The Great Brain Waste

My following article also appeared on Express Tribune Blogs

In May last year an Australian embassy press release stated that more than 5,000 Pakistani students have chosen Australia as their destination to study.

How many of these people actually go abroad to study?

The answer is nil.

Living in Australia, I can say that 99% of these so-called students are actually professionals and underachievers of society who go abroad to seek a better life. Let’s face it: who would want to live in a country where there is daily load shedding, nepotism, corruption, government ineptitude and terrorism, right?

Although this Pakistani talent is moving out in search of greener pastures, the truth is that most of it is being put to use in cutting tomatoes for restaurants, driving taxis and cleaning toilets. This phenomenon is known as brain waste.

According to the Encyclopedia of World Economy , brain waste is defined as the underuse of migrant talent in the host country. In the same encyclopedia, which quotes Ozden’s 2006 study, it is mentioned that the brain use of Pakistani migrants is just 38%

The problem is that the toilet cleaner or that person who chops veggies in restaurants is a highly educated man or woman who might possess a masters or bachelors degree but can’t get a decent job. Misconceptions about race and religion are also important factors for Pakistanis being jobless or being caught in sub-standard jobs in the West.

Another important and closely related problem is the under utilisation of Pakistani talent. This means that even if you get a decent job in a high-rise building abroad, you will still face a barrier during job promotions and other office activities. This talent is being wasted in a foreign country. It should really be put to good use in Pakistan. This is why the brain drain in Pakistan and the subsequent brain waste are co-related. Hundreds of Pakistani doctors, engineers and IT professionals are working in super markets, packaging factories and restaurants abroad.

Many Pakistani students go away merely to secure a nationality. They do not even bother to show up for classes during the semester and appear only at the time of exams. After my recent encounters with some of these students, I realised that most are here in a foreign country to secure a better future for their families by sacrificing their own. Sadly, these people add nothing to the knowledge of the host country and finally become parasites. The labour that could have been done by any other common person is now being done by our doctors, scientists and engineers.

Recently, I met a former government teacher from Punjab who after being frustrated by low salaries moved to Australia to work in a kebabshop. All he wants is to earn enough money to move back to Pakistan and open a restaurant in five years, so that he and his family can live “happily ever after”.

After witnessing the government’s legendary acts of corruption, who can convince that poor teacher not to leave his job and pursue a career which is unsuitable for him? The truth is that Asians generally choose their careers on the basis of a given situation and not their talent. Hence, Pakistan which already faces a shortage of teachers, is short of one more.

Who knows how many other doctors, engineers and scientists will leave Pakistan to be contractors, taxi drivers and restaurant owners at the expense of their true skill?

Unfortunately, these talented and highly skilled individuals will remain unutilised unless something substantial is done to stop this brain waste and restore normalcy in the state of Pakistan.

Channo and her Assets

I have decided on a great valentine gift in advance. However, I will come to that afterwards. First, let us discuss a video that currently has an aggregate of 550,000 hits on YouTube. With a startling number of dislikes, drooling desis commenting on the shameless flaunting of female assets, some even going as far as to begin arguing over the superiority of one’s country, religion, family and the size of their respective manhoods and that is all over an Item Song. Alas, nobody is appreciating the art direction, choreography and the dance performance of our very own VEENA MALIK (I am going to hell for this)

Yes, dear readers I am talking about the new entry in the market, an item song called Channo featuring Veena ji in a certain bollywood flick-who cares about the name, they all start with the hero saving the damsel in distress and end either outside a courtroom or a nuptial bed plus some irrelevant item songs and an eventually fail villain who really needs to get a life.

Anyways, the item is a standard, one sexy lassie and a couple of thousand men, all of different shapes, sizes, colors and hairstyles, dancing and hollering around her ( somehow I am reminded of a scene from Mr. Bean ‘movie where Mr. Bean is dancing around a pedestal fan in an art gallery) . Dear readers an activity involving one woman and many men has a very precise name but since I believe that mentioning that would alert Maya Khan and Co. therefore I will excuse myself from mentioning You-Know-What, although you might know of it ( who am I kidding?).

