Sunday ka Funda

You go out for a meal and take a picture and post it. What are you really telling the world? You drive and capture the streets, the clouds, sunsets. Are any of these new to those who see them? You meet friends and one of the most important takeaways from this "wonderful evening" is to pose for a selfie, after taking picture of tea and snacks and of the interesting tree in the compound.

I can't say all of this is a recent phenomenon. I have done much of this, although I believe that taking a photograph of a meal you share with somebody is an intrusion into their space as much as yours. The same is true of wanting to capture any and every meeting.

This is not a judgment, for I am aware that I'd be guilty at some point in time of all of these. It points out to the utter isolation, so much so that even real interactions seem legitimate only when they are virtualised.

Like this very normal view of the balcony and from it. It is a wry comment on what we have become, the bareness of the room only highlighting disengagement with reality:

On Four Legs

It is tempting to say that isolation is almost complete when one starts ordering furniture online. It began with a casual click, and soon I was adding stuff to my wish list that I had never wished for. This was perturbing because I have not done any shopping online. It was almost like I was building a virtual home; I even found sheets and curtains to go with what I had selected.

Within minutes I realised I had no space to set up a home in what is already a home. All this would have to wait till I was ready to discard the old. There was, however, one item I did need. A table. A work table. I barely use the one I have because the chair is broken. The normal response would be to buy a chair to go with what is already there. But, the chair was always with that table, so I cannot use one without the other. I had dragged the dining chair a few times, and it did not go well with the table.

What I required was something that wouldn't claim too much space. There were several that claimed to be happy in little nooks and would not bother me. A whole lot of self-effacing tables were jostling for my attention. I chose a black beauty about whom it was said that it could be moved anywhere and could fold. Such humility was rather becoming. I immediately placed an order.

To digress a bit, I like a work table to swell voluptuously, its girth overwhelming in its protectiveness. If it is quirky, so much the better. I really like this one above because there seems to be nothing else. It is like a whole world in the space to roll arms, run fingers, pat, lay down head, dream, awaken.

Then, I also like a table to have clean lines and leg space. Being a bit of a collector of junk, there should be no place for me to stuff things or I'll have to elbow my way in to type or doodle. This one is nice except for the motherboard and printer.

But, my moveable feast did not look like even a facsimile copy of either. I awaited it as one does glad tidings. You know it is good news, but there is still some trepidation. The trepidation was not unfounded. A heavy package arrived where I expected a quiet visitor swaying on legs that were meant to move.

After cutting through paper and bubble wrap, what I found were several screws, a flat board and stilts. There was a manual with images of how to get this thing to be of any use. I thought I was making life easy for myself — ordering this to reach home, to be able to use as soon as it arrived. As it turned out, I had to 'make' it.

Placing all the parts before me, I tried to figure out what went where. The screwdriver wouldn't fit into the screws, my hand kept slipping, one leg that I managed to position ended up looking like a barrel of a gun facing me. My back and hands were aching. And to think the table was to help me get rid of these aches.

After an hour or so, I decided that I did not have a way with the screwdriver. The manual too was quite half-hearted. Instruction manuals usually are. I put all the parts away in a bag, telling myself that I'd go online to check how to fix self-effacing tables that move. What I found instead were other tables, lovelier than mine, more reasonably priced, easier to fix, if at all.

What had made me select the first one I set my eyes on? It is an old habit. And having made a choice, I begin to believe that the object's and my destiny are intertwined. The object ceases to be just an object.

As I look at the desultory bag with the table, I wonder whether I am giving it short shrift by not creating it. Whose fault is it that some things are not meant to come whole and it is up to us to give them the shape they were ordained to be? And I think about that wrongly-positioned leg that pointed at me — that was not ordained, it would have been my recreation of it.

It is better that I wait awhile. One day, soon, I might find the light or a screwdriver that does not slip from my hand. One day, I will put the pieces together because they are now mine.

© Farzana Versey

Of Kashmiri Kids and Obama's NATO

Just the other day, they were telling us how bad the situation is in Mumbai. How do you solve this problem? Bring a group of Kashmiri kids. Here is what happens:

Even though many would prefer the serenity of the valleys of Kashmir, for this bunch of Kashmiri students currently touring Mumbai, the hustle-bustle and traffic jams of the city are more appealing. “It feels so good and comforting to walk into a city where people are not living in constant fear,” said Shabbir Ahmed, a 16-year-old student from Khadi, Kashmir.

This boy’s father or uncle or grandfather is probably in Mumbai selling handicrafts. And not because he wants to feel safe, but because the jobs have dried up in Kashmir.

Are such initiatives worth it? This has been arranged by the 23 RR Battalion of the Indian Army. Major Gurudev Jajot said:

“Our aim is to wipe out this stigma of isolation that they face and to motivate them to dream high.”

In what way is it a stigma? There are people living in many remote villages in our country. They are isolated too. By emphasising on the stigma associated with Kashmiris, it only makes it more evident and real. It is nice that children from different places interact, but not with such an agenda in mind.

Does a Kashmiri not dream high? And even if s/he does not, there can be several factors. Again, how many high dreamers are there in Chhatisgarh or even Chunabatti in Mumbai?

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I do hope Pakistan has sent a Thank You note to Barack Obama for not saying sorry for the NATO strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. It exposes his arrogance.

Some administration aides also worried that if Mr. Obama were to overrule the military and apologize to Pakistan, such a step could become fodder for his Republican opponents in the presidential campaign, according to several officials who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The military units are sent by the US civilian administration. A democratically-elected leader can overrule the military, just as he can recall them. That is what has been done all along, so why the protocol now? If he is only looking at electoral gains, then he would benefit from the apology because Pakistan will be eager to accept it due to their tacit understanding.

Cameron Munter, the United States ambassador to Pakistan, would have liked it to fix the US-Pak situation, but others disagreed:

Defense Department officials balked. While they did not deny some American culpability in the episode, they said expressions of remorse offered by senior department officials and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton were enough, at least until the completion of a United States military investigation establishing what went wrong.

Wonderful. Even if the Americans and the Pakistanis give different explanations, the fact is that these soldiers were killed, and not by the militants. Where are the investigations when the Americans get trigger-happy? Will there be an inquiry into whether they were defending themselves? Against whom? The militants or the soldiers?

If the top defense guys do not know what their troops were upto, then Pakistan could use them to stand guard outside Habib Bank or something in Karachi.