“I’d love to hear the entire story”, insisted the stranger appreciating that we belonged to the same town. I switched on the projector inside my head, loaded up a dusty reel from the 1960s, and began:
“Once upon a time there lived a little boy who often visited Lahore's Anarkali bazaar, holding on to the corner of his mother's shirt; I was that boy. A permanent creature of those historic streets was a forty-something petite dark man with sunken eyes, who carried over a drooping shoulder, a transparent plastic bag full of potato chips packets.
No matter what medium they received education in; children never failed to identify from afar the brand name BABY CHIPS, printed in bold golden italics over each pack.
Acutely aware of their civil rights, young consumers routinely bent maternal willpower by using the fascist ‘final solution’ of rolling on the street in full public view, to clamour for nothing but chips. Deep into infantile collective consciousness had that lone merchant driven the nail of brand loyalty.
During late Saturday nights, with none of the anxiety of next day’s school, I questioned the lighted dots in the sky that I knew were twinkling stars and not diamonds: ‘How is it that children—no matter how sincerely they pray—can never summon the Baby Chips man, but somehow, he appears on his own at just the right moment? Is he a resident of a giant shoe-house? Are dedicated goblins doing all the chips-related chores? Is he in possession of a magical recipe that a good fairy stole back from a one-eyed genie?’
In pursuit of such impossible answers, when fragmented time turned into an eternal moment, Hypnos slickly lured me into dreamland. Once there, I would again find myself near the Anarkali toyshops, wanting everything on display, with mother insisting, ‘I did buy you that last time, did I not?’
Whether in dreamland or confronting stark reality, children’s squeals of ‘The Baby-chips man!’ always lit up the face of the smooth operator. I do not profess to know who named him that, but one thing is certain, he loved the epithet. Designed not to display nutritional information, expiry dates, or the manufacturer’s address, the Baby Chips packets were truly a blessing. We lived without ever being afraid of the demons of calories and cholesterol that haunt humanity today. Whatever the weather conditions, a mere sideways glance at the product activated our drool glands.
Not one to employ press advertising or TV-jingles, our man relied only on patent calls of 'Baaybeee—Baaybe Chips'.
Such was the myth of the man and his potato product that according to mother’s log, amidst a gathering of colourfully dressed aunts, the very first enchanting words I uttered as a boy of two were Bibi Tip. In baby language that unmistakably stood for Baby Chips. Until I was thirteen, those aunts teased me with cries of Bibi Tip to watch me blush like a bride. When I learnt the meaning of the word revenge, I happily ignored that few years’ difference in our ages, addressed them on first-name basis, and eradicated the word baji (elder sister) from my dictionary. Before love failed, my revenge crashed; they somehow adored the intimacy.
Faiz, our docile cook with ferocious moustaches, relieved mother of all chores associated with the preparation of food. With that taken care of, she had at her disposal all the time in the world to spend father’s hard-earned money on complicated necessities of life. She later made up for the loss of undivided attention by spoon-feeding us with what Faiz cooked. Regardless, I gratefully acknowledge as I stand today, the contribution mother made towards building my character mostly using bare hands.
There were two places where throwing tantrums sometimes just did not work. The first, in the dyers’ lane where men spun fabrics in large colour-filled cauldrons and young workers marched up and down to air-dry dupattas for a waiting clientele. The second, at the cloth merchant’s, where mother carried out swift quality-assessment of the latest chiffon or voile prints. My quiet incessant tugs at the side of her dress were always misconstrued as devilish attempts to test the tensile strength of the thread the tailor used. The idea was not to improve upon the sign language but draw mother’s kind attention to the miraculous manifestation of the Baby Chips angel.
Mother admitted defeat silently when the Baby Chips man neither moved away, nor ceased to shake the packets in his agile fingers. Then God removed the wrinkles on her forehead, turned all steam into ice crystals, and made her dig from a deep recess of the handbag the right amount of change. Holding four packets between five bony fingers, the magician then loosened the grip to let them fall like forbidden fruit into impatient little hands. Mother suspected that God always favoured children.
As mother looked on like a neutral peacekeeper, I handed over only one packet to a waiting younger sister. The other two packets became personal property since I had once heard father saying something about a male’s share being twice that of a female’s. Out of these two, one I consumed immediately to attain chips Nirvana. The third ‘standby ration’ packet catered to two possibilities: a giant meteorite from outer space hitting the planet, or mother extending her shopping spree. Since nothing from the heavens ever dared interfere with mother’s shopping, the quality of her zeal intuitively switched from missionary to mercenary mode. Although she never confessed, I had every reason to believe that ensuring the bazaar’s late closure was her covert mission. With the fourth packet still hidden from public view, clandestine snacking commenced as soon as I brushed my few teeth and went under the covers.
