Obliterated History

May 10, 2009 passed without any official or unofficial event in Pakistan to remember that historic day of May 10, 1857 when a last, ill-planned, and fatal attempt was made to get rid of the overweening English traders who were becoming de facto rulers of the vast subcontinent. What began on that Sunday morning in the town of Meerut would be later called "Ghadar" (Mutiny), "the Great Rebellion", "the Indian Mutiny", "the Revolt of 1857", "the Uprising of 1857", the "Sepoy Mutiny" by those who wrote its history for the colonized people of India and inserted this appellation in the textbooks which were to be used for generations.

When we went to school, we read about the "Ghadar" and Sayyid Ahmad Khan's account of the "Reasons for Ghadar". The appellation may have now changed to "India's First War of Independence", but there is certainly very little public discourse on the larger and long-term changes which followed that historic day.

Crushed with brutal force, this last armed resistance against the occupation of India came to an end on June 20, 1858, when Gwalior fell. A reign of terror followed. Men were tied to the mouths of cannons and blown to pieces, as Richard Holmes has vividly described in his 2005 book, Sahib: The British Soldier in India 1750-1914. A note from General Montgomery to Captain Hudson, "the butcher of Delhi" exposes how the British military high command approved cold-blooded massacre of general populace of Delhi, reminiscent of Halagu Khan's massacre of the residents of Baghdad in 1258: "All honour to you for catching the king and slaying his sons. I hope you will bag many more!"

A policy of "no prisoners" was adopted, whole villages were wiped out on the flimsiest rumours of sympathy for the local soldiers.

An estimated ten million Indians lost their lives, as Amaresh Misra describes in his two volume work, War of Civilisations: India AD 1857, published in 2008. Back in England, the accounts of atrocities of the British "Army of Retribution" were generally considered justified in the wake of exaggerated press accounts of Indian "savagery" against the "Europeans and Christians". During a year of terror that followed the events of May 1857, and for a long time to come, India went through a gigantic transformation which must be considered as one of the largest and most cruel experiment in social reengineering in modern history.

First the Company and later the British Crown, through its representative in India, the Viceroy, attempted to remake India in their own image. A society that had lived in a certain manner for centuries was remodelled from ground up. Memoirs, chronicles, letters, and personal accounts of the time describe cataclysmic events. "My dear sir," wrote Mirza Ghalib to Nawab Anwar al-Dawla, "what shall I say about the destruction of houses and mosques! The builder of the city might not have exerted so much planned effort for building them as the owners of the country [meaning the English] have for their destruction. My! my! Almost all buildings from the times of Shah Jahan within the walls of the fort and most of these in the city were demolished painstakingly and where picks and shovels and other tools did not suffice, tunnels were made and explosives were used to demolish them."

Aristocratic families of old were ruined, thousands were killed, imprisoned, or sent into exile, a whole new administrative was imposed, and new institutions were implanted which changed everything in the vast subcontinent--from the judiciary to education. The ill-fated effort also led to the insertion of the Jewel that India was, into the Crown of the British monarch, thus conveniently shifting the exploitation of Indian resources and people from the control a trading company that had come begging for concessions from the then mighty Mughals to the British monarch.

Ninety years later, when the British finally left the Indian subcontinent, they had produced so many brown sahibs that there was no further need for their physical presence; now they could achieve what they wanted remotely, although now they had to share their profits with a newly emerged tyrannical power. This shift would be so drastic that all previous history will be quickly obliterated to make room for an entirely different public discourse.

People who lose their history, simultaneously lose their future. We are such a people. Any attempt to reclaim history is simultaneously an attempt to reclaim future. Yet, it is neither the details the armed resistance against the occupiers nor the heart-wrenching accounts of those who were blown to pieces which make this attempt meaningful; it is in understanding the present in the light of the past that makes this act of recall a meaningful process of reconstruction and reassertion. Those who refuse to see their present in the light of their past, have no understanding of the extent of transformation Pakistan is now undergoing. They cannot imagine the new history of our people which will be written fifty years from now. That history will transfigure not only the May 1857, but also May 2009.



The writer is a freelance columnist.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Quantum Note
by Dr Muzaffar Iqbal
Email: quantumnotes@gmail.com

Posted via email from nubeals's posterous

I don't see you, but there is your nymph-smile

  
Download now or listen on posterous

Dil Se - Ae Ajnabi.mp3 (5365 KB)

Ae Ajnabi from Dil Se, in English:

O love! You too, call me from somewhere.
I live here, broken-hearted
You spend your life, somewhere. Incomplete.

