Of Fair Skin

Today I saw this advert and it got me thinking, I should really watch more TV. Actually it got me thinking why Indians and Pakistanis are so obsessed over being fair. Can someone count the number of Fairness Cream adverts on air? You have Fair & Lovely, some haldi whitening cream, brido whitening cream and what not.

Sometimes it goes to the point where these adverts prey on the innocent minds of young girls. They brainwash impressionable minds into thinking that if you aren’t fair you will never get married. And as we all know, every desi girl who hasn’t been corrupted by western ideals of feminism and liberalism wants to do her matriculation and get married and start pumping out spawn (shame on the readers who got corrupted.) So you need to be white if you want to even get a tiny bit of attention from a guy. And apparently, same goes for guys now. We need to be sparkly white if we want girls falling all over us… wait… sparkly white? Edward? HELL NO!

Now, if you look to the west, you’ll see people dying to get a tan. All the westerners want a nice tan. So, if we extrapolate (Google meaning if you don’t know) the scenario, we have something like this

The Story of Two White Girls: Quest for The Tan

One upon a time, there were two girls. Lets call them Cindy and Sara. So, Cindy and Sara were two very pale white girls. So pale in fact that both used to volunteer at a nurse training institute because of their near translucent skin (which made poking needles in to veins really easy for beginners)

But all wasn’t cakes and marshmallows for them. Dashing young guys used to come to the training center and go on to become rich successful doctors. Yet, no one asked them out (and it’s not because Cindy’s a painting and Sara looks creepy)

One day, their neighborhood aunty was in search of more juicy gossip to share at her Bridge-Party (which didn’t involve being near any bridge for some strange reason) and she happened to come across Sara, who at that time was crying her eyes out.

Upon inquiry, aunty found out that Sara’s nearly 30 (doesn’t look like she’s 30 does it?) and she still hasn’t had a first date. So, aunty smiled gently and after rummaging through her gigantic purse for a good 10 minutes, she pulled out: After handing it to Sara, she started a long, rambling monologue as to how she was once too fair for American Standards and got a job as a reflector-board for modeling gigs. And then her neighborhood aunty gave her Dark and Lovely, and after a month of daily coats, her skin got the healthy chocolatey look that every white American guy longs for.

So, for a month Sara uses dark and lovely.  And voila.

The 32nd day she showed up at the Nurse Training Institute and immediately got proposals from every male nurse and doctor wanna be. The scene ends with her looking at a blank wall and saying “If it wasn’t for Dark and Lovely, I’d still be lonely and dateless. Thank you Dark and Lovely” Then an orderly tackled her and locked her in a padded room (30 years of being dateless and ignored by the opposite sex can severely unhinge you, especially in a liberal country like America)

Now, you must be wondering what happened to Cindy, well…She moved to Pakistan and a wadera was instantly smitten by her pale skin. He took her to his village where they got married and she proceeded to dilute the melanin count of his bloodline.

The End.

Of The Cartoons I Study With

No, not cartoons. That's like insulting cartoons themselves. These people belong in a Zoo. Well, technically so do I, but I bite so they don't dare come near me, not to mention my cheetah like reflexes, though won't save me from banging into static objects, do protect me from hunters and trappers.

Anyways. These unique specimens, are as follows (mind you, due to the sensitive nature of this post, no pictures will be displayed. Use your imagination):

Silent But Deadly

He's one of those silent, innocent kids with a huge beard who've been pampered by mommy a lot. However, he claims to have broken the front teeth of some guy who was harassing him in Inter. Now, this claim alone might scare off people wanting to poke him with sharp-sticks (I'm not one of them - you'll find out why) My sources however tell me that he's one of the most harmless and equally spineless kids on the block. The seniors who travel with him in his van asked him to pay 200/-, he in a fit of jawani gave his entire wallet to them.

