Five Days

Chapter 16.

By Higher Authority

Something very strange just happened. The birth of a revolution perhaps. When people lose their minds completely and want answers to questions they can't even phrase anymore, they will take to the streets to find them. Shops are shut down all over Karachi and it's very likely that as I type this, many innocent people are becoming the victims of senseless violence and rage running throughout the city. Since no one outside of the political scenario even knows whose blood it is they even WANT to get on their hands anymore...they just want to get away with bloody murder.

The problem, I now feel, with Pakistanis in general...is that they don't know enough to be able to satisfy themselves through rational thinking. Sometimes I fear the problem is that they just don't appreciate people on tv getting away with killing a lot of innocent people, when deep down inside the heart of every true Pakistani, lies a closet killer...I write this because I think it's a sick truth about our people. We aren't uneducated...we aren't indecent...we aren't confused or misled by higher authority...

We're murderers. We LIKE the thought of killing. We're all a sick bunch of killers. And life goes on that way. Whether you're fighting from the provoked end or the end doing the provoking...we all just want in on the killing. People just need something to DO here. Someone fucking help us...get us a few new MALLS or something...more video games...anything. Anything.

When one person dies in this country, the first thought of anyone who knew them is to get blood. Someone's blood. Just anyone. They like the pain inside their hearts to show on the faces of others. Through the scars on old, aging skin and faces which laugh in the face of today's events, because, depressing as it may seem...they've actually seen so much worse.

Yet, life...will go on...the country is falling to pieces...but it's happened so often now it's almost routine. Everyone knows to get into their houses and stay there till the gas pumps around the city open up again...no questions whether it was all made up or not...whether people planned this and blamed it on a religious fanaticism group so that they get rid of a threatening candidate for control of power, ALONG with having just cause to start bombing guilty landlords in the south west. Two birds with one, single, shot from a bullet. So many more people will die...and its going to be treated as normal behaviour of course...just a result of just another famous face being shot to death. Yes, life will go on. Murderers just need a reason to get out of the house and get angry and something. That's all. We prayed for death and destruction, secretly...a guilty pleasure we dare not reveal...and it came in this form this time...but...someone or the other is always MORE affected by the death of someone else aren't they? But it's okay...we shall treat it as just another statistic caused by some made up belief that maniacal mythical bearded men with AK 47s in the north are organised and smart enough to plan and assassinate key political figures in the major cities of the south.

Not to mention that this probably puts a real DAMPER on many upcoming artistic endeavours around the country...because people are too stupid to see that things like music, paints, colours, theatre, and just a little bit of laughter are pretty much the only things that will save us in the eyes of God...if He's even watching over this place anymore of course.

The Pakistan People's Party's hopeful candidate for Prime Minister of Pakistan, Madam Benazir Bhutto, has been shot in the neck, and killed. Rest in peace, dear lady. I can't imagine anyone having done enough evil to deserve death at the hands of a MORTAL judge, but I hope for everyone's sake that your death had some divine role to play in the future of this country.

There's a lot of tension out there tonight, but nothing a few glasses of New Year's booze won't get rid of. This is Pakistan. I give it five days.

Lying Little Fuckers

Chapter 15.

Bombing Our Poor

I was always interested in other cultures. Not particularly to the extent of actually going and VISITING them...because that would require too much time away from my room where I have the unaltered freedom to, at ANY time, lie on the bed completely naked with jello on my balls.

Raspberry...

So I always tried to pay attention whenever they told me about other cultures, yknow? THEY as in anyone, anything and everything. And everyone. Most of it obviously comes from television...so you kind of get used to TRUSTING that the most don't you. And not in the "I AM A MINDLESS MORON (as opposed to the OTHER type of MORON? What does that even MEAN?!?) WHO WILL BELIEVE EVERYTHING I SEE!" kinda way...but more like I will TRUST it to be what it's always promised to be. You know it's a lie when one of the little news scroller at the bottom of some BOOB of an American news channel says some shit like:

BO, MH: WE WILL NOT SUPPORT AMERICAN STRIKES ON TERRORIST CAMPS - Pakistan President Musharraf

Which actually meant Ol' Mushi didn't want em' to start BOMBING our POOR (despite the long term benefits)...yknow...on account that they haven't DONE nothin'. That's ALL he did, folks. He stood up for the poor. Instead they made it sound like as if a terrorist regime that THEY invented...is actually "threatening their country and it's people and their freedoms...and a little ASSHOLE of a country called Pakistan is not letting us bomb shit to get results. Maybe THEY'RE also terrorists." Luckily...our country's last line of defense, the average state ratio of seventeen horny jobless males to each rapidly corrupted female, makes us SUCH a bunch of losers that they don't even want anything to do with the natural gas. OR the marble!


Which...of course are probably the only two half unique things we can call our own NATURAL resources or products or whatever doo daa terms describe what you already know I'm talking about in a business and industry management college textbook written by a man who never had sex.

The point is...you have to read between the lines. This is not NEWS to anyone I understand it...but it IS something we tend to forget in remembering while we see the LITTLE things too...
No sir...it ain't NEWS to anyone...on the scroller...THIS is:

CIA Director Smidgits Cainus to replace Anus Cannibus as Chairperson of DEFENSE after Cannibus drug charges

Oh they're goooood...They're SO good you never watch them work. I'm not saying I saw these EXACT pieces of news...I'm just saying...you KNOW you've read into some outRAGEOUS shit...It never hurts to have an imagination when you're willing to JUDGE something as true or false. Cuz' if you're great enough to JUDGE a story based on what you know...you SHOULD be able to imagine anything is possible. But hell they tell me I've got an overactive imagination. But...when ya think about it...I never got a college education like you...or in the case of someone LIKE myself reading this, well done...I'm surprised you know how to use a computer.

So what was MY education? Cheap in taste but big in budget, commercial Hollywood movies. That's right. I saw enough bullshit to fill the Grand Canyon. I hate that I find a statement like that funny because I know the fact that the Grand Canyon in some fucking shit ass dry crummy desert state in the glorified Hollywood America is apparently the biggest fucking hole on the planet. I have never SEEN this...GRAND Canyon...but I know what I know...I know enough to question shit in my head...that's all I'm saying. It starts all EARLY in life and shit. You know what I mean...you go to some AUNTY's place (For international readers...the term AUNTY is ALSO used to describe beautiful middle aged women...you know...hot mama's...sexy ladies...mom's we'd like to HOLLYWOOD MACHINE!! But not in THIS particular case...this WAS in fact some fat ass...AUNTY) and their kid shows you a picture of him and a suspiciously GRIM looking Arnold Schwarzegger...striking a pose which looks like it's the last thing he did before a bolt of lightning hit him and froze him forever. But that skin...so...real...

Obnoxious Aunty Kid: Look you see?! Me! AND ARNOLD SHFOFFNEYGER...

Me: It's Arnold...SHWAURTZ...EN...EGGER...

Onoxious Aunty Kid: Yea! Him only...Look me him...

Me: Okay...dude....I know I'm meeting you for the first time and stuff...and this MAY be very rude of me...but dude...I don't think that's him, dude.

Onoxious Aunty Kid: VOT?!?! VAI??! VAI THIS THIS ITS THIS HIIIIMMMMM!!!!!

Me: Y'know...if English isn't your first language...I mean it IS cool, seriously...

Onoxious Aunty Kid: BUT VAAAI DON'T YOU THINK IT'S HIM?!?!?!?!?


He was wearing a Madame Tussaud's t shirt. You always gotta watch out for lying little fuckers like that y'know? Sure it BECOMES the story of the time they just fucking went to Madame Tussaud's and got a picture taken in front of a WAX FIGURINE and we all had a fucking LAUGH about it...but initially? They would rather have you believe they chilled with Arnold Schwarzenegger....it's only because you CHALLENGED it, you see?

Why...is the Terminator...wearing a blue shirt with a gay looking colourful woman's face on it?

You HAVE to challenge it.


ALL of it.

Proud to Call

Chapter 14.

Of Our Bodies

What an eid..

Fact. First day of Eid starting from Chaand Raat (a night on which we're used to not seeing an actual CHAAND anymore) till the end of the first Eid night, more than a crore and a half worth of booze was sold in Karachi alone.

Fact. I didn't see any of this booze.

I don't know how reliable my source was though. You ever had one of those friends who exaggerates a story just so it's crazy enough to be possible? That's where I got this news from. I never used to ask people to double check their info...even as a kid. I only recently started treating the internet as a means to find things which contradict stuff my friends say...but I spend so much time alone in my room working out this endeavour, that I don't think I've talked to any of my friends in weeks. But day before yesterday....that all changed. And I'm glad...because I had fun.