Everyday, a satin-like wind.
The satin-like wind, tells me
That pure, innocent child.
Where is she, where is it?
Where is the light, where is the life-spirit?
Incomplete, alone - we spend our life.

I don’t see you, but there is your nymph-smile
I see no face, but I see a shadow.
Where are you, where?
Where do I find you?
Where is my world?
Incomplete, you and I - wasting our life.

Posted via email from nubeals's posterous

Marketing, Virtual Friendships and of course, Facebook

"...an average Facebook user with 500 friends actively follows the news on only 40 of them, communicates with 20, and keeps in close touch with about 10," according to an article at BusinessWeek. 

Going by that, and given that I have 1272 friends, it means I actively follow the news on 101 friends, communicate with 50 (and a half, heh?), and keep in close touch with 25? But I only closely follow maybe 1-3 people! But I definitely communicate with more than 50 - through status comments, quiz comments and what not - apart from wall posts. Well, I guess it's a fair generalization still.

I'm most interested to know if the researchers can really come up with algorithms to friendships, or at least virtual friendships, because I believe that is impossible. It's all just random!

Another concern for me is, how do the researchers get their guinea pigs - the people they carry out research on? Like, let's say they want to study me because I'm such a "Facebook whore", would they just get access to my information without my consent? How many people I stalked, clicking through pictures, and viewing people's wall-to-walls and what not... 

Or would they ask me first? If they do, and let's assume I say yes, does that mean I will be giving them access to my friends' information as well? Because - I think I raised this question before - who owns this data? 

Naturally, Facebook terms and conditions stipulate that the users have no rights over the information, but still, it is information about ME! And while I still own the content, the statistical information could be useful too. If anyone else has a right to view it, I should be able to view it first! I also want to learn more about me and my habits! 

Yes, after going through the Facebook principles, I think that any information that is provided to advertisers and marketers should be provided to me first.

Posted via email from nubeals's posterous

And I Thought I was Good at Brainstorming

It has always come so naturally to me. To get a few people together into one place and then have everyone throw their ideas around. I would dominate, using others' ideas and improving them (or reducing them, heh), and also jumpstarting the discussion by throwing in some stupid ideas at the beginning.

Alex Osburn, who came up with the idea of brainstorming in 1957, suggested such throwing around of ideas have only four rules:

• Don't criticize.
• Quantity is wanted.
• Combine and improve suggested ideas.
• Share ALL ideas that come to mind.

If I could, I would add these two as well:

• Listen.
• Be positive. (until later, much later, when you have more than enough ideas.)

But the problem I've had since a long time now is that people here don't do such activities in groups. Those that do it in groups never listen to each other, and never bend to each other's wills. Then through failed layers of democracy and voting with disagreement, an idea is accepted by a group or a committee, often half-heartedly. Naturally, that affects the ultimate goals of the entire exercise, or whatever the idea is being used for.

The issue they need to understand is that creativity comes ad libitum: by being spontaneous and impromptu. A person can't sit alone at his desk and generate slogans, tag-lines, new names for products or services, or company names, or design. In this regard, I'm curious myself about how creative people function - especially in a corporate environment. Now, you can't book the meeting room each time you have to send one idea high up and can't decide between 20 ideas (only to receive a disdainful no every time).

But I'm confused, and as usual, this post doesn't serve to explain but to confuse further. I think great ideas come to you when your concentration is at its peak. Your concentration is at its peak when your presence of mind is at its height. And when it is at its height, you are most likely to be in the shower or taking a dump. You've gotta be peaceful!

On a similar note, here's a list of AMAZING tools to feed our creativity.

dead.

I never wanna be Alone

Alone by Creed And Tool  
Download now or listen on posterous

creed and tool - miscellaneous - alone.mp3 (3642 KB)

It's been a long day at the bottom of the hill,

she died of a broken heart.

She told me I was living in the past,

drinking from a broken glass.

Chorus

I'm alone [I never wanna be alone],

now I [now I] try to face the cold.

I'm alone [I never wanna be alone],

now I [now I] try to travel home.

I walked down to the other end of the day,

just to catch those last few waves.

I held out my hand and slowly waved goodbye,

I turned now my eyes up to the sky.

Chorus

I'm alone [I never wanna be alone],

now I [now I] try to face the cold.