Not only that, he’s called silent but deadly because he passes leaks noxious gas. All the seniors in his point are sick and tired of him, and I was unfortunate to sit next to him during a double lecture. Needless to say anyone looking at me would have naturally assumed I was pretending to be a goldfish. Hence, poking him with sharp sticks is out of the question. As a friend of mine says, “Dude – one leak is enough, why make more and suffer the consequences”

Fight Club 

Okay, so we were all asked to introduce our selves in three different sessions. Two of these sessions contained all 82 kids (yes, they’re kids in my eyes) Now, imagine if Barney the purple dinosaur meets you in person and says “Hi, my name’s Barney, I’m soft and cuddly and a serial rapist” Can you wrap your head around it? I mean his image screams child friendly in every way possible. Same is with Fight Club. He claimed that he’s a short tempered guy who usually beats the other guy into pulp.

He looks nothing like it. He’s one of those sickly sweet and annoyingly nosy people. Also he’s dense. I mean, I’m talking to some guy and Fight Club pops in “heeeeellllooooooo gentalmans!” I have tried to ask him to leave, but he never gets the drift. Also, no matter how bluntly I tell him to piss off, he’s got this stupid smile on his face. He’s exponentially worse than the urdu-medium version of me, if such a person ever existed.

3 Idiots Boy

3 Idiots is a stupid movie. I would have actually liked it if every frigging person in University wasn’t quoting it all the time. 3 Idiot Boy is your typical, lazy, bottom feeder who has no worth in the real world. He’s in my group. A friend and I are practically carrying him with us so far. His only worth, bringing a box of smokes for us.

He believes that 3 Idiots is short for “So you want to be an Engineer? Here’s a visual guide to how every Engineering university works. Exact down to the ants roaming in the grass”

So naturally, all you hear from him is “yeh to Virus hai!” or “yeh Silencer hai” or “mein Rancho hoon” or “3 Idiots dekhi hai? Yaad hai Virus kaisey badley leyta tha?..” Dude. Give it a rest and do one freaking assignment yourself.

But I Think

But I Think is a girl. An unfortunate turn of events has placed her in my group. Now she’s useless, and that’s saying something when we’ve got 3 Idiot Boy in our group. She hasn’t got the first clue about using the Internet. On the first day I was in the library sorting my forms, when she asked me to help her with something on the net. She didn’t know how to make an E-mail account, so she asked me to make one for her.  Then, she asked me to make a Facebook account.

The next day, I find out that she’s forgotten her passwords to both things. And I had to send an important assignment to the members of my group, since I’m their leader and all. So, I had to make her a new account and sms her the password.

The reason why her name’s But I Think is simple. She doesn’t listen to anything, save her opinion. It’s so pissing off at times. Especially during graded group assignments. Sad part is we’re stuck with her for the semester.

I Know All

Know it All dude is super annoying. He’s the product of generations of selective breeding of Forum Trolls. He believes everything he sees in movies. His knowledge is unparallel (when it comes to movies.) Oh and his hobbies, apart from being a pretentious dick, include being a wuss and a cry baby.

He reminds me of my bastard of a Khalu. That, however is not the reason why I dislike him. Dude thinks he’s just awesome. He’ll do all sorts of shit just to make us all look bad. Sucking up to the teachers, giving pointless answers just to show everyone that he knows more than the rest of us (even if it’s bogus)

So, naturally Faraz (a fellow Know It All hater) and I have made it our mission to piss him off whenever we get the chance. Recently, we all had to present our Leadership & Motivation presentation. Now, the teacher (who also happens to be our Dean) constantly told us to keep it specific and to the point. Mr. Know It All here, decided to choose such a topic that covers 75% of Engineering, and made a long an seemingly impressive presentation. Dean got pissed. I literally bounced in my seat to be chosen next. As luck would have it, mine was just what he wanted. So for the entire lecture Imo’s presentation was referred to as how everyone’s should be. Know It All got dissed and instant popularity in one swift motion.

