SiD’s Sphere!!

So, as you can guess, I’m still listening to Micheal Jackson, and this one I couldn’t get over. At first, I thought I like it so much because it speaks for me, something I’d like to say all of my friends, but on second thought, the emotion the song conveys is universal and it speaks for all us humans. All anyone needs is someone to be there for them in their darkest hours, in their deepest despair.

To all those who matter (and you know who you are), I WILL be there.

Hold Me
Like The River Jordan
And I Will Then Say To Thee
You Are My Friend

Carry Me
Like You Are My Brother
Love Me Like A Mother
Would You Be There?

Weary
Tell Me Will You Hold Me
When Wrong, Will You Skold Me
When Lost Will You Find Me?

But They Told Me
A Man Should Be Faithful
And Walk When Not Able
And Fight Till The End
But I’m Only Human

Everyone’s Taking Control Of Me
Seems That The World’s
Got A Role For Me
I’m So Confused
Will You Show To Me
You’ll Be There For Me
And Care Enough To Bear Me

(Hold Me) show me
(Lay Your Head Lowly)
told me
(Softly Then Boldly)
(Carry Me There)
I’m Only Human

(Lead Me)
hold me
(Love Me And Feed Me)
ye yeah
(Kiss Me And Free Me)
yeah
(I Will Feel Blessed)
I’m Only Human

(Carry)
Carry
(Carry Me Boldly)
Carry me
(Lift Me Up Slowly)
yeah
(Carry Me There)
I’m Only Human

(Save Me)
need me
(Heal Me And Bathe Me)
lift me up lift me up
(Softly You Say To Me)
(I Will Be There)
I Will Be There

(Lift Me)
i’m gonna care
(Lift Me Up Slowly)
(Carry Me Boldly)
yeah
(Show Me You Care)
Show Me You Care

(Hold Me)
whoooo
(Lay Your Head Lowly)
i git lonly some times
(Softly Then Boldly)
i git lonly
(Carry Me There)
yeah yeah carry me there
yeah yeah yeah
[Spoken]
In Our Darkest Hour
In My Deepest Despair
Will You Still Care?
Will You Be There?
In My Trials
And My Tripulations
Through Our Doubts
And Frustrations
In My Violence
In My Turbulence
Through My Fear
And My Confessions
In My Anguish And My Pain
Through My Joy And My Sorrow
In The Promise Of Another Tomorrow
I’ll Never Let You Part
For You’re Always In My Heart.

So, as you can guess, I’m still listening to Micheal Jackson, and this one I couldn’t get over. At first, I thought I like it so much because it speaks for me, something I’d like to say all of my friends, but on second thought, the emotion the song conveys is universal and it speaks for all us humans. All anyone needs is someone to be there for them in their darkest hours, in their deepest despair.

To all those who matter (and you know who you are), I WILL be there.

Hold Me
Like The River Jordan
And I Will Then Say To Thee
You Are My Friend

Carry Me
Like You Are My Brother
Love Me Like A Mother
Would You Be There?

Weary
Tell Me Will You Hold Me
When Wrong, Will You Skold Me
When Lost Will You Find Me?

But They Told Me
A Man Should Be Faithful
And Walk When Not Able
And Fight Till The End
But I’m Only Human

Everyone’s Taking Control Of Me
Seems That The World’s
Got A Role For Me
I’m So Confused
Will You Show To Me
You’ll Be There For Me
And Care Enough To Bear Me

(Hold Me) show me
(Lay Your Head Lowly)
told me
(Softly Then Boldly)
(Carry Me There)
I’m Only Human

(Lead Me)
hold me
(Love Me And Feed Me)
ye yeah
(Kiss Me And Free Me)
yeah
(I Will Feel Blessed)
I’m Only Human

(Carry)
Carry
(Carry Me Boldly)
Carry me
(Lift Me Up Slowly)
yeah
(Carry Me There)
I’m Only Human

(Save Me)
need me
(Heal Me And Bathe Me)
lift me up lift me up
(Softly You Say To Me)
(I Will Be There)
I Will Be There

(Lift Me)
i’m gonna care
(Lift Me Up Slowly)
(Carry Me Boldly)
yeah
(Show Me You Care)
Show Me You Care

(Hold Me)
whoooo
(Lay Your Head Lowly)
i git lonly some times
(Softly Then Boldly)
i git lonly
(Carry Me There)
yeah yeah carry me there
yeah yeah yeah
[Spoken]
In Our Darkest Hour
In My Deepest Despair
Will You Still Care?
Will You Be There?
In My Trials
And My Tripulations
Through Our Doubts
And Frustrations
In My Violence
In My Turbulence
Through My Fear
And My Confessions
In My Anguish And My Pain
Through My Joy And My Sorrow
In The Promise Of Another Tomorrow
I’ll Never Let You Part
For You’re Always In My Heart.

last night, i was hoping that once the rain comes the dust on the trees would be washed away. today i’m thinking of the blood on the streets. that is there to stay. the rains, the tears, nothing can make us go back to a clean slate again.

maybe this is why they always asked us to be careful. to think before we acted or said anything. because somethings just cannot be reversed, and some misunderstanding can never be cleared.