Mother’s snacking habits sometimes collided directly with our aims and ambitions, for upon running into a shopper-friend, she dutifully treated the entire party with Bano Bazaar's famous fruit-chaat. That exercise of the jaws served the secret purpose of keeping nagging children quiet—at least for a short while. The eight Anna Coca Cola neutralized the spicy chaat that hurt my sister’s throat, and the sugar-flavoured stomach gas kept both of us burping away for the remainder of the visit, during which, it was sinful to demand Baby Chips.”
“Go on, I’m all ears!” said my travel companion.
“Munching chips, time flew fast. Instead of a pendulum going tick-tuck, little soldiers marched away in our skulls: crunch-crunch-crunch-crunch. Lest a motherly inspection declared us ‘thankless imps’, the hungry soldiers left not even the tiny bits at the bottom of the packs. With a four Anna price tag, every packet was a treat worth kissing mother's hands endlessly for until Judgement Day, or the next trip to Anarkali, whichever came later.
These days mother shops alone at Anarkali in peace. ‘Nothing comes cheap’, she elaborates, ‘fruit-chaat costs Rupees twenty, and the man who once sold your beloved Baby Chips is probably dead. Your long-lasting English tin toys stand replaced by plastic rubbish that falls apart before one’s eyes. The buyers are vulgar and the shop-owners impolite; it's a different world my son.’ I always shake my head in full agreement with her maternal analysis since her fingers still remain firmly placed on the pulse of a bazaar named after a Mogul court-dancer, whereas my elitist shopping dance is restricted to a road named after a war-hero.”
The stranger in the airplane bound from Dubai to Lahore expected more but I cleared my throat to indicate that the story was finished. With a lowered face that avoided eye contact, he kept dusting invisible specks of dust off his sleeve. How grown men camouflage their tears.
A fidgety son, who said he was ten years old when I asked, accompanied the man. The pair was visiting Pakistan after an absence of a dozen years, coming ‘yeah, all the way from the US of A!’ In the son’s face was a trace of the father, but in the father’s face there lived a yet more familiar one.
Aboard the Pakistan International’s Jumbo jet, the pair showed extreme respect for the Muslim travel prayer, adored the scent of the young airhostess’s talcum powder, widened the nostrils to welcome the oily aroma of the food, and smiled at the cutlery. Perhaps overcome with excitement—if not pure emotion of the great homecoming—the boy appeared to swallow the cutlery instead of the food. The airline logo was suddenly worthier than any Italian designer label.
In order to gather basic intelligence, I questioned the boy, “So, what are you planning on doing in Lahore?”
“Have loads of fun, that’s for sure! See, I have lots of dollars”, he answered instantaneously, and produced wrinkled one-dollar banknotes from his pocket as proof.
“And, and, and my grandfather in Lahore isn’t feeling okay; I got lots of dollars for his medicines and stuff”, he elaborated.
“But what if someone steals your money?” I remarked teasingly.
“We have loads of dollars back home, don’t we dad?” he enquired shaking his father’s hand that held a spoon and which—registering EIGHT on Richter’s Scale—spilled all the beans on a napkin whose corner hung only symbolically from an open collar.
“Sorry, sorry dad—sorry, sorry dad—“, the boy became a turntable whose stylus failed to follow the desired track.
More out of embarrassment than anger for his son’s finely tuned money-sense, the father warned, “Okay, now put those dollars away before the airhostess aunty snatches them.”
The morally upright airhostess did nothing of the kind; she dutifully served the demanding boy his third canister of an iconic fizzy drink.
I reverted to the topic of chips, “What would today’s children do without carbonated drinks in disposable aluminium cans, and branded potato chips—those Lays or Pringles? In any case, today's chemical-loaded ‘real things’ compare poorly with what I tasted thirty-seven odd years ago in Anarkali.”
He smiled hiding his embarrassment, and which in turn embarrassed me.
As the airplane commenced descent, he attempted to release the pressure building up in the space between the ears—his brain—by suddenly admitting, “I’m returning to see my terminally ill father who toiled to see me educated at a foreign university.”
“Fetch me the passports please”, he then turned to his son.
“Which ones, U.S. or Paki?” he asked.
“All four; we’re American and Pakistani. And haven’t I told you not to use the word Paki in public?” rebuked the politically incorrect father.
“I hate these green Pakistani ones dad; why do they open the wrong way?” he minced the nationality hard.
“But I love them! There are no absolutes in life; right or wrong depends on which side you choose. We have everything; now stop asking silly questions”, explained the father while turning to ask the stewardess, “Don’t you have a painkiller for—?”
“Well, never mind”, he left the sentence hanging in mid-air.
The headlines inside his mind were easy to read now:
Pain of separation from children kills parents: Police clueless
Twin Citizenship Towers collapse: hundreds hurt, construction standards blamed
Alien surfer swept away by tide of success: soul discovered, body not found
One million sheep contract Exodus Syndrome: government blames greener grass of other side
Education Lab discovers cynical, luxury-loving, career-worshipping monkey
There was more but a hard landing interrupted the headlines. The stranger handed over an impressive business card that read: Vice President Quality Control, P&G Inc.