The Priest

This guy is like the hyper-evolved state of all the above idiots. He appears to be a normal skinny, mullah (priest) with trousers ending at mid-shin with a prayer cap super-glued to his head. Poor kid was dropped on his head numerous times as an infant apparently. He thinks he’s the class clown. So naturally he’ll ask all the pointless stupid questions and make the most idiotic remarks (He and Know-It-All if combined would destroy my university with a tidal wave of stupid).

A girl volunteers to write something on the board and Priest asks the Dean “What’s the female of ‘author’?”

We’re having a Linear Algebra & Differential Calculus class and he asks the teacher “Why do we solve quadratic equations” (I assume we’ve all asked that question when we were 12)

His laugh is out of this world. He waits for everyone to stop laughing, and goes “Ee-he-he-he.” This guy is definitely two years old.

Actually, the worst trait this guy has, is that he’ll sit in the front row, and after every stupid act, he’s going to turn around with a goofy grin plastered on his face. The class unanimously feels that whoever’s sitting right behind him should slap him hard when he turns around. I’m pretty sure that next week we’ll be throwing things at him to get him to shut up.

 

That’s about it. Cheers

Of The First Two Weeks in KIET

The first two weeks dealt with nothing but seminars upon seminars aimed at new students. They taught us how our GPA is calculated (which I found pointless because I already knew it, and also because majority of the students there had no motivation to understand it.) And every session hammered one thing into our skulls: “You’re no longer kids. You are university students”

Aacha baba, we got it on orientation day!

The first week was basically about the Director of Engineering boring us to death.  Honestly, it’s like when he opens his mouth he releases sleeping gas and sings lullabies to knock us all out. Then he turns into an energy vampire and sucks out all the life force out of us leaving hollow, barely alive husks of our former selves.

However, something I failed to mention earlier, we started one formal course along with the long long speeches of DoE. It’s called Leadership and Motivation. Our Dean teaches this course. It’s supposed to be a hot-shot course that will make us all think about our future and how to go about it through step by step planning. It’s a fun course. We’ve gotten a semester long project where we have to plan out a vision for 2040 and how we’re going to achieve it by making intermediate visions. Sounds boring, but trust me, the Dean makes it all seem fun.

So, now we come to the non-educational side of it all.

As you know, I pissed off my van. KIET frowns upon ragging. So, as long as they keep their hands to themselves I’m fine. I don’t know how many people look forward to be picked upon after enduring long sleeping-gas laced rants from the Director, because I for one hate it. Here’s how it went, in a nutshell.

• The first day the seniors left me alone.
• The next day they they realised I existed and started name calling. I back answered.
• Third day they kept repeating my back answer and sent over two spineless cretins to harass me. I refused to shake hands with one of them and he went ballistic (insecure much?) Called me a barking dog… I woofed, pissed him off more.
• Fourth day they sent in a pathan who was dropped on his head a fair number of times. He lacked the basic skills of comprehension, so he thought that “still can’t remember my name” meant “Sheikh”
• Fifth day they sent a guy who I assumed to be a decent person. Fridays there are horrible. You’ve got to stay till 5pm. Pissed off as it is (my group has an idiot who won’t do his work so in order to keep it afloat I had to do the work) I asked him if he knew a “Waqas.” He didn’t. So I went back to ignoring everyone. The rest of the way they held a conference as to who Waqas was. Whether he was some MQM hot-shot who would kill them over the weekend, or whether I myself was Waqas, etc. You have no idea how hard it was to keep a straight face.
• Sixth day (Monday – weekends are off for us.) It turns out that I’ve been travelling with 4 other freshmen. They should give me protection money since I’ve been diverting the entire van’s attention away from them. Anyways, apparently there’s this stupid tradition where the juniors each semester pay for the senior’s treat. I ain’t paying jack squat! However, the spineless freshmen paid, except for one preachy guy who brought in Islam into the mix. Seniors left him alone.
• Seventh day they sent one of their own to get money out of us. Preachy dude and I refused.
• Day 8. They sent another senior to get money out of me. I said no. Called him pretentious. He blew a fuse and gave me a long lecture on how my attitude needs to be adjusted or I’ll die a sad and lonely death (in a nutshell) I told him i was okay with it. Got ready to get off at my stop. Turned around, gave them all a flying kiss. Exited the bus.
• Day 9. Before I could get off, the ring-leader stopped me and told me in the most frank of terms, that if he ever caught me blowing kisses to the bus he would break all hell loose on me. Also stated that we both will leave the other alone respectfully.
• Day 10. No one bothered me. I AM AWESOME! Sure my methods were un-conventional and probably made me look like a loser at times (which is something you all have already experienced many times reading this blog)