We ROLLED! Apparently that esteemed title of an action no longer represents the art of actually, ROLLING a cigarette, filled with some form of herbal drug of course...unless you're fuck bored and have about half an hour to kill before your mom hands you a plate of goodies that you drool over only to find you have to deliver them to neighbours you despise because everytime THEY send a dish which traditionally has meat in it...they replace it with aloo?

Khair so yea rolling...apparently....as everyone now seems to be aware...this represents being on a little drug called ECSTACY. It really is a little fucker of a pill. A little round lie, that makes all your dreams come true...even if it IS only in your head. And I thought I had wild thoughts BEFORE...my God. And I stay away for months at a time between the new found ROLLING nights too. Not because I don't think I can take it or anything...but because frankly it get's in the way of my drinking...and that is something I won't stand for. You thought RETALIN kept you awake. This thing is like forgetting you ever slept, with all the mental harmony produced by seven orgasms with none of the physical effects of actually going THROUGH seven fucking orgasms which include dizziness, nausea, and a sudden urge to be very uninterested in what some chick is saying to you, especially if she's a lesbian you just met.

We went to the beach. THE BEACH YEA THE BEACH! LETS GO TO THE BEACH! I LOVE THE BEACH YAAAR LETS GO TO THE BEACH YES BEACH LETS BEACH!

Fuck the beach...I wanna watch TV...I wanna watch TV on the beach....wheres the microwave? How do I heat this popcorn? Fucking beach...I gotta start up a fuckin' MOTOR generate with DIESEL in it to make two lights and a fuckin' FAN work? This is what that marvellous drive a fuckin' hour and a half long was for? I don't even think this is our HUT! Where's the air conditioning?

So we go to the beach. The only group of friends I'm proud to call just that was there...the WHOLE group...and it was a fun filled night of very loud music and very cold sand. Very good booze and very shiny stars. Very much dancing but unfortunately very few women...but it was Eid...and we had serious catching up to do in the intoxicant department of our bodies, what with all that damage Ramadan had left behind.

What I seem to love about E is how nothing seems to matter anymore. Someone could come up and slap you in the face and you still wouldn't have anything against him. It's only days later that you would realise what a slam to your honour that probably was and become corrupted once again by these mortal, EARTHLY thoughts...leading you to plan twisted ways to make that dude cry.

No sir, not when you're ROLLING. Everyone you EVER had a problem with seems to be the most ridiculous thing in the world...and you wish everyone you knew was right there with you so you could tell them how much you love them. And when they laugh and tell you you're drunk or ROLLING, for the first time...you might actually agree and not feel bad about it.

The best part about it is how your friends become all SWEET and shit. Like everyones always asking if you want their seat, or some water, or some booze, if you want the doors closed, or the fan off, or ON...people become HELLA accomodating when they're ROLLING...I think it's because no one cares to remember the usual approach to life that most Karachiites have...every man for himself.

Everything seems like a great idea when you're trippin' too. I mean fuck sliced bread...fuck the light bulb...let's throw drops of red bull in the air and see how many each of us can catch with our armpits...that, is the GREATEST fucking idea anyone could EVER have had. Forget abolishing slavery...

They mix and match actions too! "Dude, DUDE! Check this out...hold your head to this wall...you doing it? you got it? okay now...with your head still pressed to the wall...QUICKLY! DRINK THIS RED BULL!"

Anyone listening in will immediately try it as well...its like that old show where that old storyteller tells people of a magic rock he pulls out of his balls he claims to be able to make any soup taste great. He keeps adding things to a pot of boiling water with a fuckin' ROCK inside it....only to suggest at the end when everyone agrees the soup was great, that it was all because of the rock.

Here's a fun thing to do...if you're ever ROLLING with your closest friends...somewhere near PEAK time...go up to one of them and say the following:

"Dude....dude...check this okay? Just fuckin' CHECK it dude...blow your mind it will. See my hands alright? KEEP LOOKING AT THEM MOTHERFUCKER! See the lights I'm holding? Alright....alright keep lookin' at em...you see how they're leaving trails? Keep FOLLOWIN' the lights boy...nothing but my hands....nothing but the lights....you see em? You staring right at em, right? This is so gonna trip you out....Keep watching....watching....now QUICK!


Suck my balls."


Eid Mubarak, world.

An Idiot, and a Tool

Chapter 13.

I represent God

I've been away a while. Not that anyone's noticed. Been busy...yea! I have. Plus someone I talked to recently actually reminded me of this blog. If I remember correctly...I've mentioned my memory somewhere here before...it's not very good...they didn't call me HAATHI in school for my memory is what I'm trying to tell you.



I think I've mentioned I was fat.



Television, friends. The way of the future. The Americans...they understood this a LONG time ago. When they aren't numbing the minds of little babies to dumb down the future generation through BABY TV (Recommended viewing by the Ecstacy Taker's Asscociation of Pakistan, or E. T.A.A.P)....they're using uncannily interesting stories like Paris Hilton's jail sentence to mindfuck the old ones too.



The Pakistanis.



The Pakistani's have finally caught up. Between burqa clad mullah avengers, and cock eyed power hungry judges, we have finally arrived to the point in history which will be an unveiling of what all this was all planned to help us ignore in the first place.



Rebirth.



It is now. The religion...versus the modern culture. I can't really say WHO will win...but it's quite obvious what REALLY happened soon after ...



Religion: Well gentlemen...it's been nearly a century since this country's birth...well actually just about 60 years, but I round to the nearest 100 because my representatives aren't very sharp....and I have realised this. You two are conspiring against me. You think I'm slowing you down. You think I'm...

...bad for the people.

Science: It's not that. It's just that your boys aren't letting my boys play freely...what with the whole...

Religion: Listen...about that Khuda Ke Liye threat....which were technically Art's boys...

Art: And then...THUNDER! Thunder as the camera pans ri...

Religion: And it's not like it made much of a dent. Since your people are all educated enough to know their rights.

Science: Your people don't follow those rights.

Religion: Yes, but I represent God.

Art: WE AAWWWLLLLL do duuuuudddeeeee.....peace...loveee...prosperityyy mannnnn...

Science: (to Art) You are an idiot, and a tool....and after we destroy Religion and his backward ways since you're such a dumbass that I use you any way I please to get the people on my side...I will also have YOU killed off like Science Germany's boy Hitler did back in the day.

Religion: You pathetic souls...you don't really think you can destroy me.

Science: No...not forever. I mean let's face it there's a REASON you represent God. Damned if I know what it is though.

Art: Then...a gunshot.......BLAM! And we annoyingly use a dolly to get the dolly shot with that dolly yea dolly...

Science: So why not just get rid of you for a little while my boys get a little stronger here? Look...long run? You're not gonna disappear...and even when you DO get strong again...you're all forgiving...so you won't try to destroy me.

Religion: No, Science Pakistan. I will not try to destroy you. You will destroy yourself...

Art: VIOLINS!!! VIOLINS!!!

Science: Umm...one of your boys just planted a car bomb outside a theatre. It's the one showing Khuda Ke Liye...

Religion: It was probably some of yours working together to make it LOOK like mine...but I'm such a retard and a pacifist...I'll believe you anyway.

Science: You and everyone else bub...

Politics: Will you shoot the damn thing, already?

Science: You're makin' a lotta NOISE for someone who wants to be quiet about having PLANNED this whole thing, aren't you?

Politics: Don't forget, Science, that my cock eyed vudayra has beaten your military schmo...it's a turning point for my...

Art: Blam! Silence!...Death....

Though I rarely choose to directly refer to politics and religion...words like these will come by more often now. Smaller in strength, but greater in number. That is how I shall defeat you Science, Religion, Politics....I have no problems with your truthful champions...it's those buggers you have in higher numbers that bother me.

Good Night.

What A Good Company Does

Chapter 12.

Convincing People

Damn electricity. I forget every year how often it goes in the summer months. And for how long. And also how UNEXPECTEDLY when you're down to the final part of AMERICA's NEXT TOP MODEL and JANE bites the bullet but you don't get to see her cry like a little bitch (which is pretty much the only reason I like watching the show) because KESC has stopped doing its job again. I've got something called a UPS at home. It's supposed to keep providing electricity for a few hours in the event of a power outage (something that's as strange an occurance to the Americans as a kind government employee is to Pakistani's) and it should be able to supply your ass with a fan and perhaps some lights and a little t.v for the duration of the blackout. The problem is, it doesn't. This device is a box about the size of a car battery, containing about the same amount of reserved power as well. It has wires coming out of it that would dupe a damn professional, and a big button saying ON for the dummies that will be using it considering any smart person would'nt invest in one of these to begin with.

So I'm trying for a radio job, right? I haven't even reached the office before this starts seeming like a BAAAADD idea. It was over 200 degrees that day. In the SHADE. I saw a man get out of the car and he screamed from the heat before exploding into millions of pieces. Not that I sat and counted. The interview went alright. I walked out with five little tasks. To be completed by 48 HOURS! I'm not even working there and already they've got me worried about deadlines. That's what a good company does, they tell me. It makes you want to go back to college and rethink your pointless existence.

