HONG KONG

80-year-old debutant Jamil Ahmad has made it to the shortlist for Asia’s top English-language literary prize with his book “The Wandering Falcon”.

He will compete with six other authors from India, South Korea, Japan and China for the $30,000 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize. This also marks the first time that the shortlist was expanded from the usual five.

BBC correspondent Razia Iqbal, who heads the judging panel, said the shortlist had been expanded to accommodate the current strength of Asian contemporary fiction and “the imaginative power of the stories now being written about rapidly changing life” in the region.

“This power and diversity made it imperative for us to expand the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize shortlist beyond the usual five books,” she said in a statement from London on Tuesday.

The prize, limited to Asian authors whose books are either written in English or translated into English, was founded in 2007 and shares the same sponsor as the Man Booker Prize, among the world’s top literary awards.

The seven shortlisted books include Rahul Bhattacharya’s “The Sly Company of People Who Care”. Set in Guyana, it chronicles a man’s decision to give up his job and travel to escape his humdrum life.

Another shortlisted work is “Rebirth” by Indian doctor and author Jahnavi Barua, about a young woman faced with an uncertain marriage and portraying the bond between a mother and her unborn child.

Amitav Ghosh’s historical epic “River of Smoke”, the second volume of a planned trilogy, charts the storm-tossed journey of a convict ship from Calcutta into China’s crowded harbours.

The three Indian authors will compete against “The Wandering Falcon”, the debut by Islamabad-based author Jamil Ahmad set in the border areas of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan in the decades before the rise of the Taliban.

As a member of the Civil Service of Pakistan, Ahmad was posted in Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul before and during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Also vying for the prize is “Please Look After Mom” by acclaimed South Korean novelist Kyung-sook Shin, a novel that is a million-plus-copy bestseller in its native country detailing a family’s search for their missing mother.

The shortlist also includes “Dream of Ding Village” by Chinese novelist Yan Lianke, an account of an HIV blood-selling scandal in China that was officially censored upon its Chinese publication.

“The Lake” by top-selling Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto tells the tale of a young woman who moves to Tokyo after the death of her mother before finding herself embroiled in a troubled romance.

The two other judges for the competition are Pulitzer-prize finalist and author of “The Surrendered”, Chang-rae Lee, and Vikas Swarup, author of “Q & A”, which was filmed as the Oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire”.

A total of 90 books were submitted for entry in 2011 and a longlist of 12 was announced in October last year. The winning author is awarded $30,000 and the translator, if any, receives $5,000.

The winner will be announced at a black-tie ceremony in Hong Kong on March 15. Last year’s prize was won by acclaimed Chinese author Bi Feiyu for “Three Sisters”, set during the Cultural Revolution.

“The Wandering Falcon”, published in October, captures the raw romance of Pakistan’s wildest terrain — associated today in the West with Taliban lairs and Al-Qaeda terror plots.

Seduced by tales of “cowboys and Indians” as a schoolboy, Jamil Ahmad quickly developed a lifelong passion for the tribal way of life in Balochistan and the tribal areas along the Afghan border in the northwest.

He joined the civil service in 1954 and later became commissioner of Swat and Waziristan. He served at the embassy in Kabul from 1978 to 1980, a crucial time for both Afghanistan and Pakistan, coinciding with the Soviet invasion of the former.

When he showed his German wife Helga some poetry, she dismissed it as “rubbish” and told him to write about something he knew — namely, the tribal way of life. The result was a manuscript finished in 1974 and tucked away in a drawer.

Helga, “like a bulldog”, kept showing it to people over 20 years. Then Ahmad’s brother heard a short story competition on the radio, called up Helga for a photocopy and submitted the draft, which attracted local attention and ultimately wound its way to the publishers.

The book is a collection of gently interlinking short stories, all but one featuring Tor Baz, a boy born to a couple who elope. He becomes the wandering falcon, after his parents are killed. Contemporaries have queued up to pay homage to Ahmad for what Kashmir writer Basharat Peer described as “one of the finest collections of short stories to come out of South Asia in decades”.

Via AFP and The Express Tribune

In less than six months the once never-heard-of-before-freak-accident would become an all-too-common occurrence with power players blaming each other and submitting petitions to the already-overworked courts, all the while public transport owners continue to fill their vans and buses with methane that is at least a million times more combustible than your average brainwashed TTP ‘foot soldier’.