So that’s about all there is to tell. I’ll post the line-up soon.

Of An Apology

Before I dive right in, I'd like to take a moment to explain something I said in my last post.

See, doing your intermediate isn't a bad thing. So, if anyone took offence on my comment, let me elaborate. You guys are definitely computer-literate, have functioning English and won't throw a fit of giggles if someone whispers the following word: "Pishaab"

I am pretty sure there must exist Cambridge students who can't operate a computer or whose English is worse than their Vietnamese (and they don't know who or what Vietnamese is) These people might have done their A-levels from Mehran or some remote region of the country. They must have been exposed to a segregated environment, hence when they ended up in co-ed society, they see the other sex as some fascinating species that should be stared at (and passed sleazy comments on) from a distance.

Keep in mind, I've had prior university experience, and the inter crowd at my previous uni could easily kick these kids asses. These kids are the ones that time (And the Sindh Board) swept under a rug and forgot about.

I mean, if I close my eyes and let my hearing take over I get to eavesdrop on such conversations (They aren't in English mind you, this is just for your convenience):
A: Yaar, I want to read a good book. Suggest some tight book for me
B: Buraham Storker's dracula is a lush book. Very lush. Your mind will be fucked when you read it
A: Hmmmm.
B: Very lush. Do read it.
A: What colour is it? I saw a brown book once....

So, to all my awesome readers who follow me, or have me on their blog-roll or even just plain read my ramblings, I'm sorry if I might have hurt your feelings with my blabbering.

Of My First Week

I wanted to write a day by day account of my first week in KIET

Sadly the first three weeks for Engineering Freshmen is filled with seminars and workshops aimed at, quite frankly, brainwashing us into mindless engineers.

So, naturally everyday followed the same routine.

• Wake up
• Travel via private van
• Sit through 90 minutes of droning by the Director of Engineering
• 10 minute break
• Sit through another 90 minutes of droning by the Director of Engineering
• 10 minute break
• Sit through yet another 90 minutes of droning by the Director of Engineering
• 10 minute break
• Sit through yet another 90 minutes of droning by the Director of Engineering (ab bus bhi ker ja)
• Travel back home via private van
• Sleep

I'm in a class with 90% intermediate crowd. Don't get me wrong, people who have done their inter can be classy (like three of my dear friends)... this lot sadly isn't. Cheap humor and "OMG we have 4 girls!!" is all you get out of them.

I managed to piss off my entire van within two days.

I'm very sleepy. So I'll go into the details later.

Good Night!

Of My Pre-First Day

Today was Orientation day. A day where bright-eyed students with hopes and dreams were told . . . that they’ll be ragged on. The administration is doing everything in their power to prevent ragging, but it will still happen and you better resign yourself to it.

I went there at 9:00a.m. Dad dropped me and told me to get on a bus or a cab back to something that remotely looks like civilization.

So, I made my way to the reception office to ask where new students were supposed to report. The lady at the reception must have been thinking something pleasant because as soon as I asked her, her face contorted to something like this:Okay, well maybe a percentage of this. Anyways, point being she thought it was a silly question and without getting up, pointed out the door and said “There’s a sign. Auditorium.” I looked out expecting to see a huge sign and was even ready to kick myself for being stupid, and I saw the sign. It was one of those tiny displays you see outside hotel conference rooms that have been reserved, with a 8x6 sign saying “Auditorium”

Side Note: If I ever run a university, or any other event for that matter, I’ll make sure that I put a frosted doughnut huge sign right by the main gate that gives clear directions. Probably even light road flares along the path they’re supposed to follow.

