She died. My cousin. Just like that. A phone call; my dad crying on the phone: she is dead, hira, don't tell anyone yet, okay, we'll let them know when the dead body arrives.

Four months gone and I still can't comprehend the meaning of it. It feels strange to write about it. Like I am making use of her death somehow. For writing.

But writing is all I have, to relive, the pain, the grief; to understand the meaninglessnes of it.

What are these hollow words going to do anyway? She is dead. Nothing is going to change that. The finality of it. Her eyes. Her voice. Her laugh. The images of all these pass by like an unending stream. All gone. Where? And then the words: she is dead. The same words, ringing always. Dead, Dead, Dead. And yet they do not register. How can she be gone. She was just 22. God? A live person, their heart beating, their lungs breathing. Gone, in an instant.

Maybe its because I had always thought of death as something in the abstract, that I do not get its meaning when its here. Why do we think that we are going to continue forever as we are, things are always going to be the same, never change?


I can't stop wondering where she would be. Where is she in Death's other Kingdom. Is she happy? Then I think of her body, buried; probably decaying slowly; I try to imagine her hands, her face, in that soil. And I close my eyes, with a strange terror. God let her be okay, wherever she is.

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Is she alive in some other world? I have so many dreams where she comes back and somehow everything is back to normal again. Had one today once again. She was coming from somewhere, I was waiting for her. Thinking I would beat her into a pulp orchestrating this drama. Or perhaps just hug her tight. But it can't be real. One cannot create a fake body of their own. Why is it that I cannot accept her nonexistence? She was alive, I can hear her voice as clear as anything. If a phone were to ring just now, and there would be her voice at the other end, no shock would jolt me. Death is strange. One feels. Sees. Smells. And its gone. Just like that. How? Why do we feel so much if it goes away like this. Why can't we know whats on the other side. Its cruel.

My memory isn't good. But there are still things that I remember. I remember, as kids, setting up that makeshift tent in our backyard lawn. Or going up to the roof early in the morning and eating chips and coke. Or watching Cinderella, or Beauty and the Beast or any of those Disney movies. Or fighting, there was one so bad we ended up with scars. Or looking up for the crescent, one night before Eid every year. Or filling up those transcription pages we were given as summer homework in grade 3. Or flying those kites on Basant. Or when there were power failures, making those shadow bunnies and fish with our hands, in the candlelight. Or eating oranges on the roof, in the winter sunlight. Or playing hide and seek. Or hopscotch on the roof. Or 'kho kho' or 'barf pani' or 'pithoo gol garm' or hopscotch or any of those games they used to play in those days. Or taking swings in our neighbour's lawn.

Think I should probably stop. I know perhaps there's no one that visits this blog now. But if you are reading this and you believe in prayers, please pray for her soul.

The AHRC (Asian Human Rights Commission) has received information from the National Council for Human Rights, Faisalabad that a 17-year-old girl was abducted by police officials and kept for almost 16 days in private custody where she was raped and tortured to confess her involvement in the murder of her fiancée. Her elder sister was also brought in police lock up and held, naked for three days naked to pressure the sister to confess to the charges.

CASE DETAILS:

A 17-year-old girl A (her name is not being disclosed to protect her identity), the daughter of a labourer Manzoor Ahmed, resident of block C, Millat Town, Faisalabad, Punjab Province, was arrested on March 14, 2008, from her home by Ghulam Rasool, by Sub Inspector (SI) of Police Station Nishatabad on the suspicion of the murder of her fiancée. Her fiancée was killed by the deceased's rivals. The SI took A to a private room situated near the Police Station and held her there for 16 days, from 14-03-2008 to 29-03-2008. He thereafter he produced her before the first class magistrate for judicial remand. During that period she was kept naked at all times and the SI along with constables Iqbal 4934/c, Ameer Watto1755/c and Shehbaz 4994/c physically teased and tortured her to force her to confess to the murder. After the physical torture a lady constable, Nargis would massage her to remove the marks of torture, particularly the bite marks on her body. During this period Shujat Ali Malhi, a Sub Inspector of Investigation of the Nishatabad Police Station raped her twice. This SI threatened her that if she did not confess to the murder she will be raped by all the staff of the police station. On the direction of SI Investigations, SI Ghulam Rasool arrested the victim's elder sister of from their house and both the sisters were made to sit in front of each other naked for three days while Ghulam Rasool, Iqbal, Ameer Watto and Shehbaz constables teased them, touched their private body parts and tortured them brutally. The name of the victim was never mentioned in the first information report (FIR) and after one week of her illegal detention a supplementary statement was taken by the investigation officer from the father of deceased implicating victim ‘A’ in the murder.

