The coexistence of that which is bleak with that which is life itself...

If you click on the title of this post, you will find that it is linked to a piece on being in Pakistan from one of my most favorite people on the planet and a very dear friend - Naeem Inayatullah:

Some thoughts, not random but certainly not organized, that my readings of this piece triggered:

1. This might seem trivial but I do agree that with the exception of ice-cream, Pakistan really does have the most delectable tasting food and drink. It's a culinary haven.

2. Pointing to what amounts to a 'favorite' shouldn't negate the fact that this whole essay inspired me and provoked much thought in an emotional sense - much like a song that keeps building flawlessly to a crescendo that can only make you tear up and exist within a blankness that isn't empty but certainly feels that way perhaps because there is only room for feeling rather than thinking. Having said that, I do have a thought to which I am drawn and want to dwell and perhaps even savor and it is this: "On my return to Ithaca I feel empty; I wonder where the people are. I am jet-lagged, culture shocked and weather beaten. But I clutch at my disorientation with the desperation of someone who fears that Ithaca routines will leave him numbed."

The fear of being numbed. I think Naeem nails it here for all those of us who perhaps find ourselves at the margins of affiliations that don't normally go together - because society has been long used to drawing a sharper line demarcating inside and outside that it seems to have neglected to develop a vocabulary to accommodate, under one umbrella, or, in this case, one being, that which is traditionally separated. Hmm I think I might just have entered the social science-y domain by making a statement on behalf of a larger public - safety in generalizability. That's one of the things I hate most about the disciplines that fall within social science. So I'll speak for myself - although I harbor no delusions or carry the (Western) baggage of the dichotomy of individual/collective. I don't believe people are private individuals. Even the depths of our minds that we think elude all but us are a product of the ways in which we make sense of the world by interacting with it. So perhaps 'being' is a more precise word, yes? Because to me that implies interacting and being social. But I digress. Let me rephrase the statement about Naeem nailing it as one that applies solely to me as far as I know. Others who agree - or disagree - can speak for themselves.

So I was talking about the fear of being numbed. I went back to Pakistan after 2 years this past summer. Other than when we were waiting for our permanent resident paperwork to come through, I have never been away from Pakistan for this long ever since I moved to the US. The reasons for doing so are a bit personal. I have the reason that I gave to all and even me - and that was definitely part of it - I was working on my dissertation and wanted to wait till it was done. But there was a deeper reason that I've only recently recognized - I was running away from a vital part of me. I didn't know it at the time. But perhaps to grapple with it I needed to suppress it for a while. Of course none of this was conscious. But I can see it now from where I'm standing - primarily because it took confronting what I was running away from to return this August.

But back to the numbness of which Naeem is talking about in this piece. When I returned to Pakistan, after a week of reorienting myself to the frustrations and unease of loadshedding that makes one wonder if the concept of electricity is one that one ought to be amnesic about to cope with its frequent absence, nosy people who have no business butting in your business but do it anyway, getting used to the loss of privacy that follows with the nosiness so much so that what one ate for lunch suddenly becomes something that ought to be public knowledge in extensions of family that are so far removed that one rarely thinks about them, the carelessness with which time commitments are (mis)treated, the hovering around of domestic help that makes one oscillate between concerns about human rights and whether this might just be a form of slavery to relishing the fact that there are no clothes to be taken out of a dryer to be folded and put away in place. After getting back into the rhythm that was first nature to me it hit me. I miss being in Pakistan. Despite all of the things that get under my skin - and the above list is but a partial one - there is something about it that keeps me vibrant in a way that always feels new but is also familiar. As Naeem writes, "there are colors vibrant beyond any camera’s ability to capture" - so so true. In fact, along the same lines and extending what Naeem has captured so vividly, it's a rhythm of life that can't be explained until it beats in your heart.

Someone might say I'm romanticizing. Perhaps I am. But since when did romanticism become a four-letter word? What's the need to be ashamed of it? Why be embarrassed? After all, it is when we humans dream and act to make those dreams come true that we gain the opportunity to celebrate and enjoy our capacity to do wonderful things.

Being in Pakistan and getting reacquainted with the Pakistani in me (not that I'd lost it but perhaps its voice was being dulled - I think of it as the numbness to which Naeem alludes) inspires me beyond measure. It makes me feel. It gives me the space to think from my gut. I like how I think and how I write - which in my profession are both vitally important. I spent the last two years that I stayed away from Pakistan learning to think like an academic - well not so much think as make an attempt to think that way and perhaps fake it. I tried to play by the rules of the game. And Pakistan reminded me that I need to make the game mine to be happy playing it. That I came to the game in the first place because I could think of other ways to play it, of different moves that might make playing the game a much more enriching experience.