“What products do you deal with?” I queried, and he pointed at the cylindrical pack of Pringles whose contents filled both cheeks of a munching son.
“Dad can I get another drink?” the boy asked with complete innocence.
The fatigued father—exercising parental control—completely ignored the demand, and started to look out towards the parking area for someone. When my chauffer rang up to inform that a traffic jam held him back, the stranger offered to bring me home in his Pajero.
Sitting on the rear seat was a dark elderly man with a face distorted by paralysis. With a trembling bony hand, he pulled towards himself the little boy who he undoubtedly saw for the first time, and kissed him repeatedly on the forehead and cheeks. The boy judged the display of elderly eastern affection by purely modern standards, and despite his father’s best efforts, showed no sign of reciprocating.
The aged man magnanimously construed the coldness as shyness and repeatedly uttered a feeble but intelligible mantra of ‘Baaybeeee—Baaybe good boy’.
Disbelieving the tone of the word ‘baby’, I tossed and turned in bed for what undoubtedly was the longest night of my life.
A week too late, the phone rang. We spoke of trivial things for a while, and then he broke the news of the passing away of the dark old paralyzed face so full of affection: his father. “He died full of hope, and left under his pillow, a weather-beaten notebook that contained a magical recipe. He went peacefully, only a day after seeing not one but two ‘Baaybe good boys’, he said without camouflaging the sorrow in his voice.
A few months later—the acquaintance, now a friend—called from across the Atlantic to announce, “I’ve resigned at the multi-national food company, and I’m coming back to start my own brand of potato chips, if God so wills.”
God, in His infinite wisdom, withheld from me the pleasure of having the old man say his patent ‘Baaybeeee—Baaybe Chips’ just once to tickle these taste buds and transport me back in time to Anarkali bazaar.
It was my turn to observe a moment’s silence to dust something invisible off my sleeve. The friend on the phone knew how grown men camouflaged their tears.
Tahir Gul Hasan holds the copyrights to his work. Written permission of the author is required for reproducing or re-printing his work on any medium.
Friday, 30 October 2009
In Search Of Baby Chips
Jack of all tirades. Been delivering double antendre and firing saliva-less salvos since 2009 from the 'Land of the Pure',
The Wild Side Of The Mall
To remind the confused citizens what the nation went through in 1947, today every town in Pakistan has Shahrahs (main roads) named after only a handful of pre-partition personalities: Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah (founding father), Fatima Jinnah (founding father’s sister, erroneously called ‘madre millat’: mother of the nation’), Allama Muhammad Iqbal (Shai’r-e-Mashriq: poet of the East), and Liaqat Ali Khan (founding friend of the founding family). Very few dare ask about the whereabouts of the remnants of the founders’ families, or how a brother-sister duo metamorphosed into parents of this land of the pure; Pakistan zinda baad.
The fact is that no citizen worth his machine-readable green passport can actually pronounce the official names of these Shahrahs and Khayabans correctly in their entirety—a sad state of affairs indeed—given the efforts that go into the formation of unpopular policies. The public continues to use pre-partition farangi names because, being concise, they slip off wagging tongues easily to nostalgically remind us of the British Raj days.
They changed the name of The Mall Road of Lahore to Shahrah-e-Quaid-e-Azam years ago. I was too young then to object that if one must use the title of ‘Quaid’ (rhymes with Kuwait), it must be spelled Qai’d. And since old habits never die, I will—with a cynical smile—call the lifeline of Lahore by its old name: The Mall.
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| Masjid-e-Shuhuda, The Mall, Lahore |
The Mall and the mosque are only two sides of this love-hate triangle. The third one is the Civil Lines police station where uniformed men await—only at stone-throw distance from Masjid-e-Shuhada—to display the sole talent they possess: to expertly crack open human skulls with humble bamboo batons. It is rumoured that the only question an interviewee need answer correctly during the selection interview is: did your father beat up on you as a child? If the answer comes in an affirmative, the recruit is immediately selected to dish out the same treatment to the rotten eggs of society, all without the added expense of specialised training.
When my father was young he could take a quiet tonga-ride on The Mall without blackening the face with pollution; of course, the sole risk of having dried horse-dung irritate his paternal eyes was always there. Back then, instead of the noisy rickshaw, all one heard was the tonga-wallah's commentary on the latest political turmoil, accompanied rhythmically by the clang of horseshoes on imperfect roads, and interrupted musically by the ringing of bicycle bells. All the man did to make the lean animal gallop faster was produce a staccato kukk-kukk sound with distorted lips, threaten it with a circular motion of the horse-whip, and merrily one went past the motorised sahib bahadurs.
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| The Land-Cruiser of the public |
By contrast, in my youth, motorised silencer-less Japanese two-wheelers became the preferred means of riding into imaginary sunsets. While we boys had 80, 100, or a maximum of 175 cc motorcycles, the law wielded six to eight times the horse power. The rudimentary survival strategy on The Mall was: avoid the strict traffic sergeants. Whenever they indulged in a chase—as if cutting us down to size with their monstrous Harley Davidsons—there was nothing the offices of our respective fathers could do. That was true rule of awe.
