Review: A Season for Martyrs

A Season for Martyrs by Bina Shah
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Author's understanding of crises haunting the paradoxical society of Pakistan is commendable. She is practical, straight-forward and funny when discussing these issues, not easy for a women in this country. I had some knowledge of her involvement in Feminist movement within Pakistan but somehow I underestimated her and her abilities in literature. So, all was well until author's support/inclination for a personality, faction or a party beyond an appropriate level starts to surface. Hence the three stars.

Author liked Benazir Bhutto. I get it. She was the first female prime Minister, a symbol of women struggle throughout the world. She wanted to follow her father. You liked her father. I get that as well although I am pretty sure back in 1965, it wasn't Bhutto who finalized the deal with Russia at Tashkent(as mentioned in the book). Bhutto was completely against it and that's when the rifts between Ayub and Bhutto started which became the motivation for Pakistan People's Party. Having said above there are no issues if author support anyone or any party but why use them in such a way. PPP has had a share of looting in this country. And a big chunk thanks to Zardari.

The book also depicts the lives of some famous personalities in the history of Sindh. How some intelligent Sindhi tried to stop the annexation of Sindh by imperialist British. There are some fictionalized diary entries which showed the level of 'Apartheid' state British were trying to build in sub-continent using all the Machiavellian techniques and the level atrocities which were unraveled upon the native people. Some glimpses on the lives of Khizr, G.M. Syed, Bhitai the Sufi poet etc. are given which actually add beauty to the book. The author's love for the beautiful and mystified province of Sindh is quite apparent.

"But if the West has done so much to make things bad for ordinary Pakistanis, why were they all so eager to abandon Pakistan and take up residence in Western countries?"

Main character is Ali, a young man facing the typical complexities of being a youth in Pakistan. Tough life, tough bosses, religion and high expectations. He takes a job to support his family, a job which he doesn't like very much and is getting fed up day by day living through the harsh conditions of daily life in Karachi (street crime is a specialty in this city). He finds a girlfriend, who is a Hindu, another problem added to the already full bucket. And then there is rising tensions, suicide bombings, people struggling for power. Year is 2007, a dictator not letting go and civilians doing everything to make him go. A major factor, America, is perplexed. On the one side there is Musharraf's help in War on Terror and on the other side are America's morals of supporting democracy which they have been selling the whole world for a long time. Ali, hopeless on the outside, is now struggling inside...

The decade of 2000s is quite important in the Pakistani history. It was like a mathematician function. We entered under dictatorship, came out as democracy (Not happening for the first time though, only 40 years in the 70 years since the independence!). The role of media has changed dramatically. It is utilized as a weapon now by the 'powerful' and interesting parties. Something Noam Chomsky told us in 80s but Pakistan has always been slow to pick up with rest of the world. Army has moved from government to governance.


Two major events of the above mentioned decade were '2005 earthquake' and '2007 Benazir Bhutto assassination'. On the day of Earthquake, I was taking haircut and suddenly everything starts to vibrate. My only worry was that this stupid barber might make a wrong cut on my hair and then take that as an excuse to give me a head-shave just like last time because the cut bestowed by him will look very very odd. Luckily, the barber stopped and by now vibration had increased even more. Soon we realized what was happening and we were running outside barefoot, we were in Lahore and there was no considerable damage but up North, it was a big disaster. Pakistanis were united in their help for the victims, even the Taliban, about whom government was doubtful whether they are good or bad, joined the struggle working alongside international NGOs. The unity and brotherhood was quite visible at that time which suddenly eroded away. The year 2007 played a major role in tha erosion. Government vs. Supreme Court.

"wishing he could tell the police that there were dangerous criminals being harbored inside City24 building, longing to call up the American consulate and say Kazim Mazhar knew where Osama bin Laden was hiding."

You will often find Pakistanis indulged in debates rather than actually doing something. And you will frequently find within that debate there is America, Israel and India. Somehow these countries have managed to do every bad thing in Pakistan. They might not have been able to hack Pakistan but they surely have hacked the minds of Pakistanis quite efficiently(America with Hollywood, India with Bollywood, Israel utilizing other means). Still people are trying hard to get an American visa. They study hard, stay out of bad habits, try not to be too religious and whatnot just so that they can have a better chance at American visa. But why? I can go on all day.

"everyone thought they knew what was good for the people of this country: a nuclear bomb; or Islamic law; or to join the War on Terror, because if they didn't, Pakistan would get bombed into the Stone Age"

Discussions, gossips, eating may be counted as the favorite hobbies of Pakistanis. Work might be the last priority even though we hang pictures of M A Jinnah in various places and who said, 'work, work and work'. Every Pakistani seems to have a pretty fair idea of every issue, thanks to never ending gossip. Everyone knows what exactly is right even if logic says its wrong. Musharraf justifies War on Terror with Bush, telling him we bomb Pakistan to stone age, after 9/11. Musharraf might be telling the truth because you can expect such things from the not-so-intelligent Bush. He just cared for Oil and Pakistan had none. So better go to Stone Age and start making or contributing as fossil...