A ticking bomb?

But some two months ago, when the leading cause of unnatural Pakistani  deaths was not a case of exploding methane storage tanks, a less-reported CNG tank explosion in a taxi sent me running to my nearest CNG mechanic . I wanted to be sure my car was not plotting a Haqian end for me.

As I opened the boot, I took a step back keeping a close eye on the mechanic’s eyes, and then his hands, expecting them to spring into action turning around the knobs on that cylinder like a pro. But pros in Pakistan are a step above their international counterparts. “Yup, it’s a genuine Italian cylinder all right,” he declared as he turned towards me and my father. My dad was satisfied.

“But don’t these things need to be changed after some time?”

He paused for a second, perhaps contemplating if he had found in me a perfect doodle to rip off. Good conscience prevailed, and he said that a cylinder should indeed be checked for integrity every five years. “But,” he added, “no one does that in Pakistan. Nothing happens to these cylinders.”

That was good enough for me. Why should I waste my hard-earned dough on something so trivial? So the next day I filled up my car with CNG ahead of the three-day gas loadshedding and head off to work.

Fast forward to December. Five passengers, including two children, died in a CNG explosion in a wagon in Faisalabad. Two days later, 13 more perished in a wagon fire cause by an exploding CNG tank.

Tomorrow when I start up my car, as I switch from petrol to CNG, I will tell myself that these are just freak accidents, shoddy installations that have nothing to do with me. And if owners of public transport vehicles are even half as ‘Pakistani’ as I am, they will dismiss their fears the exact same way.

A few days ago, while browsing the internet, I came across a story about the Digital Economy Bill. The bill, apparently allowed copyright holders to block a household’s internet connection for downloading copyright material without permission. Angry comments followed the story- the “criminals” were pissed at the 236 smart British MPs who had passed the bill, all the while sitting on their cushiony green benches looking smug about it.

Not to worry though- shortly thereafter a group of  smart unknown coders, possibly sitting on their not-so-cushiony chairs of unknown colour, wrote an 86-line code to make bittorrents (choice method of downloading for “criminals” all over the world) untraceable. Joy returned to the e-world and all was fine. The e-sheep grazed happily and the e-birds did their happy e-chirpy routine. A popular website even said, “The ingenuity that runs through the core of the Internet will always be more nimble than those who seek to control it for their own gain.”

1.8 billion internet users. More than 1 trillion unique web-pages. How will they ever keep track of all this– right? Wrong. Better-than-rudimentary data-filtering mechanisms are already operational and they will only get better. “So what?” I hear you say, “The internet will always stay one step ahead of ‘those who seek to control it for their own gain’.” In the short run– yes, perhaps. In the long run- not really.

There was a story on phone surveillance in Pakistan in the April 14 issue of The Express Tribune. Go have a read if you haven’t had a chance. Back? Good. So, there was a time when phones were not digital and spying on someone was hard and an expensive prospect. Consequently privacy, for the average joes like us, was pretty much guaranteed. Unlike now, the telephone companies back then did not bother (or could afford for that matter) to keep 45-day records of one neighbour telling another illegal jokes (hint, mister president) on a daily basis.

And that, incidentally, is exactly my point. The internet, for all its size and breadth, is still, at the end of the day, based on a human-created network of switches and wires that talk to each other. As technology grows and these rudimentary building blocks become more developed, like the telephone, the internet too will become much easier to monitor and the concept of untraceable will become a myth accessible only to “people-with-links” and your “average-home-user-super-genius-movie-character”.  It should not take long either- most of the basic-building blocks (voice recognition, keyword filtering, smarter AI systems) are already in place. It is just a matter of time.

So- internet as the final frontier? I think not. From where I stand, the internet of today is the phone of tomorrow.

I never thought my term at a major daily newspaper would culminate into this- I have begun to fall in love with god, or at least, the idea of him. First off a little background- where I work, I happen to be, figuratively, the assistant to the assistant and thus, at the bottom of the food chain. What I produce must go through a number of people before it gets to see the light of day. During its journey it is changed by many people, a number of times, to make it conform to their own idea of perfection- something that I would argue they do not really manage to achieve (for proof, have look at all of the dailies currently in circulation within Pakistan). So the end product, in many cases, ends up quite different from how I wrote it.

