Pilgrim Grey: December 2010

Every wheel has a hub, every universe, a centre. And if you’re talking about oratory, then the centre of the universe is PAF Academy Risalpur. Not just because it’s one of the last decent Declamation tournaments left (with the added bonus of competent judges), but also because you get to ride a genuine Pakistan Air Force flying tub all the way to the tournament: the antiquated, non-sound-proof, and vomit-inducing C-130 is famous for transporting heavy artillery, farm animals, debaters, and for exploding with President Zia-ul-Haq onboard. Apart from that there’s also the food, the clean crisp air of Risalpur, the Super-Mushak “Joy Ride”, the neatly cropped cadets, more food, and of course, the trophy to look forward to.
Ummar and I broke the curse of not winning by winning the accursed trophy back in 2008, but then the great fiasco of 2009 occurred, which resulted in Dr. Haroon Qadir (In-charge GCUDS) stepping down as official permanent chaperone to Risalpur. At this crucial juncture it was decided that a fresh goat be prepared for decapitation in 2010. As it happened, I was conveniently found grazing nearby, and was shrewdly lured into a trap by the powers that be. Mr Siddiq Awan (Co-In-charge GCUDS) asked me to accompany team GCU comprising Ali Zafar and Saad ul Hassan this year as chaperone to Risalpur. It is generally and somewhat accurately held that I bring good luck to everyone except myself. And as the fateful day when I would accompany the new talent to their ultimate test came nearer, I couldn’t help but concur.
I was not looking forward to this trip at all because my earlier experience as chaperone had been rather unnecessarily painful. Ali Zafar, our humorous speaker for all occasions and the heir to my throne, had been disqualified on grounds of “vulgarity,” and I was being held responsible and therefore being harangued by the upholders of morality in Military College Jehlum for having allowed my student to use “this sort of filth to corrupt the innocent minds of their boys”. Ironically, Ali had used most of the campus material provided by students of MCJ.

“I myself am a Ravian, sir!” claimed the indignant uniformed instructor after he had finally sought and wrestled me down during the post-tournament luncheon, “And I would have you know that I am shocked! Shocked!” he spluttered, and continued his less than flattering analysis of my person, going red in the face, and looking at me with piercing eyes that demanded an explanation but did not desire one. I tried to hastily piece together an inconclusive, noncommittal response, but in the midst of my self-conscious mumblings, the pompous old uniform with little remnants of what was once a man, held securely in between dry folds of starch, left me stranded in a vortex of ice-cold attitude. As if from a distant cave, far, far away I could still make out Ali Zafar whispering in my ear one of his ever-ready excuses: “But Umer bhai, I won at Lawrence College with this same material!” while I felt angry and miserable for having been censured in front of my boys by a creature who had no experience whatsoever of humorous public speaking, of the immense pressure or of the hard work involved. Plus, common decency dictates that if you wish to humiliate a chaperone, you do it discreetly, not in front of his charge.
Fact of the matter is that what is vulgar for some is perfectly acceptable for others. It all depends on where you are. And I had no idea where I was anymore. On the one hand there was my boy who claimed his material was perfectly all right, tried and tested, and on the other hand there was this vicegerent of ethics rebuking me for spreading evil in the land. All I knew now was empathy! I sort of understood why Dr. Haroon never really liked this chaperoning business, even though it seems so cushy from a participant’s point of view. It’s because it really is horrible, and quite frankly an unnecessary botheration. All sorts of jackasses with opinions come up to you and tell you what they think of you; they judge you personally on the basis of the performance of the participants you are accompanying irrespective of whether you have had anything to do with their preparation or not. You are made to feel embarrassed if the team you have brought performs abysmally. But what is infinitely worse is that as a young and unconvincing as well as seemingly impressionable chaperone I often find myself easy pickings for two kinds of people: (a) old Ravians who love GCU but hate everyone from GCU, and (b) non-Ravians who hate GCU and anyone from GCU. These were the two principle categories of Villain that I encountered in MCJ, and they were all mostly chaperones from institutions that GCU had a habit of beating repeatedly. Some chaperones were merely sore at me for having become, at so young an age, a lecturer at such a prestigious university. I did not find it tempting to tell them that I had not, and was merely an unpaid nurse.

On the day of our departure, as Saad ul Hassan and I waited at the Air Force base with the other teams from Lahore, a Mr. Bahauddin, chaperone from Chenab College Jhang and knucklehead extraordinaire, showed up. And in order to impress upon me the importance of his existence, and to indicate how intimately he was acquainted with GCU (he was an old Ravian) he started telling me how GCU had gone to the dogs. As it happened, he found out, by overhearing a conversation between a Risalpur cadet and I, that Ali Zafar was not going to accompany us on the flying tub, but would take the bus instead as he was to participate in the Chief Minister’s Declamation tournament in the Post-Grad category on the same day.

“What? Don’t you have more than one competent speaker?” ejaculated Mr. Bahauddin. “This is an outrage! As an old Ravian I must say I am shocked! Shocked! Has GCU fallen so low that now it can’t even produce two decent speakers to divide tournaments among? You send one boy everywhere?” he slapped his knee with feigned exasperation but was clearly delighted at this fresh opportunity to bash GCU, and to inform me that the Debating Society was crumbling in the incompetent hands of Mr. Siddiq Awan, especially now that the legendary Ms. Masooma had left for her eternal abode elsewhere on planet Ambition. I listened to him patiently, and then pointed out that he was a complete and total loudmouthed windbag and an idiot of the highest order, and then proceeded to substantiate my claim with a brief overview of GCUDS’ achievements since Ms. Masooma’s departure and Mr Awan’s entry. Saad ul Hassan was kind enough to provide information vis-à-vis the actual number of Ravians currently participating in the C.M tournament, proving that Ali Zafar was not the only speaker we had, rather a rare species of multi-tasker that Mr. Bahauddin could only ever hope to be. Though there is no doubt that he tried very hard: he had two mobile phones out almost constantly, both stuck to either side of his head as props that helped him appear busier than the devil on a hot day in June. As luck would have it, Mr. Bahauddin’s unfortunate team did in fact manage to reach the final at Risalpur, only to forget both their speeches mid-stream, embarrass themselves to death, and bring into sharper relief the caliber of Mr. Bahauddin who had felt he had the divine right to criticize not only my team and my teachers but also the university that had made him competent enough to be ranked among the incompetent. God only knows what he was before that.

“You should listen to my boys, they’re very good,” I said at the end, “you’ll enjoy the lesson,” I added rather condescendingly. Aware of the distinct possibility of ending up with egg on my face, but with the wounds from MCJ still afresh, I was rearing to spill bile. To be honest, I was fairly confident about Saad’s Urdu serious speech. It was Ali Zafar whose speech worried me. English humorous is no laughing matter. Quite literally! Ali’s abominable humorous speeches were the limiting agents in this experiment. But he was confident, and I felt it my duty as chaperone to not tell him that I did not share his optimism. It was like watching a young man go off to war with a rubber gun. But so be it. More victories have been won by those who knew not the danger they faced than by those who did.

Ali Zafar joined us at Risalpur that night after having stood second at the C.M tournament. One of our own, Umer Jee Saleemi, stood first (he along with Adeel Anjum were the perpetrators of the fiasco of 2009 that resulted in my being chaperone in 2010. Their defeat had discouraged Dr. Haroon from further excursions to Risalpur). News of Ali’s victory sent a nervous shiver up the collective spine of the participants in the rest-house that night. The fact that he was on a victorious rampage had the same effect on his competition as news of Ghengis Khan’s arrival had on the pious scholars of Baghdad. Now that the preliminaries were over, and I had met the chaperones and the teams, and all the fake pleasantries had been exchanged, it was time to strategize and go to war.

The plan was a simple six-pronged affair. We had devised it soon after results were announced at MCJ.

1. We would take the most tame, uncontroversial, impotent English humorous speech known to mankind. We would ensure that nothing at all could offend even the most puritanical of hypocrites present among the crowd. We would leave them no opportunity to disqualify us, in other words, we would bore the life out of all members of the student audience, and like true professionals, aim to satisfy the judges only. (As a humorous speaker it is really very hard to compromise on laughter. To stand there and be considered unfunny and boring is more painful than to be considered vulgar. But we strategize to get the team trophy. Individual ambition is unimportant. Ravians go in as a team and win as a team. And if boring is what it takes. Then that’s what they’ll be!)

2. We would try our best not to pay heed to any of the thousand and one things that cadets come knocking on our doors about. The best way to relax when everyone is “requesting the pleasure of your company” at some official function or other, is to ignore the request until it becomes an order, and even then try to dawdle for as long as possible without getting disqualified from the tournament.

3. Saad ul Hassan, if he forgets, or fumbles in the course of his speech, would be shot there and then. And his remains unceremoniously dumped in any non-specific water-body.

4. Ali Zafar, if he felt the onset of fear when facing a crowd full of contemptuous yawns, and if that fear flashed on his face for so much as an instant, would experience the same punishment as above.

5. I would dress to kill. And if anyone spoke to me, I would reply after careful consideration in a manner which was appropriate for one in my position, or perhaps merely gesture my response without having to resort to using my vocal apparatus (this was perhaps the toughest of all rules).

6. We would accept the trophy with dignity, humility and graceful gratitude. (When I say “we”, I mean Saad and Ali. I would be sitting in the audience clapping with poise. In all honesty, being chaperone is an inglorious, thankless job.)

The initial round’s speeches were divided into four sessions. Ours were in the fourth. We entered the great light-blue and downwards-sloping Academy Auditorium a little early to watch the tail-end of the third session in order to get some idea of what the competition was going to be like this year. The speeches were mostly atrocious, bordering on retarded. And when the president introduced a particular contestant as Miss Gorilla-Lala while announcing her topic, Ali and I burst into barely controlled, hysterical laughter that lasted till the end of the session. Relaxed and refreshed by the general level of outrageous hilarity I bade my young warriors good luck at the start of session four and took a seat from where I could observe them with ease while they moved down to the contestants’ seating positions onstage. Meanwhile, Miss Gorilla-Lala left the hall with her team mate and was never heard from again.

I felt all the speakers needed work. A lot of work! They were all, barely comprehensible. Some were old hands who had only recently started winning, now that Ummar and other good speakers had stopped participating, and therefore had nothing against which they could be compared. As I sat there I thought to myself that perhaps I had become too cynical, but in my honest opinion, it seemed as if Declamation was dead. It had died a long time ago and we were all merely juicing a corpse. Trying to squeeze out what little glory there was still left in its rapidly drying arteries. Its death occurred once the private schools and universities realized that there was money in Parliamentary Style Debates and none in Declamation. Foreign universities patronize the former style of debating and accept students with that sort of training. A school that can boast of a good Parliamentary team can advertise the possibility of a foreign education and have hopeful parents flocking to have their children admitted. Simple economics has killed Declamation and now feasts in the halls of cut-throat politics as it tries to rake in as much money as possible without a clue to how meaningful this hijacked intellectual game could really be. I feel that both these art forms need to be merged into one again. Logic without rhetoric and rhetoric without logic are too cold and meaningless respectively. But it seems almost too late now. There are no orators left, only tournaments. Filled with incompetent copycats! Declaimers try to rip-off material written by Ummar and Iqrar and Sameer Ahmed or even Nasir Muneef. Parliamentarians copy Adeel and…well, just Adeel. GCU will keep trying to produce quality declaimers, because it must, but what’s the point? If the circuit is not going to have healthy competition, and if there’s nobody out there who really understands this art form anymore, then what are we but peacocks in a jungle, dancing to an unheard melody? Nobody knows what’s going on anymore. And so, good judges are harder to find now than ever before. To the untrained ear, the loudest voice seems the obvious choice for a winner. But yelling till your lungs burst was never what declamations were supposed to be about. Of course, as with most forms of art, there is no scientific or purely objective way to judge a declaimer. There is and always will be just the one test of a good orator: Can he/she raise the hairs at the back of your neck? And I for one couldn’t feel that at this tournament. And to make matters worse, they all fumbled and forgot. It was like watching a bunch of addicts making fools out of themselves. And it’s all because the competition and the drive have both vanished. There are no great orators left to inspire the new lot. I suppose the C.M. tournament is a good initiative to inject some life back into Declamation, but having tournaments without providing a means to adequate training for young orators is in the end fruitless. We need to get the schools interested again. I remember, Aitchison College used to host one of the most prestigious Declamation tournaments around, and so, produced some of the finest orators there were. Now it’s got the most rubbish tournament imaginable and has no declaimers to boast of. They’re tops in Parliamentary though, because there’s so much money involved in that. The only school in Lahore interested in Declamation currently is SISA.

After the first round was over, we had a team meeting and decided there was little chance of GCU not breaking into the final round. We were a shoe-in! With that in mind we went to dinner. After which the results were announced. We broke in as the second ranked team. This was fairly good. Ali’s speech had bombed with the crowd but had worked wonders on the judges. And that was precisely the sort of suicide bombing we needed to win this tournament. Here I must add that Ali’s performance had been no less than admirable and outright courageous. The poor guy got absolutely no response from the dead crowd but he did not bat an eyelid. Surefooted as a goat he frolicked all the way to the butcher’s. Naturally, not everybody was pleased with the results. And someone struck the first blow to sabotage us.
An officer came up to me and asked me, “Where is the chaperone for team GCU?” I told him he was looking at him. “But you are a student!” he said. “No I am not.” I replied. “Yes you are! I know you, you’re a student!” “Listen, I used to be a student, now I am a teacher’s assistant at GCU, I’ve got the authority letter to prove it.” He took another look at me, perhaps to determine if he could sense a lie and then said, “A Ms. Aleena from F.C. College has called us and told us that you’re a student!” I laughed at this politely: “Yes, well, according to F.C. College, squealing cisterns like Fahd Kazmi are good orators. Goes to show that they’re all crazy there.” He eyed me for a bit longer and then left. This was not the end of it though. After every half an hour someone or the other would inquire about GCU’s chaperone and I would have to retell my story over and over again. “Weren’t you here as a speaker?” “Yes I was. Back in ’08 I won your tournament. Then I graduated…it happens, I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me.” “They kept you on as a lecturer at GCU straight after your Bachelors?” “I’m a teacher’s assistant, and it’s an Honours degree, that’s for four years. I’ve got the letter of authority.” “That won’t be necessary.” “Then what do you want?”
While I was getting grilled by the Air Force, Usman Leghari from LSE showed up by my side. “Hey,” he said, “I heard they’re on your case?” “Yes,” I muttered, “somebody’s been telling tales about my ambiguous professional status.” Leghari dropped his tone to his favourite conspirational out-of-the-side-of-the-mouth drawl and said, “It was Israr! F.C.’s got nothing to do with it. Israr spread the rumour!” I had had a feeling this might be the case since F.C. wasn’t even competing this year; they had been sent back home from the base back in Lahore because they had failed to bring a chaperone. So it was Israr?!

Israr-ul-Hassan, sort of famous for being the brother of the actually famous Iqrar-ul-Hassan, has had to live under the suffocating shadow of his elder brother’s status as a legendary orator, and was disappointed at not having made it to the final. This had been quite possibly his first and last chance to speak at Risalpur, and winning this tournament would have afforded him a sense of closure. First, his brother’s legacy had hung over him like a specter for too long, then, being marginalized by other more talented orators at the GCUDS had taken its toll on him, and then finally, his expulsion from GCU had left Israr a little bitter to say the least. Perhaps we were all at fault, his batch-mates who had been unable to help him deal with his predicament. Maybe we should’ve helped him improve. Lord knows those who could, tried. Either way, the fellow dropped out of GCU and was now representing Punjab University at various tournaments. Losing to kids many years his junior like Saad ul Hassan was perhaps the last straw. And though at the time I felt his reaction a little treacherous and unsportsmanlike, I feel sorry for him now. However, before we get to what Israr really did wrong, there’s the matter of the Joy Ride.

One of the best things about Risalpur is the Joy Ride. They call it a Joy Ride themselves and it takes place early morning before the final round. Anyone who signs-up for it gets to fly in a two-seater plane called the “Super Mushak” with an instructor pilot for about fifteen minutes, and gets to see stuff from really high up. And if the pilot feels like putting you through your paces then you can also experience having your stomach sucked out of your skull while you watch yourself vomit uncontrollably all over your own face. It really is splendid. Of course, before they take you up, you have to sign a special waiver which states that neither you nor any of your descendants shall from this day forth ever articulate a nasty thought about the armed forces…ever, seriously. And also, if you die, it’s not the Air Force’s headache. Thus we all sell our souls for a Joy Ride. And let me tell you sir, it is worth it, except for this year. A non-specific cadet woke us up and told us we were very late and everybody was getting ready to go up, so we dragged ourselves out of bed and got dressed as best we could under the circumstances. We reached the bus just in time and this officer from the Education corps took a contemptuous look at us, frowned, and said: “You’re from GCU?”
I confirmed his suspicion with a nod and a faint yes.
“Is this how you dress?” he pointed his ball-point pen at Ali’s official GCU sports trousers and the random ‘upper’ he had put on in his haste. This man was not pleased with our attire generally. For some reason he seemed to harbour the belief that Ravians must always be stuffed full of starch and built entirely out of barbed wire. While I was rummaging up the wakefulness required to answer this man and point out the absurdity of such a criticism before the commencement of something called a Joy Ride, he informed us all of the reasons for his disgust: “I myself am a Ravian, sir! And I am shocked! Shocked!”
It’s as if they all have the same insufferable script. The moment they see someone from GCU they start telling them how worthless they are. I still couldn’t figure out what to say to him when right on cue he demanded: “Where is your chaperone?”
“I am the chaperone,” I said, woefully aware of the mound of indignity that he was heaping upon me and that this little episode had effectively ruined clause five of the six-pronged plan. He stared at me with suspicion and hatred for about three seconds in which I stared back at him with an excellent mélange of fury and boredom. “Go, sit!” he barked at us, and up we went into the bus that took us to the tarmac. They would never treat Dr. Haroon like this, I thought. Why do I never have anything good to say to these people to shut them up proper? I thought, therefore I suffered. Meanwhile Ali Zafar tried to placate me.

It was there on the tarmac that it happened. Ali had been trying to catch the eye of a fair skinned lady cadet, Saad was being his usual uneventful self, and I was muttering obscenities under my breath, trying to locate a washroom and cursing the non-specific cadet who had roused us before my early morning purge. And then it happened. All three of us turned and beheld a sight no mortal was meant to behold. The lady cadet whispered something into an ear. The ear! And whose ear it was? There he was, glowing brighter than a thousand burning suns, the Greek god of flexing muscles, built like a weapon of mass destruction; his chest, a vast expanse of rippling strength. There he stood bathed in a light that fell upon his pure and noble form and scattered as it bounced off the many points of his regal mane, splitting into a spectacular rainbow of celestial colours. And as the three of us gazed at him in awestruck ecstasy we knew that a taller, more finely chiseled and glorious form of human had never before been seen by a mere Ravian. The fine aquiline nose, the high cheekbones, the distinctly Numenorian features. Here was a walking tribute to the ideals of male beauty! Here was a testimony to the creative genius of God! Here was trainee pilot, cadet Shigri.
Cadet Shigri turned around and gave us one sharp look of all-consuming fury and we were his willing slaves forever, liveried in his bondage, subservient souls till souls depart, we were struck down and brought to heel by the charismatic whiplash of his dreamy merciless eyes. They say if the Air Force ever runs out of fuel, cadet Shigri could simply jog up and down the runway thereby motivating fighter jets to fly on empty tanks. Men would attempt the impractical and achieve the impossible if cadet Shigri but hinted that it was his desire they do so. It is rumoured that with a single gaze cadet Shigri can make the coldest cats on campus conflagrate. And need I say I saw no cats while in Risalpur? And it was this miracle’s cousin that Ali Zafar had been trying to catch the eye of. One toe over the line and we would’ve all ended dead in a non-specific ditch somewhere.
Fact of the matter is, those Air Force people had kept us waiting for about five hours before finally officially announcing that there was just not enough “visibility” for the Joy Ride. So I don’t blame Ali for losing his focus. But Shigri? Good God! Were there ever three such fools as us? Flirting with death’s honour itself! Cadet Shigri could’ve impaled us with an eyelash! Skewered us like kebabs on a seekh! None would’ve been spared! And all because young master Ali Zafar could not keep his eyes to himself! There wasn’t much time to lose. We begged for, and managed to acquire, a spare bus and went off as quickly as possible to our rest-house. Once safely behind locked doors, it was time to prepare for the final round.

That evening I asked Israr if he had spread the rumour about my being a student in order to sabotage my team. I asked him upfront because I just don’t deal with this sort of rubbish by plotting and planning. I ask outright. And I almost always know when I am being lied to. Israr denied he had anything to do with it. I felt unconvinced but there you have it. My word against his. Stalemate. So I let bygones be bygones and that was that. Once the final round began I was too busy chasing camera-flash after-images in my head to care about anything. But once Ali’s speech began, I noticed somebody coughing: An obnoxious and intrusive, constant and quite obviously rude, cough. Some people sitting behind me were coughing loudly and pointedly. Their purpose was evident: we’re going to keep doing this until Ali Zafar gets distracted enough to fumble. And Ali did seem annoyed. But he slogged through the trial with no applause and a lot of ghostly coughing. The coughing was disturbing enough to get guests from as far down as the third row to turn and see what was going on. It was Israr and his cronies who were at it. They wanted to disrupt Ali’s speech, and this time they had gone all out to do their worst. There was not even a chance of claiming he hadn’t done it after this shameless display. He had been seen. One never expects this sort of behavior from an old Ravian. I was shocked! Shocked! Either way, Saad’s speech went spectacularly well and at the end of the day, on account of being the best team in this particular tournament, because Ali’s speech had been safe enough to get us through after all, and Saad had won the second prize, GCU lifted the team trophy. And for that moment, as in so many other important moments in life, Israr became irrelevant. We had a decent post-victory dinner, went back to our room (coincidentally the same room where Ummar and I had stayed) and stashed the trophy in the closet just like the last time, and went off to watch the comedy skits that the Risalpur Dramatics Club was putting on in the hall.

“Is your cough better now?” I asked Israr as coldly as I could the next day. Ali and I were going back to our room after breakfast and Israr and his boys were making their way to the mess. What I expected was for Israr to give his usual sheepish laugh and deny what he had done in his usual gutless fashion. Instead, he became belligerent. He accused us of accusing him unfairly, and so on and so forth. Fact is, I didn’t accuse him of anything; I merely inquired after his health. But the cat was out of the bag now. He was angry, offensive, and quite possibly, very much ashamed. Perhaps he hoped we would throw a punch at him. And that would have made what he had done seem worth it, justified. He wanted to hate us, or for us to make him hate us. But I didn’t say anything. Neither did Ali. We went back to our room without another word and he went his own way. I was hurt, of course. But I had found myself just as speechless at Israr’s outburst as I had been when confronted by the instructor at MCJ. I felt wrong-footed to be sure. I had expected an apology, or at least some sort of obvious victory to satisfy myself with. At the time I didn’t realize this, at least not until Ali pointed it out, but we really had won, and not just the trophy. Victory comes in many guises if you but have the sense to recognize it for what it really is.
This became evident a few hours later while we were waiting for the bus to come and take us to the flying tub for our ride back home. Israr came up to us and sort of apologized. He didn’t actually admit anything but just indicated that he wanted no hard feelings between us. And we graciously accepted his overture. After he left, Leghari showed up again (as is his habit to pop up at crucial moments)
“He came to me after breakfast, Israr did,” whispered Leghari importantly, “He said he had exchanged words with you guys?” “Yes,” I said “I asked him about his cough and he...” “Well, he felt bad about it afterwards,” said Leghari, “He told me so. And I asked him if it was his fault and he said it was, and so I told him to go apologize and that it wouldn’t make him the smaller man…quite the contrary.” “Leghari, you’re a regular Mother Teresa aren’t you?” I laughed. “Hey, I just try to keep the world running smoothly, he’s an old Ravian; you guys are going to run into each other everywhere, might as well patch up.” He winked at me the way he does. Leghari, by the way, got the first prize as an individual English speaker. Which is a pretty big deal, or at least, well, it used to be before the bane of ear-drums everywhere, Fahd "the high-pitched horror" Kazmi from F.C. got it!

As the bus arrived, all four of us (including Leghari) stood watching Mr. Bahauddin of Chenab College Jhang, with both his mobile phones pressed against his ears, yelling “Sir! Sir! Yes Sir!” as loud as his personal measure of decency permitted. Here was a man who hadn’t been loved enough by those who mattered I thought. Otherwise why would he be doing this? Making a spectacle of himself just to gain some attention. To each his own, however, and if this works for him, then so be it. The poor guy hadn’t caught my ey

e since last night’s victory when he had come over and said to me, “So…it seems as if we’re taking the trophy home?” He was alluding to the rather weak fact that he was still a Ravian, and that since it was a GCU win, he was entitled to partake in the festivity. And I said, “Yes, it seems Mr. Awan really does know what he’s doing over there after all doesn’t it?” Mr. Bahauddin smiled an embarrassed smile, shook his head and left the hall. And now here he was with his mobile phones, secure in his private delusions.

Like I said, I had not been looking forward to this trip at all. But I did go. For the simple reason that life is essentially an opportunity to amass as many interesting anecdotes as possible, I force myself not to miss any opportunity to do things I wouldn’t normally do and to go places where I wouldn’t normally go. In the words of the renowned science fiction writer, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.: "Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God." And though lessons always seem such a dreadful nuisance, we’re all going to miss them once college-life is over.

Pilgrim Grey

Friday, December 31, 2010

Nasri Nazm

Monday, December 27, 2010

Chaperone to Risalpur

About Me

Links

Previous Posts

Archives