But fuck that. I'm going into comics. See I've been drawing a daily comic strip concept for a while now. Nothing super, just something I do more for myself than anything else really. But atleast I enjoy it. I'm gonna look into how to contact the newspaper heads and see what the market is for something like that. All of this stuff makes me think about the past you know. The one none of us has seen. Not YET anyway. And how it must have been so easy to exist in a world where your entire community only had like 2000 people in it. Makes me wonder how the cartoonists back then would have had it so much easier convincing people they're special since there was probably next to zero competition around. Of course, that comes at the price of a next to nothing MARKET for cartoons....seeing as paper wasn't readily available and neither was the concept of money.

OR ink.

I'm going. I haven't saved this draft and I don't want to lose it all. Not to mention wanting to watch tv where that Melrose chick has just won YET another round of AMERICAS NEXT TOP MODEL and that chubby Anchal might get the boot, being told she's not showing how badly she wants it, whereas we all know its because she's part Indian and Tyra Banks thinks it's part of their custom to eat black people.

No Better Research

Chapter 11.

At The Foot

I've been downloading a lot of stand up recently. You know, no better reasearch than entertainment. Not the healthiest attitude since by the age of 12 my dad saw no problems in letting us (my brother and I) see films like PREDATOR, which is where I first learnt the word MUNDER FUCKER. You do not want to know where I learnt that (a.) It's MOTHER not MUNDER and (b.) it's not a very nice word to say to your teacher. There, in that cold dank smelling principal's office infested with roaches in it's corners and a metal cupboard which goes clang in the night, when something hits against it obviously, I found myself in an uncomfortable mood when I realised I wasn't here to get happy face stamps or a golden star pasted into my workbook. I think one of the first times in life we ever start succumbing to the will of the system is the follow up to a teacher's "Good morning students" phrase that we are taught. Everyone stands up, and in a chorus line most professional, sings back the words "Good moooorrrnning aauuunnnttttyyyyyy." I'm still not aware of the actual TIME when they changed this word to TEACHER...OR of the conversation that took place among the staff which led to its changing, but I'm sure someone's age was a sensitive and important factor. We wore shorts back in grade school. Blue shorts. Dark blue, but that didn't make it any cooler. There was a time when a COOL kid's awesomely rebellious behaviour was justified when he came to school wearing grey pants. Which was of course the uniform we all had to wait to get to class 7 for. If you ever studied at Beaconhouse Public, you'd know this was pretty much the most motivating factor driving male kids to study harder and pass into the next grade. Grey pants. I was a fat and very unusual kid. It's not like I'm trying to sound unique, we're all wierd in our own little way, but it's just bothering sometimes when you step into a room with 5 people and two of them agree some new kid is wierd, and THREE of them agree some new girl just transferred is weird, but ALL of them agree that YOU'RE weird. I found most of my free time went in entertaining friends with hand shadow stories involving disturbingly horny dogs and their antics, since it was the easiest hand shadow to make, and eventually barking just isn't doing it for you. So there's always an easy way out isn't there? Some people learn how to make 300 different things in origami...some learn one hand shadow, but invent new ways to keep it interesting to the nearby 14 year olds. I remember cricket as a child. Watching it and feeling tired I mean. I never played much cricket. Got in the way of eating. Something about playing sports when you're not going to make a profession out of it seems like a whole lot work for pretty much nothing to me. I like results. And fast. I heard a performance on audio by comedian Dane Cook. He had this bit where he talked about how even when people rear end you in traffic, it's always YOUR fault somehow. I think I remember something like that being ripped off here. I despise unoriginality. It's the reason I'm so particular about anything I throw out there, which adds to the amount of time I take in doing anything in life. It creates a sense of identity when you work hard on your own thoughts. People should start doing that more often in this country. You know, NOT rip things off from lesser known Western entertainment in the hopes that someone won't RESEARCH their way into some of the deepest darkest secrets most Pakistani television shows today are founded on.

It's a reality. I saw a man the other day, at the foot of my apartment building while I was passing by to my place. He was looking at the way the entire area had been dug up to fix the drainage lines in the area. There were so many plastic bags. He seemed like someone who would greet the ban on polythen bags with open arms...only...he didn't have any. He was a beggar. And he only loved his country too much to be able to smile at the noise.

I'm going to go write. Nothing good coming out here.

Nothing funny.

Relax A Bit

Chapter 10.

Wanting To Own

I went to the Basement Cafe again last Thursday. Something about the people there makes me edgy. They always want to TALK. An hour and a half into the night I had consumed enough alcohol to kill a German shepherd. I spent the remainder of the night trying to fit myself on a stone slab, which is not good times for a slightly overweight man. Not Amjad Khan in his last 3 films kind of overweight, just like a "I don't like walking against the wind cuz it makes my fat peoples shirt cling to my form which is not, well, very FORMLY" kinda way. I was talking to some dude once. A fat dude. He told me I should join a gym. Imagine how hard it is for a man to keep a straight face when a 200 pound man tells YOU to join a gym. Of course I didn't let that last because he WAS in some gym. I asked him which one:

FAT DUDE: Yaar it's a kickass gym. So many hot chicks come there too. It's like ALLLL CO ED LIKE! It's a famous one man, perhaps you've heard of it. It's called 'SHAPES'.

Lodhi: Shapes eh, lardo? How long before they actually GIVE you one?

He wasn't amused.

I often become very strange around a lot of beautiful crazy people. I feel so much at home that I act out the psychological equivalent of kicking back and taking off your shoes in a formal surrounding, which usually means I start talking to myself. It comes quite naturally, something about the wordplay since I always know whats coming...in my own mind I have such witty replies to everything.

Soon it was as I had feared. Even though the drinking had, to some extent, made me bolder, I now found myself surrounded by a strange sense of paranoia. I wondered if I was being too damn loud. I started thinking people are watching me, just staring. Which is a bad place to be in when you just want to be alone. Not to mention what it does for your self esteem when a woman wearing a pink hijaab is singing Savage Garden songs on stage and more people are watching YOU instead of HER. She was nice though, and despite my terrible memory, I do feel I gave her some nice advice on singing. Something along the lines of not giving a damn and just letting it loose so she can find her comfort zone. We all need to relax a bit.

Why is it that there are so many bankers every week at the Basement?

I just find it amusing how they're always jumping to give people their cards is all. Like I don't believe he works in a bank. If there was only some NICE way of letting them know that I'm not making that face because I don't believe them, it's just a reflex action to hearing the word BANKER that my face goes all strange like that. I'm not fond of money, or any material posessions for that matter. If you've ever seen the clothes I wear, you will understand. Guess that's why I never had the kind of drive other people had to say, get into college for instance. You'd be surprised how many people plan their entire lives and what they want to do IN them by setting a goal as shallow as wanting to own a Lexus some day. But hey, atleast that's A goal.

It's not like I don't like ANYTHING material though. I did get myself a cap and 4 shirts from my trip to India recently. Other than that just a whole bunch of memories and lessons that I'd better write down before I forget. I remember the people are generally nicer there, because they're not so busy trying to join or promote or defend of OFFEND some sect or the other in their OWN religion like it was a fan club full of retards. They just go about their business all day and all night, and in return they get peace. They rarely look in over the borderline into Pakistan and stop their shit to collect gossip on what WE'RE doing with our nuclear programs...which is the complete opposite of the way we spend 78 percent of our taxes on sending spies, collecting data and information, recon and God knows what else on the Indians and their activities. Which isn't saying much because after the corrupt government officials nab most of THAT, we realise that only about 20 percent of Pakistani's even BOTHER paying taxes.

Did you know that there are ROAD taxes? These are taxes that were supposedly enforced on us by the government before we even HAD roads.

I don't like money.

I don't like material things.

It corrupts people.

Drama With A Megaphone

Chapter 9.

The Subconscious Pressures

I was reading through my previous posts. My apologies for some of the crap I've written. I realised I had mentioned missing a girlfriend too forceably over the past 4 or 5 entries. I don't do that, really. In fact some of the people I've most despised in my life have been couples who are always loud and obvious about their stupid relationships.

I was in Lecole once. Long ago. Don't think I went to a very many number of classes. There was a couple there, much like the AFOREMENTIONED! Can't remember their names, but that's partly because I'm bad with names, and partly because I didn't really care, and just perhaps partly again because when either one wasn't with the other, nobody knew who they were.

The sad thing is that I think they WANTED it that way.