So, 9:15 we got to sit in the auditorium. Soon as there were 17 people, the head of the Admin Department came in and started what we assumed was the actual speech. It turned out to be time-pass. It was fun, the guy clearly knew how to keep his audience interested.

Around 9:50 he started talking about ragging and how they’ve taken preventive measures. He reassured us that raggers will be dealt with strictly, as they have been for the past 3 years. True, unfortunate incidents have happened before, like once a kid had his arm broken in two places . . . (wait!! What??) Before he could continue, some random guy in a suit, wearing those huge-ass sunglasses and an equally big-ass grin abruptly burst into the room and equally abruptly burst out of the room. That ladies and gentlemen was the sign that the orientation was starting.

The President of the Institute came and spoke for 40 minutes about how hard our parents worked to send us here and how we should not let their money go to waste and basic rules of the university. He even stated that since English was the primary language of instruction at the university, everyone has to speak in it. No matter how bad you are, speak in English. Finally I learning bad Eenglish. Yey!

While President Sir talking, rest of dean and director came and take seat. One sir very smarty looking. Wearing sweater without sleeves with tie. Another sir not having spine-stick.  He sit in seat like big pile of pudding. Third sir very thirsty. Need water drink every 5 minutes. President sir say to us, send car home, you go in our bus. bus.

Hope you understood that. So, the president ended his speech and called forth the dashing gentleman in the sleeveless cardigan. This, was the Dean of Engineering.  The way he was dressed I totally expected a British accent. He was a total desi. But, he had a major redeeming quality.

He, it seems, grew up on Star Trek and majored in Aeronautics. He started talking about how we should go about our 4 years here and used airplanes as a metaphor for  our studies.

• Whether we’ll be flying the first Wright brother’s plane that never flew (i.e. immediately drop out)
• Or fly the second Wright brothers plane that flew for 50 seconds (i.e. drop out after a month)
• Or fly a rickety two-seater (i.e. stay below probation)
• Or fly a Boeing (i.e. stay on the borderline)
• Or fly a Concorde (i.e. maintain a good GPA)
• Or fly the Starship Enterprise at warp speed (i.e. get a scholarship)

Mind you, these are all my own assumptions. When he started talking about planes it took me a while to register that he meant it as a metaphor (when he got to Starship Enterprise) He repeated pretty much everything that the president said, but he presented it in an entertaining way which made pretty much everyone hang onto his every word. He did however have a distracting habit of standing on his tip-toes and spreading his arms whenever he wanted to emphasize on something (which was every 10th word or so)

So an entertaining half-hour was killed off like that. Then, the Director of Business came and spoke a few words like a train-wreck. I only caught “hat” “stars of the show” “dean” and “business” from the string of words he uttered.

The Dean of Business was the perfect case of stage-fright. He started off well, by saying “I’ll keep my speech relatively short.” This earned him some laughs from whoever was keeping track of the time. It was 11:25 now. He started off by stating nearly the same things that the President and Dean of Engg. said so, along with a few tidbits of information. Everything was punctuated with pauses and shaky hand gestures. He literally bored me to tears.

At 11:45 all us engineering students went off to the engineering building and got the fourth variation of the same lecture from the Director of Engineering.

Then we went for a very confusing tour of the campus. Our guide was obviously paid off by the seniors to make sure we would be totally lost on our first day of uni. He took us to one lab, then another lab on the next floor then the library in a different building then back to the room next to the first lab we saw and so on.

Then we submitted our library forms and ID card forms, got into our respective buses and went home.

Oh well. I crossed over the 1000 word mark (as far as I know I’ve never written such a long post.)

Cheers and See you Monday.

Of Quenching Intellectual Thirst

Before you start reading this post, be warned that it’s highly disjointed and you’ll need some patience to read it.

