the shit has hit the fan

teri dosti mein aik nasha hai
tabhi to yeh duniyah hum se khafa hai
na karo hamse itni dosti
ke dil hi puche, bata
teri dhahdkan kahan hai

a true classic - plagarized from the nick of of abuthegr81@hotmail.com who attempted to add me on msn today.

i have decided to finally get off my lazy ass and do something about the ideas i have. well just a couple of ideas. some of them are a little too intimidating to do more than think about wistfully...

so i am making a series of bags and shoes, about ten samples of each and taking orders for them. reasonably priced (at least for now *grin*) at about 500. the biggest obstacle is finding a tailor with not too many naaz nakhras who will stich the bags neatly. and the second biggest obstacle is the cartoon strike(s) that make all the shops close. (i think i will do a seperate rant on those next) the 9 to 5 job, not really an obstacle, the convenient location of the office means i can go shop for materials in my lunch break.

here are a few very preliminary and rough samples:




what do you think? give me feedback! lots of it! NOW!!!

i am allergic to the filthy sewage ridden salt water that comes in tankers to this *posh* locality i live in. after my family took to judging how khaara the paani was by looking at my face (i think its really bad today, look at her skin) i decided to buy a water cooler and keep boiled drinking water in the bathroom to wash my face with. so i stopped by gizri and bargained with a jovial khan saab for the smallest cooler he had. it was bright orange. i got home and carried it up to the bathroom and then faced the following issues:

1. the cooler had a button not a tap so washing my face would be a pain as i would have to have one hand on the button at all times
2. the cooler did not fit in the space next to the sink

so i kicked the cooler under the bed and decided i needed a customized solution to my problem. here is what i came up with:

i took a large water bottle, made a hole in its base with a combination of heated pliers and various appendages from my pocket knife (yes, i carry a knife at all times, i am armed and dangerous, dont ever attack me). then i took a stiff plastic straw from a water bottle that i used to take to school which was still lying around in the kitchen and cut it down to size. the straw went through the hole and voila!

using some rule of physics (capillary action?) that i dont really understand, i have created a customized face washing cooler for myself. the water does not leak out of the straw when the cap of the bottle is closed, when it is twisted open, the water comes out. just like a tap (phallic symbolism nonwithstanding). am i smart or what?

Exhibit A.

i'll skip the part about how its soooo commercial and suchhhhh a travesty of love and how you dont need a *day* to show your love and come right to localizing and contextualizing valentines day in post-colonial culturally-imperialized pakistan. we have all had the discussions about blindly copying the west and how disastrous that is for our culture and our youth blah blah blah. but exhibit A. seems to show that we arent just blindly copying anymore. you certainly wont find a blinged up version of the taj (actually its not exactly the taj but more of a mosque crossed with the taj - even more appropiate) mounted in a glass case with plastic roses and a big heart on valentinegifts.com (maybe ebay, ebay is insane). point is, we seem to be taking valentines day and adapting it to fit our unique cultural context. what then? if we adapt and amend dominant discourses to fit into our culture and traditions, has the subaltern begun to speak?

the trend doesnt stop at blinged up taj mahal-mosques, an article i read in a local magazine reported that at least in urban areas, there is a greater awareness of valentines day amongst people of lower socioeconomic status. they quouted the story of a young girl who works as a maid, she saved 200 rupees every month of the year so she could buy her boyfriend a great gift on valentines day and he did the same. another girl who worked in a beauty parlour had heard of valentines day from clients and because she didnt have a boyfriend, she and her siblings had saved up and planned to take their mother out for a nice dinner and a visit to the new park by the sea on valentines day. most people dont know the story of st. valentine, these people definately dont know it. they arent blindly imitating the west, they are, with very incomplete information, blindly imitating the westernized elite of pakistan (which in my book, is far worse). but, they are adapting the day to local norms and traditions which is better and more than the westernized elite does. so bring on the bling.