I remember looking behind me in the cafeteria once, because, as usual, they were being obnoxious and their level of volume was spilling onto the table I was sitting on with my friends. Problem here is that these were the two loudest people in the Lecole cafe, and they were the ONLY ones who knew what the hell they were talking about. It was'nt even like, "So, 9-11 huh? How about THAT fucker?", no. She'd go on about why he didn't call or some trivial shit...an ANT tackles harder issues in a day. He'd reply with anything as long as it included some sort of compliment because neither of them were too smart to hold a decent arguement. Of course I looked at them calmly and said,"Guys? No one cares. I mean REALLY dude, they don't." The AUDACITY of the couple when they told me to mind my own business, asking why people have to interfere with their incredibly loud and in your face relationship. In that moment, I was the most confused I have been in a while. I imagined the guy standing with a dick coming out of his forehead, going "What? Why are you all looking at me? Mind your own business!" I mean hey buddy, YOU'RE the one with a dick coming out of his forehead. If you don't want people to look at you, stay indoors.

If you don't want people to talk back, speak a little softly, you attention loving, hopeful would be movie stars.

Ahh I don't hate 'em. I don't care if people lie those around em'. Most of the time I'm such an asshole that it's probably not going to affect my life in any significant way if they do, so, I kinda roll with it. I just hate it when they lie to themselves is all. It bothers me to see people struggling and taking so much pressure from these idiotic social beliefs revolving around relationships.
But, sad as it is, I succumbed to it for a while. I broke to the subconscious pressures of young adulthood and reacted in a way that immature and uneducated people do. I really should start reading some more. I AM of course making it a point to educate myself, even if it is a little slowly. But I feel really dumb sometimes. Honestly, I was on this last line for the last twenty minutes. And yet nothing to follow with. They say THIS is when you break out into an impression of any sort, to direct the panic away from your mind...

Leprechaun: We beatcha we dud sur! We shorely did beatcha in thaht lettil craycket gamm didn't we?

We lost to Ireland. Bob Woolmer died. If I can arrange for us to lose against Japan, can Inzamam -ul - Haq atleast retire? Is it that we HAVE no more PEOPLE? Is THIS what is happening? Is no one PLAYING the fucking thing on a professional level in this country? Where is the new blood? Where is the new soul, free of the advertising corruption that stole our players passion and pride, their love for the game, the temptation that bathed and shaved Yunis Khan and put him in a suit? The one that made Kamran Akmal give his teammates a very homosexual look while drinking a bottle of Pepsi. The kind that has become Shoiab Akhtar's primary source of income since he's blown all his DESERVED earnings on booze and whores. Sometimes I feel only ONE man walked out of all this with a win.

Recorded call: Woolmer, it's the agency. The funds from your contract with Pakistan have been deposited in that shady little bank in midtown Prague. Your body double is ready, and your plane leaves at exactly 0400 hours. The mission is a success, Pakistan has actually become so bad, even the clover chewin Irish beat them. Pardon the language. Your family will be informed of your condition a week after the funeral, just for laughs. They will, at this time, be allowed to speak with you over a secure line, before we move them to your new decided home. We will contact you at the agreed time later this month. And before you ask about your girlfriend, relax, it's taken care of. We AAAALLLLLLL know you're a couple alright? No need to be a drama with a megaphone like those kids in Lecole, who's his name and what's her tits. Good luck, and enjoy Prague, Bob. ------------End Transript----------

Children.

And it's the WORST when it's strangers too! You ever gone to a beach gathering...some 3 people you've decided to call friends, and the rest a nut bunch of loons that hate each others guts but smile and do each other favours as long as it doesn't involve having to TALK to one another? I met two people like that once. Clearly the dude had this girl's love when he kicked back into his chair, held his arms open and demanded, "Come here." to his woman.

Alas, the chick didn't even hear him as she walked out the door silently. A girl who, ironically, referred to her boyfriend not by his first name, but as 'HER BOYFRIEND', in those cute little stories where they both think their match was made in heaven since ALL THE SIGNS were pointing to their true love. And they'll always give you all sorts of open ended GENERALISED fucking examples of UNCANNILY coincidental signs from karma.

X: It's wierd guys, but one day, I broke my leg...and a chair in her room broke it's leg as well.

Y: HE'S RIGHT! AHAAA HA HA! AHA! AHA HA HA! I'M CUTE AND TAKEN!

It's like they find anything they can, really.

Lodhi: So, how about that other coincidence where you have a brain small enough to flush down a toilet and he's a shithead? Like, WEIRD huh?

Nobody remembers the good lines. But that's a kind of people I guess. People who are unaware of the real purpose of love or loving. The little things perhaps they say COUNT. People who are insecure about who and what they are, and so they find, or TRY to find the answer in the arms of someone else. And when they do, before you realise it, you're sitting in a friends room trying to roll a joint while he keeps throwing empty birth control and condom packets at you going, "A picture speaks a THOUSAND WORDS...COME ON!!"

I find things like that strange, the way I see people act sometimes. I'm guessing everyone does it. I'm not very crafty in all the wrong places though.

And that's convenient too, yea? A picture speaks a 1000 words. According to this theory, all I have to do is get a packet of condoms and some surgical gloves, and throw them around the floor after dipping them in some sort of foul smelling liquid, and I've had sex minutes before my friends come over. The surgical gloves would of course be for added effect. My friends know that sometimes, I just like it FREAKAAY.

"What's that?...What?...Where IS she? Oh, she JUST left dude...No really BUS ABHI ABHI! Didn't you see her on your way up? I'm NOT LYING MAN!!! I JUST HAD SEX WITH JENNY MCCARTHY! I HAVE PROOF!!"

This is when you reveal the oil stained printout of a Jenny McCarthy nude, with some terribly drunk handwriting saying, "Thanks for last night...it was amazing". Also on the photograph, a bright red lipstick mark which looks embarrassingly like a man's.

Good night.

You crazy people.

A Few More Swipes

Chapter 8.

For Blood

I just got up from a deep sleep. A strange dream. During the course of this writing, I might feel
like getting into the events in the dream, and I might not. All I care to say for now is the
dream ended with me rudely awakened by a disturbingly CLOSE Jack Black holding onto my balls with
one hand and squeezing VERY hard. The pain was real. My reaction was far from that.
I was ok. I didn't complain. I had nothing to say about it to Ol' Jack except "OHhhh! You got me
man you really got me."

I was inspired when I woke up. I felt like writing. It was such a deep sleep that I felt like
writing till I pass out again. I doubt it'll happen anytime soon in this night. I still have the
regular things to get to eventually. Drugs to smoke, stories to type, people to imagine, the many
ME's to speak with. The many ponderings of a man who never got into college. I don't even know if 'pondering' as an ACTION can even HAVE a plural. Yea, sure, why not? I started this page to be honest didn't I? If I appear not to be afraid for what this means in my future, I might as well start throwing it out there too.

I missed my girlfriend like hell, too. It was the quickest thing to wipe that weird smile off my face
after I felt so rested and at ease. She wasn't around. Girlfriend form, wife form, in the form of
a child who just smiles and let's you know everything is OK. I don't even know the last time
anyone grown up did that and made it all ok. Not except HER anyway.

I've picked up a cigarette from my Dad's pack outside in the hall. The lights were very bright,
so I went straight back to my room. I love how there's an age where we all think it's normal to
be in love with the dark, to act like vampires among a slew of mortal men, disgusting in their
habits, and so in love with the day. I thought it was normal to dislike the reason so many people
do everything in the daytime instead of the night.

It's not.

Even if YOU spend most of your time in the dark like I do, you will soon grow out of
it. It's not always cool being all that different from the masses. Because when you think about
it, if enough people enjoyed the dark, that would take the fun out if it for YOU again wouldn't
it? You just want to be alone, INDIFFERENT they say. I think I finally know the meaning of that
word. Funny how a Dilbert comic made me realise the meaning of the sociopath, leading to the
consideration that I might actually have BECOME one after all these years. There's no point in
not being honest.

I need to stand up on a stage and make people laugh. I need to do some comedy. Soon. It's the
only thing I remember to have kept me awake all these years.

There's no point in being dishonest.

Not unless you're a mechanic. Another joint part of society that I had the pleasure of brain picking earlier in this day. It's funny how we flock together when we find similarities among each other. It's so harmless when a group of mechanics are doing it to fool someone into paying 150 for something that costs 130.
And so harmful when people of ANOTHER kind flock together. Marching. For blood. Land. For want of
their belief replacing another. Money. Women.


God, the women.


God.


God?

And strangely enough, wouldn't you know it, all it takes is the honest approach of saying, "This
spark plug costs 130, but I'm a lowly knuckle scraping primate who wishes you to give 150 for it
so that the extra 20 bucks can mean either another packet of this weird green stuff I keep
shoving into the corner of my mouth, or a few more swipes of Samad Bond to put into these cuts
under my armpit." Disease ridden INGRATES? No.