What I once thought were are circles now appear to be parallel lines. Recurring themes are not spread over time anymore. They’ve taken over the present and its the same demons on every front, and on each one of them, some more blood is spilled every day that will stay there.

Last night was a delight!

Remember how I said a few days that I don’t understand how people could be so passionate about sports. Last night’s victory brought me a little closer to understanding that. But last night, I saw the match like I’ve never seen before.

I was logged on to twitter, and I’m not sure which of the two, Rabia Garib or Awab Alvi, started a new hashtag #pakcricket. And then we partied! I’m not sure how many of us were twittering together, but it was like watching a match in a room full of ardent Pakistan fans. We were all up pumped up and rooting for Pakistan like I had never experienced before. Every four was cheered, every wicket deplored. Maybe this is what it felt watching a match in a stadium where strangers come together with only one thing in common, their love for the team.

Now, Rabia wants to do more than just have everyone twitter together. For the T20 Worldcup Final scheduled on Sunday, she wants to make #Pakistan, #PakCricket and #t20 a trending topic.

Whats a trending topic?

If you look at the picture above, in the center right part of the window, it says trending topics. Trending topics are topics what people on twitter are talking about the most. Current trending topics are Iranelection, or Khamenei(the supreme leader is speaking right now). What this does is that everyone who logs on to twitter will be able to see that there’s a WorldCup Final going on, and all of Pakistan has come together in cheering on their team to victory.

How do you participate?

Its simple. The first thing you need is a twitter account. That should be easy to make. We’ve all made our facebook and orkut accounts, haven’t we?

Once you’re signed in, you simply start twittering, i.e., post your views on the game in 160 words.

Don’t forget to add the hashtags:

This is how twitter’s wiki defines hashtags:

Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They’re like tags on Flickr, only added inline to your post. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag.

Hashtags were developed as a means to create “groupings” on Twitter, without having to change the basic service. The hash symbol is a convention borrowed primarily from IRC channels, and later from Jaiku’s channels.

The hashtags we’re promoting are: #Pakistan #T20 and #Pakcricket

All you need to do is while updating your status, include all three hashtags inline and the community will update itself.

Some tricks and tips

1. Download a desktop application to update your tweets. I use twhirl. Another option available is TweetDeck.

2. Begin now, so by the time the game starts, you have the hang of it.

Ask your friends and family to join in
The more, the merrier. For a hashtag to become a trending topic, it has to be updated by the most number of people. To meet our goal for Sunday, we need as many people as we can to twitter. Bring your facebook discussions to twitter. On facebook, only people you’ve added can share your views. On twitter, once you add the hashtag, you can share your opinions, the joy of winning, with everyone who’s following the game. Talk about being a community!

This is for Pakistanis and Pakistan fans all over the world. The war, the power breakdowns, the bombings, we have too much to depress us but this week has been good for Pakistan because the people had their spirits high. It started with CokeStudio, and then the game last night. Lets carry this spirit forward and show the world that we stand behind our team in solidarity.

Here’s to Pakistan bringing home the WorldCup! Here’s to twinning!

#t20 #PakCricket #Pakistan
uniting Pakistan like never before!

Due to glitches in the import tool, posts from my blogger account fail to get transferred completely, specially those containing youtube videos. Can you all please bookmark http://sid87.blogspot.com/ instead.

Readers of the blog may also find useful links at the end of each post. Don’t forget to check those out. *hint hint*

I told you today I’d be writing specially for you coz you not only understand but feel what I say. I had been trying to do that for so long- evoke feelings through words- but I hadn’t been able to.
I give you the name of supernova coz in the brief moment this star shines, its radiation exceeds that of the entire galaxy and then it fades away for weeks. You have been that star. You have been the keeper of my secrets, and the only company my tears flow unhesitatingly infront of.
Shine on!

Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate.

I disagree. In my opinion, neutrality is a must when one can’t discern between the tormentor and the tormented. Nothing works in isolation. No incident is a one-off event. Terrorists don’t step out of a vacuum and neither can you send them there.

But that’s not what I intend to say in this post.