"Ali murmured along with everyone else, wondering which fact was more depressing: that these rights had been snatched from them or that he didn't even known he possessed them in the first place."

"They didn't question him, either; Ali could see that they were frightening by the way he could draw shutters down and keep them out of his private world."

Every youth in Pakistan passes through some typical phases in his life. His parents want a safe and secure job, he want most beautiful most pious girlfriend. Big conflict there. He goes through a corrupt education system which teaches him how to be numb in a sophisticated way. Some stupid people like myself try to shake that numbness and become a source of bullies and laughter. It's so fun to be a Pakistani...

"He had never been to school, could not understand the grand designs of the men who wanted to rule the country."

We lost East Pakistan in 1971 which became Bangladesh. They have a literacy rate of almost 100 and Pakistan is struggling near 50. Who is to blame? Book-reading is considered something deviant. Some have been lucky to have parents who felt the importance of education during theri lives. They worked hard on their children, made them study course books, speaking for myself as soon as I was having a good job I bid my farewell to course books. Now my mother sometimes tell me to not read so many books, at times feeling that she might not have put enough effort in my formal education...

"No matter how macho everyone pretended to be in Pakistan, even the biggest muscle-bound buffoon was frightened of being taken to police thana."

Pakistan is a unique country to have variable laws. Laws are dependent upon your status, links, what you can offer etc. Those who have nothing much of the above end up in the hands of law enforcement agencies and receive beatings and punishment, even the share of the ones who have everything above. Interesting country!

"The country and its people were a whore to be used voilently and greedily until the users were spent and exhausted and could grab and take no more."

Coming back to the book, it was quite a good effort. Somewhere in between a connection was missing though. Maybe reading it after The Goldfinch has affected my judgement...

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whatever I try to say, my words deceive me

A. R. Rehman has a class in the music industry. He is one of his kind. The fusion which he creates by combining all these different  genres...

I can watch Rockstar again and again and will never get tired of it. It is a masterpiece. Artful. Powerful plot with a classy music. Part of the reason for my admiration of the movie is my own dream to take a flight away from this and don't care what they think or what they call me. It is my bloody life. I want to live it my in my style. Rather than showing conformation and normalization I I want to show my uniqueness and diversity as the world is. We are all unique and diverse. The song 'Jo Bhi Main' catches my special attention.

The song has  a great composition no doubt. But the lyrics are so mindful. So thought provoking. At least for me. 

Review: The Goldfinch

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

''And there was something festive and happy about the two of us, hurrying up the steps beneath the flimsy candy-stripped umbrella, quick quick quick, for all the world as if we were escaping something terrible instead of running right into it."

The cover was interesting enough to pick up the book. Picture of a bird or a goldfinch as the reader finds out while reading. The beginning was like taking a dive into deep calm sea. Smooth and refreshing. A life-changing experience of a few hours described in great lengths, just what it deserved. The author uses her power of wit, analogies and lengthy description throughout the book. And she does it so smoothly the reader won't notice how many pages have been turned already.

So the story begins with Theo, a teenager, being faced with a tragic loss in life. Something we all experience except the lucky ones. He finds himself homeless and hopeless but life has its own ways of being moving forward. Infinite possibilities and one is selected. For Theo a painting, The Goldfinch is chosen by the author around which Theo's whole life revolves. Reader is already gripped.

"I was silent. Andy, I knew, was loyal. I trusted him. I valued his opinion, and yet his conversation sometimes made me feel as though I was talking to one of those computer programs that mimic human response."

For sometime Theo stays at Barbours' while being still in grief over his loss. Then one day someone shows up and he has to move faraway from home. There, faraway in the almost deserted neighborhood, he meets Boris. A special character in the book. They end up being loyal and corrupt friends. But then Theo has to move again after an incident. He returns back home, not with Boris but with a terrier.

"Yet it still felt like the last night in out old apartment on Seventh Avenue, my mother and father and I sitting atop cardboard boxes to eat our Chinese take out dinner."

He returns home with a apparently well kept secret as well. The author's power of story telling makes this seemingly dull plot quite amusing and interesting. Not knowing where to go Theo knocks at Hobie's. Then he tries to enter into some formal education system but ends up becoming an apprentice to Hobie who deals with all sorts of antique stuff. How Theo and Hobie are acquainted?