No.

They have no choice. I mean they DO, but they don't even know what those choices ARE. They were
never given the options. I think about this as the mechanic waits for my nod on adding the brand
new shiny white spark plugs. The vile, problematic and in most parts, BURNT old spark plugs
sitting, weeping in the corner of my car's open insides, awaiting their end fate. To be chucked
onto the main road like they never served a purpose. Like no funeral would ever be held for them.
Like they'd never be remembered.


Why should they, anyway? They're 3 God damn spark plugs.


I smile, and I nod. He gets to work and I keep smiling, because a purpose has been served.
Everything seems to make sense again, the mechanic is putting in the spark plug. I wondered if he
CHOSE to be a mechanic. I thought about how many people have either the good fortune, or the hard
willingness to CHOOSE something for themselves in life and going ALL THE WAY with it. I took
another look at the mechanic, and he was enjoying his work. The guy's eyes lit up like a child's
do when he peeks outside the window on his birthday and sees a surprise being planned. You
remember how you acted all surprised too when that happened? Like all, "Wha...WHAT? OH MY GOD!
COOOOOOLLL!!!"

It was in a moment where even your selfishness was making others happy. You were seven years old.
You didn't know how much it would mean to anyone to see you TRULY surprised. You didn't even do
it for them. You did it for yourself. You were too excited, and woke up TOO early in the day. You
saw the celebrations TOO soon. And it was over before it even began. So you forgot everything -
something which if, at seven years of age, you were anything like me, was something you had
trained yourself incredibly well to be able to do at any time.

Mum: Didn't I tell you not to go picking unripened watermelons and slamming them on the walls?Faraz: Did you say something? I'm hungry. What is your ROLE in this household again?

You lied to yourself. FOR yourself. So you could live the moment they all surprise you. You
didn't do it for them, but they took the most joy out of it. More than you did. This became the
purpose that created, and nearly ruined, the rest of my natural life.


"Do things that you love doing for yourself, all the while assuring that people around you will
actually manage to appreciate the outcome MORE than you do."


It's a tough gig to follow, as you can see. Because I doubt anyone was reading this after the
first paragraph. But whoever made it this far, I hope this has made you happy in SOME way or the
other at least. I always start out doing something for myself. My ability to get bored with things
hell fast changes that, though. Eventually it becomes only about you, whoever you are.
So I write, for everyone and everything. It's not ALL I do, no. Perhaps comics. Perhaps movies,
some day. I can only hope. And dream. It's all I have been doing since I came on this earth to
fight for God, but realised that no one remembers Him anymore. Not the way He would WANT anyway.
But there's no stereotyping in Lodhism. So I fight along the men and women who have the core
beliefs down TOTALLY right. I fight by their side, without ever having met them, or seen their
faces.

You ever miss your girlfriend so much you want to hit an animal in the face? Any animal. It
doesn't really matter which one, since none of them can utter curse words that you'd understand
anyway.

I guess this is where I immortalize our love, m'lady. This is the new age tree to carve your
names in a heart on. I DID IT, LOVE! Now the whole world will remember, the day one person out of
a soul total of two, decided what he needs to do here. I love you, friend. I love all of you.


Blogs.


They're nothing but a bunch of people trying to be remembered on this planet we will be FORCED to
call home one day. To me, it's just a space to put ideas I may not want to forget. For MYSELF,
more than anyone.


What if you ARE different, guys? What if, you REALLY are. Not better, not worse. Just, different.

Without a Mattress

Chapter 7.

True Genius Contained

Nothing gets my goat like a nice leather collar. My goat can't do SHIT once that's around him. But something that BOTHERS me is having to stay home when anyone comes around to fix something in the apartment. It's bad enough that I can't leave the house with a sstranger inside, now I have to keep focus off doing things on my drawing board because I have to get up and CHECK on the bastard every few minutes to make sure he's not STEALING anything. Which is something that, over time, they manage to become better at than fixing air conditioners, which is why he's here in the first place.

And it's not like he can go around just quietly doing his job is it? The guy asks me for SURF, which I didn't even know HOW to react to. Of course I asked him why, and that threw me into a 15 minute conversation about the magical world of bubbles and how they can be used to find leaks in car tires and AC's. After the sixth minute of course, I was nodding my head and looking for SURF, while simultaneously thinking about how much I miss my girlfriend. And how this man must have no idea what it feels like to HAVE one. So I asked him if he was married, and he replied "No thanks, the SURF will do."

What an incredibly witty guy.

They'll always leave the AC on for ages and shit too. Come back the next day, "COOLING kar raha hai?" Well it's been ON for 3 and a half DAYS now you pig lover, if it isn't cooling then we're obviously not doing what our employers are asking of us are we? They comment on the sound your split air conditioner makes before coming on. 13 beeps like a damn truck is backing up, before it kicks in and the entire area you live in fluctuates for a second, and unnoticed by you, when the fluctuation goes away, the lights are a LEEEEETLE bit duller than they should be, someone at WAPDA gets fired due to cut backs...

And your mom full HUMOURS the guy and shit too, thinking it'll make him do a better job. I hate this theory. Most people in Pakistan do what they do for a living because it's just what they kinda fell into, and no one advised or taught or trianed them otherwise. This dude sucks at repairing AC's...talking to him nicely won't banish some devil spirit thats keeping his true genius contained or something. Like all of a sudden this halo will appear over his head and he'll start snapping his fingers like Mary Poppins and the AC will fix itself. He sucks at the work. Talking to him like he doesn't only makes him a slightly less irritated man who STILL sucks at his work.

I opened the fridge because I was hungry, and I needed an excuse to be alone. I can't eat in front of people, it's a real age old fear of mine. It's one of the reasons why I MAY have gone to a couple of weddings dressed in a full body burqa. So much so that whenever I go out to eat with friends, and they ask me why I'm not ordering much, I'd rather tell them I'm poor than show them a man who can make an ass out of himself on a stage, but refuses to eat a chicken wing if a single soul is watching. Of course, you'll know why I feel this way if you ever see me eat a chicken wing. It's not nice putting people off their food, but the more you care the less they understand. So I checked the fridge and I found a quarter broast. It was imitation KFC. You know, the kind you're mom TRIED to make but couldn't quite pull it off? Then she gets frustrated and tells you to name atleast 3 ways in which it DOES taste like KFC but you can't so she steals the mattress from your bed? And it's wierd with moms because the ones that cook well don't take any shit from anyone. If you say anything nice about KFC the first time you order it, they take out the lab equipment, get their tasters ready, put on their glasses, the sanitary gloves and they get to work on one leg piece and all its crumbs, and start listing all the things they taste each time like, "Mmm...ginger." And then jot it down. Once, despite my best efforts to explain to my mom that the crispyness in the chicken batter comes from knotting up the cornflour with harder pieces of aata like substance, my mom crushed a box of Fauji cornflakes and dumped it all over the chicken.

I slept in my room that night, without a mattress. I suppose there are lessons here, if we look for them.

At the Sight of a Phone

Chapter 6.

The Rat Bastard Thief

My cell phone got stolen yesterday. And not the "Give up your cell phone or we'll shoot you being the two shady looking guys on a bike that we are" kinda stolen either. My car window was open. I wasn't around. I came back, no cell phone.

I was at the Basement Cafe in Zamzama. No negative advertising here for The Basement, which is more than I can say for that rat hole of a place called Zamzama Boulevard. I know, I lived there once. I think my first apartment in Zamzama was the reason my memory has taken such a beating over the past few years. Your mind kinda rejects having to live in a place that crappy and eventually ends up denying it. There was a time when my family thought it was strange that I forgot an entire apartment we used to live in, but the strange thing to me was that they cared to remember it. I think I'm the only one I know to have gone through the LITERAL 'no electricity for 3 days' experience, and not the kind where a man living in a big house complains about the electricity going for 4 hours which FELT like three days.

And what's the first thing they tell you when you lose a phone? It's YOUR fault. Of course, it's my fault that people have weak souls and bend their morals at the drop of a hat, or since we dont have HATS in Pakistan, at the sight of a phone let's say. I wonder if anyone is around in the life of a thief to tell him that he's doing something wrong. I wonder if when asked why he STOLE a phone, he replies "Well, it was HIS fault, he just left a cell phone unattended, what was I supposed to do? Believe in God being the fake ass Muslim that I am and control my urges to just pick up something that doesn't belong to me and walk off with it? Come on buddy, those days are long gone. We haven't had a prophet in too long. It's not my fault I'm a spineless man without a soul. Now it's God's fault."

The strange thing is one of the first feelings I had about this was a slight bit of anger, which, being a pacifist by nature, is not really something I'm used to. But then, I started wondering if I should have left a piece of temptation out there for weak willed human beings to put a black mark on their souls with. I don't know. I think shit like that sometimes. If nothing else, atleast the incident took me off my writer's block. Isn't that something? I was asking to get sent some sort of incident which would make me want to say something about the world again. Sure enough, my phone gets stolen.

