Welcomes, farewells and stupidity

Work, life and more

Life brings to us a multitude of good, bad and neutral experiences. It is left to us to decide on how to deal with each of these experiences. I have always been adept at choosing the most erroneous methods of dealing with life. And, I am proud of that singular achievement. One of these was my decision to join a bank (read Standard Chartered Bank) when all I knew about banking was that Habib Bank’s Rupee Travelers cheques can not be stolen and can only be redeemed at a branch of Habib Bank. Then I insisted that I wanted to work for the risk function at the time of our placements as management trainees; enter Collections. And to top all of these off, when I was recruited through the Central Superior Services for the Federal Bureau of Revenue on Basic Pay Scale Grade 17, I excused myself, because of the seemingly better opportunities that were going to be provided by Standard Chartered.

Receiving this email means that you know me, and that means that you know that I am bound, and apt, to ramble, but, for this one last time (from this address at least) you must bear with me.

All in all my stay at SCB has been a comedy of errors. The good kind. And I can only hope that more, like me, get to experience the wonder of this organization.

There were periods of excitement, some even at four in the morning. There were periods of dejection, usually at eight in the morning. There were periods of happiness, after receipt of letters and documents. There were periods of sorrow, mostly after parting with colleagues and friends. But, most of all, there were periods of profound shock and bewilderment, about thirteen times a day. There were too many periods with a smorgasbord of ensuing effects to enumerate or define.

Like all good things end in due course of time, my stay at SCB has come to an end.

I would not list people I want to remember or thank. Having received this mail means you are already in this list. I have received from each of you and only hope that I have given to you as well. There are some from whom I have received a great amount and I hope that you know that if I was not able to thank you earlier on, I am doing so now.

And now, let us get back to life; to the great adventure in uncertainties and surprises. Forever more. I am off to far pavilions and places where I can once more state,

gar firdaus ba roo e ZameeN ast

hameeN ast, hameeN ast, hameeN ast

Share
Posted in work | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Feats of Prowess

Work, life and more

The human brain is an amazing organ. It contains, at the same time, the seats of knowledge, thought and stupidity. Recent studies at the Institute of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences in Vienna have shown that the human brain goes through a moment of creativity once in a period of thirty eight hours and seven minutes. During this period of creativity the general environment of the subject determines the length and depth of the state of being creative. After this discovery the research team had an argument on the basis of evolution and cognitive development and the team split into two schools of though. The constraint school proposed that the basis of the moment of creativity was indeed to break out of inhibited situations. The progress school proposed that the true reason for the moment of creativity was to grow further. Both the teams decided to conduct further experiments in separate facilities.

After publishing of thirty seven research reports, printing of seventeen thousand five hundred and twelve pages, and exchanges of two hundred and eighty seven emails both the sides are in complete deadlock. There is no agreement on what truly constitutes a moment of creativity and more contentiously, what causes it. The Trade Minister of Finland had the following remarks on the ongoing argument, “As long as they keep importing our timber, I have no problems with this argument. But, I think these scientist guys should check out my in-laws. They don’t seem to have any moments of creativity at all.” During a televised survey from Tiananmen Square in Beijing one of the respondents said “Constraint or progress, we are all still people, why can’t we just learn to get along.”

This argumentative confused madness pushed me towards thinking about myself. All of a sudden I was pushed deep into the mire of my existence; desperately looking for the answers to my being. I wanted to know who and what I was. I wanted to know why I am what I am. I wanted to know everything. I started reading. I started watching television. I started conversing with people on a regular basis. I started to meditate. But nothing helped. The elusive self was running away from me as fast as I wanted to run towards it. There were no answers. Just more questions. I was finally about to be smothered by the rising tide of questions and an absolute lack of clarity. It was then that the truth dawned on me.