"No, seriously, " I said, laughing, raising up to my elbows. "Did you really believe in all that?"
"All what?"
"You know. Allah and Muhammad. 'There is no God but God'--?"
"No," he said, a bit angrily, "my Islam was a political thing,"

Time moves fast as it always does. And all this time Theo has no idea where Boris is or what he is up to. He hasn't met Barbours' due to a reason. Eventually his paths cross with both and story begins to pace up. More than 500 pages already gone.

''Likely you will end up in jail, Potter. Loose morals, slave to the economy. Very bad citizen, you"

Boris tells him a secret and Theo's old secret was not a secret anymore which Boris didn't know that Theo didn't know. Now Boris feels sorry and wants to payback by all means. For Theo the painting has become...He wants it back more than Boris.

"There were classes where you built solar panels and had seminars with Nobel-winning economists, and classes where all you did was listen to Tupac records or watch old episodes of Twin Peaks."

"Casual, but with unease of a parent wondering if an erratic teenager is really going to be okay taking the car out."

Then there is Pippa, Theo's unattainable and teenage love. Sad. Theo's thoughts and expressions around her are described in such a beautiful manner. Why not just let them be together. But somethings are meant to remain like this.

"Kitsey was far from stupid. Not only had she arranged for the marriage that would most please her mother; she was sleeping with the person she really loved"

There is Kitsey as well to whom Theo's is getting married. Four stars and not five stars just because of the plot. It could have been more powerful. Four stars given for the author's prolonged yet powerful style of narration.

"And I'm hoping there's some larger truth about the suffering here, or at least my understanding of it -- although I've come to realize that the only truths that matter to me are the ones I don't, and can't, understand."

And just when you are about to reach the bottom, you find yourself searching for one while there is none available. Lessons and realities of life hit you instead. More than 800 pages gone. The book is finished.

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Review: Frankenstein

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Snowcapped mountains, beautiful scenery, a view of Mont blanc, a happy and thriving family, honest and caring friends, a comfortable house and fairly rich owners. What more a person can wish or desire for happiness and comfort. How life or nature has its ways of snatching away all happiness and putting it's best creature to perils and torments. Is misery the real destination of man or is it the man himself who creates misery by searching or craving for powers too strong and ultimately ravaging for him. Do these questions have answers. Is our understanding of human life is overrated or overestimated. Has history been able to provide us with some answers or some analogies to refer...

Yet we try and we try to understand, to reach and test the limits thinking we have no limits ourselves. We promote it and where it has lead us and where it is leading us. This book is a story of one such try.

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Review: Portraits From Memory and Other Essays

Portraits From Memory and Other Essays by Bertrand Russell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First how i came across this book. I see Tolstoy's hand of Prudence in that matter.
One day as I scrolled down in one of my google searches , I found an article about 'an antique bookshop in Lahore' my home city. Caught my attention immediately. I read the article, then i read some more about the store online, called the proprietor, and finally made up my mind to visit as early as possible.The next day I was standing in front of the shop. Looked like some deserted shop from the 70s. At the facade was a stall full of Urdu digests and children books so I had to enter from a narrow path left. As I entered, I realized there was actually a shop behind the shop. I was looking for the second shop. As soon I was in the indie antique shop it was just a beautiful and wonderful feeling to be around all those old books patiently waiting to be read and share words of the wise. I started my visit from the fiction section, moved on to philosophy and obviously things got interesting. There I came across this book lying on the shelf full of dust fighting the wear and tear of time. I picked it up remove the dust and read some here and there and then decided to come back to it. When I came back to this book after visiting all the sections, I had selected five books for final selection. I had in my mind to buy two books because they just keep piling on. I spent more time selecting two books out of five than I had spent on selecting five out of the whole shop because its just hard to put them off. In the end I just followed my intuition and decided to buy this book and another book on Second World War. I'm getting off track...

Although the beginning was not very interesting for me but Russel has such a good sense of humor and i don't know from where he gets his super-examples that i couldn't put this book away. The first essays are autobiographical, then comes the essay about growing old, then an essay on eightieth birthday followed by essays on other important writer of his time. In the last there are twelve essays bearing the power to change people's life. He covers most important yet less understood aspects of life i.e. happiness, peace, wisdom, thinking etc. Russel had a clear understanding of problems faced by humanity and I found him very passionate in trying to eradicate those problems. How humanity is suffering, why humanity is suffering and how to overcome this suffering. Since Russel's time some things have improved and many things have become worse. It wouldn't have surprised him though.

This book is very much compatible even today i.e it has no time stamp philosophically. But I am afraid most people don't read books like these anymore. Still being an optimist, I strongly recommend this book to every living soul and especially to the leaders of this world.

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