I've been on a writer's block for a few days now. Wierd because I just announced myself as a writer of sorts maybe less than a week ago. Less than a week and already I'm so fucking bored and uninspired that I get blocked. Right smack in the middle of a tv script I'm writing, the story has BARELY evolved leaving me room for God knows how much to play around with, and I'm sitting producing tiny little pieces of my best work on Orkut. I hate myself. It's a crucial part of my writing.

So now I'm driving home. From the Basement. Yes, we're back there. Nothing is seeming funny to me. Much like this blog entry is to you. For that I apologise. This may very well be my first step into becoming those sap ass characters who actually use their blogs as a means of conveying their FEELINGS and EMOTIONS instead of providing a good laugh to anyone visiting. But that stops now. So again, nothing is seeming funny to me. My brother is sitting right next to me, his friend at the back going on about how to get my SIM closed off in the morning, which of course was sounding all muffled and blurred out to me since the man had three drum kits up to his jaw in the back seat of a Mehran VX, inarguably one of the smallest cars ever to have been mass produced by any company in the history of mankind. As if the drums weren't bad enough, the DRUMMER that comes with them was ALSO in the back seat. I was driving.

It's wierd how you don't really feel like a man until this timeless Pakistani custom of being robbed of some material posession actually happens to you. I finally feel like I belong in this place now. Now, on my own terms of intensity of course, I have been in fights, I have been mad drunk on the beach, sworn at bad drivers, gotten high from the pollution in the Saddar district, been bothered by crooked cops (both blue shirts and farmies), and now, I have also been robbed. I don't think they should make your I.D card for this place unless atleast all these things have happened to you over a certain period of time. Infact, the way to get a DRIVER'S license should be testing if you're any good at hitting a parked vehicle and then disappearing without a trace. They could have that one person play the unsuspecting guy, sitting in that car in the license office lot, which has no engine, because some corrupt bastard in the office realised they never SWITCH ON the car anyway, so it's seven days before anyone even figures out that there's nothing under the hood anymore.

I love how we become Batman in your mind for the few hours after a cell has been stolen from you. For a while my friend, you are out for VENGEANCE. You want a mask, you want skills, you want the names and addresses of the suspects who got your phone, and soon in your mind, you're a one man army kicking seven guys in the head and making them cry for their moms. What's really wierd is the number of people keeps growing in your mind doesn't it? You walk into a room and face a SINGLE solitary person. All the kickass lines you wanna spit out before wailing on the fucker, you spit. Interesting play of words takes place, and then, the final word. Which usually ends up being "Then let's do this" for some reason. If you're really unimaginitive, you go with "You're gonna need that cell you stole from me....to call 15 after I'm done with you." And then you kick his ass, blindfolded, hands behind your head, legs tied to the fan and what not. Then, when you think about it, you're a little happy aren't you? You're happy that you beat the crap out of an imaginary criminal and righted a wrong in this world. But it's not enough. You close your eyes and you're smiling because you see yourself standing over the rat bastard thief. But wait, a door opens in the back. Now this is where it gets wierd, because you've GOT your phone back...but now your mind has kicked in the fact that it's not REAL bliss. After all, it IS your imagination that you got him. Through the open door, what happens? A hundred and fifty fucking guys storm into the room, charging RIGHT at you and your phone, which is something that would NEVER justify ANY mafia kingpin using THAT kind of man power, and now it's up to you to kill every single one of them, because you HAVE to protect your phone. And of course later the same night, a similiar imaginary scene takes place in the Mobilink offices, where sit do a bunch of knuckle scraping degernerates called helpline operators who can't even operate lines let alone help, never ceasing to prove to you that it's perfectly normal to call it a 24 HOUR CALL CENTRE, even if it shuts down by 1 in the morning, and putting a smile on your face when you wonder if this is where all your money is going, to give jobless night hawks a place to sit and a way to buy lunch the next day. I wonder if anyone works for a living anymore. I wonder if anyone is watching them. I could, you know. But that seems a shallow reason to want to don a cape and tights, although when I really think about it, no reason is good enough to wear tights. Not in this country. In Iran it's a death sentence to do that. In Saudi Arabia, they detain all tights at the airport, along with magazines containing pictures of women, sheep or men with long hair (all of which are regarded as sexually explicit items in that part of the world).

I guess in the end, everythings relative. I get writer's block, I lose a phone. Some guy leaves a phone unattended, some guy picks it up and walks off with it, earning another mark on his character. Somebody always wins and somebody always loses. But it's just how you care to see it, right? Maybe I'm not the one who lost. Sure I lost a phone, but what did I get in return? I got reminded of how nice it once was to not have that device ringing in your ass all the time. I still never figured out how the phone used to end up in my ass in the first place, but that's another blog entry, for another time. The thief? Did he win? Maybe, but all he won was a little cell phone isn't it? Compared to what he lost.

Perhaps the best example of a Pakistani mentality's idea of complete success in this night would go only to the the security guard at the place, who I really do believe was in on it. He walks away with a percentage of the earnings, without having to do the crime, AND the heist involved him NOT having to be a security guard, which is what he is paid to do. And so, in the age old tradition of feeling that awfully great feeling of being paid to do absolutely nothing, I guess the only guy who won last night was the guard. Maybe he deserves it, or thinks he did, like the love of my life suggested. I walked away with incredible affection from my girlfriend, and the thief got a phone. World hasn't ended today, and won't tomorrow either.

Except for the thief, who's mother is a stinking whore who should have been busy raising her kids with a sense of morality instead of leaving home at 6 in the evening every day to give blowjobs for a living.

Good Night.

The Honest Review

Chapter 5.

The Helper of Modern Folk

Times are moving fast. We're living in one of the fastest developing cities in one of the most anal countries in the world. People are dumb and impatient, and they either have very little, or too MUCH time to spend on recreation.

Sometimes, all we want to do to get away is watch a movie. We turn to Hollywood because it is a widely accepted belief that they do it the best. Over the years, however, that fact has more fiction in it than most of the senseless tripe that country produces these days. Although piracy is a finely tuned machine in Pakistan, it still burns when a man knows that he just spent a hundred rupees and two hours that he is never getting back, as he ejects the dvd from his player and breaks his copy of 'Johnny Mnemonic'.

So why should it ever be, that the one or two sittings to yourself you get in a week - IF you're a hard working individual - should go to a complete waste because that guy behind the counter in your video store is recommending films that he's never even seen in a language he doesn't speak, and handing the Chronicles Of Narnia to a young woman next to you who's asked for a nice little romance flick, when the only time anyone in that movie showed any romance was a BEAVER couple since the HUMAN stars were all minors and were looking at child pornography charges if any serious romance went down.

It made me wonder, if there was anyone who was finally going to be straight up and BRUTALLY honest about how they review their movies for the benefit of people who, today, have such an insanely large international catalogue of movies being released to choose from.

Ladies and gents, as the helper of modern folk, I feel it is my duty, to present to you:

The Lodhi Review

Sticking to the point for the people

1. The Guardian: Ashton Kutcher plays a tough young cadet, fresh out of the college swimming championships which he took the gold in. He plans to play out his lifelong dream to break every record ever set by any rescue diver in the U.S Coast Guard. Kevin Costner plays the teacher of the class, a veteran diver who's saved over 50 people in seperate diving incidents throughout his career, and YET couldn't save this film from drowning to near death at the box office. The next to nothing dvd sales take care of this. Kevin Costner, till today, remains the only man to ever have bought a copy. Ashton Kutcher denies having worked in the film.

2. Snakes On A Plane: Samuel L. Jackson is a black man with a gun on a plane full of snakes. People die, snakes die. 90 minutes later, you realise you wished a snake had actually bitten you 10 minutes into the film so you would'nt have to sit through this tripe.

3. Borat: A man with a terrible accent which sounds nothing like an Uzbek travels throughout America, recording his trip on a low budget camera, proving once more that after decades of progression in intelligent comedy, the best way to to reach the top of the charts in a country where the people don't even know their first president's name, is still just to show two naked men wrestling and cursing in any foreign language as long as it sounds relatively like those brown sand suckers they keep invading.

4. Chain Reaction: Keanu Reeves outruns a nuclear explosion on his motorcycle. An hour later, thats still the only interesting thing that has happened in the movie.

5. The Covenant: Due to something of a curse on a number of families and their following bloodlines, four young men in a small town develop super powers beyond the imagination of any mortal man in the world today. The four men use their powers to blow up womens skirts and get a look at their panties.

6. Rocky Balboa: Beloved retired boxing superstar Rocky Balboa steps into the ring one last time to redeem himself for the movie Rocky 5. He fails.