Read more.

Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.

This is how D.H.Lawrence's novel 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' begins, I've only just started it.

Lyrical as always, his writing.

Loved this quote so thought I would post.

Into the Wild

Photo by Gauravanomics at Flickr

I just saw 'Into the Wild' a few days back. Its based on a true story told by Jon Krakauer in his book 'Into the Wild'.

After graduating as an honours student, Christopher McCandless (portrayed brilliantly by Emile Hirsch in the movie), gives his trust fund to charity, abandons all his possessions and embarks upon a self-discovering journey under the pseudonym of 'Alexander Supertramp'. Eventually to reach his final destination, the Alaskan wilderness. In search of freedom from the oppression of society. And its materialistic obsessions. He sheds all the extraneous needs this civilization inflicts. And thus seeks to find himself by returning to that elemental human existence in the vicinity of nature.

But dies in the attempt, of starvation apparently.

Native Alaskans shake their heads and think of him as, as Jon Krakauer puts it, "half-cocked greenhorn who went into the bush expecting to find answers to all his problems and instead found nothing but mosquitoes and a lonely death". And some think that Chriss McCandless is needlesslessly being romanticised by his protagonists Sean Penn (who wrote the script and directed the movie) and Jon Krakauer.

Despite that this is a moving tale.

In his own words:

Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.

Alexander Supertramp
May 1992

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Here is the original article Jon Krakauer wrote about the guy. It is worth reading.

And this is another article I found: The Cult of Chris McCandless.

Praying Not Playing by Maki al-Nazzal and Dahr Jamail

DAMASCUS, May 19 (IPS) - In the struggle now just to stay alive, everyone has forgotten that Iraq has lost, among other things, its tradition in sports. Some of its best sportsmen are now refugees.

"No one seems to care about us," 20-year-old footballer Ali Rubai'i told IPS. Ali fled Iraq with his family to Syria like countless other young Iraqis. The young from Iraq, born after 1980, have grown up amidst three major wars, 13 years of strangling economic sanctions, and now five years of occupation.

Through all this some still manage to keep up with sports. But it has begun to seem to many others like an indulgence.

"I was one of the best soccer players in Anbar province, and my coach expected the brightest future for me," Ayid Humood from Ramadi, 100 km west of Baghdad, told IPS in Damascus. "I struggled to keep my training together with my work as a construction labourer, but then I had to give up playing because work brought survival for the family."

"Despite the Iraq-Iran war of the eighties, and the UN sanctions later, there was some support for sports and youth in Iraq," a senior member of the Iraqi Olympics Committee told IPS on condition of anonymity on telephone from Baghdad. "Iraq produced many Olympic teams and stars because of the organised system that was founded in the early days of the Iraqi state. It got worse during the UN sanctions, and then the very worst came with the U.S. occupation in 2003."

Read more.

"outcast on a cold star, unable to feel anything but an awful helpless numbness. I look down into the warm, earthy world. Into a nest of lovers' beds, baby cribs, meal tables, all the solid commerce of life in this earth, and feel apart, enclosed in a wall of glass." ~ Sylvia Plath

Israel at 60 by Uri Avnery

Every time I hear the voice of David Ben-Gurion uttering the words "Therefore we are gathered here…" I think of Issar Barsky, a charming youngster, the little brother of a girl-friend of mine.

The last time we met was in front of the dining hall of Kibbutz Hulda, on Friday, May 14, 1948.

In the coming night my company was to attack al-Qubab, an Arab village on the road to Jerusalem, east of Ramle. We were busy with preparations. I was cleaning my Czech-made rifle, when somebody came and told us that Ben-Gurion was just making a speech about the founding of the state.

Frankly, none of us was very interested in speeches by politicians in Tel Aviv. The city seemed so far away. The state, we knew, was here with us. If the Arabs were to win, there would be no state and no us. If we won, there would be a state. We were young and self-confident, and did not doubt for a moment that we would win.

But there was one detail that I was really curious about: what was the new state to be called? Judea? Zion? The Jewish State?

