Oh Please! Don’t Give Me Pepsi when I ask you for Coke!

I was no older than seven when it happened but I remember it pretty clearly still. I and my family were shopping in this open-air bazaar in Sharjah and though it was night-time, the air was hot and humid like it always is. So, naturally we felt thirsty at some point in time and thought of having cold drinks. Walking along the pavement, we almost ran towards the first chiller we spotted and started exchanging coins for cans. Once my dad quenched his thirst he said something like… Pepsi is just too sweet, wish Cocacola’s chiller was somewhere near.

Thirteen years later, in Pakistan…

I had to get a drink with my doughnuts and munchkins and asked the Dunkin’ Donuts man for a Fanta and he gave me a Miranda! And I was almost about to return it back to him but then I told myself not to be that … well, choosy.

But actually it was not about being choosy. It is about getting what you want and what you ask for! May be the difference isn’t perceivable in the non-disposable bottle version of these drinks we get in Pakistan commonly but Pepsi and Coke ARE poles apart and so are the other apparently similar drinks from these two companies such as Sprite and 7up.

Pakistan, is probably one of the very few places in the world where Pepsi rules in general. When people here want a ‘black’ drink they are very less likely to ask for Coke. And even they do, they are as unlikely to get it because of the push marketing/supply strategy that both Coke and Pepsi use today.

Ask a shopkeeper, a supermarket sales person or someone sitting across the counter in a renowned franchise such as KFC and he/she will tell you about how they can keep chillers of either Pepsi or Coke at a time and not both. And I think that is PLAIN dumbness. Well, I don’t mean that literally because of course I know these companies secure their sales by driving out their main competitor from the point of sale but does that lead to brand loyal customers in the end?

I think not.

It’s not true for me at least. I might be having Pepsi for about ten years now, not having a choice that is but that hasn’t really toned down my desire to have Coke each time I purchase a drink. And though I know the poor salesperson is not to be blamed but every time he gives me something other than what I had asked for, I feel like screaming in his ears, “Oh Please! Don’t Give Me Pepsi when I ask you for Coke!”

P.S. : I have enabled the option for commenting anonymously, so for those friends who go through a lot of trouble while posting a comment, you can use this :)

Hey! Who Put My Mineral Water in the Commode?

EACH and EVERY time I flush my commode and see gallons of fresh water mixing up with the dirt and draining down, my heart feels extremely sorry!!!

See this picture …

My friend, Tehmina, went to Kharo Chan, a small district in Sindh. It was a prosperous city in the 1950’s and is now in absolute ruins because of lack of water for survival of its inhabitants! Most of the population has migrated to urban areas, rather to the slums of urban areas which are no better than their old city. Why?

Water!

Contrary to what we are taught at school in social studies, development economics, etc, I believe that no matter how much population exists on the earth’s surface, there are enough resources for our survival both for the current inhabitants and the ones to come. However, today thousands and thousands of people die each year, not because there isn’t enough food or medicine in the world, No! it is because there is a flaw in the way we manage and consume resources!

Yes, taking fresh water for example. We all know of the water cycle on earth. The water in the rivers and streams are enough for us … But only if we use it well…

Now getting back to the subject of commodes… Here, in Pakistan, we are lucky enough to have natural water for consumption; water that has come down from the skies, trickled down the mountains and flowed in the streams. This kind of water has a natural combination of minerals which no human method of purification and mineralization can replicate. And I think it is simply FOLLY to use this precious gift of nature to wash your commodes!

So how do we do it then?

Well, this may sound far fetched but if I find a way of making this happen I shall do it at all costs.

This shank in my restroom (I opened to see how it contained water in itself), contains more than five litres of Fresh water! Just because this water is in here, it feels disgusting to some perhaps but people in many places of Pakistan yearn for even the kind of water shown in the first picture!

So here is my idea… we should use used up water to fill this shank up. When we wash our faces, the water that goes down the basin’s drain is clean enough for this. So, if I could I shall make a system through which my basin’s drain gets connected to this shank and directs water to it whenever I turn on the knob! :) Simple!

I just hope I engineer this kind of system soon because I really care for each and every drop of water that I have access too. The effort might just be a drop in the ocean, but sometimes, for some, even a drop is a life-saver.

PS : the water from our Wudhu too is pretty clear to serve the shank!

Rendezvous With Dr. Afia's Mother

I feel very scared when I write this down. There is a whole war going on as I struggle to decide what I should do and what I should not. I feel so sleepy yet I can’t sleep. All this conflict is just killing me so better out than in.

Well, today I got to meet probably the bravest mother in the world; Dr. Afia Siddiqui’s mother.

The meeting stirred so many emotions in me sympathy, shock, utmost sadness, helplessness yet hope, optimism and faith intermingled with fear, hesitance and scepticism that it has caused this unrest in me that isn’t letting me sleep so I think it’s the best time to put this into black and white. And now that it is all fresh, it will be my most honest version of the thoughts that got triggered after my meeting with this brave woman.

Firstly and most importantly, Mrs. Siddiqui, Dr. Afia’s mother is the most optimistic person I have ever seen in my life. She is the mother of a woman who lives in the most inhumane circumstances unimaginable to a common man.

Her mother tells us that Dr. Afia is currently kept in a 6 foot by 6 foot ‘cage’ which contains her lavatory as well and is watched by a ‘soldier’ 24/7. Her teeth are broken by now by the beatings she gets by the ‘butts’ of guns regularly and that all her skin is covered in pus-and-blood-leaking wounds. Her brother upon visiting her once and seeing her suffering condition got a heart attack and recovered from the shock after three months. Yet, this brave mother passionately and inspiringly speaks of hope, of a day when her daughter will come back to her house and knock at the gate. She says this with her head held high. We are awed at her optimism, her strong-heartedness and her determination.