7. Kingdom Of Heaven: The holy city of Jerusalem becomes the birthplace of Jerry Springer culture when Orlando Bloom goes there as a knight to fight for God, but ends up sleeping with a woman who had sex with his father. Even two thousand years ago, no one feels like watching this on television.

8. Casino Royale: Renowned MI6 agent James Bond makes his appearance in his 45th motion picture, which leads to his SECRET identity not being very SECRET any more. He performs none of the established James Bond trademark actions, from keeping his calm to playing a good game of cards to even knowing what his favourite drink is. As a result of his hotheaded approach to the espionage world, he gets a knotted rope smacked onto his balls. Very hard. Repeatedly.

9. Hitch: Will Smith falls in love. He falls out of love. He helps men to get women to fall in love. He falls in love again. He helps a fat man learn how to dance. He falls out of love again. He learns some important lesson in life. He falls in love yet again. The end credits begin rolling.

10. Deja Vu: Denzel Washington and a cast of others realise that it is finally possible to travel back in time and they save the life of a beautiful woman, when clearly, the more intelligent move would have been to go back and advise the producers of the movie never to make this piece of crap.

11. I, Robot: Detective Spooner of the Chicago Police Department chases after a homosexual robot called Sonny for presumed murder. After an hour of technical garble and a war between man and machine, the point still remains that it was in fact, murder. Sonny the homosexual robot sees no jail time for his crime.

12. Jurassic Park 3: As the important life lessons to be learnt from the Jurassic Park adventures become ever increasingly shallow, this time, a whole lot of killing ensues to bring a boy and his divorced parents back together. Dr. Alan Grant hitches along for the ride, only to learn that the suprising evolution of the lizards has brought about the highlight of the film, a terrifying new species of dinosaur. Unknown to the writers, this new Spinosaur actually existed before the Jurassic Age. Dino nerds around the world laugh at this. Then cry because the movie still made more money than they make in a decade digging up bones for a living.

13. Clerks 2: A small group of semi actors, semi writers and semi directors with very little money make another movie. It does not help them get laid this time either.

14. The Lady in the Water: A woman escapes from a fairy tale land to enrich mankind with all the knowledge of the universe and its many realms. Instead of telling influential people in high places who could actually use this knowledge and take steps towards the benefit of the human race, she goes to a generic cast of characters that can barely afford to live in a shabby apartment complex. They keep it a secret forever.

15. Million Dollar Baby: After years of depression caused by a fear to believe in himself anymore, a veteran boxing trainer finally comes out of his hole to redeem himself, and trains a young woman to fight. She breaks her neck. Clint Eastwood gets an Oscar for surviving Hollywood till the age of seventy six.

16. Meet Joe Black: Brad Pitt is asked to be a little less BRAD PITT in his performances. He manages, but only after being hit by two seperate cars going at a hundred and twenty five miles per hour.

17. Erin Brokovich: Julia Roberts plays a woman destined to become a lawyer to help the poor people of a small town where the water has been poisoned due to imporperly followed safety regulations by a conglomerate. She is never taken seriously. She does not grip that maybe it's because of the giant breasts she keeps waving in peoples faces.

18. PayCheck: A man who replicates all forms of groundbreaking technology and has his memory erased, somehow creates a time machine that looks into the future. John Woo looks into the future, and relaxes when he sees no other director could make Ben Affleck act well either.

19. Troy: Brad Pitt plays Achilles. And despite the heavy history, that's the focus of pretty much the whole movie.

20. Dark Water: A bunch of japanese people make a movie with barely any budget. Years later, an American producer makes the same movie with LOTS of budget. Jenniffer Connelly fires her agent.

More when there's more.

In Search of the Plan

Chapter 4.

The New Gods

I tapped into one of my many ME's yesterday. It was nearly 80 years ago, and I was somewhere in a newly developing American city. Chicago I think. A poet, on the underground scene. Fingers snapping, dark rooms and smoke filled cafes. Green lights and ashtrays. The ceiling fans set to a motion so slow that its only purpose was to bring un unending sense of movement in the room. And it made me wonder...

Is it that I was more patient with mankind because I was an incredibly FAT bastard once?



Seventy two, once I was, When children played in the sand
What year, what number
I can't quite remember
This member of earth held the world in his hand

I saw their mothers all wicked and learning
Of forth coming days of hell
The priests would yell
Their gods, they fell
When this member of earth held the world in his hand

The coming of ages they called it so well
The dying of ages of long since past
The forming of wages of work so fast
It would break the mould
Of days of old

And form would the buildings of houses of men
Who went higher and higher in search of the plan
It was then that he realised how needed it was
That this member of earth kept the world in his hand

The people they fought, for gold, for space
And cut off their heads for name and race
There were soldiers and leaders and a fear with no face
A fear in their hearts that sat in its place

They bled to please, to honour their gods,
The gods that live in the towers of steel
The gods that give you your every meal
And their godliness still, you pretend not to feel

For how can you feel that which you can not see
And how can you see what you will not believe
Are these the new gods? How could they be?
For calling them such, surely blasphemy

But they bend men at will, command all life and death
Their angels, the ones who will carry their brand
And take over lands, with the strain of a breath
To mix it all up, the blood, the sand

So watch for the people, their smiling faces
Ruining your faith, in a scheme so grand
It may take you decades to finally remember
You are the one with the world in your hand

School Without Breakfast

Chapter 3.

The Lack of Self Care

I have started developing a real patience for FaceBook. An online socialising web site which, let's face it, everyone reading this knows more about than I do. There's a button you can click there, it's called "Play the FRIENDS game" or something along those lines. The point? You guessed it. Random questions based on your friends profiles and a multiple choice with faces to pick the correct friend for the correct bit of trivia from their profile.

After the first 3 minutes, it got VERY boring.

After the next 2, it got depressing. I had only 2 right. And that too because one of the questions repeated right after itself, but it gave me the points none the less.

I love my friends. But they will never know this. Sometimes I think I just have very little patience for socialising. I have maybe 4 friends I meet even NEAR to a regular basis, and the rest of my friends are people that Orkut tells me they are. I'm impressionable and I hate to argue. So I got with it.

I think I've always been like this. My primary education or "IBTIDAI TALEEM" (which is a word anyone failing Urdu Literature as badly as I always have will know very well) was at Beaconhouse Public. That was a nice school. Some of the closest people to my heart are people I know from there. Even if I don't meet them everyday, I pray for them every single night. That is when I'm not too busy doing some form of drug or alcohol. But I rarely pray for myself.

Maybe I should start.

The school, - after a point when we lose our innocence in life - like any other institution, was not without its fair share of politics. Something you will learn I have come to hate about mankind. I remember once when we were in the higher classes, we got our first dose of a real life SCANDAL.

A girl and a boy, were caught making out in the bathroom.

I don't think I've ever been more awakened to how different I always was from most minds than the moment this became news. You see, to most people, the scandal was that a boy and a girl were caught making out by a teacher.

To me, the scandal was that it was in the BATHROOM. And if you ever went to the Beaconhouse Public School, a place which was more public than school, you would know why that was a bit more disturbing to me than the earlier part of the news. You would think, that those peons were actually being paid to do something about the conditions of the bathrooms in that place. You would think it, but you'd be wrong. Then again, if you actually saw some of the students that went to the school, you wouldn't be too eager to clean up after them in the bathroom either. No matter what class of person you might be (CLASS being a word I hate with all my heart), there are certain things even a peon shouldnt have to do.

The strange thing is...the only people who would be willing to actually use the bathroom in that craphole, were the people who you wouldn't want to go near anyway.

I spent entire years of my life, going to school without breakfast, from the fear of having to suddenly go to the bathroom and having no options but the ones provided. So I never ate breakfast, and all it did was lead to my inevitable academic downfall, what with it being the most important meal of the day and all, but it was worth it. Infact I think the only time I ever went in there was to avoid an Islamiat class because as usual, I hadn't memorised parts of a language I didn't even speak, and the teacher, being an Islamiat teacher, rarely got laid for recreational purposes, and so took it all out on the poor unsuspecting students.


Another personal quirk of mine that developed thanks to my lack of self care and my deathly fear of those toilets, was the entire 5 hours in school I used to go through without a single reminder to what my hair was looking like. I often thought people were staring at me because I'm fat, which, sick as it sounds, I find to be a better reason to stare at someone than because their hair is all messed up.

The only time I ever cared about the hair on my head, as is the case even now, is when I accidentally walk in front of any reflective surface. That's always when I realised the horror of having looked like the many different people I've looked like throughout the years and because of what? Because I didn't care? Because I was never in the habit of constantly combing or setting my hair with my hands or fingers out of the loose complex that my hair might be looking off? For worrying about more important things like my imagination, and the people I can help with it?

