Change? What Change?

There is an anticipation of change in the air. Analysts, politicians, ordinary citizens, the old and the young are all certain that change is eminent. Expectations of a political reform are at an all time high. People have started to believe that there is a possibility of reclaiming their land from the clutches of corruption. But I wonder what will change for me and millions of women in this county? If the country was being run by people who put the country before their self-interest the result would be a stronger economy, more job opportunities, better health and education services and security for sure. But my question still remains what will change for the women?


We’ve had a woman Prime Minister twice – and nothing changed, we have women in the parliament – and nothing has changed. A bill, a legislation, a law has not helped so far and won’t in the future. We seem to be a nation in love with short-cuts and our eagerness to put a label on the cause of problem is unparalleled. Every problem this nation faces is categorized under 3 labels – corruption, poverty and lack of education. I agree that these are major contributing factors of most of our issues, but by jumping to these conclusions we close the door for further analysis. The 3 pet labels of Pakistan have become the carpet beneath which we brush all our problems.

Usually when we discuss national problems we start at the macro level and work our way down to the micro. But for a change let’s start at the micro level, let’s talk about the problem of women in the narrow band of population which I inhabit. There is no issue of a lack of education in this group of people nor do we have poverty. Yes corruption does exist here as well but for the moment let’s keep it aside for argument’s sake.

Rape, wife battering and other forms of physical violence are present but well hidden in this group but there is another issue which is quite common – the basic right of a woman to be an individual. This may seem mundane to some and you may think that this is just Feminist mumbo jumbo, but it cuts down to the heart of the matter. The overt physical abuse stems from this root problem.

If a woman decides to live her life on her own terms she is quickly labeled as a nut-job, when a man does so he is brave. When a woman in this group decides to stand by her own convictions and principles she is arrogant, when a man does the same he is confident. When a woman starts to wonder what her life is all about and what truly makes her happy she is depressed, when a man asks these questions it is maturity. When a woman passes a comment she is frivolous, when a man does so he is witty. When a woman says she doesn’t want children right now she is vain and irresponsible, when a man makes the same statement he is behaving responsibly. When a woman says she doesn’t want marriage she must be hiding a dark secret in her past, when a man states this intention he is merely eccentric. When a woman is all-of-the-above she is a great topic for discussion and ridicule, when a man is all-of-the-above he is someone to respect and learn from. The list is endless but truth is that the yardstick for men and women is different even amongst the educated and well off.

Better education and more financial security will not change this disparity and no political change will put an end to this. I agree that this is not an issue just localized to Pakistan, it is a global pandemic but its manifestations in our country have become intolerable. The rise in violence against women is an indication of how deep seated this problem has become in our country. If we are to bring a real change for women in this country then we need to get out of our comfort zones and discuss these issues in depth. We must get over our tendency to over simplify issues in order to put a neat label on them. To solve the problems of women men will have to bring a change in themselves and doing so is both painful as well as scary. It is easier to apportion blame on a faceless bogey rather than take a long hard look at ourselves. That is why although I am just excited at the prospect of change in the country I am not holding my breath for things to change for the women of Pakistan.

For The Greater Good

Pakistan is a country which has rampant inflation, an energy crises incomprehensible in the 21st century, terrorism that looms paramount in everyone’s mind and a law and order situation which borders on anarchy. However the one thing this country is not is boring. When 2 Pakistanis meet we don’t have to look blankly at each other and make chit chat about the weather, our politicians and the establishment ensure that we have a constant supply of hot topics to discuss. We are perhaps the only country where the current affairs talk shows are considered high entertainment and the drama of the constantly breaking news puts any soap opera to shame. The challenge for journalists all over the world is to find a good story, the challenge for the Pakistani journalist is which one to pick.

Our government may not be able to govern or give its citizens the basic needs of life but it is fulfilling a much higher purpose - it is making its citizens the most resilient, the most optimistic nation on this planet. No matter what comes our way we simply shrug it off and look ahead towards an unclear future. Shame on us for complaining incessantly about their shortcomings, the truth is that their wisdom is beyond our comprehension.