I have stopped watching TV. I have stopped reading any sort of news related to the war or the bombings in Pakistan. Not only is it too depressing, its infuriating. I don’t support any form of violence: not the war, and not the ‘retaliatory’ violence that follows. A lot of people have drawn allusion to the large-scale migration during the Partition and the plight of the IDPs. The following conclusion from Jason Francisco’s review of the anthologies of all the literature on the partition, titled: In the Heat of Fratricide: The Literature of India’s Partition Burning Freshly, sum up my thoughts regarding the futility of debate and discussion:

What political debate will never fully do—and the reason we so badly need the literature—is defeat the urge to lay blame, which keeps animosity alive. Only the literature truly evokes the suffering of the innocent, whose pain is more universal and ultimately a vehicle of more honest reconciliation than political discourse. The literary work on the Partition affirms that the subject of the Partition was first the human being—not the Hindu human being, nor the Muslim, nor the Sikh. In the world of the stories, the experiences of each community distinctly mirror one another, indeed reach out to and clutch at one another. No crime, no despair, no grief in exile belongs uniquely to anyone. On the one hand, then, the stories seem to suggest that secularism puts a fence around the sanctity of life often more effectively than religious devotion—when, that is, secular thinking destroys religious myths of destiny and privilege that justify violence. At the same time they remind us that secular nationalism is not without its own mythology, including justification of foundational violence and violence deemed necessary for national sustenance.

Perhaps we emerge from the literature with a mistrust toward group solidarity of an oppositional bent. If so we must emerge at the same time,paradoxically, with a conviction to oppose such mistrust with trust in the goodness of the human life-urge wherever we find it. Indeed, we emerge from the literature as searchers for such trust. If we find it in the solitary dissidence of even a single person, we feel obliged to offer him or her our companionship. And if we find it stitched into whole communities, we come away not necessarily more pious, but inspired. The literature as a whole seeds pathos for the suffering and inhumanity of the Partition, and related instances of cultural chauvinism, but not merely so. It also sprouts a countervailing protest, a voice of justice that must be the surging of our humanity itself—something greater than our bestiality—within us. In this sense the literature does what religious leaders in each community failed to do: to make communities forces for the affirmation of humanity broadly, and to forge nations—if nations are the destinies of cherished traditions—dedicated to human improvement, dedicated precisely to virtuous conduct with those of different faith. If religious politics worked nefariously in favor of partition, it was because an ecumenical religious politics never developed. We are in a different position than the men and
women of August,1947/ Our choices are not limited to exile, death or resignation. If the literature of the Partition can teach that committed people of different faiths serve God far more effectively when they face one another in prayer than when they face their respective temples, we can learn to exercise such a choice.

What I essentially interpret from it, and what I mean to say, no amount of discussions- on TV talk shows, in drawing rooms, on blogs- is going to take away the misery of the people who are suffering. Whether or not I feel this is my war or not does not matter. I don’t wish to enter into argument with anyone who doesn’t agree with me.

They tell me the soldiers are fighting My War.

They tell me that while I should support the troops.

They tell me that the IDPs are collateral damage.

They call me a traitor for not agreeing.

The more I think about it, the more perplexed I get. I feel for the displaced families. I feel for every single soul that has been turned out of its home, in this sweltering summer heat. But not a single cell in my brain is ready to accept the logic behind the so called operation. The cost of this war outweighs any benefits that were to be had from it. Who are these Taliban? What writ of the government are they challenging?

Yes, the writ… the word that works so many of us up. They tell me, no one can have their own brand of justice when the constitution exists? Is the government not challenged in the crime infested streets of Lyari? Do tribal lords with private jails only pose a threat when they don’t benefit the ruling party?

But the war… this war, they call mine and yours.. where did that come from. Have you seen Charlie Wilson’s War?

When the world wasn’t looking, he changed it forever!

Sure as hell he did. But as the movie will show you, he also failed. After he succeeded in his covert operation of arming the Mujahideen to drive out the Russians, he couldn’t convince the US Senators who had spent billions on the arms, to spend merely a small proportion of that on reconstruction effort. The Russians were defeated alright! But what did that achieve. Charlie Wilson himself believes they fucked up.

These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world… and then we fucked up the endgame.

A few days ago, Nabeel posted some eye catching posters on his blog called ‘What Goes Around’.

In Pakistan, we’re on the receiving end of the coming round of everything that has happened in the past, and the sad news is that the IDPs will start another cycle of disaster.

I don’t support the troops of my country. I feel sorry for them. They join the armed forces with the vision of serving their country, yet they’re only serving imperial interests. Unquestioning, unsuspecting, they follow orders and put their lives on the line for nothing.

You don’t eliminate terrorists with guns and tanks. You never will. You will only breed more. Go fight this war, if you have to but don’t call it mine.