One for emotionally handicapped...

Just getting bored and don’t know what to do. I have exams starting from 30th but I don’t feel like studying at all. As I ask my twitter followers to tell em something productive to do, this suggestion came. Write something for the emotionally handicapped people.

I seriously don’t know what it is and as I googled it, it tells me that it some psychotic disorder. Might be caused by failure to achieve anything in academics or due to some life events. to hell with it. What I understand is that its something related to people not showing any emotions at all when it is required the most.

I guess I can relate myself to that. As a kid, someone pinched me and I used to cry. During final days of my O levels, because of the fault of other section’s students, our headmistress came and slapped everyone in the class. I remember I cried at the first one and was then mocked at by everyone that I easily cried. Since that point, I don’t know if I’m right to call it, I have become much stronger that even at the death of close relative, I never feel like crying. Some 6 months ago, my great grandmother passed away. Personally, she meant a lot to me. I tried hard but couldn’t make myself to cry as the last stone on her grave was laid. I was sad all day but never showed it to anyone. A couple of months ago, I failed two of my ACCA exams. I had planned to get done with it till then. That night, I beat the hell out of myself but just could not cry to let out my frustration at myself..

In my opinion, being emotionally handicapped has not everything to do with just crying. It could be anything. For example, not trusting anyone to share your feelings and emotions with. You may have had such bad experiences in the past that you consider no one to be so much trustworthy. Or the ones you care for are too far away from you to share how you would like to. Or like in my case, been hurt so much in childhood that even the biggest sorrow can’t make you show the emotions.

But being an emotionally handicapped person may have its drawbacks too. There may be someone caring for you all the time but you never notice. Sometimes, physical presence can play a big part too. Someone holding your hand, tapping your head or leaning a shoulder can help a lot whenever you are sad or let out something that has been bothering you.. Someone who can listen to your rants or whatever without a blink of an eye and comfort you.

To conclude, it’s good to be an emotionally handicapped person at times because you are not easily played with. But, on the other hand, you should never lose someone who has been caring for you all the time. To let out your feelings, i’d advise to write a diary or a blog. this writing thing helps you to feel less burdened. It feels like you have let out everything that has been held inside you and has been bothering you. Don’t be a sad soul, live and enjoy every moment the life has provided you with. Make out your own ways to enjoy it. Or just listen to the beautiful music of 90′s of Bollywood.

The future of Pakistan cricket.

Another semi final defeat at World T20. Another day of accusations and no bond between team members. Captain going for priorities than experience and best combination. Experienced players not performing well up to the expectations from them. Some playing in the whole tournament because of the performance in one single match. Many things went wrong, many lessons were learnt (if they want to learn) during our journey in the World T20.

Sharing my personal opinion, Hafeez is a defensive captain. Although he tried his level best to win the semi final by standing there for more than half of the innings but his decisions while fielding has surely raised some fingers. Against India when we were defending below par 129, why didn't he ever put on a slip in either power play or even after power play. If you're defending a total like that, even if you go down, you should go down trying. Similarly, why was Sohail Tanvir never asked to bowl out his quota in semi final when he had given just 11 in 3 overs? Hafeez never really understood the pitch. He went with the same strategy he used against Australians, forgetting that Srri Lankans play spin much better than Kangaroos.

Anyways, what's done is done. Let's look at the future and next World T20 in Bangladesh. Captain Hafeez, Imran Nazir, Shoaib Malik, Shahid Afridi, Abdur Razzaq, Yasir Arafat and the maestro, Saeed Ajmal, they all are in their Thirties. By the next World T20, a couple of them or more might retire. This is where we need to see if we have their backups available.

Talking about partnership, we have so much talent in the form of Ahmed Shahzad and Nasir Jamshed. We have the talent of Umar Akmal, Asad Shafiq, Ramiz Raja Jr., Khalid Lateef, Hammad Azam, Junaid Khan and many more who are hungry to perform for the national team. For years, our batting has been the weakest and it'll be truly tested on the bouncy South African pitches in February next year.

Not just the T20 squad, we need to look to out Test/ODI squad too. Misbah is 38 and all those above mentioned are mostly a part of test squad too. We need to start grooming our players right now so that by the time we play in the next world competitions, these young guns have enough experience and they can justify their talent well.

In my opinion, captaincy should be handed over to a young leader at this stage. Taking South Africa's or India's example, what they did with Dhoni and Greame Smith. They appointed them the captain when the team was in a build up process with a few veterans around. For T20, the ideal choice will be Nasir Jamshed. As for ODI/Tests, Azhar Ali could be a very good choice. They both have shown their immense talent and are now experienced too. If they can carry on with the skipper's armband for a couple of years and with the talent that is still coming from this country, Pakistan could become the Australia of the decade from 1999-2008. Although, the team is unpredictable, but you can never count them out. Ever.