The establishment rather unfairly gets blamed for all evil that befalls this nation. But actually they are misunderstood and they suffer in silence all the abuses which we hurl at them. Their convoluted policies, clandestine meetings, secret supports and U-turns keep all of us guessing which great conspiracy is being hatched, we wonder what will be the possible fallouts of a meeting, or we simply try to interpret the mixed signals coming from different quarters. All this is an exercise to sharpen our minds and develop our powers of deductive reasoning. Another noble objective.

Politicians whether in the government or the opposition play an extremely important role in our lives. A rally here, a protest there, an unbridled verbal torrent, a carefully crafted rhetorical statement, press conferences, telephonic speeches, out of control performances on talk shows, offensive statements, defensive statements – are all part of a hidden agenda. The purpose is to keep our minds occupied so that we don’t start thinking of the real problems of our lives and get depressed. It is therapy on a grand scale.

So you see our anger is misguided, our government, establishment, politicians are only thinking of our greater good. Someone once said that the only difference between a grave and a rut is it’s depth and by making sure that monotony does not come near Pakistani’s they ensure that this nation is alive – albeit kicking.

The 'Kandhar' Threat

The famous Sindhi sufi saint Watayo Fakir who lived in the 18th century wrote:

Jadein kadhein Sindhri
Tokhe Kandhar ma jokho

Roughly translated it means:

Sindh whenever you are in danger
It will emanate from Kandhar.

These words are considered one of the most commonly known sayings by Watayo Fakir and when war broke out in Afghanistan is the 70’s these lines suddenly jumped out of the dusty past and started resonating in the living rooms and ‘autaaks’ of every urban and rural Sindhi. As time progressed and Pakistan became more and more embroiled in the Afghan conflict and its fall out of refugees, Talibanization, terrorism and the US dictation on our internal and foreign affairs policies, these lines became more than a saying – they were considered to be prophetic.

But I believe this is not merely a prophecy made by a saint in a trance-like state, nor is it something which warned of a future event only – though it very well could be both. These lines are based on a historic analysis of the past leading to an informed projection of future events.

In order to analyse the historic context of this saying we have to move away from modern day geography which binds Sindh to a province in Pakistan and Kandhar in Afghanistan. In ancient times the term Sindhu originally meant “river people” and it was the term loosely given the inhabitants of people settled around the Indus and its tributaries. However in its broader sense it also encompassed people living around the banks of the now extinct Saraswati. Modern Kandhar derives its name from the ancient kingdom of Gandhar or Gandhara as its now known, of which it was a part.

Interestingly history records 2 incidences when the kingdom of Gandhar’s actions had catastrophic repercussions for everyone in the sub-continent. The epic tale of Mahabharata tells us that it was Shakuni the king of Gandhar who egged his nephews the Kauravas to entrap the Pandavas through cheating in a game of dice and it was due to his malicious council that the war of Mahabharata was finally fought at the battlefield of Kurukshetra on the East bank of the Saraswati river. Hence the king of Gandhar brought untold misery and bloodshed to the land.

As we come closer on the historic timeline, another king of Gandhar, Ambik comes to the forefront. In his greed to secure his own power, Ambik became the first known traitor of the sub-continent who gave safe passage to Alexander that Great to come into the sub-continent in return for his own sovereignty. This way ‘Sindh’ was once again placed in great danger through the actions of Gandhar.

Interestingly in present times the Gandhara region seems to be living up to its age old tradition, but this time we need to divide Gandhar into 3 distinct areas; the first being Kandhar or Afghanistan, the second is Peshawar and its surrounding areas or one can say Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the third being Taxilla and its nearby areas namely Islamabad.

Afghanistan seems to be the black hole which is hell bent on devouring everything that comes in its proximity. We crossed the event horizon when we jumped into the war with USSR and now it seems no matter how hard we try we can’t seem to extricate ourselves from resulting mess and most of our present day problems seem to have originated from that act. KP has become a breeding ground of militant radical thought which manifests itself as the harbinger of death and destruction whenever and wherever it strikes throughout the country.