During Christmas season, some weirdo I follow on Deviant-Art, asked people “If Your Friends were an Inanimate Object what would they be” Now I don’t know how this relates to Christmas or anything sensible for that matter, but I thought of answering it none-the-less.

I see my friends as Chess Pieces. Here’s why:

• Most of my “friends” are no different than a simple pawn. A pawn moves forward and attacks forward diagonally. These people are nothing more than a social symbol. I don’t normally talk to them and I know better than to rely on them.
• The Rooks, Knights, and Bishops are the ones I rely on. These people are the ones who’re ready to act at a moment’s notice. Whether it’s something trivial as spotting me some credit, or something more meaningful like helping me out of an extremely stick spot.
• The Kings, I shall always protect
• The Queen is an “imba” piece… and I am not really looking to fill that slot

Anyways. Chess Pieces aside. A while back, I whined about being intellectually thirsty. If you don’t know what I’m talking about I’ll save you the trouble of reading said post. I have been living in social isolation for the last 11 months. That’s taking it’s toll on me and I recently cracked.

So a friend of mine decided to grace me with her presence. It reminded me of the good old days when Intellectual Bonga-pana was abundant and our adopted child FWL (It’s a now dead community on Orkut) was alive and free from all the teenage problems (bratty kids, Brazilians, preachy assholes, (wo)man Walnut cookies* looking for their next booty or even Telgu Nuts who side-tracked every thread towards Bollywood Bakwass)

(* Rhymes with Horse)

Had her British Asim Net not been mauled by a British Neighborhood Aunty’s equally British Flea bitten British Dog, this conversation would have gone somewhere meaningful (who am I kidding, it wouldn’t have turned meaningful even if it carried on for all eternity.

Imo: Really?

Lady Z: Yes.

Imo: Ahan

Lady Z: do you not believe me, muggle?

Imo: I see. I do believe you, muggle

Lady Z: good, muggle.

Imo: I know, muggle

Lady Z: so, muggle...

Imo: yes muggle?

Lady Z: what's up??!

Imo: I’m bored.

Lady Z: Why but?

Imo: I’m bored because I have nothing fun to do. I kinda miss the FWL days

Lady Z: I do too! It has died!

Imo: Overtaken by Indians (who are so unlike the ones I’m friends with)... they are somewhat an intellectual mutation of the Brazilians.. The overtakers that is.

Lady Z: Ack. painful when children die like that... even adopted ones, do you remember etymologically speaking?

Imo: I was just going to mention it. It died too no?

Lady Z: Yes! Almost stillborn

Imo: More like a child with a forked tail and horns born to a super Christian family

Lady Z: hahhha

Imo: "Kill it with fire" yelled the doctor

Lady Z: "It's my baby!" the pale mother pleaded

Imo: "it's the spawn of Satan" cried the nurse before fainting (I shouldn't be dissing your attempt at making an intellectual group)

Lady Z: "It's all YOUR fault, woman!" the father turned on the mother

Imo: "Hehe" chuckled the mother sheepishly

Lady Z: While all this was happening, the baby had tripled in size...

Imo: And tried to go up hill on a unicycle

Lady Z: Having failed, he turned his wrath upon the miserable doctor

Imo: Whose name was Mark Zuckerberg

Lady Z: With one mighty flick of his wrist, the baby

Imo: Forced Zuckerberg to change his diaper

Lady Z: The nurse tried to escape while no one was looking

Imo: But Zuckerberg switched places with her while the baby's eyes were closed and ran away instead

Lady Z: The baby fell asleep, snoring like a tractor..

Imo: The dad took this chance to record an informative program aimed at Farmers for PTV World, with his wife manning the camera. You know, "nazareen, yeh tractor hai. iss key aage do chotey payye hote hain aur peechey do barrey payye hote hain. yeh khait khodney mein istemaal hota hai

I went after Mark Zuckerberg because Facebook Chat (which we were using at that time) sucks Doughnut Biscuits. It kept lagging and disconnecting. Lady Z, never again are we going to talk on FB Chat. Skype deffo, not FB Chat.