I'm alone [I never wanna be alone],

now I [now I] try to travel home.

She'll come back to me. [She'll come back to me.]

She'll come back to me. [She'll come back to me.]

All alone in this mystery.

She'll come back to me.

I held out my hands into the light and I watched it die,

I know that I was part to play.

My god, my time to die.

Never want to spend my life alone.

Chorus

I'm alone [I never wanna be alone],

now I [now I] try to face the cold.

I'm alone [I never wanna be alone],

now I [now I] try to travel home. 

Posted via email from nubeals's posterous

Django Reinhardt - Duelling Banjos (deliverance)

Duelling Banjos (Deliverance) by Django Reinhardt  
Download now or listen on posterous

django reinhardt - reinhardt - 01.mp3 (4800 KB)

Don't you just love musical instruments talking to each other?

Posted via email from nubeals's posterous

Amazing Pakistan: A picture hidden from the World (Part-1)

Amazing Pakistan: A picture hidden from the World (Part-1) Pakistan, meaning the “The land of pure” where each day the sun rises with a new hope, with an enduring majesty as the rays of light flushing down towards the snowcapped peaks of Himalaya’s and Nanga Parbat. A land where love finds a meaning in the heart warming hospitability of people, a land where history and ancient civilization mystifies one’s heart, a land where spiritualism unveils its mystery at the shrines of Sufi Saints. This is the land I belong to, this is the land I’ll die for and this is the land that defines my identity. The Invincible 167 Million: 6th largest Nation of the World The invincible 167 million Pakistani’s progressing forward with high hopes and a mission holding an unquenchable thirst to be the world leader’s soon. Despit the chaos, despite the ill spilled by the westeren media to demoralize the nation and to uproot the patriotism from the hearts and minds of people of this country, despite the foreign funded terrorists bombing hundreds of Pakistani’s each day painting the roads red with the blood of young children, women and men. Every drop of it shouts back loud ” You can never take us down, We’ll fight back till our last breath“. Reminding you this is the nation which has a 7th largest pool of scientists and Engineers in the World[1]. and the country that is ranked 9th in the world where English language is spoken and used as an official language [1]. Pakistan: World's 9th Largest English Speaking Country Photo by Sultan Dogar: Abbotabad Medical College   Pakistan: World 7th largest Pool of Scientists and Engineer  Photo : Moin Ali Nawazish making a World Record by passing 23 A level Exams   The Might: 7th Nuclear Power of the World On May 28, 1998, Pakistan became the 7th nuclear power of the world giving a loud and clear message to the enemies that this nation is fully equipped and ready to defend it’s sovereignty. Pakistan has world 7th largest standing arm forces [1] well trained possessing state of the art technology. Pakistan Air Force (PAF) is the symbol of pride for the nation and a galaxy of highly trained professionals emerged in latest technological developments. The highly skilled PAF personals are renowned for their excellence and handling of aircraft and surely are the worst fear for the enemies. Pakistan: 7th largest Standing Arm Force in the World Pakistan: Air force: Air Commodore MM ALAM has a world record of shooting down 5 Indian planes in less than a Minute asdasdasdad Pakistan: The Roof Top of the World Pakistan the land of grand mountain ranges, a land that holds 4 out of 14 most highest peaks in the world. K2 the second highest mountain in the world with all it’s grandeur symbolizing the pride and strength of the people of Pakistan. Pakistan: K2 the 2nd highest mountain peak in the World Hunza is said to be a place ” Where Time Stops and Fairy Treads“, Kalash and Chitral are the natural wonders of the world where poetic verses find their inspirations from the beauty and elegance of high peak mountains, lush green fields and the fragrant breeze singing across the poplar trees. Some of the places which are not highlighted by the media but still due to their magnitude find their places on the World record books are ; Aisa’s Highest Railway Station Kan Mehtarzai [2] that is located 2240 meters above sea level near Quetta. Pakistan: Asia's Highest Railway Station "Kan Mehtarzai " Pakistan: Lalazar often termed as most beautiful place on earth  Pakistan: Nanga Parbat 9th Highest Peak in the World What it would feel like to play a sport that is wild, challenging and manly at the top of the world surrounded by the drumbeats and the music of the reed instrument. Yes Shandur Polo tournament is played every year at World’s highest Polo ground at Shandur, Northern Pakistan. Pakistan: Shundur Polo festival at the World's highest Polo ground Karakoram Highway: Eighth Wonder of the World Karakoram Highway runs through the northern areas connecting Pakistan with China’s Xingjiang