But the most important player and the biggest culprit of this equation is what used to be the outer fringe of ancient Gandhara i.e. Islamabad. The headless chicken syndrome which seems to afflict all those who enter its corridors of power has through the years consistently put the entire nation in peril. Whether it be the age of dictatorship or the interludes of experimentation with democracy it seems that the throne of modern Gandhara demands that people be robbed of their integrity, vision, willingness to serve the nation and the spine to stand up for its protection, and only then does it give them the chance to sit on it. The legacy of Ambik lives on as the nation is sold out time and again to serve personal gains and Shakuni still seems to be whispering ill council to those who rule - I can’t say govern because we have yet to see that happening.

Moses & Krishna – Different Religions, Different Stories, Same Elements

At first glance Moses and Krishna are names synonymous with religions at the opposite ends of the spectrum from each other. While one is at the heart of the monotheistic traditions the other is the corner stone of one of the oldest practiced polytheistic religions. One emanates from the banks of river Nile and ends in the Sinai desert while the other originates from the fertile plains around river Yamuna and finds its way to the Arabian Sea coast. Moses was a human chosen by God as his Prophet while Krishna is considered as an incarnation of God Himself. The followers of both have spent millennia trying to prove the other wrong. But go beyond the labels of the religions, and you will find startling similarities between the elements of both stories.

Moses was left adrift by his mother when he was 3 months old in a reed basket because the Pharaoh had ordered that all Hebrew male babies be killed. The uncle of Krishna, Kans too had ordered that all male babies born to his sister Devki be killed at birth and when Krishna was born his father Vasudev carried him across the Yamuna in a reed basket. Hence both babies were separated from their natural mothers due to an eminent threat on their lives and both babies undertook this journey on a river in a basket.

Moses was raised in the household of the Pharaoh (according to Islam it was the Pharaoh’s wife who adopted him while according to the Judaic version it was the Pharaoh’s daughter). Regardless of who raised him the fact remains that he was raised as the family member of the very person against whom he would eventually revolt and from whom he would later liberate his people the Israelites. Krishna too was related to the very person whom he was destined to kill i.e. Kans the King of Mathura and liberate the oppressed people of that land. Both of them ended up having 2 mothers, one who gave them birth and the other who raised them with love.

Moses and Krishna both left the land where they spent their childhood in order to rescue their people from cruelty of their rulers. Moses led his people to the Sinai from where his people crossed the River Jordan and Krishna left Gokul where he was raised to Mathura where he vanquished his uncle.

The most famous scene of the Exodus is where the waters part for Moses and his people as they are chased by the Pharaoh and his army. Interestingly there is a similar incident with Krishna as well. After Kans was killed his wife swore revenge on Krishna and her brother waged endless wars against the kingdom of Mathura. Tired of years of conflict, Krishna took all his people and came to the coast of the Arabian sea near the delta of the Godavari. Here he asked the sea to give his people shelter and tradition says that the sea receded and the land revealed is what we know today as Dwarka. Here Krishna spent his last days as the King of Dwarka.

Whether we are talking about 2 different stories or if we are actually looking at the same myth being adapted across cultures separated by thousands of miles and several millennia, we do not know, nor do I want to venture there. However there is one thing which we can be certain of and that is when people look below the surface, when we keep our sentiments on the side, when we control our knee jerk reactions to other religions and are able to study things objectively, we can find similarities even between opposites. And therein lies our hope for peace, tolerance and coexistence.

Please Stop 'Honouring' Women

Sexual crimes are on the rise. Rape, gang rape, acid throwing and child molestation are making news each day. Punjab has a higher rate of reported sexual crimes than other provinces. I’m not sure whether it is because these cases are not being reported in other provinces or if there are actually a lesser number of these happening elsewhere, but one thing is for certain – women in Pakistan live in constant fear. It does not matter if she is a helpless poor woman in a village or if she is an educated urban woman, she is insecure. Men know that the ultimate weapon they have against her is rape. Rape scars the soul so deeply that she can never function normally again even if she has all the love and support of her family, even if the culprits are punished, she never heals.

An unfortunate trend has started over the past few years and that is the media involvement in such cases. Yes the involvement ensures that the police does its job and the culprits are caught but that also means that unless a woman is prepared to discard the few remaining shreds of her tattered dignity justice will not prevail. The news channels turn her nightmare into a circus and the politicians grab the photo opportunity. This trend also ensures that if an educated middle class woman is raped, she would not report it because she is afraid the media might get hold of her story. I have no answer as to how the media should handle such a situation, it’s a catch 22 situation – no justice without publicity but the price of justice is letting 180 million people witness her indignity.

