Whatever

[Chronos]

Its alright; the Almighty didn't endow the Dravidians with an abundance of intellect anyhow !

Armstrong, my brother, you can accuse South Indians of bad cooking, their women wearing Sarees with sizes too small,

but South Indians are actually one of the smartest in South Asia.

I mean the stereotype of the Indian nerd/geek IT techie originated from the Telugu and Tamil software engineers emigrating to the U.S.

The Almighty endowed us with much intelligence. Just like he endowed Kashmiris with stunning looks.

Jubbb time ho ga; abhiii tou excel par saath saaath kaaam ho rahaa haiii !




Furthermore an interesting point of note is that those extremist elements were almost exclusively associated with the Congress Party and were adamantly against Pakistan. The Majlis-i-Ahrar who spearheaded the Anti-Ahmediya movement were an ally of the Congress throughout. Likewise the Majlis-i-Ulema-Pakistan (that was created out of the remnants of the MiU-Hind) were allies of the Congress who supported ZuH throughout.

The Pakistan Movement was spearheaded by progressive elements of Muslim India not the regressive reactionary dotheads that were allied with the Congress (subject to some exceptions of course)





Its alright; the Almighty didn't endow the Dravidians with an abundance of intellect anyhow !

This is actually true. I think the argument put forth by the Islamic orthodoxy who opposed Pakistan either gave religious reasons for opposing it and some opposed it because they hoped that one day they will convert the pagans and the whole Indian sub continent will be 'Islamic.'

@Armstrong I am not an Indian with a jaundiced view towards Jinnah.

at the time before Independence there were a lot of groups in the sub continent who had their own grievances. Prominent was the Muslims of course.

If you look back, notable western political commentators gave India 30 odd years before it broke up into a dozen or so smaller countries.

It was an easy assumption to make. What does a Punjabi Sikh have in common with a Keralite Catholic christian with a Bengali Muslim?

The Indian experiment looked less plausible than a Pakistani one. It at least had a more unifying theme about it. For three decades or so, the Pakistani economic growth rate was higher than India's. Hell I am sure there are social indicators that Pakistan still is better than India.

Hopefully South Asia matures more. There is a distinct lack of it. Indians have this nauseating sense of self-righteousness which is quite often used to mask many insecurities.

and too much religion. Religion everywhere you look and not enough ethics.

 

[Chronos]

@Armstrong

btw, I do have questions. Have you interacted with indians in real life? I have only had minor interactions with pakistanis.

 

[Armstrong]

@Armstrong

btw, I do have questions. Have you interacted with indians in real life? I have only had minor interactions with pakistanis.

Very minor interaction; only on a visit to Singapore or once when a couple of Indians visited Pakistan !

 

[Chronos]

Very minor interaction; only on a visit to Singapore or once when a couple of Indians visited Pakistan !

what were your thoughts?

Do you mind if I have a few questions about Pakistan next week here?

Hopefully I won't bother you that much. No promises though

 

[Armstrong]

what were your thoughts?

The ones in Singapore were reserved and cautious but cordial and helpful; most of the time they were surprised that I was a Pakistani till I blurted something out in Urdu.

The ones in the US - a Sikh uncle - was very nice to us...jolly good fellow he was. Talked about Lahore and how he longed to visit Panja Sahib in Pakistan and how his wife visited Lahore a few years back and was received very warmly. He too was surprised that I was a Pakistani till I asked the menu in Punjabi.

The ones who visited Pakistan were always very warm and loving.

I suppose the difference could be that in Singapore most of the Indians were South Indians - We didn't really have a lot of common things to strike up a conversation about. Whereas elsewhere most of the Indians were Punjabis or there and about which means striking up a conversation was as easy as saying something in Punjabi.

But then again to be fair to the South Indians in Singapore it wasn't as if I was socializing with them; it was more like 'Can you please tell me where XYZ place is' or 'Do you know of a Pakistani restaurant nearby' etc !

You get the drift.

Do you mind if I have a few questions about Pakistan next week here?

Hopefully I won't bother you that much. No promises though

Ask away !