I was watching a documentary by Jerry Seinfeld on his show “Seinfeld”. A snippet of a sentence caught my attention. For the past one week I have been thinking about it intensely. Someone has managed to articulate my very being in a mere five words. The sum of a million activities, process and thoughts was just five words. I seem to have finally understood and accepted that these five words describe my being in its entirety. The snippet of five words is given below

“Neurotic exploration of meaningless detail”

Share
Posted in humour, Self | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Ego Shattering Experiences

Work, life and more

(Yes, they are back)

And so we come to the beautiful spring of Karachi. The week long extravaganza when the weather is neither cold nor hot. Just slightly unbearable. As with all new beginnings, I decided to turn over another leaf of my life. I decided to find someone interesting and have the general coffee, food, walks on the beach, acrimony and sarcasm routine that other humans prefer to call dating. Being unable to garner even the shreds of a decent social life in the past twenty five years I decided that the best option for finding love would be to meet someone over the internet. With that, I went to my computer and started searching the world of people available. After some time, effort, searching skills and match making I ended up with a couple of individuals who eventually agreed to go out on one of these dates with me.

Contrary to popular belief, dates can go in any direction. There are good dates, mild dates, bad dates and then there are dates from hell. I am discounting great dates completely because I am still questioning their existence. Since there is no definite proof in my experience either for or against the existence of great dates I prefer not to either believe or disbelieve in their existence. One might call this the agnosticism of great dates. I digress. In my experience there is such a thing are horrifying dates. These are not the occasions with silences longer than one minute or more than half of the conversation being carried on in mono syllables. There are the occasions which have the capacity to cause goose bumps years after the sad demise of the budding relationship. Because, unfortunately, all the long pauses and mono syllables were avoided, and, too much was said that should not have been spoken.

After a reasonable background on my beliefs and ideas I would proceed to pen down the occurrences of this weekend. I went on a date. Someone I met over the net. Someone who was insane enough to go out with me, and hence, in all probability, insane. For the sake of your future happiness and to shield you from painful experiences I will only narrate the highlights of the event. I knew there was something seriously wrong because of the complete, absolute and all encompassing avoidance of eye contact. And, as if that was not enough of a hint, I was told that “If you go veg with your diet, you might loose weight.” Imagine my shock. Here I was, under the beautifully false impression that I am lovingly chubby, when I am jarred to reality with the knowledge that I am fat; and ugly. Shock, shock, shock.

To top all this off, when I go about lamenting the general suckiness of my life to my friends, one of them tells me that I am a “Whiny Irritating Brat.”

For me, friendship, as well as dating, means a long series of ego shattering experiences on a colossal scale.

Share
Posted in Relationships | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Oblivion

Finally. The weight of unfulfilled desires and broken dreams fills my lungs. Conforming to the deepest truths within oneself at odds with the rules of conformity of our society. The continuous fear and forboding of the possibility of hurting others around oneself. A life of continued uselessness stretches ahead of me like an unending serpentine railway track. There is a disappointment linked to the past, the present and the future. All that there is. And there is only one solace. That the destruction of my life will give satisfaction to others that however much I lived I lived to their rules. But, alas if only even in that dying ember of a solace, I were to be satisfied that they will think my rules to have some weight, but no. All is lost and still there is not even a small victory.

And I sink deeper into oblivion with every hour, every day and every week. And I move closer to insanity with every hour, every day and every week.

Share
Posted in depression | Tagged | Leave a comment

Making a first impression

So, I got engaged recently. And, it seems that my in laws, scores of them, needed to see and know me. So, guess what they did. Yes, make a list of possibilites and pick the one at the bottom. They went to my Facebook and Orkut profiles. And they saw those pictures. And they saw those scraps / posts / notes. And they saw the information about me. And they saw me as I am on Orkut and Facebook.

AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA !!!!! !!!!! !!!!! !!!!! !!!!!