Sadly I can’t have the same kind of conversation with anyone else that I have with her. So, it’s a limited commodity.

Of The Bua Constrictor

So, I left school, but the newsletter’s ghost still haunts me.

Recently it’s possessed a friend of mine turned School Teacher. On a side note, ever wonder why City Students prefer to join their school after they graduate?

Back to the topic at hand, this friend of mine, who will be represented by a stand-in that you see on the right. So, this friend, whom we shall call Basmati Rice, (because the bag of rice is also called Basmati Rice – the brand’s not that important) found the newsletter to be really awesome, and wants to continue it. What she doesn’t know is that I didn’t have the responsibilities of a teacher so I could afford to goof around and spend a week pretending to make a copy (though usually it took me one sleepless night and half the next working day to actually make it)

So Rice’s being idealistic, and I’m enjoying the ride. First order of business is that since the Buzz Bee (mascot of the newsletter) was killed off, turned into a zombie and killed again, won’t be able to make a return appearance (How many dead zombies have you seen come back to life eh?) Hence we need a new mascot.

Now, when the original Buzz was being thought of, a like minded teacher suggested “Anaconda” as the name of the newsletter. Now, I get another chance to use Anaconda. Sadly, Anaconda was shot down by the Head Mistress. So was Buzz-a-conda, Banana-Conda, Bee-a-conda, Oh-No-It’s-a-Snake-Wait-Just-Kidding-It’s-a-Newsletter-a-conda

Bua Constrictor had promise, so before I pitched that I cooked up a back story for it

  So, once upon a time there lived a construction worker and his wife. The construction worker was a hard working man who spent the entire day laboring at some saith's house while the wife was a nanny/maid at the Haq household.

  Now the Haqs had Mr. and Mrs. Haq who lived the stereotypical lives of the rich business man and the socialite aunty. Their son, Jimmy urf Jamsed, studied in class 6 at one of the best schools.

  Jimmy (or Jamsed, as he preferred to be called) was an average student. He was interested in Dragon Ball Z, Pokémon, and other boys, as was the norm for students of his particular age.Now you wonder, what's anyone got to do with anything in this story. Patience please.

  So, Jamshed's school had a new fad. Every month they'd publish a newsletter. And every month the peons would come to each class, hand one out to everyone. And every month, half of the students would start reading it then and there, the others would either crumple it or put it in their bags never to see it again. Jamshed belonged to the latter group.

  That weekend, Jamshed's Maid was cleaning his bag and the newsletter fell out. Jamshed saw it and started reading it. He scanned the front page and didn't find anything about Pokémon, or Dragon's Balls or even boys! Same was with the second page.

  Bored, he folded it into a paper plane and threw it out the window. That was where everything went to hell.

  Incidentally, when he threw the paper plane out the window, the maid's husband, the construction worker, was just getting off his bicycle, with a flower (which he plucked from a nearby garden) ready to surprise his wife. Call it Fate, or an evil gust of wind, blew the paper plane right into his eye, blinding him.

  Blinded and in pain, the construction worker fell down on the road where he was mercilessly trampled by a convoy of Igloo Tricycles. Followed by a horde of children. Followed by stray dogs and cats. Followed by lazy crows who weren't willing to fly.

  Suffice to say, he passed soon after. The maid was devastated. She cried for five days and seven nights. She wept so much that all the little mud huts in her neighborhood got washed away. She screamed more than all the little children combined (Though she never had any, as her husband was trying to win the Gas/Petrol Generator Sathi was offering)

  On the Eighth Night, she swore vengeance while eating her Daal-Roti for one. She blamed her misfortune on Jamshed and his paper plane.

  The next day, she returned to work and did everything without shedding a tear. Jamshed returned home after tuitions and and asked her to set his book bag according to the next day's time-table.

  She dropped her broom and wrapped her arms around his neck. Now, interestingly, her husband loved how flexible her arms were. He could have tied her arms together if he wanted to. Anyways. She wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed the life out of him. She did the same to his mother when she walked in on them.

