Pakistan: Auditioning A New Sport

Suddenly due to the lack of anything mildly related to cricket in our near future (our tour in England was considered a 'Home Series'), it appears that we now have a gargantuan amount of free time on our hands.

In order to recover from the obvious emotional and yes physical turmoil of the scandal, I feel that is is imperative that we decisively reallocate our inherent obsessive sporting fanaticism to a new sport to obsess over, with rampant unemployment, power outages and now floods, it's not like we have much to occupy our time. The question is what?

Kabaddi: Men grabbing other men in a mud pit.....(Insert Pathan Joke Here)

Verdict: We'll Pass; Something about watching a sport that focuses on fat semi-nude men is lacks appeal unless (insert Pathan Joke Here). I'll completely support any female variation of the sport, though I think a jello pool would make it far more watchable. Women's rights and all that.

Wrestling: Muscular men scampering around in their fashion forward tighty whitey's, somersaulting from awkward angles and pretending to get hurt. We would however, excel in the bravado and blustering aspect of the sport.....oops, it's not allowed to be called that anymore.

Verdict: We'll pass. Apparently a Chammaaat doesn't qualify as a finishing move and evidently Pakistani' Athletes make awful liars. That and the Indian born great Kali is rather scary chap. 

Racing: We are a nation that loves to race our cars, motorbikes, rickshaws and ghudda garis (donkey carts). On the face of it, the sport speaks to our souls, with it's shady rules, loose morals and hypocrisy. 

Verdict: We'll Pass. We can't afford the insurance or technical infrastructure required, besides Petrol is expensive yaar!

Polo: Involves riding a horse, and hitting a ball with a large stick, on the face of it this appears like a worthy successor to cricket, particularly with the advantage of a horse doing all the work, whilst we merely chill on a saddle and swat our sticks around.

Verdict: We'll Pass: We're not Mongols, roaming around on horseback really isn't our thing. 

Surfing: With the advent of the floods, it is a sport that we could see a strong mix of participants both from the ocean dwellers; AKA Karachi.

Verdict: We'll Pass: As nice as it would be to have a Karachi dominated sport, we're rather scared of sharks.

Boxing: A great sport that a Muslim, Muhammad Ali actually has dominated. So there is a sense of legacy in picking up the mantle and beating the Allah right into the infidel (if they don't agree with us, they're all infidels).

Verdict: We'll Pass: we greatly treasure our fabulous good looks. Besides, something distinctly Un-Islamic about punching another Muslim. Boxing matches with the Kaffirs on the other hand.....

Tennis: A passionate sport, which quite frankly the average Pakisani cares little about. Sorry Aisam Ul Haq Note: Pakistani Tennis 'Champion' Aisam Ul Haq....a rather nice boy who likes to play with Indians because no one else likes him enough to play with him.

Verdict: We'll Pass, There is far too much running involved. Unless Shoaib Malik decides to team up with Sania Mirza, then we'll re visit the issue. 

Golf: Haha, Just kidding. 

Rugby: A Manly sport complete with a suicidal lack of body Armour and padding, that involves hustling through a field with opponents having rather demon like characteristics.

Verdict: We'll Pass; It goes against our religious principles to fight with Demons. 

Dance Dance Revolution: Our wedding culture oriented showcases have already developed an envious array of already trained talent to excel in this vicious dangerous sport.....

Verdict: We'll Pass, we don't need another Punjabi dominated team. Besides, we don't put put our women on display. 

Hockey: Former World Champions, now we humiliate ourselves when ever we play.....

Verdict: We'll Pass, don't be silly, we suck at Hockey, the only hockey sticks Pakistani's generally own are used for um...other purposes that would come under the category of self defense. 

Squash: A sport steeped in the legacy of both Jansher and Jehangir Khan. Ever since then we've let it fizzle out....because we don't actually care.

Verdict: We'll Pass; we barely liked it when we dominated it.

Football/Soccer: The beautiful game, a sport where everyone already makes so much money that Match Fixing is out of the question and the idea of Performance adjusting borders on wishful thinking. We can however alter the performance of the Football world by restricting our exports of top quality footballs to the world.

Verdict: We'll .....be Perfect at it! Now all we have to do is find folks who play the game as ardently as we'll be watching it. In order to speed up the process let's throw some money at some Brazilian Street urchins. 

We are all looking for the Perfect Pakistani sport, a sport whose representatives will make us proud of our sporting culture. The truth is that our athletes' talents, morals and deficiencies all reflect what is in every Pakistani, including the artful hypocrisy.

Until we choose to be different, they won't be either. Cricket may well yet be our future, but the fault isn't in the sport. It's in every single one of us, we just choose to ignore it.

Maybe all we need to do is hire some mildly attractive girls to be interested in the sport and we can create a following. Sure worked for Beach Volleyball.

A version of this piece was published at Dawn.com

EID! EID!....oh Miserable Eid.

Now, I'm usually the sort of guy who is all for anything resembling a holiday, hell, I even get excited during half-work days (cheap thrills, I realize), so a four day Eid weekend should theoretically be celebrated with a gusto bordering on a three day Depeche Mode rave at the Play boy mansion...or a Pakistan sports team actually winning something*; it's been a while, I can go either way.

*Aisam Ul Haq; "Second Place is First Loser"

There is just something about THIS Eid, that didn't sit well with me. Whether it's the flood victims, incompetent corrupt officials, cricket scandals, or the lack of world peace (apparently really matters to all the Miss World Candidates; how can I not support their passion?)

I used to like Eid as a kid, the (theoretically) cool gifts, envelopes theoretically full of money and everyone lining up to tell you how great you are (thankfully that aspect hasn't changed). Now that the shoe is on the other foot (Damn having to Grow Up!), I'm rather less enthralled by the process.