Share
Posted in Society | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Hitchhiking And Grabbing A Lift

Work, life and more

Fact: the sun rises from an eastern direction. Fiction: Women should be allowed to work. Fact: I am quite stupid for not buying a car as soon as I sold me previous one. Fiction: all cars are created equal and should be treated as such. Fact: it becomes increasingly difficult to hitch a ride with friends as your non car owner status progresses with time. Fiction: when people say “no, no, it is ok” they actually mean it. Fact: This post will pose a threat to my well being. Fiction: people take jokes as jokes and do not react irrationally.

It is a generally accepted social norm that people who work need to buy a new car as soon as they sell their old car – and not spend months thinking about completing the process. Breaking of these social norms will lead even the most respectable of citizens into difficult situations.

I had recently had an experience of this kind. One calls friend A, who having decided that “Who needs to work so much anyways?” is on a vacation in Hyderabad. One calls friend B, who says he is at another office farther away, but, is actually sleeping at home. One calls friend C, who is already being given a ride by someone who he does not get along with and he feels that asking for another ride along would mean a rather extreme level of pressure on the relationship. Finally you call friend D, who is getting a ride from friend R, and they agree to take you along, despite your odd and generally irrational behaviour. And then you learn that friend S is also going with you. So there is a car that one has to share with three women.

Visions of long conversations about clothing fabrics, shoe colours and emotional relationships haunt the average man as he walks to the car. And to top it all off, someone has hit the car, the driver ends up getting very angry, and taking it out on the steering wheel and the accelerator. But, it turns out that women actually talk about the same things men talk about. And, with frantic drivers, overly talkative women and a scared guy in a car, one actually experiences a very good drive home. But, kids, please don’t try this at home, this is only to be attempted by professionals with years of experience.

And, to top it all off, Habib Wali Muhammad is not nearly as good as generally considered.

Share
Posted in Society | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Karachi And Islamabad

Work, life and more

Pakistanis are a nation that loves bigotry. Ethnicity, religion, language, colour, caste, creed, tea condiments, colour of clothing, and cities. We love to differentiate. And we love to be bigoted against all possible things different from us. Of course we are a nation that moves with the times and keeps itself abreast of current affairs. Recently the most major basis of bigotry is the differences between Islamabad and Karachi.

Recently heard in an overly air conditioned Karachi drawing room “Isloo is so boring, typically Isloo yar, they are boring even in their rioting and general public madness levels. This is exactly why I did not marry my daughter off to Isloo”. There was a gentleman from Islamabad. And he,  rather be damned then let people from the traffic nightmare of a city say anything against his beautiful garden of a city. He shot back “I think this is very unfair, we are only trying to learn what you have become good at through practice”. This slightly altercation led to a large number of people jumping into the conversation and talking about things completely unrelated to topic yet completely unimportant at the same time. Weather, shoes, chocolate and of course Baklava.

Violence averted, the party moved on to gorge on delectable Chicken Tikkas and spicy Haleem. Some of the people thought that they heard someone say “If this were Isloo the food would have tasted better”. Again, violence was averted because they opened up the Kulfi corner. A large group of Pakistanis showed that they love health destroying foods more than bigotry. Clarity at last!

And adding a bit of personal bigotry to this post. People of Islamabad – you are just not cool enough for massive public psychosis and rioting!!!

Share
Posted in Society | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Good Friends Are Bad Friends

Work, life and more.

After talking to a very intellectually sound and intelligent friend I got to thinking about friendship. Previously I was a good friend, I was there for people, I used to enjoy their company and I was ready to give financial assistance on low interest rates. I consider this a good friend. And then there are bad friends. People who tell you they are ill and will not be able to spend time with you, but, when you go to the coffee house with your sister they are sitting there with a group of people and rather than being the boring and excessive quiet person you know them to be they are very excited, talkative and animated throughout the evening. People who will show up and spend excessive amounts of time with you, blabbing on about themselves, and when you meet them the next time they tell you to stand a bit farther away so other people don’t see you two together. Bad friends. A dime a dozen.