 

[Chronos]

The ones in Singapore were reserved and cautious but cordial and helpful; most of the time they were surprised that I was a Pakistani till I blurted something out in Urdu.

The ones in the US - a Sikh uncle - was very nice to us...jolly good fellow he was. Talked about Lahore and how he longed to visit Panja Sahib in Pakistan and how his wife visited Lahore a few years back and was received very warmly. He too was surprised that I was a Pakistani till I asked the menu in Punjabi.

The ones who visited Pakistan were always very warm and loving.

I suppose the difference could be that in Singapore most of the Indians were South Indians - We didn't really have a lot of common things to strike up a conversation about. Whereas elsewhere most of the Indians were Punjabis or there and about which means striking up a conversation was as easy as saying something in Punjabi.

But then again to be fair to the South Indians in Singapore it wasn't as if I was socializing with them; it was more like 'Can you please tell me where XYZ place is' or 'Do you know of a Pakistani restaurant nearby' etc !

You get the drift.



Ask away !

I will. How about next week? This week is my first week back in University. The workload is considerably lower, but this will be my last year, so I need to sort things out.

The ones in Singapore were reserved and cautious but cordial and helpful; most of the time they were surprised that I was a Pakistani till I blurted something out in Urdu.

The ones in the US - a Sikh uncle - was very nice to us...jolly good fellow he was. Talked about Lahore and how he longed to visit Panja Sahib in Pakistan and how his wife visited Lahore a few years back and was received very warmly. He too was surprised that I was a Pakistani till I asked the menu in Punjabi.

The ones who visited Pakistan were always very warm and loving.

I suppose the difference could be that in Singapore most of the Indians were South Indians - We didn't really have a lot of common things to strike up a conversation about. Whereas elsewhere most of the Indians were Punjabis or there and about which means striking up a conversation was as easy as saying something in Punjabi.

But then again to be fair to the South Indians in Singapore it wasn't as if I was socializing with them; it was more like 'Can you please tell me where XYZ place is' or 'Do you know of a Pakistani restaurant nearby' etc !

You get the drift.



Ask away !

You are actually right. South Indians even among indians largely are mild mannered, easy going but keep to themselves.

The Tamils are an exception to this. They are polite and courteous. But they are very proud of their language, history. Even to other south indians they seem standoffish.

this is where the South indian geek nerd stereotype comes from

Punjabis are the life of the party haha

 

[Armstrong]

This is actually true. I think the argument put forth by the Islamic orthodoxy who opposed Pakistan either gave religious reasons for opposing it and some opposed it because they hoped that one day they will convert the pagans and the whole Indian sub continent will be 'Islamic.'

@Armstrong I am not an Indian with a jaundiced view towards Jinnah.

at the time before Independence there were a lot of groups in the sub continent who had their own grievances. Prominent was the Muslims of course.

If you look back, notable western political commentators gave India 30 odd years before it broke up into a dozen or so smaller countries.

It was an easy assumption to make. What does a Punjabi Sikh have in common with a Keralite Catholic christian with a Bengali Muslim?

The Indian experiment looked less plausible than a Pakistani one. It at least had a more unifying theme about it. For three decades or so, the Pakistani economic growth rate was higher than India's. Hell I am sure there are social indicators that Pakistan still is better than India.

Hopefully South Asia matures more. There is a distinct lack of it. Indians have this nauseating sense of self-righteousness which is quite often used to mask many insecurities.

and too much religion. Religion everywhere you look and not enough ethics.

I think what the Western Political commentators forgot was the very clever thing that India did and kudos to you guys for thinking this up. You took the idea of a geographic and historic India and superimposed it onto the State of India as if to speak of one was to speak of the other; in that sense you got the historical grounding for Nationhood etched a lot easier in the mind's of the average Indian then we did.

Before '47 there was no Pakistan; yes we've lived side by side with each other for thousands upon thousands of years but there was no Pakistan. So the idea of a new State joined together by religion was a lot harder to sell than the idea of a State that had existed from time immemorial and even if though India hadn't existed as a country or anything close to it the appropriation of 'India - the historic and geographic subcontinent' and the newly created State of India as being one and the same did that trick for you.