Now, normally, that is not a big deal. After all, who am I- a measly subeditor- to have a say on what makes the reader’s clock tick. But every once in a while there is an article or a feature that speaks out to me- it is a writer’s thing, I suppose. But whatever it is, in such a case, the piece itself dictates how it is to be edited- produced and finalized. There is a theme to it that must be emphasized. There is a message that must be punctuated- presented at just the right time to make the most impact, and sometimes one has to break a few conventions (nothing too drastic, something your average higher-ups do every day, twice a day). Conventions such as cramming all of it in one fucking line- something that us Pakistanis absolutely love to do all across the board in our bowring and yawn-inducing pieces of poop. Last I checked short and pert sentences were better- but then that’s another argument.

My point is simple- once you do come across such an article, and pour your soul into making it just right, it hurts to have it completely molested by someone just above you and sent back to you to show you how it should have been done. I know that news is one of the more mechanical processes in the writing business, but ever once in a while, when you are dealing with a feature, you can let it breathe- give it some time to bloom and speak to the readers itself, rather than you having it spelled out for them.

And, this is why I am beginning to appreciate god- a being so awesome, so powerful yet so un-intrusive. Were it not for God, there would be only humans, controlling and limiting. Yes he (including just about all versions) has a set of guidelines- you must not do this, you must not do that and such. But then, aren’t they just guidelines? When was the last time god came down to smack you when you messed up a namaz, grace or pooja? No, people- in their infinitely limited wisdoms- decide to impose their own versions of interpretations of god’s will on you. The fault does not lie with the idea of god- after all why would a god need you to do his bidding? Why would he even need us to punish each other in his name? The fault, I am afraid, lies with us human beings- mere mortals who think we have figured out what god wants us to do and how to act.

I, a human being- in tune with myself and true to my nature- tie you up to a poll and put you ablaze- it is me, a human, that burns you. It is me, a human, who shoots you, who hangs you, who blows you up. It is me, a human, who pelts stones at you. Yes, it is me-a human- who fucks it all up for you, every time, all the time. And I, smart that I am, blame it all on god lest you go running up to him and cry about me being a bully to you- before eventually realizing that you, too, can do all of that to me and blame it all on you-know-who.  It wuzent me, god-chan told me to do so. (Yeah fucking right)

So god, or the idea of god, is not limiting. It, in fact, frees you from the much more limiting demigods that are us humans.

Two interesting things are happening within the human society (and by this I mean the whole collective of human beings on this planet including those living in third world countries who will, eventually, join the lonely ranks of their more modern and well off brethren). One is that our family units are getting smaller. The second is that our social units are getting bigger with time.

Important to my point is an elaboration of what I mean by the two terms. For family unit, I would go ahead and borrow the definition given by Wikipedia as it sums up my idea of the term quite aptly: “…the family in a traditional society forms the primary economic unit”. Though the issue of identifying a family unit is a complex matter, nevertheless the definition I have quoted would serve fine for our purpose. We are moving from bigger family units (for instance one consisting of you, your siblings, your uncles and aunts, and grandparents living together) to smaller units (e.g. one that just involves you, your siblings and your parents). In contrast, when I talk about a social unit I am talking about your house being part of a neighborhood being part of a block being part of a region of a city being part of the city itself and so on and so forth. These are all varying levels of social units as I am using the term. In this context it is easy to understand what I mean by social units getting bigger- from small villages where everybody knew everybody else we have now evolved into these city dwelling beings who have not even visited many parts of their own city.

So what is this issue that I am talking about? It is a general loss of self that an increasing number of us feel. Who are we? Why are we? What does all of this mean? Answers that worked for our forbearers seem inadequate for us. Methods that worked fine for them are just not right for us. Simply speaking, the terms of our social existence are changing and we are finding ourselves lost. Living in smaller family units afford us more opportunities to be isolated. Bigger social units only add to this effect as we begin to lose our sense of a community. We have moved from living in small, cozy ponds to a sea that is growing bigger and bigger. We humans derive our worth from how dear we are to those around us, and as we step into our adult lives such people begin to vanish at an alarming pace, leaving us with no one but ourselves with whom to fend off our insecurities.