A memory

We started the school together. We shared the van. We lived near by. We were in the same class. We competed with each other for top position in class. We fought on little things. We helped each other in exams. We were then separated. We met again after couple of years. Exchanged numbers. Re lived our friendship. People thought I had a crush on her. Waited for her outside my college for 3 hours in scorching heat but she never came. She changed her number and never told me about it. She then restricted one friend to give me her number. This is the last text I received from her.

خاموش لہجے میرے ہمدم کبھی بولا نہیں کرتے
درد و غم کو ہر کسی کے سامنے کھولا نہیں کرتے۔۔۔
محبت تو محبت ہے، بڑی انمول ہوتی ہے،
محبت کو کبھی ترازو میں تولا نہیں کرتے۔۔۔۔
میرے خاموش رہنے پر کوئ الزام مت دینا،
سمندر تو سمندر ہے، کبھی بولا نہیں کرتے۔۔۔۔

Khamosh lehje meray humdum kabhi bola nahin kartay,

Dard-o-ghum ko har kisi k samne khola nahin kartay....

Mohabbat tou mohabbat hai, bari anmol hoti hai,

Mohabbat ko kabhi tarazoo mein tola nahin kartay...

Meray khamosh rehne per koi ilzaam mat dena,

Samandar tou samandar hai, kabhi bola nahin kartay...

The curious case of Pakistani media... Part 3

Entertainment and News aside, they are now using religion to make money and get famous. Just as they officially announce the sighting of moon, all those singers turned naat khwaan are seen on TV screens. Those who act/appear wearing sleeveless come in full hijaab and no one seem to have better knowledge of Islam than them.

All of the above described shit have no comparison to what these Islamic Scholar turned celebrities do. All to get those TRPs. I guess everyone knows what goes around for more than 6 hours in Ramazan every year. Bringing up sad stories so that people can donate to their trusts. The jack of all, those special prayers on sacred nights. Every one knows who is the pioneer of it. even after a leaked video, people are defending him. The dua hasn't even started he starts crying like a baby. Dude, get a life, seriously. It totally looks fake. But our public is to be blamed for it too. Don't we have any sense at all? Or are we blindfolded by such pious people that we will never question their integrity?

Where does this all Islamic appearance go just as the Chaand Raat is announced? It's all dancing and music on Eid day. No one ever shows if those people for whom the aids were collected have celebrated their Eid happily or not.

What we need is a serious revolution in our media. We have advanced ourselves way too early. When we could have taken this opportunity to spread our culture and show the talent to the world, all we are doing is to show the Indian culture. Their reality shows, their movies and their award shows. We have adopted their style of reporting too. Taking Cricket for example, when we win, celebrations and songs all around and whenever we lose, we just can't do anything but criticise the team and management. We forget what the players have done for the team and just for one loss, the media lose all the respect for them. We need to bring out ethics, rules and regulations about the conduct of these anchors, morning show hosts and news channels. Everyone, producer, director, anchor should be held accountable for something which is wrong. This is not western world and to hell with globalisation, we should be portraying our culture and norms. There was something about "geo Asool" but I guess like every other thing that was proposed for the betterment of this country, has been thrown in the trash. It's never too late for a change.

The curious case of Pakistani media... Part 2

Continued from here.

For 36 years, Pakistani Television viewers were provided by the news which only the Capitol (Governments) wanted to show. The only source to get factual news were the newspaper and only a couple of them were only trusted. Since the boom in 2000 with the emergence of Geo and ARY networks, the scenario got totally reversed. Until 2003, we did not have cable. During that time, all we heard were the praises for the newly introduced news channels. People were praising for factual and on-the-spot reporting within the minutes of an incident.

As I stated in the previous post, we had a kick-start but then we started to collapse. Take reporting for example. Any terrorist activity, they were in a rush to reach the spot and then brag about for more than 24 hours that they were the first to break the news. They never cared that underage, those with soft hearts and every kind of person is watching their reports and believing them. They didn't refrain from showing uncensored pictures of brutal dead bodies of those affected by blasts. Moreover, what follows after a sad incident. The depressed reports about someone losing their only brother, some pregnant woman losing her husband or someone who was about to get married. It is exaggerated so much that even a normal healthy person can have effects on health because of the sadness. During all this, the famous question of every single reporter. Someone has just lost their family member and you are asking "Aap Ko Kaisa Mehssos Ho Raha Hai?" Like seriously, will they say that they feel like dancing or laughing out loud?

Some extra ordinary incident happens and it is on the TV for 24 hours. Take an example of the destructive earthquakes in 2008 or floods in 2010. All these news channels showed were the images of affected areas and families throughout the day. It was like nothing else is happening in the country at all. I remember that Ata'a abad lake incident. News channels were covering it like this is the most important national issue. After a week, there was no mention of it at all. They had done their work of spreading panic among the public.