There is a lot of debate on the Hudood Ordinance and the feebleness of the legal system, but one question we are not asking is ‘WHY?’ We start waiving the banner of Islam on the most trivial issues, we tell the world how Islam honours women and protects their rights, and yet our women are increasingly insecure. I have yet to see a religious party take out a rally or call for strike when a woman is gang raped which in itself is an indication of how thin is this veneer of ‘honouring women’.

The hypocrisy of our society is sickening. It spouts rhetoric about their mothers, daughter and sisters being their honour and then turns around and uses them as weapons to destroy the honour of their ‘enemies’. One can argue that crime is on the rise every where and hence we are seeing more rape cases, but when a village panchayat sanctions rape as a means of punishment then this is not merely criminal behaviour. It goes much deeper and is much darker than mere crime. It is an indication of how weak we are as a nation. We take the easy way out of every situation, and to rape is the easiest way to show how strong the man is.

We have an epidemic of low self-esteem and it is not limited to a certain strata of our society. Those who are in power take illegitimate short-cuts to get what they want and those whom they lead follow suit. To raise one’s self-esteem one has to take challenges head-on and not run away from life’s problems, but we turn to the nearest scapegoat to blame. It is never our fault, it is the society, the government, the US, the boss, the neighbour …. the list is endless. When we are empty on the inside we look for external markers to validate our existence, to give us a sense of power. This could be the 32 vehicle motorcade, or showing off our latest purchase, scratching the side of a brand new car or raping a woman. The root of the problem is the same, the manifestations endless.

The honour of a man in our country is linked to his possessions. His house, his land, his cars, his clothes, his cattle and of course the women in his family. Even the poorest man who has nothing else will have women. Women are mere objects in our country. They are brainwashed to think that they are the honour of their family because they are loved and respected – but the truth is that their status is no more than being one of the trappings of the man’s honour.

My earnest request is to please stop ‘honouring’ us. We are individuals, human beings with our own dreams, hopes and desires. We are not the object on which you cathect your honour. Perhaps the day men stop honouring us we will be free to live as human beings.

Teaching Children To Fly

Years ago I used to conduct a training program for children between the ages of 8 to 13. It was my dream project which gave me more satisfaction than any other training I have ever conducted. Unfortunately, like most dreams this too was shattered. Somehow parents who thought nothing of spending Rs.5000 on the latest toys and gadgets for their kids, suddenly became money conscious about investing a fraction of that amount for something which would stay with the children for the rest of their lives. The program wasn’t meant to generate profits, just break-even, but instead it broke my spirit. After hearing umpteen parents tell me that ‘it was too expensive’ (at that time is was only Rs.1600 for 2 days including meals), I lost my cool and told one father who was bargaining with me to tell his wife to shop for one dress less this season and they will have the money for their kid’s future! Needless to say the shopping spree won and I vowed never to conduct this program again.


Parents think that if their children are getting good marks at school then all is well. If teachers and neighbours are not complaining about their behaviour then the child is well adjusted and doing just fine. But the sometimes the real story is very different. In one of the sessions I conducted, a little girl whose father was the country manager for a large multinational bank, nearly broke down in tears during a desensitizing exercise in which she was asked what hurts her the most and who is responsible for this hurt? He reply was ‘my parents don’t think I’m as good as my older sister’. Upon probing further I learnt that the parents had a habit of always holding up the other sister as an example to “motivate” her to excel. But the kid was not excelling at anything, instead she was withdrawing further and further into her shell, and the parents had sent her to the program because they wanted to enhance her self-confidence. These parents were not evil, nor were they partial towards one child, they were merely following what they had learnt from their own parents.

My objective during these sessions was to create a safe, fun ‘adult free’ environment where the kids could learn to fly without being judged on the number of attempts it took. NLP techniques were used in the session to boost their self-confidence, raising their self-esteem and removing the effects of past negative conditioning and criticisms. My facilitators and I spent time with the kids individually to understand their communication strategies, we assessed which of the 7 intelligences were predominant in them. We taught them techniques of memory enhancement so that learning could become fun for them. All this information was passed on to their parents with suggestions on how to deal with them. I’m not sure how many parents actually took that advice on board, not many I’m sure, perhaps because it required too much effort to change their own behaviours.