At this point, clerics from every single religion out there would like step in and offer their answers as a means to our salvation. Some of them would insist that their way is the only way we would ever be able to find any semblance of a solution to our quandary and we are better off not wasting time exploring other avenues. These religious volunteers, from where I stand, are doing little to help us but are, in fact, urging us into a panic mode where we are unable to understand anything at all.

Lost in Translation’s approach to the matter is very simple. It sets up the stage very beautifully by placing our two main characters in Japan. The setting is very important to the story. Japanese society resembles American society in it’s technological advancements and outward show. However even the briefest of looks into contemporary Japan would reveal that the similarities between the two cultures are purely a matter of cosmetics and that our two main characters are lost in a culture that is, in essence, very different.

After the first half an hour or so, where the director painstakingly establishes the conundrum of the two main characters, she lets Bob Harris (a middle aged movie star going through a midlife crisis) and Charlotte (a young woman unhappy in her marriage) loose.  Answers are not offered. An exploration of ‘why’, ‘how’ or ‘what’ is not even attempted. The movie, after the introductory half an hour, simply lets the two lost characters be together in various circumstances, allowing them to connect on a level higher than a mere physical connection. The answers being offered in Lost in Translation are not geared towards helping you with finding a sense of purpose to your life; they are, in fact, intended to draw your attention to a simple fact that so many of us seemed to have forgotten: we are not alone in our confusion, that we are not alone in our panic to try and come up with an explanation for all the questions that haunt us.

The foreign setting, again, plays an important part to drive this point home. If Bob and Charlotte were not in Japan, they would quite possibly have not gravitated towards each other. The situation is not quite different for many of us, even as we continue living in ‘our’ cultures- we are becoming aliens to our own ancestral traditions. Instead of locking ourselves up in our cribs, we should perhaps look at others around us who are as lost as us in this maze of alien travesty.

Before we can begin to find answers, we must first have the courage to face the questions. That is what, in my opinion, Lost in Translation attempts to tell us. One should take comfort in the fact that we are not alone in our confusions. Only then can we find the courage to dive in to seek out our answers. As the oft spoken adage goes, you will never know until you try.

Our forbearers, generally speaking, did not have the luxury to think about all these ‘superfluous’ thoughts. After all, are we not on this planet to deny ourselves all our carnal desires? Or perhaps we are here to do the bidding of our one true Lord, who controls the worlds and the skies, and all that is within and without. Maybe all our sins have already been washed away (why are we still suffering then?). Maybe we are all doomed to rot (or burn, if you prefer that) in the deepest darkest depths of hell. Maybe we will finally get it right on our 100th attempt at rebirth, and be born as frikkin’ princes (or princesses) for a change. Or maybe, just maybe, this is it- good luck trying to accuse god of not existing when your very own thoughts have ceased to be. More so than ever, we humans are confused and that is all thanks to our very own selves.

Historically life hasn’t been easy. The human race was so busy with just surviving, they were so concerned with putting food into their bellies, that they really did not have much time to be worried about questions pertaining to their very own meaning. Such tasks were relegated to a few, who either had an over-active brain or whose coffers spilled over like a mouth stuffed at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Technological advancements though, have made life simpler for many of us. They have given us far more time to think about and be concerned with ourselves. These simplicities have given us the opportunity to delve into the very complexities of existence.   

And this phenomenon is on the rise. As more and more people rise above their meager circumstances and are afforded a chance to be worried about something other than two meals a day, they will begin to join the ranks of millions of other confused people. Thinking does that to a person, you know, it may very well be the leading cause of stupidity.

Sure you may prefer to blindly follow what you were born into. After all, who has the time to indulge oneself in such pointless self-exploratory excursions. The people before us knew best. We are smart enough to know that- may god have mercy on these utterly confused and lost souls who do not know that my way is the best way- because my father said so, and my mother too and their parents before them and so on and so forth. But as you find yourself with more and more time to stare at that bland, white wall of your room, staring back at you with the ferocity and forbearance of, well, a wall, you will find yourself consumed by thought. And thought is the mother of all evil, or in our case, stupidity. 