Then we see the other side as well. We hear a mother talking about her youngest child Afia who was the dearest and most pampered among all her siblings ; a girl whose wealthy father got dressing material especially from Egypt that wouldn’t feel prickly on her tender skin ; a girl who grew into a academically genius student as well as a religious person who could promptly quote from the Quran and Ahadees. We hear her talk about a young Afia who did humanitarian work even in the US. And as she recalls the younger Afia this mother’s heart breaks and tears leak in front of the audience she talks to. She says that she indeed believes that her dear Afia will come back home to her but the thought of what horrible things are being done to her daughter right now … I just can’t put into words, sorry.

Putting this down here, feels horribly terrible to say the least. It makes me relive what Mrs. Siddiqi talked about. My heart bleeds right now as I uncontrollably weep imagining a woman being savagely tortured almost to death in a far off country away from her family in a cold cell.

Then perhaps the strongest thing after faith in Allah, that induces hope in me are the words of Dr. Afia’s mother.

‘Dekh layna jab woh ayaygi...’

(You will see, when she will come…)

I had written this the very night I came back from Dr. Afia’s mother’s residence on March 25, 2010. For those who don’t know, the Iqra Society at IBA had conducted a Guest Speaker Session with Miss Mariam Ridley who raised her voice about Dr. Afia. The session was attended by over 200 people at an announcement just a few hours prior to the event. Dr. Afia’s sister, Dr. Fauzia, kind as she is, invited the organizers of the event at dinner at her and her mother’s place as a token of appreciation for whatever little bit we contributed to the cause.

I want to go...

There are times when my life is all pink, purple, blue and red; everything glittery and glam. All my dreams turn into reality, I feel euphoric, I feel I am at the top of the world. Yet it feels something’s missing.

Then there are times I wish to find the missing thing out. I take a break out of my dreamy world. I go somewhere less plastic, somewhere more natural, somewhere I can breathe easily. Yet it feels something’s missing.

In pursuit of that something I go searching far and wide. I go to the crests and troughs, to extremes, to vacuums, to everywhere I can possibly exist. Yet it feels something’s missing.

Then I try out something I never had before. I try escaping from all that reminded me of that something in the first place. I feel euphoric again, but only for a while. The pinks and blues all turn into the blackest of blacks. All the illusions come crashing down. Something still misses.

And then my passage through delights, tours, journeys and escapades brings me where I find that something, where I can find Peace.

At my arrival there I wonder how thoughtless I had been never to have thought this place as my happy place before. There I rest in peace with no guilt of the past, no illusions of the present and no worries of the future.

Who am I?

I am a human.

I can do amazing things. I can do silly things. I can do cruel things.

I can invent life saving drugs. I can go and dance on the road now. I can kill an innocent child.

I have a friend, my conscience and an enemy, my nafs. They fight literally all the time. The winner gets to steer me.

I sometimes wonder – am I nothing on my own? Who am I?

Courtesy : www.scantours.net/_images/data/aurora_4.jpg

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Examiness at IBA!

Exam day at IBA is when everyone is found digging in their notes, books, etc. Some even dig others’ brains to get ‘summaries’ of what they have studied the entire term. Irrespective of whether the person is among those who pay attention to each and every word and pause of every teacher, among those who doze off in class because they know everything already, among those who know nothing yet slip out of the class to kill time with their friends in the shed or among some other group of people so wholly unconnected with me, every person tries to do something, something that would be directly benefiting him in the upcoming exam.

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But there are some (meaning me !) who you might even refuse to consider sane, who stop their last moment revising, cramming, whatever it is for a while, and attempt to admire the whole scenario. For some I know it may be a highly stressful period but yes, I think the sight is simply… beautiful! Beautiful from which angle? Well, I can’t explain how it is beautiful but I just think it just is. The way humans interact, hasten, learn, rote, question, panic, rush, all in such a brief amount of time is just fascinating to me.

Also, the duration in which we all take our exams in makes me feel funny for some reason. Each human in the classroom-turned-examination-hall has his sympathetic nervous system activated more strongly than before including the invigilators. Every single prick demands the attention of the poor humans under the torture of tormenting questions photocopied on pieces of recycled paper such as the biscuit wrapper’s cracking as the invigilator opens it, the clicking of ball point pens by those who think that doing so will make them come up with brilliant answers to questions they can not yet decipher and the clang produced by stationary items dropped on purpose as some signal to cheat perhaps (in the view of the watchmen). Lastly, and most importantly the voice, the proud and tall voice of ‘Sir, SHEET!’ raises not only the head of an average student but also his blood pressure, heartbeat, pulse and temperature and pumps adrenaline, cortisol in his veins resulting in an over exhausted poor little body in the end. Speaking in terms other than biological ones, an average student’s response to such an exclamation varies somewhere on a line on which lie hope, hopelessness, jealousy, longing, frustration, panic, resentment, focus and many other energies, in an order I know not.

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As for the moments after the exam, they are simply memorable. We see people complaining about the complexity of the questions asked, whining about how less time they had to answer them, questioning their friends about how they did it, reopening their notes to confirm what they had written was right, sometimes even resorting to the restroom and crying (yes, there was this girl who cried so hard after her microeconomics exam that her big round eyes grew larger and reminded me of Dobby’s tennis-ball-like-eyes!). After the exam however, things settle down irrespective of how well or bad they had gone in those 3 hours and life moves on.

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This may be a sight at not only at IBA but in fact everywhere where normal students exist. As for me, wherever I will see it sometime in the future, I shall remember my memories at the place, my four years at which flew by like four days.