Plus I know that a lot of Indians are in the habit of dishing dirt at Nehru Sahib but I think sometimes you guys do injustice to the man and don't appreciate his importance. I can say with some degree of certainty that had Nehru Sahib not guided India at the birth of the country defined it for what it stood for, sold the idea of 'India' to the masses the way an expert marketeer does and laid the foundations of some of the more enduring traditions in India - democracy and an apolitical army, it would not be very unreasonable to suggest that India truly would've broken apart in due time.

In contrast Our Father died merely a year after the country's creation and because the Muslim League was always a party of feudals, aristocrats and opportunists and it was only Jinnah Sahib's vision, persona and dedication that got us Pakistan, his alleged quote about the Muslim League leadership 'mereiii jaaiiib mein khooteiii sikheiii hain - my pocket is full of counterfeit/adulterated coins' came true. In time the real men and women who had fought tooth and nail for Pakistan inside and outside the Muslim League got sidelined by these opportunists. These same opportunists who in a way sold their and more so our souls to the devil - the Mullah, for votes and power.

It is tragic how the dream that was Pakistan was pounced upon by undeserving wretches who slowly but surely killed it.

What is even more tragic is that in this endless debate of whether Quaid-e-Azam was Secular or Islamist, whether he wanted a Secular state or an Islamic state etc. we have deviated from the things that he truly wanted - a Pluralistic Welfare State where Muslims could live and breath as free men and practice their religion including the right to develop Islamic paradigms in the light of modernity to achieve what Iqbal so fervently talked about. Now a camp wants us to be more Western than the West while the only thing about us being left is our oriental name tag while the other side wants us to reinvent an upgraded version of Mullah Omar's Taliban-esque Afghanistan.

The beautiful meld of progressiveness and tradition, modernity and conservatism, Islam and rationalism that Pakistan was envisioned to be (as I see it) have all been lost in this fruitless debate.

But I will never...ever give up on Pakistan and the dream that we dreamt !

 

[Chronos]

I think what the Western Political commentators forgot was the very clever thing that India did and kudos to you guys for thinking this up. You took the idea of a geographic and historic India and superimposed it onto the State of India as if to speak of one was to speak of the other; in that sense you got the historical grounding for Nationhood etched a lot easier in the mind's of the average Indian then we did.

Before '47 there was no Pakistan; yes we've lived side by side with each other for thousands upon thousands of years but there was no Pakistan. So the idea of a new State joined together by religion was a lot harder to sell than the idea of a State that had existed from time immemorial and even if though India hadn't existed as a country or anything close to it the appropriation of 'India - the historic and geographic subcontinent' and the newly created State of India as being one and the same did that trick for you.

Plus I know that a lot of Indians are in the habit of dishing dirt at Nehru Sahib but I think sometimes you guys do injustice to the man and don't appreciate his importance. I can say with some degree of certainty that had Nehru Sahib not guided India at the birth of the country defined it for what it stood for, sold the idea of 'India' to the masses the way an expert marketeer does and laid the foundations of some of the more enduring traditions in India - democracy and an apolitical army, it would not be very unreasonable to suggest that India truly would've broken apart in due time.

In contrast Our Father died merely a year after the country's creation and because the Muslim League was always a party of feudals, aristocrats and opportunists and it was only Jinnah Sahib's vision, persona and dedication that got us Pakistan, his alleged quote about the Muslim League leadership 'mereiii jaaiiib mein khooteiii sikheiii hain - my pocket is full of counterfeit/adulterated coins' came true. In time the real men and women who had fought tooth and nail for Pakistan inside and outside the Muslim League got sidelined by these opportunists. These same opportunists who in a way sold their and more so our souls to the devil - the Mullah, for votes and power.

It is tragic how the dream that was Pakistan was pounced upon by undeserving wretches who slowly but surely killed it.

