Bobby Fischer Died Today

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dead-kingChess is like life – Boris Spassky

Chess is life – Bobby Fischer

Bobby Fischer, the renegade, recluse Da Vinci look-alike chess genius died today in Iceland at the (ironic) age of 64 today.

I have been following (and fascinated by) his life ever since I read his book “Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess” in the early 90s (and ‘forgot’ to return it to the friend I borrowed it from). His books, his openings, and the dozens of chess puzzles that resulted from his famous matches taught me a lot about the game.

He was a rebel and romantic; a proponent of the 9/11 attacks, in another life, he might have been a suicide bomber, or a cyber punk. Though he has been labeled ‘eccentric’ numerous times, but he was also brutally honest (read this rare interview to see what I mean). Thank you Bobby, for teaching us chess, and for being honest.

When you are ‘Needing’ a ‘Helping’ Hand from PTCL

ReallyVirtual

… you should be waiting and cursing and wishing the hand gets the time off from his busy schedule to help you. I have been trying to get through to the PTCL help line for two hours now, with the intention of getting their “broadband” connection… maybe I should get Wateen instead. I don’t understand who writes the content for our official websites! Here’s the funny screenshot:

ptcl-broadband-nohelp

UPDATE:
So, as soon as LESCO allowed me, I went to the Wateen website for some comparison shopping, but their Home Users page (error page) politely told me ‘It seems there is a missing link, we apologies for that.’
I couldn’t help noticing the wii-con-act WECONNECT logo on the page. Thank God ironies are more funny than frustrating, or I would be dead by now.
wateen-connect

Benazir’s Punjabi Volunteer

Sohaib Athar1 Comment

Everything worth saying about Benazir's assassination has already been said many times over, and by bloggers much more capable than myself, so I had no plans to write about the incident – until i came across the phrase "punjabi volunteer" for the 4th time in an hour. Seeing a phrase once or twice in an hour is understandable, 4 times is probably no coincidence. Google for 'punjabi volunteer' (with quotes) and 'benazir dead punjabi volunteer' (without quotes) to see what I mean. 1840 results on Google so far.

In these difficult times, its frustrating to see not only Indian or American websites (that would make sense) but a lot of Pakistani sites and blogs (and prominent ones at that) just copy/pasting the phrase without thinking twice. My questions to all those people regarding the use of this phrase are:

  • Are 'terrorist' and 'punjabi' synonymous?
  • Did the 'punjabi volunteer' give up his life for Punjab? If not, then what exactly was he fighting for?
  • Of course he was a volunteer, aren't most of the suicide bombers volunteers, fighting for a reason, however pure or twisted that reason is?
  • Would anyone have used 'pathan volunteer' (which was more likely) or 'sindhi volunteer' if that had been the case?
  • Another phrase being used is 'Lashkar-e-Jhangvi's punjabi volunteer'. Last time I checked, Jhang was in Punjab. Isn't it a bit redundant?
  • Are Pakistanis really that gullible to forget the 100+ years of British 'divide and conquer' rule?
  • I hear the killer was Al-Qaeda, so does this make him a "Punjabi Al-Qaeda Lashkar-e-Jhangvi" bombing?
  • Why not use the phrase 'Pakistani volunteer', as opposed to an 'Afghan volunteer' or an 'Al-Qaida volunteer' to stress the fact that we are still capable of killing our own leaders/rulers, no matter how corrupt they are, while ignoring the elephant in the room?

My paternal family migrated from India, and are settled mostly in Karachi (with some Lahori exceptions). My maternal relatives are mostly from NWFP, with many (again) who migrated from India and ended up in Karachi and Lahore. I was born in Lahore and have lived here ever since, though I can't (or don't) speak Punjabi, and preferred to call myself a Pakistani. Musharraf is a Formanite, so am I, does that make all Formanites including me pro-Musharraf? Benazir's killer was a Punjabi, so am I (partly at least), what does that make me? I think its time to have an identity crisis for me.

Please Pakistani bloggers, words are dangerous, use them with care… and please stop copy/pasting blindly. Thanks.

PS. The above rant is written minus the generous sprinkling of F-words as originally intended.

We are toads

ReallyVirtual1 Comment

ImagePaulo Coelho's book 'The Alchemist' has been the top favorite of the Pakistan Network on Facebook for a few months now. It is not surprising, as the story has a lot of things in common with the mystic/symbolic fairy tales that my generation (or at least a subset of my generation) was brought up on. This post, though is about Paulo's blog, which is usually filled with though-provoking positive content (and these days, we can surely use all the positivity we can get). A couple of days ago, I read an interesting observation on Paulo's blog about toads, that reminded me of this nation called Pakistan (and it had nothing to do with toads being green). He says:

Read more “We are toads”