So I hastened to the dining hall. Ben-Gurion's unmistakable voice was blaring from the radio. When he reached the words "…namely the State of Israel" I had had enough and left.

Outside I came across Issar. He was in another company, which was to attack another village that night. I told him about the name of the state and said "take care of yourself!"

Some days later he was killed. So I remember him as he was then: a boy of 19, a smiling, tall Sabra full of joie de vivre and innocence.

* * *

The closer we come to the grandiose 60th anniversary festivities, the more I am troubled by the question: if Issar were to open his eyes and see us, still a boy of 19, what would he think of the state that was officially established on that day?

He would see a state that has developed beyond his wildest dreams. From a small community of 635,000 souls (more than 6000 of whom would die with him in that war) we have grown to more than seven million. The two great miracles we have wrought - the revival of the Hebrew language and the institution of Israeli democracy - continue to be a reality. Our economy is strong and in some fields - such a hi-tech - we are in the world super-league. Issar would be excited and proud.

But he would also feel that something had gone wrong in our society. The Kibbutz where we put up our little bivouac tents that day has become an economic enterprise, like any other. The social solidarity, of which we were so proud, has collapsed. Masses of adults and children live below the poverty line, old people, the sick and the unemployed are left to fend for themselves. The gap between rich and poor is one of the widest in the developed world. And our society, that once raised the banner of equality and justice, just clucks its collective tongue and moves on to other matters.

Most of all he would be shocked to discover that the brutal war, which killed him and wounded me, together with thousands of others, is still going on at full blast. It determines the entire life of the nation. It fills the first pages of the newspapers and heads the news bulletins.

That our army, the army that really was "we", has become something quite different, an army whose main occupation us to oppress another people.

Read more.

Denying Palestininans Free Movement by Stephen Lendman

This article summarizes an August 2007 B'Tselem report now available in print. It's one of a series of studies it conducts on life in Occupied Palestine to reveal what major media accounts suppress. This one is titled: "Ground to a Halt - Denial of Palestinians' Freedom of Movement in the West Bank."

B'Tselem has a well-deserved reputation for accuracy and integrity. It's the Jerusalem-based independent Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). It was founded in 1989 by prominent academics, attorneys, journalists and Knesset members to "document and educate the Israeli public and policymakers about human rights violations in (Occupied Palestine), combat (the Israeli public's) denial, and create a human rights culture in Israel" to convince government officials to respect human rights and obey international law.

Read more.

Ten Minutes of Fame by Andrew Lam

Future historians may very well look back at the beginning of the 21st century as an era in which the human mind developed into a split screen, with one eye on real space and the other ogling the electronic mirror.

This morning on a crowded bus I counted six people within my immediate view, texting, talking on the cell phone, checking e-mail, listening to iPods. In other words, they were trying to keep the bus from being their only space, their only reality. And what was I doing? I recorded what I observed in my laptop, of course.

If modern technology has been created to enhance our daily lives, something has dramatically shifted: More and more, our daily lives are enslaved to the electronic world.

Read more.

Earth Day - 22nd April

An article by George Monbiot:

It wasn't meant to happen like this. The climate scientists told us that our winters would become wetter and our summers drier. So I can't claim that these floods were caused by climate change, or are even consistent with the models. But, like the ghost of Christmas yet to come, they offer us a glimpse of the possible winter world that we will inhabit if we don't sort ourselves out.

With rising sea levels and more winter rain - and remember that when the trees are dormant and the soils saturated, there are fewer places for the rain to go - all it will take is a freshwater flood to coincide with a high spring tide and we have a formula for full-blown disaster. We have now seen how localised floods can wipe out essential services and overwhelm emergency workers. But this month's events don't even register beside some of the predictions circulating in learned journals. Our primary political struggle must be to prevent the breakup of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. The only question now worth asking about climate change is how.

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Green consumerism is becoming a pox on the planet. If it merely swapped the damaging goods we buy for less damaging ones, I would champion it. But two parallel markets are developing - one for unethical products and one for ethical products, and the expansion of the second does little to hinder the growth of the first. I am now drowning in a tide of ecojunk. Over the past six months, our coat pegs have become clogged with organic cotton bags, which - filled with packets of ginseng tea and jojoba oil bath salts - are now the obligatory gift at every environmental event. I have several lifetimes' supply of ballpoint pens made with recycled paper and about half a dozen miniature solar chargers for gadgets that I do not possess.

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Read more.

Info on Earth Day.