But you know what? It is okay to think. It is okay to be confused. You would not have been born into this world with such vast capacity for confusion were it not okay to be so. You would have been born a robot instead. Or a cow. Or a dog chasing a cat. Or the cat being chased by the dog. But, sadly, you are the person being amused at that spectacle- yes, the very same one who is beginning to get just a little bit hungry. 

So think about what you will have for dinner tonight, and once you are done doing that, think some more*.

               

                        Three Dots in a Circle

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* The author apologizes for getting all preachy about thinking and stuff. He would also like to disclaim his involvement in trying to provoke people into starting a religion of thought. He does not like the thought of such a gathering. He isn’t much a fan of thinking either. He loves his wall- it is white in the shade of the most beautiful darkest black you ever saw.

Our festivals, despite claims to the contrary, seem to be an unabashed celebration of food in one way or the other. Eid ul Fitr, for instance, is all about celebrating the freedom to eat, as if we hadn’t really been doing that for the past month. Eid ul Azha is all about killing an animal for its food- lucky tetrapods, they go straight to heaven I hear. We love birthdays. Who wouldn’t want to stuff their mouths with yummy delicious cake. Valentines too- chocolate rocks! Flowers we don’t feel much for- that is why our couriers offer us to send cakes instead. We don’t celebrate new year though- guess why?

It is okay if you forgot to invite me to the Dholki and Mehndi but god forbid if I did not get that Walima invitation- I am coming for you, blazing guns and all- forgiveness has taken a vacation, a LONG vacation (this is where I let out a long muahahaha). Our births are about food, and our deaths too. We are a Food Nation, only slower.

Our favorite breakfast is Halwa Puri. Nobody knows how to make Biryani but everybody loves it nonetheless. And don’t get me started on Kababs, and Sajjis and Handis and… well, you get the idea. We have Mc Donald’s. And KFC. And Pizza Hut. And Dominoes. No Burger King (triple whopper sniff) though- or Disney Land.

There is only one thing that we love more than food, and that is tea. Okay cola too. Fine, I will add coffee too (you burger pffts.).

You should try some of our sweets. They will make your Kit Kats seem like diet coke. We are already using your chocolate bars as healthy dietary alternatives to our sweets. And despite all this we would seem to be thinner* on average than the average American. Pure evolutionary superiority at work over there, don’t you think?

And you thought we were self exploding moronic bitches. We much rather eat your brains. Oh you did not know about our Brain Masalas? What about Gurda Kapura? Man you are such a white man!

Psst. I hate that stuff too, can I get a political asylum now or must I have killed a few hundred people first?

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* The author of this blog is totally fat and a thin exception to an otherwise healthy Paki-Human dronepulation.

Friday, July 10, 2009- a momentous day in my short career as a film enthusiast. I had heard of Satyajit Ray once and I had marked him as a filmmaker that interested me. After all, being the best filmmaker out of the Indian subcontinent does not speak for much. The bar for acceptable cinematic poop has been set so low that even a mediocre film maker would be able to outdo the lot of his/her film peers. That Satyajit Ray had accomplished such a deed did not mean much, but to have been the best filmmaker to ever come out of the Indian subcontinent did warrant, at the very least, a viewing of one his films if given the chance. This last Friday I was offered that opportunity in the form of the screening of his directorial debut, Pather Panchali and I gobbled it up like it was my last piece of dark Swiss chocolate.

Based on the book of the same name, the film is a first in a trilogy, and took some 5 years to be made owing to a lack of funds. Despite my hopes for the best, I had serious reservations about a film coming from subcontinent. The last film to be nominated for Oscar from India, Lagaan, was a good film but was nowhere near the level  that this film was supposedly perched at. Needless to say I feared the worse. However all my fears were quick to be dispelled when the movie began: what was offered on the screen was a spectacle of cinematic brilliance that I have rarely seen.

