A Slightly Disturbing Explanation of Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi (ANQ) Poem

Khuda kare ke meri arz-e-paak par utray

Woh fasl-e-gul jise andeishaey zawaal na ho

ANQ prays that may God bless the motherland with eternal peace and prosperity. He hopes that such prosperity will be everlasting and will result in change of fortune.

  

Khuda karein k na khum ho sar-e-waqar watan

aur isko husn ko tashweesh mah-o-sal na ho

The poet hopes for a better future where the sovereignty and integrity of the nation is not violated by its allies and when in dark nights no super power can catch us off guard by infiltrating our air space. The poet hopes that the beauty of the nation will not be tarnished by overzealous ambitions of protecting the wider national interest.

Har ek fard ho tehzeeb-o-fun ka aujey kamaal

Koi malool na ho, koi khusta haal na ho

  

ANQ is very much optimistic when the motherland will be the epi centre of grounding breaking innovations. He foresee the day when the son of the motherland will be able to drive automobiles on distilled water and there will no shortfall of power as the electricity from coal will be sufficient to meet not only the needs of the nation but can be exported to other nations to earn valuable foreign exchange. The success of these projects will raise the living standards of millions and there will be no one begging in the streets. The optimism of the poet continues by imagining the days when people will not die of hunger and everybody will be entitled to basic needs of life such as shelter, bread and education.

Khuda kare ke mere ek bhi humwatan ke liye,

Hayat jurm na ho zindagi wabaal na ho

  

The poet touches a very sensitive topic. He imagines the days when citizen of the motherland will not fear for their life when praying in mosques. When the lives of children and women will be safe from drones, when sectarian differences will be sort out in academic discussions and when Sunni and Shia will be seen together in "zul jinah" progressions.

Happy Independence Day.

Pity the Nation....

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.

Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave,
eats a bread it does not harvest,
and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press.

Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero,
and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.

Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream,
yet submits in its awakening.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice
save when it walks in a funeral,
boasts not except among its ruins,
and will rebel not save when its neck is laid
between the sword and the block.

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox,
whose philosopher is a juggler,
and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.

Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting,
and farewells him with hooting,
only to welcome another with trumpeting again.

Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years
and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.

Pity the nation divided into into fragments,
each fragment deeming itself a nation.

(Khalil Gibran)

 

Urdu Translation:

Stupidity of Staggering Proportion…

…..and the independent arbitrator (read PCB) has lifted the ban on Shoaib Malik and Younas Khan. Fine on Shahid Afridi (for his apple pie adventure) has been overturned and those on Akmal brothers has been halved. This can only happen in country like Pakistan, where the cricket is governed by selected few rather than the elected, where personal likings and disliking are the basis of selection criteria rather than on field performance, where players take oath not to play under a certain captain and even deliberately underperforming.

Just for a moment imagine, a group of Pakistani players, allegedly gathering at Inzi’s home where an oath is administered that players will not play under Younas Khan. How preposterous it may sounds, but such culture is only tolerated in our beloved land and only we have the guts to accept such non-professional behavior with big smile on face and no regret.

As a frustrated cricket fan, I do not understand the logic behind the imposition and subsequent reversal of bans and fines on the players of national team. After a disastrous tour of Australia where they were humbled (read humiliated) by the hosts, an inquiry commission was setup to investigate the causes of failure(under performance). The leaked video of the inquiry has shown the ugly picture that our cricketing heroes portrays. It was unbelievable to digest that those cricketer can sink to such lows that they will deliberately under perform only to undermine the authority of the captain, where is the national proud, where is respect for the green shirt that they wear? If Shoaib Malik is/was the one who refused to play under Yousaf and was the culprit to disturb the dressing room environment, why he was not sent back home at first available flight and worst of all, when MoYo aired his concern about him after the tour, the PCB gave Shoaib the reins of national team for the T20 internationals against England in UAE.

Remember, there was a big bulky, hard hitting free flowing all rounder nick named Roy from Australia, who was shown the door by the Cricket Australia after he was unable to mend his off field behavior. I highly doubt that there is a good all rounder as Roy in the recent past but when it came to discipline, no one was above the game. Absurdly, its in country like ours where we proudly select players like Rawalpindi (un)Express, Mohammad Asif and Shoaib Malik even after there repeated misadventures, and perhaps this is the reason that new comer Umar Akmal threaten to withdraw from test squad with false injury and stood by his brother Kamran after the later pathetic display of glove work at Sydney Test and Mohammad Aamir’s altercation with senior Umar Gul can be counted in the same as well.

It will be delusion to ignore their off field behavior and measure there performance only on the number of matches they win as they are idealized by millions of young fans and if they continued to to behave like bunch of immature teen age school boys (I got the feeling that even those teen agers will behave more sensibly) then as Republicans will put it “God bless our Cricket.”

20/20 for 20

If you are a cricket enthusiasts then you must have heard about it, 20/20 for 20, the Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford has offered 20 Million US Dollars for a one off game between England and WI Super Stars (Stanford Super Stars). This was the highest money on stake for single game in history so far. England were the obvious favourite, the talks for Pink Ferrari, Porsche, villas, secure future and of course a bit of charity work were in air for England, but as it is said "Cricket is cruel funny game.." and so it is, the underdog belted the favourites and they have done that comprehensively. England were restricted to meagre 99 all out in 19.5 overs and the Super Stars achieved the target easily with plenty of time to spare and so the dreams of England players winning the 1 Million US Dollars for 3 hours efforts were dashed but on the other hand many were Millionaire in 3 hours.

Right after the match England captain Pietersen blamed "some nonsense" for the bad performance of the English team. "There's been a lot of nonsense this week, and we haven't concentrated on the cricket. We've got to focus on that, and we're going to have to buy into this sort of tournament a lot more next time"  (Probably the heat of moment, he could not control his emotions.)

P.S:

1. During the match one of the commentator commented "Rather than Pink Ferrari they should resort to Pink Toy Bicycle..."

2. 1st Nov is also the Independence Day for Antigua.

3. Super Stars required 100 Runs to win 20 Million and that make it 200,000 $ for each run.