Historically, survival on The Mall has always depended on various factors; take it from someone who has spent years living near the thandi sarak (cool road) of Lahore. In the present age, if either one’s timing is wrong or one sports a beard, one may end up taking a ride in a police car to the nearest vacation spot—located across the Plaza cinema hall—the dreaded Civil Lines police station. The populace knew that those on duty at the Civil Lines never spoke politely nor asked one to have a seat for doodh-patti and biscuits from a cheap bakery. There was nothing civil in their demeanour formed by hurling insults at the scum of society destined to swing to Jailhouse Rock in the lockup.
The only way to retain one’s self-respect was to respectfully avoid even having eye-contact with these esteemed government functionaries, for to ogle at them was to court nothing but unadulterated trouble.
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| Mad as hell or heaven? |
One will eventually reach The Mall whether approaching from Hall Road with its blaring loudspeaker noise, via the narrow Beadon Road, through Lawrence Road of Maula Buksh Paan Shop fame, or through Temple Road where yours truly resided. In a way, it is like going to Rome as all roads lead to The Mall. But it happened on 24 September 1998 when my poor accident-prone Osama look-alike friend Karam Dad Khan—affectionately called K.D.—drifted from the straight path of The Mall.
SSP (Sipah-e-Sahabah: the army of the companions), whose secret aim as an organization must be to reduce our population to a manageable number, recently lost four valuable souls during a sectarian rivalry tournament. After the body count, the SSP called on the membership to gather for a strong protest at the famous Masjid-e-Shuhuda. The police got wind of the plan and, with a surprisingly smart manoeuvre, made history for their sense of humour in the national press. This is the true story of their happy reaction.
Before proceeding further, there is one more location I must introduce to those not born in Lahore: Lawrence Gardens. This beautiful location on The Mall, now called—you guessed it—Bagh-e-Jinnah is a symbol of undying love to luckless lower class couples. On 24 September 1998, the law sent fifty bearded policemen in plain clothes to join the SSP protesters at this amorous location. Posing as SSP Lahore chapter members, they lured the unruly mob towards the charming Lawrence Gardens for a bit of judicial romance. Once there, an overcome SSP membership found the iron hand of law stuffing them into police vehicles for a joyride to the nearby Civil Lines. In the meantime, the police combed buses approaching Lahore from far-flung areas and turned hotels near the Lahore railway station upside down in their search of SSP-supporters heading for The Mall.
At 11:45 a.m. the innings reached its zenith when the SSP protesters realized that the balls were—metaphorically speaking—tampered. But they did not go quietly, and despite a baton-charge, bravely pelted stones that re-arranged the tastelessly decorated glass showcases of The Mall shops. This activity forced the police to retreat temporarily and call for an early lunch break. The force returned shortly thereafter—toothpicks visible—with a fresh supply of tear-gas shells. In the ensuing battle, the residents and nearby school students received a free dose of the gas. The SSP protesters—wet handkerchiefs in hand—scaled the mosque's walls as victors, while the law followed—with boots on—and lovingly baton-charged them inside God’s house. That morning, the Lord indeed chose to move in subtle ways.
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| The police 'giving it to them' |
Regular traffic—always a mess— remained suspended at The Mall till 4:15 p.m. on that fateful day of September. Shop-owners, fed up with the damaging nuisance, pulled down shutters and headed home to kick pet dogs, abuse wives, and thrash the children for imaginary disobedience. When business is bad, fathers do lose all composure.
To add more to the comedy, the SSP protesters played their final trick: they accompanied a fake funeral procession from Anarkali Bazaar. An old man volunteered to lie down on a rented funeral cot after he was promised that if he died in police custody, the sacrifice would entitle him to an allotment of a plot of unimaginable dimensions in heaven.
Efficient informers of the Special Branch out-manoeuvred the fake funeral, and thus it all came to naught when the police intercepted the mob that insisted on offering the funeral prayers at (you guessed it again) Masjid-e-Shuhuda. Amidst ear-shattering slogans and verbal insults justifiably hurled at the rulers, the protesters suddenly found themselves surrounded by the law. They had seen riot police in battle regalia before but not with grins over their faces; something was not right in the state of Denmark.
Then all hell broke loose, a severe baton charge followed, and more tomato ketchup oozed out of the skulls of SSP protesters to flow over God's green earth. The fake dead man, wrapped in a white burial sheet, wasted no time in taking to his heels. Normally, tear-gas shelling alone made Lahorites cry; this time they shed additional tears induced by laughter at the sight of a dead man escaping a police baton-charge. The moral of the story for that day was: even dead men take to their heels at the sight of Lahore police.
The police, for the first time, took photographs and paw-prints of activists. A video film was also shot to help identify future repeat-offenders. The police blamed the SSP leadership for failing to guarantee a peaceful protest. In turn, the SSP leadership mercilessly cursed them for taking un-Islamic photographs for recordkeeping.