Sorry, got distracted, but the point for which I took the trouble of writing an entire blog on Veena flaunting her assets is to tell you guys that:

Veena might just succeed where other Pakistani actresses failed.

Of course, success doesn’t come easily if you happen to seek fortune in a foreign la

nd. For Veena it came at a price of revealing – disappointingly moderate sized assets-clashes with the clerics (me gusta) and engaging in “questionable activities” with relatively unknown artistes. Probably that was enough to land her an item song and may be a movie or two and judging by her unpardonable itch to remove any clothing item in a blink of the eye, she might just succeed where Meera failed. For Meera, unfortunately didn’t realize that doing a couple of ‘hot scenes’ is not good enough to succeed in bollywood. She might have known that her so called ‘hot scenes’ are a cinch compared to the likes of our Pashto movies and the erotic rain dances in Punjabi movies. Before Meera, Zeba Bakhtiar and Salma Agha have tried their luck. Only Zeba Bakhtiar got away with a decently grossing movie called Hina (or Hena, whatever spelling you prefer). Meera did Nazar, but her acting was a target of somebody else’s nazar.

Some of these actresses lacked acting skills while others lacked the skill to effectively flaunt their assets. Now, Veena ji finds herself at an important juncture of history (too grand?). She is going to bollywood at a time when Atif, Ali Zafar and Rahat are selling like hot cakes in a bakery opened to people who have been starving for a week. Then there’s her God given confidence of going around naked without any shame (you go girl!), acceptable acting and considerable mimicry skills and her no fear attitude. Now that will win her more money than the past actresses. I can’t guarantee the future but Rakhi Savant would sure find a worthy competition, which would make her ‘up her game’. Veena’s (potential) success might open doors for other bold actresses and performers- and I am particularly relying on Nargis to really kick up a serious sandstorm in Mumbai. But what message are we really sending out to the world, that, we have finally entered the ‘liberal orthodoxy’ and that we are a peace and fun loving nation and to prove that we can put on display the assets of our womenfolk just like they do, hence becoming enlightened modernists, which will consequently result in the defeat of terrorism (err.. yeah..I guess) OR, it might be the case that the society of Pakistan is undergoing a major evolutionary change, the outcome of which will be a more moderate society whose extremists would not be mullahs but nudists, feminists and pot smoking vegans. Welcome to the 21^st century Pakistan.

In the end, let us appreciate and celebrate the lewd dance moves of Veena and her dazzling clothing items and that amazing electric bra.

Somewhere in the lines I might have mentioned what surprise valentine gift I am going buy.

Ciao.

Just made it ;)

Today at The City

Now I am not an attention whore. I like attention just like any other regular person on the street-perhaps may be a little more than that- but I am certainly not an attention seeking prat. There’s a slight difference between the two, a guy who is an attention whore likes to give toothy but vapid smiles, flaunting glittery clothes, mentioning the labels he or she is wearing, the latest exploits, the latest trends, all the top of his or her voice with exaggerated facial expressions and a irritating habit of looking left right and behind. On the other hand, if I wore a 5 dollar tee that has a sperm shaped Nike sign with the caption below it saying ‘Just Did It’, then that doesn’t make me a attention whore but you couldn’t help feeling a bit, elated you can call it, when people pass you looking at our tee shirt and giving you smiles (in some cases naughty winks).

So today, I was roaming Melbourne city on my own. It was a very sunny and consequently warm today. What I love about roaming the city is that I get to see many people from different countries and backgrounds. It is good sight the Norse, South Americans, Africans and Asians skittering from one place to another all jibber jabbering in their tongues, which are totally unintelligible to me. I spent an hour at Helal Kebabs, a food outlet near Flinders Street Station. The biryani there is extremely good and I have become mates with the staff.

One of the staff there is a former government schoolteacher from Mandi Bahaudin, I struck up a chat with him and found out that he had come here in the hopes of a better future, but fate had led him to this kebab and biryani shop working on a meager pay of 10 dollars an hour. But according to him if he works every day , without taking a day off, come hail or sunshine, then he can save up enough money to send back , money which is actually triple the salary he got as a government school teacher. A smattering of white hair on his head and a serious but inspiring out take on life suggested to me that he was married with children. And my guess was right. The thought of his wife and two children is the only thing, according to him, that really motivates him to get up every day and come to work and earn money. Talking to him, I realized that his former pupils had just a lost a very simple mannered and dedicated teacher. But that dedication was not enough to feed his family, so now he must reside here and save up enough money to go back and open a kebab shop in Mandi Bahaudin.