  Well, it's funny how death by crappy newsletter-plane can cause you to go all psycho and kill people. This incident earned that maid a spot on the news, which the editor of the school's newsletter happened to see.

  The next day, in order to preserve the memory of that student, and strike fear into the hearts of all the kids who didn't read the newsletter, he made that maid into an urban legend.

  So kids, Read the god-damn newsletter / blog or Bua Constrictor will come and get you.

This was supposed to go along with the first issue. However, it too was rejected.

So dear reader, I ask you this, where did I go wrong? Please Advise.

Of Cheap Solutions Leading to Self Mutilation

So what you see above is a Safety Razor. I dunno if you’re all familiar with it but it’s the ancestor to the modern 2/3/4/5 bladed razors. Although it’s primitive, it’s cheaper to use than the latest brand of Gillette Mach3 and Schick Quarto. You use razor blades that cost 5 bucks a piece. or 2 if you want the unknown Chinese brand.

So, I got sick and tired of the whole buy a disposable new razor every week, not to mention I sometimes forgot to dry my disposable properly and it got all rusty. Also, my electric shaver runs on AA Batteries which meant that I usually never got the chance to shave when it was important as there weren’t any batteries handy. Therefore, I decided to try my hand at using what my grandpa must have used when he started shaving. I went to the local Pathan Shop (the one who sees me as the bringer of light… the other one hates me and probably wants a transformer to fall on my head) and bought a Chinese knock-off called Huang Long and a half dozen blades. Okay, lame attempt at humor aside, (hover over the picture if you’re stumped) this gives me quite a close shave. I only nicked myself 7 times yesterday and 5 this morning. Hey, I’m being affected by this recession too. I don’t have the money to buy 400/- cartridges. The logic behind such a drastic purchase was that if I managed to get accustomed to the Chinese brand, I’ll invest in a decent one when I visit some decent store next.

Oh and don’t worry, I’ve got my tetanus shots.

I will practice once again tonight. Hopefully, I’ll get the hang of it by the time I start Uni.

A side note to all the people kind enough to leave a comment. I know I’m not a regular blogger yet, but rest assured, I do reply to each and every comment before I post a new post. :)

Of Being Sold To Slavery

Okay, so a few days ago I was whining about being intellectually thirsty.

Well today the school's Regional Administrator called me. They're making some brochure and wanted me to compile it because they've "seen" my newsletters and I'm an alumni.

So, I went there to see what they wanted. So, turns out, I'll be Assisting the Regional Administrator Rehman Amjad. So my designation is A.R.A.R.A.

Kash his name had Ghaffur Illyas in it, then I'll be A.R.A.R.A.G.I.

If anyone here watches the awesome show called Bakemonogatari here, they'll get this pun/joke/lame attempt at humor

Randomness aside, this still doesn't solve much. Since it's a top secret project and I'm supposed to keep my lips sealed. So I'm supposed to be in an isolated room in school. Oh well. And it's supposed to be for free. They expect that I should be happy that I'm getting my name published in print. I wouldn't mind a cheque instead of my name being published...

Oh yeah. When I was coming back from the RO. I stopped by this bakery and these two Japani Khawateen were there. One was as old as my grandma, the other younger. The older one knew urdu and was conversing with the bakery wala. So, after carefully eavesdropping and confirming that they were Japanese, I went up and (in my barely acceptable and somewhat broken Japanese) asked them if they were from Japan. We exchanged pleasantries and the younger one (who's still older than my mom) seemed quite impressed by the effort I was making and wished me good luck and hoped I get my wish to visit Japan some day fulfilled. All this time the bakery wala was giving me a dirty look. Oh well. Just goes to show you that not all Japanese people are petty and insane. Majority of them are quite nice. 3 to 1 odds prove that.

Cheers.

This Sub-Par Blog Post has been made possible by Ali Abdul Muhammad's constant distraction.