Maybe one should get stacks of 5 rupee notes and give them out 100 bucks at a time. It'll look way cooler and keep the Hounds off my trail....particularly as my strategy entails throwing the said notes up in the air like a Baller at a Casino. 

Everyone is chasing you for money (by chasing, I mean chasing you down); Whether it's little rabid children, to whom you are only loosely related to, or the local sweepers who feel totally justified in banging your door down all day to ask for Eidhi (after all, after a year of neglect they finally cleaned your street the previous month); everyone who sees you is just excited to augment Eid Cash Hoardings.

Now I know I shouldn't mind, I make decent money and get a fair amount of cash for Eid, but something about the expectation of doling out dough that annoys and ruins the gift giving act to me. Particular when it erupts into a dollar denominated tsunami of who collected or gave more Eidhi; personally I'd rather stay in the former category, but alas more wishful thinking on my part (did I mention how awesome world peace is?).

Itchy Brand New Clothes: I am a terrible shopper. The only new clothes I've bought since I've come back to Pakistan are office shirts (I look very snazzy thank you very much). I really don't need yet another Eid occasion Shalwar kameez that has to suffer my complete awkwardness.

Odds are I won't wear it for the rest of the year. Sadly, it's almost always the kind that makes my body shake like a fire ant attack.I never get into that 'breaking it in' phase. I'm a waste of a good overpriced Shalwar Kameez.

Women tend to take Eid to a whole new level of wardrobe hell. how many Naked Sheep have they left in their wake I can only imagine..... There is winter wear, wedding wear, summer wear and Eid wear. Eid is twice a year and lasts a combined total of less than a week. And let's not pretend they judge each other like they were on America's Satan's Next Top Model.

Graveyard: I understand that it's important to pay one's respect to the dead, but it seems odd to go from somber grieving to the Desi equivalent of a house party. Who came up with that?

Eid Prayers: I and every other Muslim male (Fair occasion Muslims or otherwise) wake up earlier on Eid than on any typical work day (going to bed at 3am because of Chaand Raat doesn't help matters either). How does that come under the definition of a holiday?

Last I checked holidays were for sleeping in. Since Eid gives the mosque it's largest (incidently most apathetic) annual audience, the resident Cleric feels obligated to treat us all with the longest sermon humanly possible at 7 am in the morning. He calls it providing guidance, I call it Cheap Disposable Eidhi.

Germs: We are a country that strongly believes in the romantic ideals of Personal Space. On Eid, you hug everyone in sight and shake their hands like they cured cancer. If by some miracle you didn't get sick during ramzan, during Eid it's definitely a miracle if you don't catch something from the barbarian horde of germ swapping huggers.

If anyone has a hugging fetish, celebrating Eid naturally fits the bill. Why someone doesn't take the day off and set up a street stall selling Sanitizer is beyond me.

City Tour: I love Karachi, but just because I love my city doesn't mean I enjoy the scenic jaunts to slums like North Nazimabad (just kidding, I hate it because it's far). On a holiday, I rather stay at home or go somewhere that's well....fun. Egregious notion on my part, I realize. Maybe next year I'll get a tour bus...or just invest in a GPS. 

Mithai Overload: I love Sawwayya (vermicelli noodles) as much as the next Pakistani, infact I often thought I could eat an entire Harry Potter Cauldron full of the stuff.

However, wishful thinking translated into my male testosterone compelling me to try (read succeed) to finish the vat. But by my 7th innappropriately large bowl I realize that I may have both clogged my arteries and ravaged my taste buds to such an extent that they could hardly differentiate between munching an apple and consuming toxic waste.

Now, if there really is a sugar shortage (I'm all about the Zionists being behind everything) and has accordingly become obscenely expensive, then why is everyone being loaded up with enough sugar to inflict diabetes to a 5 year old. I'm confident that if we skip Eid for a year, we'll have enough sugar to last a few sweet tea enfused decades.

Over eating: You spend the entire holy month of Ramadan being famished; you don't eat all day, your stomach accordingly compresses and shrinks to the size of a baby fist; and then we decide that we should celebrate the imbalance by eating enough food to feed a family of elephants......every hour or so.

There is nothing worse than stuffing one's post fasting pea pod of a stomach with an insane variety and quantity of  food at iftaari; then Eid comes along and I'm reminded that atleast during Ramadan, it's acceptable to stop eating without offending the world in general.It's not what do you want to eat, it becomes a how much can someone charmingly jam down your throat without causing a leech splattering tummy explosion. 

Mehndi: That CRAP STINKS! It's poop colored muck that its odd patterns all over a girls hands and arms. How does that connect to festivity??? Is their a mud wrestling extravaganza that I'm not invited to? And what's with the bangles? All I hear about how flimsy they are and how they keep breaking after the first 35 hugs of the day!

Usually, when Eid comes around, we think of the things we want, be it treats, or an assortment of cool gifts, and hey maybe even that electronic extravagence that you had been saving up for. I'm no different, but for some strange reason I didn't want an Eid complete with a shiny new phone or a riddiculously awesome TV (I wouldn't say no), I wanted something that I know that I wouldn't get.

I really wanted some Pakistani Leaders that aren't charismatically flawed pieces of stinking horse shit. That would make me strikingly happy and make it feel a bit more like something worth celebrating.....for everyone.

Oh yeah, Belated Eid Mubarak/Rosh Hashana/Holidays Peeps!

Congratulations, we can totally do the opposite of what we were supposed to be doing in Ramzan without feeling like abnormally bad Muslims. The whole wasting my time on useless activities was really getting to me.

Proof that Hip Computer Literate Clerics Exist: The Truth is Out There....Waaaay Out There