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| The 'law' will always bite at your protesting tail |
Miraculously, Karam Dad Khan—good for him—entirely missed the cruel party at The Mall. I brought the shaken soul home after arranging for his bail, and after an early dinner followed by tea, I asked him to reveal the torture marks of a real man. Disappointingly he had not a single love-mark or police tattoo on his entire hairless torso. My mother asked K.D. if he wished he had no beard. “My beard surely got me in trouble auntie but during interrogation, when I thundered, ‘my name is K.D. Khan, don’t you know who I am?’ the sub-inspector became respectful. This time we all laughed until more tears flowed out of our eyes.
And there remains till this day, no doubt in our collective consciousness that the threat of ‘don’t you know who I am?’ always works in this Land of the Pure.
Tahir Gul Hasan holds the copyrights to his work. Written permission of the author is required for reproducing or re-printing his work on any medium. This article was originally printed in the daily DAWN newspaper.
Tongawalla photo by APP/Dawn
Masjid-e-Shuhada photo
Jack of all tirades. Been delivering double antendre and firing saliva-less salvos since 2009 from the 'Land of the Pure',
Uncle Sam Talking in His Sleep
Let us take a look at assorted pearls of wisdom from the U.S. State Department.
The U.S. State Department--never weary of issuing statements for the well-being of its citizens--is in a bizarre state these days. Moreover, our Motherland’s beloved military rulers might one day emulate its style of issuing motherly cautions to American travellers. Since Uncle Sam ‘moveth in mysterious ways’--much like the Lord Himself--we will examine closely in this article what those ways are.
Modern tourism--meaning unstoppable adventurism in foreign lands--takes American citizens to far-flung corners of the globe, almost like peanut butter spreading thinly over a slice of white bread. Unaware of the true dimensions of the chaos created by the policies of their government, American travellers regularly receive larger doses of advisories from U.S embassies and consulates. The notifications have legal ramifications, for if the American citizens are not advised well ahead of possible unrests brewing in foreign lands, the State Department can face much complaining in the shape of suits of the legal kind.
What wonderful sameness, last week was just like any other week here! In a local English daily of Pakistan, appeared yet more pearls of wisdom issued to American travellers by the U.S. State Department.
1) ‘Don’t act like Americans, or show behaviour typical of Americans’ was the mother of all warnings. Just yesterday, on my way back from the Federal capital of Islamabad, I was able to spot all the Americans aboard the airplane as easily as spotting close relatives. When questioned about the travel advisories, the fair-skinned men dressed in Shalwar Qameez suits and Chitrali caps admitted that asking a leopard to have its spots dry-cleaned was the State Department’s cruellest joke.
Not a single American can change his or her behaviour at the flick of a switch, or by inserting a new chip into his brain, unless he has been to the Cuban concentration camps where Uncle Sam organises group therapy sessions for alleged terrorists. Not even a massive Truth Injection in the rearmost fatty part the anatomy--for the want of a better place--can make an American change what is indeed a part of his indoctrination since childhood.
2) ‘Avoid behaviour that could cause you to be singled out as obviously Americans’, the State Department explained further. Obviously, Daniel Pearl is being referred to here; the Wall Street correspondent who literally went to pieces in Pakistan, and who was singled out when unable to camouflage his unique American identity. The more one hides, the more revealing one becomes; I wish they would explain this fact to tabletop dancers across America as well.
3) ‘Don’t wear white socks, and tennis shoes’, the Department stated the obvious. Let us tackle this one by first referring to an historic event.
Alexander of Macedon, who some claim was Great, insisted on making Persia his private property. When Darius I, the Persian king, heard of this, he had a ball and mallet sent to the youthful invader, insinuating that ‘playing games would suit his young age and lack of experience better than war.’ Alexander replied, “The ball is the earth and I am the mallet.” The overt reference was to the game of Polo.
That the thoughts of the State Department and Alexander are remarkably similar need not shock anyone; we have all grown up watching international conflicts on television in the very comfort of our living rooms. It is economic acumen when one government insists on treating the whole world as a ball while imagining itself an unbreakable mallet. Considering that nations have risen and then consigned to history, such delusions of grandeur are perfectly forgivable, but to indulge in conquering while wearing tennis shoes and white sports socks reflects poorly on the American idea of high fashion.
In any case, gauging a government from the kind of socks and shoes it encourages its citizens to wear remains a trait of European foreign policy right down to the present day. The international dress code is in danger as more and more American delegates flout U.N. rules by wearing cowboy scarves and torn jeans in order to romantically drive home a point if not their girlfriends. As of this writing, the United Nations Organisation is hotly debating why the Americans must love their apparel to death.
In the light of the directives issued thus far by the State Department, it is, therefore, a major shift in the living habits of Americans is entirely unjustified. If not tennis shoes and white socks, what will my American friends wear--crocodile-skin cowboy boots from Texas, wooden sandals made my Buddhist monks, or Peshawari chappals?