As I write this I'm getting lost. As I said above, lost in the emotions I feel but fail to perhaps articulate. Not out of fear but more so out of a consciousness of the seconds ticking away on the clock while knowing that there are things I need to tend to and so the luxury of thinking this through must wait.

But yes I know that it is this very fear of numbness that is very real for me once more. That is until I can find a way to play the game so that my rules apply as well.

3. The Pakistan I see in the news while navigating my existence between New Jersey, New York, and DC frustrates me to no end. I don't deny its existence. But I do deny that it is all there is to Pakistan. To follow Naeem's thoughts, if the rubble of bomb blasts or the destruction on a street left by a rioting crowd make up Pakistan then so do a people whose conscience and hearts are alive. Who dream of a better future. Who try to inspire others to create this future. Who in their small ways also fill their present with vestiges of this utopia. That utopic present exists in the women of whom Naeem speaks. Someone like his cousin Miryam. I too see it all around me when I go. It is in the eyes of the Afghan refugee boy who creates fascinating products to sell on the street; all alone in the world his eyes are never sad but glimmer with hope and pride. I also see it in the architecture. The fountain known as 'do talwar' - two swords - that has been dedicated to those refugees who came to Pakistan in 1947 and gave up their all to make a dream a reality with a corporeal existence. In this sense, Pakistan is the conundrum Naeem captures in his story of his morning jog in Islamabad - one in which guards are deployed on streets but who suddenly also become part of your daily rhythm. If they are there because the law and order situation is horrendous, their presence is also very much a part of the vibrancy of Pakistan - the relationships one carves on a daily basis. Relationships that cement themselves with even a few brief, seemingly superficial encounters. I think back to my daily visits to the Avari Towers hotel in Karachi while I was there doing my field research. I'd go there to check my e-mail because they had high-speed wireless. The guard who would open the door for me on my way in and on my way out was a reminder of the dangers that lurk all over Karachi. Yet, in that brief encounter that occurred everyday, our 2 minutes conversation suddenly become a connection about our lives. And so I got to know all about the dreams he has for his family's future. I've never met them but I know them well. When I returned to Pakistan after 2 years this past summer, he recognized me instantly and inquired where I'd been all this time. And so it was like I'd never left or that the break hadn't been as long.

4. I'm relieved that for once someone trying to explain the normalcy of life in Pakistan didn't try to make it fit within the parameters of normalcy that might be used by the 'other' with whom one is trying to communicate. There was no reassurance, no defensiveness. Only an exploration of that which is quintessentially Pakistan - a normalcy that continue to evolve and exist alongside that which is bleak.

5. I miss the raw smells, the vibrant colors, and being part of the vitality of which Naeem speaks. I too am fearful and resistant of numbness. There are days I fight it well. Then there are days when perhaps I don't feel the need to fight it at all because something like the essay Naeem has written inspires me from within my gut and makes me feel like I don't have a long-distance relationship with my Pakistani-ness. On others, the distance is overwhelming. And I fear. And I contemplate. And I too clutch at the 'me' that sometimes feels lost and out of place in the fray that is my life in America. But, then again, my life in America is also very much a part of me. It inspires me - but in a characteristically different way. One whose heartbeat might be different but very much keeps the pulse running.

And on that note of a horrendously phrased metaphor, I sign off until next time.

Responding to violence: suicide bombings in Pakistan

One of the first pieces of news I heard when I switched on the news this morning before leaving for work had to do with suicide bombings in Pakistan. Then, while I was holding my office hours I read this post at All Things Pakistan. [FYI: This post does an excellent job summarizing the event to which I'm referring plus the discussion thread is also worth checking out if you're interested.]

My first thought: which city?
A pet peeve I'm beginning to add to my (growing?) list is the way in which American news stories about the rest of the world simply specify what happened in country X without any reference to location. There are times when the geographical coordinates are more specific; more often than not the most specific one gets is "a village nearby. I guess no harm in that right? They're most likely to mention a city which the average viewer might know. Then again, after 9/11 when the name 'Afghanistan' popped up I heard a number of folks in a not-Ivy-League-but-Ivyish-enough-university in the Northeastern part of USA wonder if the country was in South America?! Nopes, I kid you not. Okay rant on "lack of geographical awareness" some other time, if at all. Coming back to where I was going with this. The nearby village might, at times, be hundreds of miles away. If not the name, I wonder if adding "a village X miles away from city Y in country Z" might be asking too much of these news broadcasts! What's my point? It's frustrating when you're trying to ascertain right there and then if your loved ones living in country Y are okay.

It appears that everyone I know is accounted for. Yes I know it's selfish. Which brings me to the thoughts that followed.