If that wasn't enough, we adopted the Indian style of reporting. Reporting with threatening type of background beats and using of slides with rhyming sentences and trying to create some chaos. Just portraying that some crime show is on air. To make matters much more worse, there are special hours dedicated to absolutely cheap reporting. For example, someone is selling Camel's milk at some roundabout in Lahore or some local council administrator has constructed a well furnished bathroom somewhere in Sindh. If they are that free, why don't they go and learn something about responsible reporting? Sundays, when mostly news channels have nothing to show. all they do is to report about some person who is not able to support his children who are suffering from some life threatening disease or some elder person who is not getting his/her pension. If you have to do this, why don't you do this on weekdays in your normal bulletins?

Another cause for the looming downfall, we never defend our nation in international matters. Those bomb attacks in Mumbai, as always, India put the blame on Pakistan. Instead of defending our country, one of those channels were so fond of investigation that they found the home of the detained terrorist and proved that he is a Pakistani. Same thing for the spot fixing scandal. Instead of defending Pakistani players, we helped the English media and courts to provide judgments against Pakistani players though there were serious issues of breaching the privacy by English tabloid. Such is the biased media of Pakistan and then we bring that crappy reason of freedom of speech and reporting of truth.

Kawwa chala huns ki chaal, apni bhi bhool gaya. Yeh zarb ul misal hamaray news chanells kay liye he kahi gayee thi. One channel started a talk show, and the others followed with it. Those who were news anchors are now anchor person of these political talk shows. Every day, they just have to somehow pass the hour between 8 to 9 when most people are back from their work and wait for the full bulletin at 9. Random politician been called, debate between the rival political parties on not so national issues with an expert and they are done. Some took the stage to make politicians confess of something from the past while others were just happy in enjoying fights. All for the TRPs. Our current minister of something once regarded the then important figure in politics as a slut. Just a couple of months ago, almost every social media activist and user watched how these talk shows are recorded and whatever happens during the break.

It is no time for gaining TRPs and revenue. It's time we sit together and define some ethics for this industry. It's time we determine what we need to show and what should not. It's time we determine how to report on facts and not do scripted reporting. It's time we make regulations and hold these media giants accountable for whatever wrong they do. I will again say that I'm not a student of mass communication and these were shared as a general public of what I have observed over these years.

The curious case of Pakistani media... Part 1

I'm not a student of mass communication or any media related degree programme but what I see almost every day, it has made me to express my opinion on this topic. From interviews of celebrities every day to discussing pregnancy issues and chatting with 8 months old pregnant women on live TV, this is what has happened to Pakistani media since there was a boom in early 2000s.

With the emergence of Geo and ARY networks, it was hoped that the true image of Pakistani media will be portrayed after we had so many years of what the Capitol (Government) wanted to show the world. Sad to say that just like our Cricket team, after a kick start, we are already on our way towards a big collapse.

First, it was the entertainment channels who started adopting Indian style of dramas/soaps and awkward editing. Our society was already spoiled by Indian media and all we did was to provide a helping hand to it. Telecasting Indian reality shows when we could have started one in our own country.

Morning shows. I remember the time when the morning show had started at 7 am just for the school going kids so that they go happily to school after watching a cartoon. It was a great idea to start calling celebrities for the interviews early morning and promotion of their activities. All credit to Nadia Khan though who assured that there is some innovation always and people don't get bored. Since she left this job, it has been a serious downfall. All we had were just people getting married week after week. Dancing hosts, cheap comedy and one poor Amjad Sabri singing Qawalies and wedding sons on every single channel. What one channel did, was soon followed by another channel. They didn't just stop here. Then there was a series of raiding dating spots in Karachi, shows on reality of paranormal stuff, black magic and now, the worst. Live Goud Bharayee.

Are they serious? Do the producers or channel owners have any sense? This is not some foreign country where programme ratings will be respected for even a bit. Seriously, who does live Goud Bharayee and answer questions about how are they managing or enjoying pregnancy on live TV? Moreover, today there were sitting 7 or 8 months pregnant women with their husbands and they were being interviewed.. All sorts of things were happening. Men being asked to show the love for their pregnant wives and everything. Like seriously, aren't there any ethics or rules?

Dramas. Although they have brought some great talent in showbiz but is it the Indian style that we wanted? Some serial has been running for 3 years now and I don't know if anyone still watches it. Some of the new serials, hats off to them for portraying the true image of our society especially when it comes to the lower class or lower middle class people but there will always be some Indian influence. Take reality shows for example. When they could have started their own shows, they are telecasting Indian shows and our public is so immature that they are sending SMS to local channels about who in their opinion should win, rather than concentrating on the fact that it has already been finished long time ago.

There's so much to write about but I guess I'll just stick to entertainment part only. Be back later with the news/information part.