4) ‘Don’t complain if asked to share a bathroom’. As for their obsession with bathrooms, which they call washrooms, Americans are justified in spending nearly half of their lives in that space. How can they ever imagine sharing it with others, least of all foreigners who love eating raw garlic? Again, the State Department has misunderstood the living style of Americans. A washroom has already been defined by the architects of Disneyland as ‘a space where one may--not necessarily in this order--read newspapers, sort junk mail, prepare business plans, smoke in order to relax anal muscles, order pizza, and then repeat the routine at least one more time just to be sure.’
Washrooms are un-shareable with aliens even if the rest of the Third World got rid of lotas, and dictators--interchangeable terms really. The cooperating government of Pakistan edging rapidly closer to the day when it will proudly announce that American paper policies can also be safely used as toilet paper. Our washing habits will never be the same.
5) ‘Never threaten to sue over bad service, bad television reception, or the weather’. As for suing, all my American friends thrive on lawsuits if not Italian suits. Suing is the second biggest business after a business, which they claim is beyond compare: show business. It is un-American to spend an entire day without uttering ‘you’ll hear from my lawyer’. Users of the popular phrase readily admit that it carries tremendous weight when shouted within the hearing distance of an entire neighbourhood. Of course, there is at least one lawyer available in every locality and quite ready to serve the needy.
It is a fact that the average American has spent nearly ten thousand hours watching television by the time he is thirteen. Television is mom and dad, an alluring goddess worth worshipping, an awe-inspiring Big Brother. An American threatening to sue a hotel for poor television reception ought not to surprise any self-respecting establishment. If a hotel cannot receive all uselessness channels perfectly, it has no business being in business.
It’s time now for a short emotional break; don’t go away We’ll be right back after Bruce Springsteen’s eerie song: Fifty-seven channels and nothing on
That being the nature of the television beast; does one take God to court for bad weather? Can one get rid of the pests and flies of the Third World by threatening to sue the peoples or the poor debt-ridden governments? The State Department of America has it all upside down. Tell an American he cannot litigate and he will surely suffocate, after first serving one with a finely printed legal notice.
6) ‘Make complete and up to date inventories of household effects’. American trashcans prove that paperwork has broken the back of an average citizen. And when paper-shredding happens to be the fastest-growing religion, having citizens maintain useless inventories of household effects is an exercise in futility, an attempt to keep them obsessed with personal belongings. One can safely label such warnings as over-reacting to scenarios portrayed in movies about alien conquests. Contrary to popular belief, it does not even seem remotely possible that Saddam Hussein plans to destroy America’s proudest weapons of cultural destruction: torn jeans, white socks, and smelly sneakers.
7) ‘Maintain adequate supply of food, water, and necessary medications in regions of political unrest’. The average American abroad need not worry once he has filled his refrigerator with the kind of tin-canned balanced diet highly recommended by the State Department. Travellers will now be condemned to reading nutritional information printed over packs instead of reciting the Holy Bible.
8) ‘Keep a car in good working condition with a tank full of gasoline’. As for automobiles, good Americans folks love their cars. They can eat and sleep in them, will shampoo them, and may talk with them while asleep. To insinuate that their tanks are empty is adding low-octane fuel to a raging fire--metaphorically speaking. Their tanks are always full--just in case the State department, at a short notice, asked them to drive into the sunset without getting a speeding ticket.
The oilmen ruling Washington have guaranteed the American public that while the street-urchins may eat out of garbage-bins, their car-tanks will remain forever full of cheap gasoline freshly pumped from the Persian and Arabian wells. The world’s oil belongs to America until the commodity and the patience of lesser nations runs out. American soldiers would rather die and be posthumously decorated than believe the war is about oil.
Alexander--let us affectionately call him Alex--must be turning in his grave. He died in an unhappy death in Babylon, Iraq. The Americans insist they must conquer the ancient land in order to place over Alex’s memorial a large wreath. Saddam insists on an express delivery of the wreath by the courier service of his choice. Good couriers are hard to come by these days. Who can one trust with a wreath from Washington--Richard Nixon?
All governments lie to varying extents, Uncle Sam being no exception. The reason the entire globe feels the pain is because the great American finger, instead of staying comfortably inside its own bleeding nose, is poking into dangerous nostrils while singing the tune of freedom, restoration of democracy, and free-market economy.
Having finished this piece yesterday evening, I visited my barber for the usual. I threw my head back and asked for a massage of the upper storey, the epicentre of pain. I must emphasize that barbers of the East are unlettered sages who can perform circumcision, cut hair, and cook exceptionally well. Mine, as he poured mustard-seed oil over the remains of what was once a thick forest of hair, remarked philosophically, “Sir jee, Amreeka wants our oil. It needs a good maalish too.”
It struck the right chord. The entire population of the salon burst out laughing as the implication was that the country in question deserved a Divine Thrashing. I cared little about agreeing verbally with my barber because the massage automatically shook my head in a manner that appeared to convey, “Yes, yes, yes.” Moreover, the heads of the rest of the customers, much like mine, shook in agreement in exactly the same way.
