be surprising for most people:

• The top 5 most dangerous countries on the planet, referring to the violence like drugs, homicides, human trafficking etc are these in order:

Columbia, South Africa, Jamaica, Venezuela, and Russia                (source: yahoo)

• Four of the Presidents, the most important and the most secure persons of a country, of America were assassinated including Lincoln and Kennedy and two were injured in the 20 attempts.
• Innumerable famous personalities like actors, politicians, sportsmen etc. have died due to the drug abuse and most of them belong to the most developed countries.
• North Korea is considered to be the most corrupt country in the world along with Somalia.

Most of us didn’t know these facts. And this is because the media of the referred countries does not take any sort of interest in the contempt of their own countries, even if the news is good for publicity of their channel or newspaper.

The true logic behind all the corruption, the drug abuse, other crimes is terrorism. Terrorism means to disperse fear amongst the general public via one’s actions, in short, to spread terror. And to be absolutely true, the terrorism is being very much helped by the electronic media.

For example, a person gets unfortunately killed in a terrorist attack. Within five minutes, even before the arrival of an ambulance, news vans and journalists belonging to several pathetic news networks arrive and start live broadcasting. And to add to the misery of the shocked family members of the victim, they start enquiring about the life of the victim from them and how the accident happened.

A person who has a lot of troubles and tensions of his own, when switches on the television for relaxation and leisure, sees this, and his brain does the rest to make the rest of his day completely miserable.

The terrorist achieved his goal quite successfully as there is terror amongst someone he doesn’t even know !

Is this due to the negligence of the higher authorities, or is this deliberate ? Is this a business, if it is then is this humane ? Is the independence of media a true blessing ? Is this their patriotism ? because this is seen all around the world! Is this their dedication towards journalism ?

Most of the people, including me, in the back of their heads realize, even if we don’t want to, that all this setup has all the aspects and features of being a big conspiracy…

Who is behind all this? Who is the true victim? The country, the people or the media itself?

That is the big question…