Chowrangi

One of the few differences between humans and apes, despite both having near-identical brains and bodies, is the thirst for entertainment found among humans. Of course, there are people all over the world who believe that anything which gives pleasure to the mind or the body is sinful, and one should refrain from whatever diverts the mind from serious matters. I would say about ten percent of humans are in this category, the kind that go around with mournful expressions and making life miserable for their fellow beings with their warnings about what will happen to them after they’re dead.

Hi readers! Lahore’s latest company, Lotus Client Management & Public Relations (www.lotuspk.com) has teamed up with Chowrangi to update everyone on Pakistan’s social happenings! Our first write up, below, is all about a charity fashion drive Lotus publicized earlier this month.

The Bargain Basement Sale, held on Friday, Oct 5th was once again a phenomenal success, raising over 1.7 million rupees in less than 4 hours!

You can’t walk 20 feet without having to criss cross your way through these tables laid out on the pavements in any major shopping centre in islamabad. Public grounds have been turned into private gardens with massive concrete structures meant to beautify and lay permanent claim to a land which is essentially public property. Even the beautiful winding pathways through forests and streams that make Islamabad such a pleasant place to live in, have been blocked by these ambitious white collared land grabbers, with guards sitting at the entrance to these “private properties”. It is heart wrenching to watch this path leading from the dead end street where I live, which wound through a stream to a football ground at the back of my house and which was a witness to many childhood adventures, blocked by a private parking lot and a scenic concretised garden, all on Public land. Similarly, another track that led to a hockey ground and served as a shortcut for many pedestrians wanting to cross onto the main road from the residential area is blocked by this iron rail stretched in front of it.

“Aaarghthoo!”

Neat grey patch of cemented path, where my eyes was focused, was suddenly splashed with red. I looked up and saw the source of hideous noise and creator of such an artistic pattern on the side of road. He upon seeing a woman staring at him gave me a leery smile, probably thinking that I must be impressed with his creativity. Thankfully, the traffic signal turned green and my car sped away.

After reading many of the western blogs and sites, or the articles in the online newspapers of the West, one gets a feeling that Muslims have just turned into a monster and all of them have gone out of their minds and they all want to just burn this planet.

News of suicide attacks in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, or in the western countries just choked the pages of these sites. One finds plethora of blog posts or articles with the title of, say, “yet another suicide car attack in Baghdad”, “terrorist foiled before they could act”, “terrorist attacks gone awry”, “terrorist convicted”, “terrorists arrested”, “terrorists escaped”, “terrorists this”, “new warnings of terrorism”, “terrorists that” and so on.

Rapid economic growth has spurred progress in eradicating extreme poverty and hunger in Asia, where the proportion of people living on a dollar a day has been cut by half, but inequality is also growing in parts of the region, says a new United Nations report.

According to the report, Eastern Asia where the proportion of people living in extreme poverty fell from 33 per cent in 1990 to 9.9 percent in 2004, saw the greatest gain. In South Eastern Asia, where extreme poverty was already down to 20.8 per cent in 1990, the percentage had dropped to 6.8 per cent by 2004.

Sheikh Saadi has said,”Hur Kay bud bashud naykee na beenud”, when applied to the present affairs of nations it means that people expect others to behave as they do. People also like to criticize others, while their own affairs are on fire.

You don’t have to be a genius to read the signs. We have a growing middle class, being reared on a diet of radical consumerism and aggressive greed. Unlike industrializing western countries which had colonies from which to plunder resources and generate slave labor to feed this process, we have to colonize ourselves, our own nether parts.

We were not able to overcome the ancient problems faced by our nation, and now we are confronting the new ones already. To the problems like lack of social development, political instability, growth without equity, has now added problems of extremism, lawlessness, suicide bombings, and the unlimited demands of America.

Apparently, there is no direction for the nation anywhere. Many things are experiencing deterioration. Institutes of the nation are decaying. The strength is vanishing rapidly. Their work capacity is very low and the energy is at its lowest. The cult of indifference and apathy is also sucking the synergy of the pillars of the nation. Two recent problems which we have just seen on the national horizon; Lal Mosque issue and the Judicial crisis, provides a vivid glimpse of the magnitude of the problem.

Seeking the right virtual connections in this information explosion has become the priority of every digitized human. All the social networks are capitalizing on this tendency. Blogging, Pod-casting and the similar buzz technologies, all basically the means to achieve the goal of getting connected with the right people for the right purpose to leverage the right potential to exploit the right advantage.

Information crazy and connection monger world now resides in the social networks like Facebook and Orkut. It expresses itself at the blogging joints like Blogger and Wordpress. It has all boiled down to the people now, and that is why there are less chances of this bubble to bust.

An educated woman can do wonders in the society. Woman power is still un-exploited and under-estimated in our country especially in the villages. Women have always played a pivotal role in the history of Pakistan, and in the independence movement, they fought for the cause shoulder to shoulder with the men and displayed a unique strength and resolve.

But unluckily after the freedom, the role of women was ignored badly. Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah, mother of the nation, is the biggest example of this neglection. Fatima Jinnah not only worked with her great brother but also after his death, worked for the country till her death from the platform of Muslim League. In 1964, he also fought the presidential election. She was a strong believer in the women power and their right to participate in the progress and construction of the country.