One man’s dream is another man’s nightmare. The Red man, the Black man, and the Yellow man have all paid dearly for the American Dream. Is it now the Brown man’s turn to bow his head and quietly become a part of the sacrificial queue?
I left the salon dreading what a swift retribution might be like if a powerful nation continued trying the patience of the Greatest Superpower--God Almighty.
Tahir Gul Hasan holds the copyrights to his work. Written permission of the author is required for reproducing or re-printing his work on any medium.
The U.S. State Department--never weary of issuing statements for the well-being of its citizens--is in a bizarre state these days. Moreover, our Motherland’s beloved military rulers might one day emulate its style of issuing motherly cautions to American travellers. Since Uncle Sam ‘moveth in mysterious ways’--much like the Lord Himself--we will examine closely in this article what those ways are.
Modern tourism--meaning unstoppable adventurism in foreign lands--takes American citizens to far-flung corners of the globe, almost like peanut butter spreading thinly over a slice of white bread. Unaware of the true dimensions of the chaos created by the policies of their government, American travellers regularly receive larger doses of advisories from U.S embassies and consulates. The notifications have legal ramifications, for if the American citizens are not advised well ahead of possible unrests brewing in foreign lands, the State Department can face much complaining in the shape of suits of the legal kind.
What wonderful sameness, last week was just like any other week here! In a local English daily of Pakistan, appeared yet more pearls of wisdom issued to American travellers by the U.S. State Department.
1) ‘Don’t act like Americans, or show behaviour typical of Americans’ was the mother of all warnings. Just yesterday, on my way back from the Federal capital of Islamabad, I was able to spot all the Americans aboard the airplane as easily as spotting close relatives. When questioned about the travel advisories, the fair-skinned men dressed in Shalwar Qameez suits and Chitrali caps admitted that asking a leopard to have its spots dry-cleaned was the State Department’s cruellest joke.
Not a single American can change his or her behaviour at the flick of a switch, or by inserting a new chip into his brain, unless he has been to the Cuban concentration camps where Uncle Sam organises group therapy sessions for alleged terrorists. Not even a massive Truth Injection in the rearmost fatty part the anatomy--for the want of a better place--can make an American change what is indeed a part of his indoctrination since childhood.
2) ‘Avoid behaviour that could cause you to be singled out as obviously Americans’, the State Department explained further. Obviously, Daniel Pearl is being referred to here; the Wall Street correspondent who literally went to pieces in Pakistan, and who was singled out when unable to camouflage his unique American identity. The more one hides, the more revealing one becomes; I wish they would explain this fact to tabletop dancers across America as well.
3) ‘Don’t wear white socks, and tennis shoes’, the Department stated the obvious. Let us tackle this one by first referring to an historic event.
Alexander of Macedon, who some claim was Great, insisted on making Persia his private property. When Darius I, the Persian king, heard of this, he had a ball and mallet sent to the youthful invader, insinuating that ‘playing games would suit his young age and lack of experience better than war.’ Alexander replied, “The ball is the earth and I am the mallet.” The overt reference was to the game of Polo.
That the thoughts of the State Department and Alexander are remarkably similar need not shock anyone; we have all grown up watching international conflicts on television in the very comfort of our living rooms. It is economic acumen when one government insists on treating the whole world as a ball while imagining itself an unbreakable mallet. Considering that nations have risen and then consigned to history, such delusions of grandeur are perfectly forgivable, but to indulge in conquering while wearing tennis shoes and white sports socks reflects poorly on the American idea of high fashion.
In any case, gauging a government from the kind of socks and shoes it encourages its citizens to wear remains a trait of European foreign policy right down to the present day. The international dress code is in danger as more and more American delegates flout U.N. rules by wearing cowboy scarves and torn jeans in order to romantically drive home a point if not their girlfriends. As of this writing, the United Nations Organisation is hotly debating why the Americans must love their apparel to death.
In the light of the directives issued thus far by the State Department, it is, therefore, a major shift in the living habits of Americans is entirely unjustified. If not tennis shoes and white socks, what will my American friends wear--crocodile-skin cowboy boots from Texas, wooden sandals made my Buddhist monks, or Peshawari chappals?
4) ‘Don’t complain if asked to share a bathroom’. As for their obsession with bathrooms, which they call washrooms, Americans are justified in spending nearly half of their lives in that space. How can they ever imagine sharing it with others, least of all foreigners who love eating raw garlic? Again, the State Department has misunderstood the living style of Americans. A washroom has already been defined by the architects of Disneyland as ‘a space where one may--not necessarily in this order--read newspapers, sort junk mail, prepare business plans, smoke in order to relax anal muscles, order pizza, and then repeat the routine at least one more time just to be sure.’
Washrooms are un-shareable with aliens even if the rest of the Third World got rid of lotas, and dictators--interchangeable terms really. The cooperating government of Pakistan edging rapidly closer to the day when it will proudly announce that American paper policies can also be safely used as toilet paper. Our washing habits will never be the same.
