Attack on Benazir Bhutto, Oct 18, 2007.

Just a couple of weeks back I wrote an article that afterwards made me feel sick to the stomach. It was a round up of a grisly attack on the procession of the slain Pakistani politician, Benazir Bhutto, who was targeted in a bomb blast upon arrival in Karachi a year ago. More than 150 innocent people were killed in that explosion in my home city. The place of incident is just 15 minutes away from my apartment. Even though I pass by it everyday, it was only on that night on my way back from work that I felt like I was driving on blood.

I had trouble controlling my car on that slippery surface. There used to posters of her lining up the road, I recalled. The same place is now adorned with pictures of her grinning widower. How suddenly times change here! I sped on and when I reached the exact spot where the first assassination attempt took place, I imagined myself dashing through the explosion. I heard a terrible sound ringing in my head that made me go numb for a second. The stench of burnt bodies engulfed me. Somehow my car remained intact after passing through that ball of flame.

It’s eerie how journalism thrives on blood. The more people get killed, the bigger the story. Although no one says it out loud, there’s a sickening glee among journalists as they get their lead of the day. A race ensues among them to break it. Reporters rush to the scene excitedly. They will get a byline in the main story, they tell themselves with pride. Photographers like vultures pounce on the dead. Pictures of which are then carefully scrutinized by the X-ray machine called the newsroom. This one looks good, they say to each other there, no this photograph of the blast has more impact, argues another. In short, the same blood continues to get splashed everywhere, be it print, television or online. At times I wonder how can people actually take joy in such work?

The road which I described is a cemetery but no monument exists there today to respect the dead. People carry on driving on top of these invisible graves. But despite hosing down the place immediately after the blasts, the authorities haven’t been  able to wash away the scars of that tragedy…a tragedy that should have never occurred in the first place.

I would stare at pictures of course participants from yesteryears at the IIJ corridor and wonder, actually fear, that soon I too would be joining them on the wall. A wall which people would pass by without thinking for a moment who those smiling faces were or where they came from or what happened to them.  It’s funny in a sad kind of way how in the race of the present we all tend to forget that we too become part of a dead past.

“Oh Pakistan!” is how the immigration officer greeted me at the Berlin airport. I wasn’t surprised with the alarm in her voice or her face contorting into a panic-stricken expression the moment I came up to the counter. I sometimes forget that I really do come from a dangerous part of the world, which, unfortunately, remains in the news for all the wrong reasons. But having said that, it sure was fun watching her scratch her head, trying real hard to find something wrong with my passport. Eventually, as expected, she remained unsuccessful and I was let off after being asked three-four routine questions.

The truth is that I faced more trouble back home at the Karachi airport than in Berlin. When I checked in at the immigration counter, this lady officer first bugged me about my national ID card, which I hadn´t brought along because I knew it wasn´t a requirement to travel abroad. Then she bugged me about my place of birth which is Kuwait and not Pakistan. I´m one of those unfortunate people who got stuck in that place during the first Gulf war. Anyways, to cut the long story short, I had to tell that b**** off by eventually using the magic card called the press card and warning her that if she delayed my process by even a second more I would have to wake up her bosses in the middle of the night, which would also ensure her transfer to some shitty area of the country. Needless to say, I was led straight to the lounge with an apology after that.

Anyways, I must admit that I´m somewhat pleasantly surprised that people here don´t react with, say hatred or alarm or mockery, when I tell them that I´m from Pakistan. Yes, the first reaction is always an ´Oh!´ but then it almost always melts into a smile and with some saying that things are really bad there. In turn I always tell them that I wish I could change all that for the better. Also, quite often, people do ask me about the slain leader Benazir Bhutto and whether Musharraf really killed her or not.

I must say that overall the attitude of the people here has been quite welcoming. But sometimes people make their own judgements about a person´s nationality. This one time I went to this really nice and trendy night club, where the big and unfriendly-looking guards had first eyed me from head to toe before allowing me in. After five minutes of chin scratching, one of them finally broke the ice and said ´Do you know Amitab Bachan?,´ who is a very famous Indian filmstar. I said ´of corse brother´ shaking hands and we exchanged smiles all the way into the club. He thought I was an Indian tourist looking cool in the night wearing a black leather jacket. I was even given a tour of the place, where a live rock band was performin, young girls were cooling themselves off in an indoor pool in another area and there was a really cute bartender girl serving the most delicious of beers in another section. Little did the host realize that he had in fact invited one guy from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and his two sidekicks from the Land of the Suicide Bombers ´Afghanistan´ into the club . I had a really good time sipping on the beers and swayin to the music that night. But I sometimes wonder whether we would have been let in if I had corrected my burly host that his guess about our nationalities was all wrong….hahahahahaha

Drunk? who? me?

Sir Eric Clapton, the legendary guitarist from the 60s (The Cream band), is going to perform live in Berlin on the 15th of August.  The good news is that I´m going to attend that concert and I already have the ticket which cost me 75 Euros!!! .

Our picture together infront of the newly inaugrated US embassy in Berlin.

I’m very surprised and somewhat disappointed that I’m the only smoker among a group of 14 journalists, who have been selected from all over the world to attend a specialized training course at the International Institute for Journalism (IIJ) in Berlin. To my utter dismay, I’ve discovered that the regulations on smoking are pretty strict here. You can’t smoke inside cafes, restaurants, offices or even while waiting for a subway at a station.  Also, the cigarettes cost a lot of money.  One pack of Marlboro reds can cost around six Euros, while the same pack back home in Pakistan costs just 70 cents. I’m told that the situation is pretty much the same throughout the EU countries. Yes, I understand that regulations like these are a very healthy step especially with the threat of global warming looming round the corner (hahahaha!), but if you’re a heavy smoker like this writer here, its actually quite a pain in the ***.

And I don’t get one thing. Why is the system biased against smokers only? How come one can get drunk and really have as much booze as you like in public spaces here, but not smoke?  Although the intentions behind the ban might be noble, the truth is that it comes across as saying that its safer to be around a drunk guy  than a smoker.

If you, my readers, had to choose between the two, who would you think is more likely to cause harm to you:  the smoker or the drunk? 

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!