There can be no satisfaction greater than to see the child whose mother claimed cannot be left alone because he would start crying amongst strangers, tell his parents to please leave and come back at 5 to pick him up. To see a petite 8 year old girl break a ½ inch wooden board with her fist, through sheer focus and mind power constitutes one of my personal proudest moments. When the shy introverted kid is cheered by his team to complete a task we renew our own faith in humanity. When 30 kids are told they are free to do what they like and they still behave with responsibility, then you know our future is secured.

Why did I focus so much on such small children when this program would have been easier to sell for the teens? Simply because I feel that most damage is done at this stage. If we can teach life skills early on, the chances are we will have confident, focused and strong teenagers. My disgruntlement over the parents’ attitude made me lose sight of the basic objective – the kids. Perhaps now I am ready once again to get up, shake-off the dust and make my dream a reality once again.

Required - New Candidates To Substitute Hope

According to Greek Mythology, Pandora was the first mortal woman sent down by the gods to punish Prometheus for stealing fire from them. Prometheus knowing what the gods were up to refused the gift however his brother Epimethius instantly fell in love with her and married Pandora. Pandora brought with her a box which the gods had told her never to open, but of course she did, just like Eve who ate from the Forbidden Tree (according to Islam, in Christianity she ate the Forbidden Fruit). Its funny how the beginning of all of mankind's ills and sorrows are blamed squarely on the first woman. No one seems to notice that the men weren't exactly forced to comply with the woman, why should she be blamed for their gullibility?

Coming back to Pandora and her box - the gods had put into the box all manners of ill which if released would plague mankind forever and when she opened the box out came flying little winged creatures named death, illness, pain, old age etc. Frightened she quickly shut the box but by that time these woes had already escaped. There was another creature that was also put into the box by some benevolent god which did not escape with the rest. That creature was Hope and her job was to alleviate the suffering caused by the rest of her boxed companions. When the box was opened again Hope too was released and since that time she has been providing relief to the suffering humanity.

Hence Hope is what makes the world go round, it is her presence which gives people that strength to fight the battles of life and chase their dreams. But I'm not too sure about this rosy picture we paint about her. Sometimes I think she is perhaps the most sinister of all the inhabitants of Pandora's box. People live out their entire lives in quiet desperation just hanging on to hope. They fall and hope comes and helps them stand up only so that another blow could be dealt by life and they find themselves flat on the ground again. Perhaps she is the vehicle through which destiny can release a variety of misery upon human beings? A kind of prolong mechanism for slow torture.

If you want to see Hope doing its best work then Pakistan is the place. We are a nation living in hope, we are a nature in which generations have grown up hanging on to her. Each time we face a problem we turn to Hope and she tells us "all will be well, you are strong and are being tested". We face whatever crises we are going through only to be thrown in the middle of another one. Lately I think Hope is on a retirement deadline in Pakistan. The problems are coming fast and furious and she seems to be weakening day-by-day, soon she might not be present in our midst anymore. We will have to find a substitute for Hope if we are to survive in the future.

There are some canditates which could fill this post - how about Commitment? I'm sure with him in our midst we would be able to go all out to perform our responsibilities and deliver results. What about Responsibility? she could help each of us realize that it is futile to look at others for the solution to our problems, if we need things to change we need to take action oursleves. Oh and yes there's Self-Confidence as well, now that is a good candidate! With him on this post we would not need Hope nor keep praying for miracles all the time. And then there is Integrity, but it seems that many people, mostly in powerful positions have taken immunity shots against her, so we will first need to find a way of taking care of that issue, but if she could then take over and run rampant amongst us we would be unrecognizable (for the better of course).

Which one we choose will require more careful deliberations, however one thing is for sure, Hope cannot be kept on this position for long. If, because we love her so much we don't want to retire her, perhaps we can give her an honorary lifetime position, but the task of leading us out of our present mess will have to be given to another candidate.