After begging my leave from there, I headed towards Crowne Plaza.

Ah! Crowne Plaza, the place with a seductive smell of deodorant, expensive suits, air fresheners, Givenchy’s, Versace’s, fresh-minted money and the smell women. Really, it’s the smell of luxury, which is a great motivator to acquire ore wealth. Some call it induced greed and some call it human nature. I call it tapping the already existing human desire to have more of everything. Anyways, I watched the Descendants there, which is a very moving story of a father trying to reconnect with his family, which is torn up by grief and betrayal. I certainly agree with the critics that this was George Clooney’s most intimate and emotional performance yet.

After the movie, I headed back to my home meeting a couple of homeless folk on the way, who were waiting for somebody to get them a cheeseburger or some drinks. Somehow my thoughts drifted to the Pakistani beggars I smiled and crossed the road to Flinders Street Station. Where I was caught up between a desire to stay in the city the whole night or head back home. I chose home.

Another Blasphemous Cartoon Publication?? GIVE IT A BREAK PLEASE !

Here we go again. Another cartoon of the Prophet ( S.A.W.S) has been published. This time the perpetrator is the Atheist , Secularist and Humanist Society of University College London (UCL). It’s a cartoon, which shows Jesus and Prophet Mohammad in a bar.

This all has been done in the name of freedom of expression. I for one am a great believer in freedom of expression but this, my friends is not freedom of expression. Religion, generally hasn’t been my strong point so talks about religion don’t interest me, but when you talk about offending people in the name of freedom of expression then that really infuriates me, because it goes against every secular ideal I stand for.

We must ask ourselves, why do countries adopt secularism and not a theocracy? It is because secularism guarantees the freedom of expressing faith and the state guaranteeing the adherents of a faith or a belief its protection against attacks both verbal and physical. This much has also been mentioned in the 2005 World Humanist Congress that the state should intervene to protect human rights from gross violation, even if based on religious doctrine or enshrined in religiously based civil law.

Now, here we must highlight one point that humanists consider themselves as a separate religion and in The Humanist ((Vol. I, 1941, p. 5), Oliver Reiser, a signatory of the Humanist Manifesto, stated that:

The one great hope for democracy lies in the development of a non-super naturalistic religion which, unlike other intellectual movements, will be non-academic in its appeal to all civilized individuals. This new foundation for a coming world-order must be the emergent outcome of the thought-content of a universalized culture….

The god of this coming world-religion, that is, the object of reverence of scientific humanism, is the spirit of humanity in its upward striving.

This point is also supported by humanist like Burdette Backus and Kenneth Patton. Simply put, their “religion” is against “supernatural and theist religion”. Thus if they want their religion to be established as a state sponsored religion then they are going directly against the sacred principles of secularism which guarantees the freedom of religion under its umbrella and most importantly it abolishes state sponsored religion.

Resolution 7/19. Combating defamation of Religions, passed in the UN General Assembly on 28^th March 2008 asserts that any intolerant and xenophobic views against religions should be discouraged and actions taken against them because they incite violence. Well that is exactly what the Humanist society in UCL is doing. Thankfully, the UK government is taking action but sadly, the Muslim response is not up to the level of their opponents. Usually, threats are given which form the staple of most religions around the world, but importantly nobody is countering with logical arguments. However, I would like to draw attention to the Ahmaddiya Muslim Youth Association London that has taken a stand and is petitioning for the removal of the said cartoons. Very ironically, the current religious attitude of some Muslim countries like Pakistan is especially intolerant of Ahmadis, which is in direct opposition to the resolution 7/19. You will be surprised to read that Saudi Arabia was actually against the defamation resolution because it would lead the Muslims to “recognize pagan faiths” and a supposed “pagan faith” namely the Ahmaddiya faith is going for a petition against the publication of those cartoons, BBC reported. Now isn’t that one heck of a conundrum.