5) ‘Never threaten to sue over bad service, bad television reception, or the weather’. As for suing, all my American friends thrive on lawsuits if not Italian suits. Suing is the second biggest business after a business, which they claim is beyond compare: show business. It is un-American to spend an entire day without uttering ‘you’ll hear from my lawyer’. Users of the popular phrase readily admit that it carries tremendous weight when shouted within the hearing distance of an entire neighbourhood. Of course, there is at least one lawyer available in every locality and quite ready to serve the needy.
It is a fact that the average American has spent nearly ten thousand hours watching television by the time he is thirteen. Television is mom and dad, an alluring goddess worth worshipping, an awe-inspiring Big Brother. An American threatening to sue a hotel for poor television reception ought not to surprise any self-respecting establishment. If a hotel cannot receive all uselessness channels perfectly, it has no business being in business.
It’s time now for a short emotional break; don’t go away We’ll be right back after Bruce Springsteen’s eerie song: Fifty-seven channels and nothing on
That being the nature of the television beast; does one take God to court for bad weather? Can one get rid of the pests and flies of the Third World by threatening to sue the peoples or the poor debt-ridden governments? The State Department of America has it all upside down. Tell an American he cannot litigate and he will surely suffocate, after first serving one with a finely printed legal notice.
6) ‘Make complete and up to date inventories of household effects’. American trashcans prove that paperwork has broken the back of an average citizen. And when paper-shredding happens to be the fastest-growing religion, having citizens maintain useless inventories of household effects is an exercise in futility, an attempt to keep them obsessed with personal belongings. One can safely label such warnings as over-reacting to scenarios portrayed in movies about alien conquests. Contrary to popular belief, it does not even seem remotely possible that Saddam Hussein plans to destroy America’s proudest weapons of cultural destruction: torn jeans, white socks, and smelly sneakers.
7) ‘Maintain adequate supply of food, water, and necessary medications in regions of political unrest’. The average American abroad need not worry once he has filled his refrigerator with the kind of tin-canned balanced diet highly recommended by the State Department. Travellers will now be condemned to reading nutritional information printed over packs instead of reciting the Holy Bible.
8) ‘Keep a car in good working condition with a tank full of gasoline’. As for automobiles, good Americans folks love their cars. They can eat and sleep in them, will shampoo them, and may talk with them while asleep. To insinuate that their tanks are empty is adding low-octane fuel to a raging fire--metaphorically speaking. Their tanks are always full--just in case the State department, at a short notice, asked them to drive into the sunset without getting a speeding ticket.
The oilmen ruling Washington have guaranteed the American public that while the street-urchins may eat out of garbage-bins, their car-tanks will remain forever full of cheap gasoline freshly pumped from the Persian and Arabian wells. The world’s oil belongs to America until the commodity and the patience of lesser nations runs out. American soldiers would rather die and be posthumously decorated than believe the war is about oil.
Alexander--let us affectionately call him Alex--must be turning in his grave. He died in an unhappy death in Babylon, Iraq. The Americans insist they must conquer the ancient land in order to place over Alex’s memorial a large wreath. Saddam insists on an express delivery of the wreath by the courier service of his choice. Good couriers are hard to come by these days. Who can one trust with a wreath from Washington--Richard Nixon?
All governments lie to varying extents, Uncle Sam being no exception. The reason the entire globe feels the pain is because the great American finger, instead of staying comfortably inside its own bleeding nose, is poking into dangerous nostrils while singing the tune of freedom, restoration of democracy, and free-market economy.
Having finished this piece yesterday evening, I visited my barber for the usual. I threw my head back and asked for a massage of the upper storey, the epicentre of pain. I must emphasize that barbers of the East are unlettered sages who can perform circumcision, cut hair, and cook exceptionally well. Mine, as he poured mustard-seed oil over the remains of what was once a thick forest of hair, remarked philosophically, “Sir jee, Amreeka wants our oil. It needs a good maalish too.”
It struck the right chord. The entire population of the salon burst out laughing as the implication was that the country in question deserved a Divine Thrashing. I cared little about agreeing verbally with my barber because the massage automatically shook my head in a manner that appeared to convey, “Yes, yes, yes.” Moreover, the heads of the rest of the customers, much like mine, shook in agreement in exactly the same way.
One man’s dream is another man’s nightmare. The Red man, the Black man, and the Yellow man have all paid dearly for the American Dream. Is it now the Brown man’s turn to bow his head and quietly become a part of the sacrificial queue?
I left the salon dreading what a swift retribution might be like if a powerful nation continued trying the patience of the Greatest Superpower--God Almighty.
Tahir Gul Hasan holds the copyrights to his work. Written permission of the author is required for reproducing or re-printing his work on any medium.
Jack of all tirades. Been delivering double antendre and firing saliva-less salvos since 2009 from the 'Land of the Pure',
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