province is often described as ”Eighth Wonder of the World” due to the marvel of civil engineering as it has taken 15 years to complete by the Pakistan Army Engineers in collaboration with China. It’s been labeled as ” World’s highest paved international Road” under world’s toughest terrain. Pakistan: Karakoram Highway World's highest paved international Road World’s Largest Deep Sea Port: Gwader “Gwa” means Air and “Dar” means door, and the word Gawadar means ” The door of the wind” is the world’s largest deep sea port lies in southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan. The design and construction of the port is carried out in collaboration with China and it has just started it’s operation.It’s going to emerge as a world’s biggest skyline due to it’s capacity and infrastructure of handling bulk carriers. It has been declared as a Duty Free Port and Free Economic Zone by the Pakistani government that has increased the commercial worth manifolds. It has an immense geostrategic importance as it is the entrance to the Persian Gulf and is considered to be a substitute of Dubai Port. Pakistan: Gawader: World's Largest Deep Sea Port Khewra Mines: Second Largest Salt Mine in the World Khewra Salt Mine located in Khewra, Jehlum Punjab, Pakistan is the second largest Salt Mine in the world and is considered to be the oldest in the subcontinent. It was said that discovery of Salt mines were not done by Alexander or his army but by their horses as they started licking the stones when they stopped here for rest. Thousand of visitors each year visit Khewra Salt mines and get fascinated by the nature’s miracle in the heart of mountains. Pakistan: Khewra Salt Mine: Second Largest Salt Mine in the World Haleji Lake: Asia’s largest Bird Sanctuary Pakistan is a land of serene beauty , a country with diverse wild life , fresh water lakes, a 1046 km coast lines. Some of the most unique species of birds are found in northern Pakistan with awe-inspiring natural wonders like Lake Saiful Maluk, Lake Shandur, Dudipatsar Lake, kutwal lake, Zalzal lake and many more. But Haleji has it’s own significance as it is Asia’s largest waterfowl reserve. During winter thousands of birds of different species fly down to Haleji from Siberian colder areas Pakistan: The heavenly Shandur Lake   Thar Desert: One amongst the largest deserts in the World Thar is a arid region in the north western part of Indian subcontinent, it lies mostly in Indian state of Rajasthan but it covers eastern Sindh province and the southeastern portion of Pakistan’s Punjab province. It is amongst one of the largest deserts in the world rich multifaceted culture, heritage, traditions, folk tales, dances and music. The poetic expression of Kafi written by Sufi poets of Sindh resonates in the cold nights as the Thari musicians start singing them on sorrowing rhythmic beats. In the night the granules of the sand lit up like stars as the moonlight walks on them. Pakistan: Tharparker   The land of oldest Civilization: Indus Valley and Moenjodaro Moenjodaro is the province of Sindh, Pakistan and archeology trace back it exitence 5000 years ago. It provides an earliest instance of exemplary form of town planning and community organization and found to be as one of the oldest cities known today. It is said to be the pilgrimage of ancient ruins. The splendor of Indus Valley civilization spread over a thousand mile from the high peak snowy mountains of Kashmir to the glittering sand dunes facing the Arabian Sea. One of the oldest known civilization that flourished in the Indus river Basin embraced within its fold almost the entire country now known as Pakistan. Pakistan: Moenjodaro, One of the oldest Civilization Known today

NB: Received as a forward by email

Posted via email from nubeals's posterous

Yes, You Are Right

One of the most beautiful phrases to hear for any human being out there is: "Yes, you are right."

Everyone wants to be right about things they do or say - or they like to be told that the things they do or say are right. In the past week, I've been told I am right more times than my close group of friends and family have told me in a year. It's just fascinating.

I guess that is the main difference between a social and professional environment. Often, in social environments people are more prone to think that their righteousness supersedes everyone else's, and no one likes to be corrected. But in professional environments, people tend to be more ethical and more open to suggestions, feedback and critiques.

Of course, there are exceptions in every generalization (and this is a generalization).

Whatever the case, I haven't donned some kind of coporate suit to fit into this professional environment (or taken off my social suit). I am still very much myself. I must've been right all along. About most things at least, if not all.

Ah self-confidence, thou art a heartless bitch!

Posted via email from nubeals's posterous