Phantom, Saif Ali khan, and Pakistan..

Saif Ali khan gives a controversial statement about having no faith in Pakistan (its funny though, he lives in a country where Modi is PM) but this is how whe have reacted so far:

Faisal Qureshi made a whole video and called anyone who opposed or criticised it an anti-Pakistani.

Hamza Ali Abbasi showed saif how his own country is the one he shouldn't have faith in.

Marwa Hocane tried to support the movie on humanitarian basis and whole twitter called her a slutt.

 Shaan jumped into melee and asked for a ban on Mawra Honcane.

And Pakistan has banned all Saif Ali Khan movies forever.

Do you see the point Saif Ali Khan made?

Lazy policy making

Why would government thrash privte schools for decreasing their fees? They are self employed, they can charge whatever they want. Apply this logic and govt will come to boutiques, salons, clinics, hospitals and any self made business soon. Would Shahbaz Sharif please stop for a moment and see whats going on in his own government schools? No one cares for kids, teachers are only interested in their monthly pays and administrators don't even show their faces for months. Children lack basic facilities and training, let alone advanced stage pedagody. If government institutes had a reasonable education system, private one would never have gained this much power. People prefer an ordinary two roomed private school in a street over a spacious government school with large, however, incapable staff. With this situation, you can whip the owners to control their fee raises but poor kids will still be out of the schools and educated Pakistan will be a pipe-dream because your policies are rot and superficial.

A place to find myself again

Written on 28th July, 2015.

I came back from Kashmir yesterday. I had plan to write small notes but it was so beautiful that I almost forgot everything. Never in my life I have felt this peaceful. Life was serene, adventurous and happy at same time. Kashmiris are poor. Muzaffarabad shows signs of progress but remote areas don't have anything nearly equal to what we call progress. No communication system works there. My expensive iPhone was a piece of junk there. Life exists in extremely raw form. Greenery, mountains, pines, butterflies, ducks, chickens, children everything seems like a fairytale. It felt like a virgin land untouched by anyone. When lightening strikes at a midnight, it feels like dawn has set upon this piece of heaven before the rest of the world. Sun comes up with its glory, awakening the mighty mountains. Those pines trees, mountains and streams are epitome of awe-inspiring randomness of nature. But silence lingers there like death. It has a peace which surpasses life and reaches to death. Water of waterfalls is so clear that I thought it was milk coming down through mountains. 

Now I know where to go when I've to write a book, or I'm broken. That's the place for me. That's the place to find myself again. 

State vs Doctors

Every time a voice is raised about doctors being on strike for their demands, people throw this argument "State paid for your education and you got that degree free in public medical college so pay back to state by working". Yes I do agree doctors leaving this country for residencies abroad is a serious problem at hand, but can we just stop getting this paying back to state shit?
Medical students earn this public sector education ticket by competing with a sea of candidates and passing through abhorrent examination system (whatever rot system it is, they survived). Now when they work hard to get a degree, and go to hospitals why do you expect them to work for free? Most of them are above 25 by then and they have a family to raise and some are only bread earners so If you tell me they have to pay it back to state by working day and night at the cost of a miserable financial status, don't expect me to take this bullshit. State has a responsibility to give us incentives not vice versa. Majority young doctors are forced to do their residencies unpaid. So if they move abroad for a better future just because govt is so darn ignorant about their needs, don't blame them. Get your lazy ass beurocrates to make logical policies based on actual research and sound practical grounds. Stop throwing this pay back to state non-sense every time someone asks for his right. Otherwise, every professional degree is free in public sectors so go on, confiscate salary for every person who has earned his educational credentials from public sector and lets see if they have that "jazba of ghareeb madad" you slap on face of a doctor.

My institute is suffocating...