What is even more tragic is that in this endless debate of whether Quaid-e-Azam was Secular or Islamist, whether he wanted a Secular state or an Islamic state etc. we have deviated from the things that he truly wanted - a Pluralistic Welfare State where Muslims could live and breath as free men and practice their religion including the right to develop Islamic paradigms in the light of modernity to achieve what Iqbal so fervently talked about. Now a camp wants us to be more Western than the West while the only thing about us being left is our oriental name tag while the other side wants us to reinvent an upgraded version of Mullah Omar's Taliban-esque Afghanistan.

The beautiful meld of progressiveness and tradition, modernity and conservatism, Islam and rationalism that Pakistan was envisioned to be (as I see it) have all been lost in this fruitless debate.

But I will never...ever give up on Pakistan and the dream that we dreamt !

thanks for the long post and explanation.
I hope it works out.If it doesn't means misery for hundreds of millions of human beings. Not just in Pakistan

India and Pakistan doesn't have to be friends. It can still be unfriendly towards each other but rather look towards itself.

I am a proponent of cutting defense spending for India and having a massive spending boost on healthcare, literacy and sanitation.

The one curiosity that I found when i was in India last year (I was in Kerala and Bangalore) was that I would find superb examples of architecture, technology and engineering in a sea of shambolic infrastructure. It sticks out like an eye sore.

it is almost like a taunt when you go to Delhi Metro, or Bangalore IT research centres. 'Hey Indians you guys build this, you guys are capable of of doing this, but you failed so far because of your apathy.

that's my rant anyway.

 

[haviZsultan]

I just watched Argo, the movie. Do Americans ever make movies that are not condescending to anyone. Or games for that matter. In call of duty I played a round that was a massacre in a russian airport. Crysis is against Korea. @haman10 have you watched Argo?

 

[haman10]

I just watched Argo, the movie. Do Americans ever make movies that are not condescending to anyone. Or games for that matter. In call of duty I played a round that was a massacre in a russian airport. Crysis is against Korea. @haman10 have you watched Argo?

Yes i've watched Argo .

I have watched every single movie they make against iran . from Argo to 300 , Eagle's eye , homeland , ......

They put much effort and money into them , and i have respect for that .

These are punches bellow the belt and really pathetic .

 

[haviZsultan]

Yes i've watched Argo .

I have watched every single movie they make against iran . from Argo to 300 , Eagle's eye , homeland , ......

They put much effort and money into them , and i have respect for that .

These are punches bellow the belt and really pathetic .

The westerners want to control countries and if they refuse to be within their sphere of influence they are bullied. I hope Iran progresses and really seeks a nuke.

 

[IrbiS]

I just watched Argo, the movie. Do Americans ever make movies that are not condescending to anyone. Or games for that matter. In call of duty I played a round that was a massacre in a russian airport. Crysis is against Korea. @haman10 have you watched Argo?

They showed Pakistan a failed state in COD : Black Ops II. Haven't played myself but cousin told me that he closed at the start of the mission when they had arrived at Lahore Station

 

[jamahir]

I like janon's posts, he's brusque like you but his posts do make a lot of sense.

oye... how am i brusque??

i am direct and simple-worded but not brusque.

by the way, the new lady in your profile-picture needs to eat.

-------

@Armstrong i like your signature...

Islam is not a religion in the ancient sense of the word. It is an attitude, that is to say, of freedom, and even of defiance to the Universe. It is really a protest against the entire outlook of the ancient world. Briefly, it is a discovery of Man. (Iqbal - Stray Reflections)

The only issue with him is he can not behave himself when the female members are around. He makes very crude posts. That baudet!

doppleganger seems like one of those uncontrolled teen males who think the world is like their college environments where they can hang around in gangs and laugh at people passing by their college gates, and where their language will be encouraged by equally rude and confused females.

 

[gau8av]

@jamahir doesn't taking one's political ideology/leanings too seriously make one just like a religious extremist ?

why should i... after all, it is going to get me lot of ladeej.

my urdu is weak, "ladeej" ?

 

[jamahir]

my urdu is weak, "ladeej" ?

ladies... not urdu, just some tharki english.

@jamahir doesn't taking one's political ideology/leanings too seriously make one just like a religious extremist ?

in light of the above comment, will you modify your comment??