So second, third, fourth thoughts:
I wonder if I'm the proverbial Pakistani who, because of living amidst such a high degree of violence, has gotten completely desensitized to it? In some respects, I am. In others, such as when I call loved ones in Karachi to confirm that they're okay following news reports of let's say a blast somewhere within the city. Most of the time I'm the subject of much ridicule. Yes I know it generally happens in "those" areas where nobody I know lives or visits much. But still.

That's not what bothered me about the thoughts that kept popping into my head all day. I wonder - and to a large extent, worry - what this means for the prospect of change for the better. If we do become desensitized to violence - which you have to in order to live in a space-time particularity where that occurs on a daily basis -at what point and in what ways do you participate in any means to end the spiral that's spinning out of control? Are you even capable of that? A couple of years ago I was at an address delievered by President Pervez Musharraf in New York city. The audience consisted of Pakistani-American youth. When asked about the worsening law and order situation in Karachi and the lack of security he commented that Karachi was like any other city in the world. He cited a couple of South American examples to suggest that the lawlessness of Karachi gets blown out of proportion. I remember feeling offended and angry at what I would describe as his dismissive and callous response. Just because it's something that's been known to happen doesn't mean it's any less problematic or doesn't need to be addressed. It's a challenge for sure but one that needs to be confronted and tackled. No I don't want to give him the benefit of doubt of having become desensitized to it. As the head of the state, I think it's his responsibility to put the wheels in motion to take care of this problem. I do not think that an old man in his 70s being kidnapped by a bunch of thugs while he's walking from your home to a convenience store in his neighborhood for the sake of a few rupees is acceptable. The question to which I have no answer but to which I have been returning all day is can the madness stop and by what means if people learn to live with (how's that for working in the blog title!) situations they shouldn't have to? If you do become desensitized, is the lack of action part of feeling helpless or something else? Is it that you just don't know where to begin? Do you even recognize it as a problem that can be solved?

I don't have any answers to this question. But color me bothered because I don't think that everyday living should be fraught with such dangers. I don't think this is something that one should learn to live with to the extent that it becomes absorbed within your daily life....willingly, unwillingly, or out of sheer helplessness.

Two half-baked thoughts on politics and Pakistan.

Well they're barely quarter-baked but I'm in no mood to make up words tonight. Actually I'm probably assembling ingredients to make something that will be baked - that's how unbaked all of this is.

Two stories caught my attention in today's (July 18, 2007) online issue of the Pakistani newspaper DAWN.

1. I wonder how Benazir can make statements about the lack of law and order under Musharraf's regime when things were equally bad on her watch -- both times round. Well I guess she can make these statements but in good conscience? Really? Well some of us might quibble over the comparison I'm making here but you get my drift....in neither of these instances is the law and order situation unproblematic.

2. I agree with Musharraf's statement about his goal to create an enlightened and moderate Pakistan. What it makes me think about though is the vision of 'Pakistan' that 'Pakistanis' have had and continue to. Without going into too much detail (only because I can't handle writing blog posts akin to academic papers or dissertation chapters right now), I'm intrigued by the ways in which 'Pakistaniat' has been articulated. To grossly oversimplify for a second, the two-nation theory which laid the foundation for the demand for Pakistan as a separate state for the Muslims of India seems to have been deployed in Pakistan in two main ways that are also, IMHO, relevant to what Musharraf had to say. First, based on my own field research for my dissertation as well as primary sources I've read, there seems to be a strong contingent of folks who insist that the notion "separate state for the Muslims" refers to having a homeland where Muslims held the reins of power thereby escaping the possibility of Hindu domination in a United India after gaining independence from the British Empire. The second strand of thought insists upon the enforcement of Sharia Law in Pakistan for it to become a truly Islamic state. It always strikes me as odd that this demand is often made by political parties that historically, in the pre-1947 era, were opposed to the very establishment of a separate state for the Muslims of India. Leaving that aside, it is also striking that there are folks who belong to this contingent agree that this wasn't how Pakistan was envisioned but that it is what it ought to have been established on the basis of i.e. a state fashioned according to Islamic ideals ala Saudi Arabia. Hmm I wonder how we might make sense of this given that one rests on interpreting Pakistaniat/Pakistan as a 'Muslim homeland' and the other as an 'Islamic state'? Are the two different? I'm clearly inclined towards saying yes. Personally speaking, most immigrants and partition survivors I have spoken with over the years often talk about Pakistan as the solution to escape domination by the Hindus...or at least that was the intent. Makes sense to me. After all, Muslims in India practice their religion too so it couldn't have been just the desire to set up an Islamic state. This is not to say that didn't become a part of it but I find it increasingly bizarre, even problematic, that the first strand of thought is largely overlooked or deemed taboo when it is articulated. Hmm I see a research project forming right here.

On that note, must go to sleep! Next post: tomorrow's (well technically today since it's 12:34 am) dissertation thought or the day's favorite sentence. Which shall it be? Stay tuned to find out :-).