For not caring about a gust of wind hitting my face because it felt so good at the time I didn't bother to think about what it was doing to my hair, and how the shallow people around me would react to it?

I like to think of it like this. If God throws wind in my face, I love it, I won't start worrying about my hair and make it everytime that happens because if God wants my hair to look like that, who am I to defy Him, right? Because anyone who defies God, is challenging God, and if that be the case then that person is trying to BE God. And that, is shirk, right dear friends? So anyone who ever does their hair EVER again is SHIRKING! Right? So doing your hair is shirk.

I could grow a beard, learn the positions for namaz correctly and travel to interior Punjab and polish my people screaming skills. I could make them think that killing people who do their hair is the only way into heaven, because let's face it, their prerequisites for calling a man a prophet are that the man must have a beard, a megaphone, he must not SAY he's a prophet and he must tell us where to vent out all this anger we have inside due to lack of sexual relations. Atleast with women.

I could train these poor dumb souls. And one night, in two very large port containers, I could drop them right in the middle of Nazimabad. A part of Karachi where, undoubtedly, the largest number of oil loving hair concious men reside.

I could do it.

But I won't.

A Crappy Rolling Chair

Chapter 2.

The Birthday and the Video Game

I just had to wish a friend happy birthday 5 minutes ago. I told her I didn't get her a present because I'm broke and sweet and understanding as they usually are - friends that is - she said it was ok.

But it reminded me of something from back in the day. Remember how your parents would trick you into getting you a birthday gift, even if it's 3 months before your birthday, and calmly tell you "Now this is an early birthday present." That kinda sucked bricks for me, because now I have zero expectations of a day that usually becomes the only one I ever look forward to throughout the year, and I'm supposed to find solace in the fact that atleast I have a SEGA now, which kinda does nothing when the only game you have on it is Street Smart, a ruthless look into the lives of street fighters who ALSO have to be smart about the money they bet on each fight.

I think I'm the only guy who ever bet on the person I was fighting against. I made 6 billion dollars, but never finished the game, and even most of THAT money went to my character's hospital bill.

I've always loved video games.

Sometimes I sit and think about the maybe 2 years of my life where even I found something I cared about enough to become a real part of.

Just like everything else, it got tainted by corruption, desire and more want for some idea of payback for putting in all those years on a crappy rolling chair and a pc screen. People all around living out their fantasies of being called names that their juvenile minds thought would be a fun thing to be called in a fictional universe like MADDER or JACKOLANTERN or ETERNAL or NOT ETERNAL or NINJA or BLADE or BLOOD or SHOT or BLOODSHOT. It was really something to see.

"VULTURE!!! Behind you!!!"

A man with the nick 'Vulture' turns his mouse to see around his character in the pc.

I turn my ACTUAL head around to find a loser who would name himself Vulture. I laugh about it. Loudly.

My name? Lodhi. It was quite brilliant. Anytime someone called it out, I somehow immediately knew they meant me. What with it being my name and all.

If anything REALLY used to bother me about gaming arenas, was how a man sitting 3 feet away from me can actually be bothered to TYPE a comment to me instead of saying it. I get depressed when I see things like that, you know? Like how dependant we've become on technology that we think it works better than just telling someone something? Most conversations of mine went like this.

GoDsmACk: Lodhi, check the A area with ur sniper, i think we have something going on there.

Lodhi: You're sitting right next to me asshole. Stop stuffing chips in ur face and take a minute.

I do have a lot of patience, sometimes. But barely any for people who use CAPS in the most unreasonable places in their nicknames.

Then there's people on msn who do it with their actual typing. I have deleted them from my list. I'm not being a bitch or anything, I'm just particular about the company I keep. And my decisions in this matter may range from the CAPS thing to things like adding twenty Z's at the end of your good byes. AND your hello's. I mean, really, what the hell is that?

Ah but the politics of so called adults hell bent on corrupting even a tiny fun little thing like lan gaming. I knew I should have seen something coming when CS (That's counter strike, a game which you will not care about much after you realise that the prize money going to 5 people really goes 16 different ways...it's called FRIENDSHIP tax) teams from all around Karachi started bringing prinouts of maps and studying them with markers and pencils before any tournament.

I was in a team called DODT. I'm sure if I was to leak out even HALF the nerdish things the boobs in this team used to do, they'd come after me with a sword. But thats ok, because it would probably be in another VIDEO GAME anyway! Most of the guys in this team were either too weak to lift a sword, or too old to be talking back to a mother who would tell them they can't have any swords in the house, without having to suffer the humiliation of having their noses rubbed in the fact that they still lived with their mothers at 32.

I liked the people though. Can't say I didn't. Honestly. I was always there to entertain anyway, right? What do I care as long as they're laughing. That's all it is. Laughs. The world is such a big joke most of the time that it's refreshing to me to see people laughing sometimes. Because that makes me feel that atleast people get this incredibly unfunny universal joke.

In my later days as a hardcore gamer, or a CYBER ATHLETE as one friend - who I quickly grew to hate and eventually cut contact with completely - called it, I was in a team called LORDS. It started with four people and one whore. And we were the best of the best. We beat two tournaments hands down and retired undefeated for all time.

Atleast I did. There's always someone still willing to hold onto something so bad, that when the music stops, they keep tapping their feet just so they have something to dance to. I wished them the best, and ended my run in the gaming world.

In the end, it was funny to see how a group of guys turned into men throughout the years. Some people went onto bigger things, some didn't. But when you sit and think about it, what was the point of sticking around when the very purpose of the game, which was to have fun, was shot out of the sky like it never existed. When it became only about winning, and proving the other person weaker, or not as skilled, or not as talented as you were. So you could go from arena to arena, city to city, person to person, just telling the same old stories again and again about how you were the 'King of the Realm', the 'Master of Mankind' and the 'Decider of Destiny for the Weak'.

In a fucking video game...

Welcome?

Chapter 1.

The SAB scriber

It's been 23 and a half years since my last birth. This time, it's 1983. What a time to be just a baby. Too old to be in the foetal position, and not old enough to join the hippie movement in America, smoke drugs, and end up dead in a bathroom....

...in the foetal position.



My folks tell me I've been bothering people ever since I could say the word Mother Fucker. It was the 4th word I learnt. Right after "Mother", "Food" and "Why Not?". They tell me I learnt Mother Fucker only seconds after Why Not. Something about the answer I got. The conversation went something like this:

Mother?

Yes beta?

Food.

No beta.

Why Not?

Because you just ate your kid sister.

Mother Fucker.



I'm not a comedian. Not professionally anyway. I don't like going to rehearsals. I don't exchange ideas, because I think I'm wasting people's time with them. I don't practice. I don't have the patience. And I hate blogs. But I now have one.


It takes real energy for me to do what I do. Which is nothing. I talk.


I talk about everything. From video games to movies to music to food to ideas to opinions and my opinions of those opinions. Often enough I talk to myself, because I feel I'm the only one who understands. I hope to no end, that I will be proven wrong.


This is the first time I've ever used a blog. More often than that I've visited other blogs and made rude comments at people who type comments under the name Anonymous. After that, I wait. And when someone agrees with me, I ruin them for trying to side with a complete stranger against a person they don't even know. I don't like it when people side together for a so called worthy cause. There's always somebody who jumps on the bandwagon to get laid by a liberal. And he succeeds. And the cause doesn't. It's the way of the world. My ideal tells me to be a good man, and should every single person on the planet do it the way I've seen you do 2000 years ago, we won't need clubs, or asscociations or companies or groups of any kind to make us feel better about ourselves through that over rated sense of self we love so much called, "The sense, of BELONGING".


Then I play a violin insrumental from Max Payne, and talk to myself about how impressionable minds can be tricked into following anything that's been decided as COOL to do or say by a larger number of people.



Like BLOGS.


Your comments are welcome. Your hostility will be punished. And the posting of too many opinions is not advised. I am your friend, your lover, your brother, your soul. Please, do not force me to also be, your daddy. We will try to figure out what the real problem in this world is. Good, bad, rich, poor. Why people die, why people hurt, and when it's okay to laugh about it.

This Book belongs to all of you, no less than it belongs to me.

We will talk about life, we will talk about love, if you're a hot chick we will even hold hands. And hopefully, I will learn as much as everyone, about what the point really is.


I talk about everything. I am, the SAB scriber.

*NOTE*

Posts and articles in the Archives will get funnier over time. This is the author's first attempt at blog writing, and he prefers to live life by the trial and error method set by his own standards over the years. Much like the first work of any writer, this space is the foothold of an ideal, no matter how crude or unrefined it may seem, all references in the Archives of the Book Of Lodhism from this end on will be continually improving records for everyone to learn from.

This blog is a first attempt, and just like the writers first theatrical play, he does not expect anyone to like it.



Or even turn up.