Nowadays, due to pressure from work I get less time. Add to this the fact that the Pakistani media has taught me a very specific version of what is cool and acceptable and interesting. And to top all this off, I am a banker. So, I have become a bad friend. Recently this had become a cause for concern and soul searching. And then, enter my very intellectually sound and intelligent friend.

His take on friendship is that good friends make you dependent on them. So you do not make any other friends. And of course, you become boring and stupid with time. But, bad friends lead you to a life long search for friendship. You end up making lots of friends, good and bad; and you learn from them; and you become interesting; and you have good jokes; and you have good stories; and you have so many people to take loans from.

So, through the miracle of a sycophantic intellectual friend and excessive rationalization of internal evils, I am a bad friend, hence a good friend.

I just love the way the human mind works.

Share
Posted in Relationships, Sarcasm | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Exercise and Weight Control

A law has been passed in Tahiti that makes it mandatory for people to start exercising once they reach a certain weight. The law was brought into the parliament by a conservative party politician whose father had become so fat that he had to be carried around the house. Being an obedient son he could not complain to his father but expects that the long hand of the law will finally force his father to exercise and “I will never have to miss another episode of Spongebob Squarepants again”. His tone indicated that obesity in the family has led to tension and weakening of the family bonds.

Tahitian human rights groups have opposed this move as a direct attack on the right of Tahitian citizens to choose their weight. Citizens Freedom Force (CFF) has brought forward one document dating back to the 8th century in which it is explicitly stated that the citizens of Tahiti have the right to choose their weight. The Department of History at the National University of Tahiti (DH-NUT) is of the opinion that the document is a farce and that the CFF has been bringing up farcical historical documents in the past as well. When the CFF was contacted for comment on this their president responded with “The dean of the DH-NUT has a crooked nose, how can you guys even believe someone life that?”.

The United States has taken special note of this development because of rampant obesity in the US. One Neo-Con politician, who prefers to remain nameless, dubbed this “The second red dawn commie invasion aimed at destroying this great nation of ours”.

When asked, the Pakistani ministry of Health remarked that since Tahiti is a fictional fairyland the question is obviously a joke and the media is starting to get out of hand and should be gagged.

Share
Posted in Sarcasm, Society | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Obesity And Technology Clash

The rector of the Indus Institute of Technology made a startling discovery last month. After in depth research conducted by 27 universities, research institutes and a sociological centre the discovery seems to have been proven as true. Obese people find it much more difficult to use technology in their daily lives when compared to normal people. The Rector of the IIT said that he got suspicious when he saw two lists of students, one with GPAs and one with weights. Being a genius in numerical comparability he suddenly saw the relation between the two. “At first I could not believe it, but then I guess the truth dawned on me”.

In a much publicized group session of Obesity Anonymous one of the participants was quick to point out that “I would just rather prefer to have a Biryani then to learn how to run a minterm average function in MS Excel”. Of course the snide remark was met with mellow snickering from the rest of the participants. But all participants were not this civil. Ms Shafiq remarked that “If I wanted to wear large glasses and have big braces in my teeth I would become a computer nerd!”. Some of the participants thought this was a very harsh generalization and one participant took off his shoes in protest.

At the recent Nerds R Us convention one speaker declared that his company has stopped making extra large keyboards, “Now Obese people will have to make their fingers smaller so that they can hit one key at a time”. Mr Shafaqat started coughing loudly after this because of his allergy to laughter developed due to working in close proximity to computers. On the sidelines of the summit one participant told me in a hushed tone that he had to wear special clothing to not appear obese, otherwise he could have been bludgeoned to death by the other participants. He thought that he has started to develop an irrational phobia for Nerds.

When asked to give their opinion, most bankers were of the opinion that since obesity leads to higher branch sales it is a very good thing. 83% of the bankers polled did not know the meaning of obesity. One banker actually thought that it meant Extra Spicy Thai food.

Altamash Hai Khan, Karachi Times
Vol V

Share
Posted in Sarcasm, Self | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment