The Other Side Of The Story

Today, I discovered a few things. I was actually taken aback thinking for all this while I did believe in certain things passionately but actually the real story was so different. In fact, Nadira and I have strongly written about certain stories on our blogs over the years. We spoke against the stuff things that happen in our society and it dawned upon us we were just looking at things from one side.

Though, I always say, we should never follow our media blindly but somehow even I missed out certain things. Our media is absolutely irresponsible. It does not care about the truth. It follows it's own agenda of making money, getting higher TRPs, fooling people, satisfying political parties etc. It highlights incomplete stuff. Our media never brings out in the open the entire truth...they never document things for the record also. Even I was fooled...I too just looked at one side of the coin, which was wrong.

We just shared and talked a bit on how our rangers shot an unarmed boy in Karachi who was in the park. There was a footage of it also made by a cameraman who is now getting threats for sharing this evidence with the world. Obviously, shooting that boy was wrong. There are protocols, human rights, ethics and laws that need to be followed by rangers and law enforcement agencies so that they know they are not a law unto themselves.

However, the media is just highlighting on the fact that the boy was killed. The other version of the story is that he was in the park...he was trying to rob off some family and was harassing some women in there too, which is why people caught him and handed him over to the rangers. The holy rangers were too angry and they shot him. Shot him on the leg ok...but they took him to the hospital so late that he died. The way he was killed was wrong! But why he was caught...that story is not told to the common people.

One other story about which we have written time and again is the Muneeb and Mughees case. We felt their pain how the villagers killed them, smashed their faces, hung them upside down like some animal. All of this happened in the presence of police officials. People made videos of all this on the cell phones thinking it was entertaining or some horror movie. Again the way these two boys were killed was absolutely wrong. It only shows lack of tolerance, sensibility and literacy in our society.

Sometime ago, as I was trying to find the details of this case I noticed so many posts/articles that were there earlier were no longer there. Media has been almost quiet about this case...never tells the real truth. One very strong version of this story is that the two brothers had a fight with the local villagers in Buttar one week before while playing cricket and they left the ground. The day they were lynched the brothers went there and killed one of the boys - Bilal. They were caught by the angry villagers and then whatever happened to them was wrong, needless to say. Perhaps, this was the truth...only God knows.

I feel sad that I was so strongly supporting Muneeb and Mughees all this while. If our media was responsible and truthful, we would have known the entire story clearly but we are never told anything in the right manner. Their youth was highlighted and the fact that one of the brothers was even Hafiz-e-Quran was talked about but more important things were intentionally not discussed. Human faces can be so deceiving. But if there is anything that is growing constantly - it is badness.

Anyway, how all these three boys were killed was wrong because the common people or the law enforcing agencies have no right to just kill anyone. That is what is obviously wrong. Our media remains irresponsible. And I feel sorry for believing in something that might just not even exist.

True feelings are worthless

2 days ago, I read a short story based on a passionate, frenzied love & somehow I just can’t stop thinking about it. I’m actually disturbed & maybe that’s why I need to scribble something on it. As such I don’t like reading about love stories but at the same time, it’s almost impossible to stay away from them, because somehow they always creep in.

As usual it has made me question a couple of things. We feel so badly about a character but in real life, we don’t mind hurting & insulting people. It’s okay to be callous & have a bit of fun. True feelings are meant to be insulted sooner or later & love can surely take you to hell.

This is a story about Fred Manson & Gracie. Ned Preston is another important character. He happens to be a Prison visitor & that’s how he learns about the love affair of Fred & Gracie. Fred was serving 18 months sentence in jail for stealing but whatever he did, he did in the name of love. Gracie was much above him in everyway & he wanted her to have the best of everything.

Basically Fred is the type of character who only wanted a bit of fun & it was impossible for him to remain faithful to anyone, but he falls in love with Gracie. And beyond any reasonable doubt, it was genuine love.

‘I’m gone, I can’t help myself, I’m so stuck on you I can’t see straight. I didn’t know what it was to love like I love you.’

At another point, while talking about Gracie, he says this to Ned: ‘I could have had her over & over again if I’d wanted to. And I did want to & so did she. I knew that. But I respected her, see? She’s not like other girls. She’s one in a thousand, I tell you.’

Anyhow when he went to jail for stealing, things altered. Parents of Gracie didn’t want her to marry him anymore but she left the house & started working night & day. Meanwhile Fred thought that Gracie would leave him.

On the other hand, when Ned meets Gracie & tells him about why Fred was into stealing stuff, she said, ‘Tell him that nothing matters to me as long as he loves me. Tell him I’d wait for twenty years for him if I had to. Tell him I’m counting the days till he gets out so we can get married.’

18 months is not a very long time but things do change when you keep on thinking about the same person night & day. Naturally Fred became sick to death of Gracie. He didn’t want to see her face as he hated the sight of her. Even though Ned tried to convince him but Fred didn’t change his mind & so Ned had to go & tell Gracie.

I like how Ned expresses himself; there’s a lot of truth in it that one may not like but this is what happens even in real life. You don’t mind throwing a person as if he/she is a useless squeezed lemon:

‘Imagination’s an odd thing, it dries up; I suppose thinking of her incessantly all that time he’d exhausted every emotion she could give him, & I think it was quite literally true, he’d just got sick to death of her. He’s squeezed the lemon dry & there was nothing to do but throw away the rind.’

Anyhow Gracie took this awful news in a very calm manner. It was like as if she had missed a bus & it was a nuisance to wait for another one but she didn’t create any scene. This is what she said: ‘There’s nothing for me to do now but put my head in the gas oven.’ And the sad part is that she did.

This is indeed heart wrenching. I was wondering if this is what happens when feelings are so genuine, we can’t expect much when it comes to lousy crushes & attractions. And the more I think about this story, the conclusion seems totally apt & I hate it. Gracie was left with no other option & Fred must have been truly sick & tired of her. We can’t blame any character for the choices they made. I don’t know about the others but I think I would have done the same thing.

I guess it’s very easy to say: Don’t cry…just say ‘Fuck you’ & smile!!! For a long time, I thought life was the most inexpensive thing on this planet but now I believe feelings are even more cheap. No one wants to buy them. In fact people not just get rid of them in a variety of ways but they also jeer at them along with low-life fuckers & stuck-up cunts. It’s ironic there is no market for true feelings but most of the relationships are weighed in a balance, cause that’s the only business that works out in this world.

Women & Sex

“Only to my experience the mass of women are like this: most of them want a man, but don’t want the sex, but they put up with it, as part of the bargain. The more old-fashioned sort just lie there like nothing & let you go ahead. They don’t mind afterwards: then they like you. But the actual thing itself is nothing to them, a bit distasteful. And most men like it that way. I hate it. But the sly sort of women who are like that pretend they’re not. They pretend they’re passionate & have thrills. But it’s all cockaloopy. They make it up. – Then there’s the ones that love everything, every kind of feeling & cuddling & going off, every kind except the natural one. They always make you go off when you’re not in the only place you should be, when you go off. – Then there’s the hard sort, that are the devil to bring off at all, & bring themselves off, like my wife. They want to be the active party. – Then there’s the sort that’s just dead inside: but dead: and they know it. Then there’s the sort that puts you out before you really “come,” & go on writhing their loins till they bring themselves off against your thighs. But they’re mostly the Lesbian sort. It’s astonishing how Lesbian women are, consciously or unconsciously. Seems to me they’re nearly all Lesbian.”

D. H. Lawrence

This paragraph has been taken from Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which is a story of sexual awakening. This book raised a storm of indignation at that time.

Well the writer is dead & he said what most people cannot even think today. He’s one of my mentors. You don’t have to agree with what he has said.

Many people including women may find all this quite derogatory & judgmental even today. So please don’t start pulling your hair or yanking out somebody else’s. This is just a thought. A character telling you about different kind of women. That’s it.