This is the third journal entry in a series of about 15 which I wrote over a three week period while I was in Pakistan this summer. If you go to the category Pakistan Journal you can see all the entries. There are some really interesting experiences and observations which I make throughout the trip(or well at least in my opinion).
6/7/2004
Once again I find myself on a plane. This time I’m heading for Karachi after having spent about 12 hours in Lahore. Last night there was a sandstorm in Lahore which prompted the pilot of our original plane to reroute to Islamabad. In Islamabad we spent a few gruesome hours sitting on the runway. It was so hot that I literally felt like I was being suffocated. It was 24 degrees Celsius outside at the time and for some reason there was no AC running in the (cramped) economy size section of the plane. When we did arrive I witnessed some very intriguing scenes. The first was waiting for our luggage at baggage claim. It took about 2 hours before our bags actually came out. It seemed as if they were adding a new bag every 10 minutes. What happened next was very interesting. Once you get your bags you have to run them through some screening machines. When you first get to baggage claim there are a bunch of men wearing sky blue shirts with ID numbers on the back. My father warned me not to accept anyone’s help if asked. So these guys basically help people get their luggage and get tips in return. I’m assuming that they were regulated thus the uniforms… So anyways when we were leaving baggage claims to get our bags/luggage screened these “bag carriers” who had like 20 pieces of luggage cut the line. This caused my father to get pissed and he started yelling at the main culprit. He was a young guy, he tried to respectfully lie and say he was already in line. My father got even more pissed. I had to calm him down. I told him don’t beef just make sure we get next. The guy got so scared he wanted to let us skip him. Ha… Then I looked back and I saw this man who was using the services of these “bag carriers” verbally abuse them. He was cursing them out in English, and then switched up to Urdu and a little bit of Punjabi. The bag carrier was simply pleading his case… but the man said “You don’t know who I am!” which caused one of the bag carriers to grab his (own) uniform and say “this is why you are insulting me!”. He was implying that because he was doing a menial job and obviously is NOTHING in society he was being humiliated. I found this to be very gripping. In a country which is trying to somehow break out of third world status, which has some of the worlds most brilliant minds… you find donkeys on the streets!
So it was Fajr time and my uncle spotted us outside. We prayed at the airport in a corner… No designated prayer areas in “The Islamic Republic of Pakistan”’s airports. I was surprised to see that the airport was in really good shape. They employed the usage of marble quite nicely. When I looked around I couldn’t help but notice the billboards. One read “Changing Lifestyles” and it had a man sitting on the corner of a bed while a very pretty (or so she seemed to be/was supposed to be) woman sitting on the bed. She was wearing some fancy clothes… Maybe the Ad was about bed sheets or perhaps I dunno cell phones? This reminded me about the paki girls without haya who I mentioned earlier. And I was noticing that the air-hostesses on this flight, oh and the last one too were all wearing makeup, had their hair out, and all were fair-skinned. I wonder what kind of Paki Bimbo training centers are needed to produce such quality workers. Oh yeah all of them are also unwed and are less than 30 years of age. Hmn… could this be a trend of some sort? That’s enough about PIA for now. Oh wait a minute.. last night in Islamabad when the native paindoos became restless they (the PIA staff) threw on some Music Videos.. in order to pacify them (us). All the videos featured these desi rock stars with class and attitude, each one had long hair, played the guitar and had a soft yet smooth singing voice. Each video revolved around one girl. With long hair, caked up in makeup, had a pretty face (or a face that young girls and guys would find to be pretty). She would be skimpily dressed, but not to the degree where even the most religious molvi in the plane would throw a tirade… well maybe even they have gotten used to it by now.
So last night my uncle and one of my cousins Asif, who is really cool came to get us. Asif is the only person from Pakistan who I actually like to chat with online. Maybe its because we have something big in common. He eats, breaths, and sleeps CODE. We had some high level nerdy discussions about Quality Testing Web Applications. It took us about half an our to get to their house. The effects of the storm were obvious; there were whole trees and billboards which had fallen onto the streets. Upon arriving at their house I first met my grandmother who I hadn’t seen since 1991, and then my grandfather who helped me “read the entire Qur’an”, what desis call doing an Ameen. He is now 94 years old, he couldn’t even remember my name… even though he spent years living with us. His body had become so brittle and the once energetic tableeqi was now confined to his bed from which he spat into a bucket, and he also urinated from there (still haven’t figured out how). His memory faded in and out. I was trying to remind him about the time he spent with us. My father had met him a few minutes before I did and he didn’t even remember meeting him. I had a really good time at their house. My uncle got into long discussions with me about America’s imperialistic ways, extremism, Jihad, and other stuff. His kids were really nice and fun to play with. I really tried to address any of their anti-American views… like one of my uncles asked me “do Americans feel happy about what they are doing to the world?” And I had to explain to him that our country has been taken over by neoconservatives and that many Americans want them out and are protesting against them, and they protested most of their military actions. He was surprised to hear that… this lead us into a long discussion about the weaknesses of the Ummah. Over lunch a discussion on Darwinism had started, in the middle of it the younger of my two uncles said… “Tell me about Wrestling”. He was asking “what’s up with it?” So I thought he wanted to either know if its real or not or he wanted to know its role in American life. So I started answering the first question. It was hilarious because his question came straight out of left field, we were talking about Darwinism! Then he started commenting on Hogan’s comeback. Then the entire family became involved in the discussion. Professional wrestling may be the most viewed American programming in Pakistan. Well maybe second to cartoons like Tom and Jerry. I saw sesame street in Urdu, that was pretty freaky. Now the plane is declining and we are coming closer to reaching our destination of Karachi. Asif explained to me that the Sunni/Shia clashes were just one example of how quickly something can spread in Karachi. He explained that since there are so many “bad people” there, even though the city is so huge… one bad group of people will mimic another’s actions, next thing you know it will be all over the place. I’ve yet to go to a masjid, my grandfather forced us to pray with him. Since he was a tableeqi he loved praying in Jamaah. The only way he could do that is if we accompanied him. Asif actually told me that he never lets them go to the masjid. If he does he gets mad at him. Oh yeah my younger uncle when I told him about Brock Lesnar leaving WWE, he was like “He is my enemy!”. I was like… what the hell… this guy is really into it!
Pictures from this segment of the trip:
[img=http://www.azeemkhan.info/images/pakistan/01.jpg width=100 height=100] [img=http://www.azeemkhan.info/images/pakistan/02.jpg width=100 height=100] [img=http://www.azeemkhan.info/images/pakistan/03.jpg width=100 height=100] [img=http://www.azeemkhan.info/images/pakistan/04.jpg width=100 height=100] [img=http://www.azeemkhan.info/images/pakistan/05.jpg width=100 height=100] [img=http://www.azeemkhan.info/images/pakistan/06.jpg width=100 height=100]
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