At it’s core it is a simple story of an impoverished Brahman family. While it is the first film in the Apu Trilogy, the character of Apu himself takes a backseat to other characters. The focus here is decidedly on his elder sister Durga, their mom and an old aunt that lives with them. The film opens with Durga walking on a path, having just stolen a fruit from the neighbor’s orchard that she presents to the old aunt by placing it in her bowl. Overjoyed to find a fruit in her bowl, the old lady proceeds to indulge herself in consuming the fruit regardless of any repercussions, which are almost immediately forthcoming in the form of the neighbors having come to complain about Durga stealing from their orchard and accusing the whole family of thievery. The stage is thus set. This is poverty at it’s extreme. Even two meals a day is hard to come by for this family of three (discounting the aunt). This is where Apu is born. But there is hope. The father, an aspiring dramatist, tells his wife to celebrate the birth of Apu in style. Yes, their luck is indeed turning.

I will not spoil the film by revealing any more of it’s story. The slow, methodical yet organic direction of the film sets pace in the fashion of a “big river” (to use the words of Kurusawa), flowing steadily and gently in a direction not immediately obvious. Poverty is the decided villain in this film, but you wouldn’t realize that as you are watching it. It is only at the end of a strong and moving conclusion that this becomes apparent.

The film itself is free of any kind of melodrama. Not a single character, or situation, is singled out and demonized. Things we take for granted, problems that do not even exist in our world have the greatest influence on the lives of these characters. They are from a totally different world. Still yet their human qualities shine through, with their hopes and ability to be happy at the simplest of joys, such as trailing a candy man, or watching a train go by, or even the clouds pouring out their heart. There are so many of these moments that one is amazed to discover a human potential to find hope and beauty in the worst of places. The film reminded me of Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful. Though I wouldn’t go as far as critically comparing the two films (not at this point in time at least), the essential message at the core of the two films seem to be very similar. But unlike Life is Beautiful which was decidedly comedic and dramatic in its approach and meant for to move us, Pather Panchali employs a slice of life approach and hinges on it’s characters and their abysmal situation to make its impact. And it does. That is powerful cinema. 

Another thing that stands out, and is probably aided by the slice of life approach, is how the film lends itself to multiple interpretations. There are no hard heavy handed moral, religious or political messages here. The film is not preachy at all. It showcases human existence in it’s most basic, simple form. That simplicity itself is what leads to multiple interpretations as one sets out to making sense of life. A must watch for any person with an eye for good cinema, there is much that one can take away from this brilliant masterpiece. 

                

                           Picture from Wikipedia

As a kid I loved Transformers. I did not know much about the storyline, or care for it- robots that could turn into cars at will was more than enough for me. The plot was irrelevant. There were the good guys and the bad guys. The good guys won in the end. It was simple but effective for a kid. Optimus Prime was cool. He was the only character I really remember from back then, I liked his truck design in particular. I was happy. I was satisfied. And I did not feel the need to see more of these Transforming robots.

And then I learned about a Transformers movie in development. Michael Bay was at the helm of a big budget adaptation, and I said to myself, how in the darn hell would he sell a big budget Transformers movie to the general public. Simple solution it seems. Use the name, chuck the robots out the window and make it all about this annoying stupid average American teenager with “hots” for another equally forgettable-if-not-for-her-errr-well-whatever.

Guess what? It worked. The sequel is already out. Another one is in development. Sam Witwicky has saved the war for the cube or something from slipping through our attention. The trailers to the sequel promises more of the same. Mr. Sam wants to go to college and all, and live a normal forgettable college life. Call me sour but when was the last time your average common university student dreamt of nothing but a normal college life filled with boring studies, followed by crappy parties and killer hangovers?

What is this obsession with greatness-is-not-earned-but-entrusted-upon-unwilling-heroes-or-antiheroes-who-must-grow-to-be-heroes-as-we-see-fit. Why can’t we have a realistic normal college student character who is just dying to be a part of all this Transforming hoo-haa. It is not like the latter has any lesser potential for a good story. In fact if the critics are right, the Witwicky setting has not particularly translated into a memorable (or existent for that matter) storyline.

My problem with Witwicky’s character aside, I find this whole notion of an average American Joe being the key to human survival more than a little ridiculous at best. The American government with it’s huge resources did not manage to find a single half decent agent for their Sector 7, yet All-Spark, by some Almighty intervention of Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman managed to find just the right person for the job. And it had to be a Caucasian. God forbid if the Allspark fell into the hands of a Black American teenager, or a girl, or a non-American for that matter. No sir, they would be too consumed with their racial, equality and inferiority complexes to offer any sort of reasonable help to Optimus.