I wrote this post on 7th June, 2015 and wanted to post it on my college blog, but my seniors told me it wasn't a good idea. I could get in unnecessary trouble for it. 
Three years back when I got into SIMS I felt myself luckiest for being at a right place. It had nearly everything I dreamed of in a medical institution. A bunch of societies arranging extra circular activities, talented seniors and a healthy interaction. This ambiance helped neutralising frustration inflicted by anatomy department every week in the form of substage. The whole time, we spent in college, had something happening going on. I even remember a small celebration of valentine day in the cafe and a vigorous minute to win it session for charity purposes. In short life was fun and I used to feel proud that SIMS had a flavour which other medical colleges lacked. It was a place where creativity was appreciated and diversity was cherished. But in last two years, we have seen a paradigm shift. Some radical platforms have also entered into the scene and I feel students are getting one dimensional in their views, but let's leave it for some other day.
The reason I'm writing this piece is a recent incident where our vice principle took a strict action on a dress code of female students. Apparently, all other departments have requested her to do something about unreasonable attire practised by female  students because when they get into the hospital, people pass obnoxious comments. She lectured students and next day, actually debarred those who were wearing tights or jeans and that too with a long shirt because apparently jeans and tights are no more allowed. Is it only me or your jaw has also dropped on the floor? Yeah, it happened in a professional institute and a uniform might be introduced constituting loose shalwar and long shirts. Until now, this menace is limited to junior classes only but who knows it may be a beginning. Now, my point is what kind of unreasonable attire are they worried about because frankly I have never seen anyone wearing a mini-skirt here.  Plus calling students in office and castigating them if they are not Muslims, is outright intrusive. What if someone is from any other religion? This is a professional institute for gods sake and people here are no Montessori kids. Majority females wear hijab or dupatta, yes, the majority does and even if someone doesn't, it is not on authorities to enforce them. 
Everyone has a right to dress up the way they want. If authorities want to make sure proper dress code, it should be limited to our white coats. Make them mandatory, enforce students to wear them, debar them on this behalf but making them cry for slits in their shirts is not something we deem rational. Putting pupils in right direction is part of pedagogy, and guiding them towards a proper dress code is not an issue, but what does it prove when there are no instructions for male students on dress code notice plastered in the college? The tragic part is students think all that happened was justified, but god knows on what logical grounds. People might not agree with my opinion so whatever floats their boats but I, for one, don't think female students need to be whipped into modest dressing because they are already careful about it. Teach us ethics and put us in the right direction but keep a neutral environment because it was once the essence of SIMS. Last year some students were fined in NUST for wearing jeans and we saw an outrage in social media, portraying it as talibanisation of institute. I don't expect such outrage, but at least people need to understand it is unacceptable. Tolerating dissent and appreciating diversity is what we need to promote here, but such incidents do nothing more than stripping the institute from its versatility. Period. 

Flowers and Locusts

A huge child abuse scandal has surfaced in Kasur, a small city of Punjab. Some perpetrators had this atrocious, horrible, dark (and God knows no words can explain that heinous crime) business of abusing children sexually, raping them and making their videos. They sell these videos on porn websites and blackmail victim's parents for money. 280 children have been falling to prey since 2006, but their parents were too scared to come out because ghairat brigade of our society never gets tired of feeding on  other's sufferings. 

Does it tremble you to the core? Because if it doesn't, something is extremely wrong with your humanity meter.

This incident has raised serious questions on the part of authorities, lawmakers, police, even the common public. Accept it or not! our mistakes  have led those poor kids to that hole of darkness, which will suffocate their inner-self to death till their lives end. Those perpetrators have inflicted scars on their souls, but no one will hold them accountable because that is what always happens in our country. 

While civil society protests and demands justice, our law-makers find out that we have no legislation or policy for dealing with such crimes. I guess they had assumed that no Muslim would ever dare to commit such crime in a country whom Pakistanis never get tired of  proclaiming as a fort of Islam. Marvi Memon had presented a paper about this in 2006, but it's still waiting deliberation in our so-called democratic assembly. Police has been showing a usual attitude of oh-its-just-another-case. Politicians come on TV screens, utter a few words and bury their heads in the sand again. Some reports even say that PML-N politicians of that area, are involved in this so they are busy in covering their own asses with their nonsensical justifications. And public! Oh my holier than thou public. All those who scream on top of their throats on atrocities in Palestine and Burma are dead silent. Yes, the silence of death. And I don't see  those, distributing flyers, either who had made a whole fuss about Haya day on valentines day. It explains a lot about our messed-up-and-never-getting-straight priorities. And another thing which doesn't cease to amaze me is that how blatantly we call India as "rapistaan" without even glimpsing our own backyard. Simply, we are either too busy to consider it deserves our attention or just don't believe that it's happening here. And let's not forget the possibility of assuming that those children had invited all this by showing skin because in our dictionary that's the cause of rape at first place. These kids have long suffered because of our victim shaming, our deeply messed up humanity standards and illogical honour issues. And they will continue facing it because of our silence and sweeping such topic under rugs.  This is how we have shared this crime. This is how we have become locusts eating those flowers. 

Sexual abuse exists, it's rampant and it's feeding on souls of our children. It happens everywhere, in streets, schools, madrassas, work-places and your denial won't mask its existence. So, give yourself a humanity check. Condemn it, condemn it as much as you can, and at least raise your voice because it does make a difference. Wake up you slumbered nation! And save your kids. Because we are still in a state of mourning and lightening candles for those who lost their lives on 16th December, just because we were too egoistic to challenge our opinions. 

My Take On Azadi March

http://blogs.arynews.tv/no-to-revolution/