Therefore, the solution to the problem is that we should be logically advocating our concerns against the publication of such cartoons and raise public awareness that it is as much hurtful to the Muslims as it is hurtful to the Jews when Iranian leaders deny the holocaust (which to me is detestable). Unity among Muslims is of course lacking and is an area that must be worked upon. Lastly, the educated youth of Pakistan should take a stand against such blatant attacks against the freedom of religion and come up with a strong and united front against such ‘wannabe atheists”,

Writings on the Toilet Walls

Originally published on Facebook Notes on June 9, 2011

It is funny how and where YouTube browsing takes you. I mean, just a few minutes ago I was watching these crazy RWJ videos and just clicked away the related links and went to karaokeying ( check my status update) then to seeing Arabic songs and ended up at Outlandish’s Aisha song ( originally Cheb Khaled’s).

The song somehow reminded the good old school days and the “sexeeeh” Math teacher in class 8. Since I studied in a boys only school therefore she was the only “popular gal” in the school. If there was any stereotype about math teachers in my mind then Ms Romana was the anti Christ o all those stereotypes. Whole toilets walls were dedicated to her where frustrated 14, 15 year olds wrote down their frustration of not getting her in a heart wrenching way. Some were not good at writing so they made art as their medium of communication and drew insane hybrids of the Birth of Venus and Ms Romana (simple terms: Nude Sketches). Of course, when it came to art she drew the best out of the students, but could the same things be said about math. Well…. No. I mean how on earth could I concentrate on the stupid Pythagoras Theorem when she was in the teachers desk combing her long auburn silky hair and spraying a seductive deodorant at herself- It was hard to restrain.

I never really got to learn from her class because I took tuitions in the evening. All the brothers got them.

Never really, intended to write anything tonight, but this memory just came into my mind and I thought I would share it with you guys and girls.

Anyways the night ‘s cold and it late. Gotto wake up at 5, because it’s a full day shift tomorrow. May be I should listen to Nindiya Rey by Kaavish to make me fall asleep. Such a nice song on coke studio.

Anyways

See Ya !

Explanations

Explanations are required everywhere, you enter into your house at 2 in the morning and you have to explain the reason to your mother who will dutifully explain to your sleeping dad in the morning ( though with some neccesary alterations).

You have to explain yourself to the security official at the airport when he finds a jar of mayonnaise in your bag, you have to explain that its just mayonnaise and not liquid rdx or semtex explosive.

Then, you have to explain when you are in a foriegn country that you dont eat bacon, salami or ham.

Life is full of explanations isnt it?.Dont you get sick of explanations everynow and then? and you know what's the next irksome thing is?....listening to explanations. you have to listen to persons explaining to you why they stole your coffee powder or why their offensive behavior can be attributed to their drink addiction. See, i do not give a damn whether you are addicted or not and whether you had abusive parents or not. You have commited a wrong and accept that. The End. But no, we always have explanations.

If the security official finds a mysterious looking mayonnaise in my bag then instead of explaining about the origin of that mayonnaise jar i would rather prefer to have him take the jar and test it and bring it back to me, and just in time so that i dont miss my flight. ( develop a new technology einsteins)

If i have not submitted my assignment on time then i would just say sorry and 'wont happen again' to the teacher and thats about it instead of wasting my time bilging out worthless explanations.

Once a senior employee asked me that why were the sales not happenning on my store , i just replied " customers are not coming, cant do anything", that person actually waited for a minute on the phone as if he was expecting further explanations from me, when he didnt see them coming, he launched on a lecture of his own and after 10 minutes when he sought my apologetic explanation, i calmly replied " if the cutstomers come, i will sell, if they dont, then i cant do anything......anything else?", he promptly put down the phone. Leaving me free to finish the novel that i was reading befre he called.

Another set of explanations that i really HATE is explaining about my country and religion. Why do i always have to explain that Islam is a religion of peace and and we want peace and tolerance. If you you think otherwise then good on you, dont waste your time asking me for apologetic explanatons and neither would i waste my time convincing you...you see i have other more important things to do in life...starting with paying the house rent.

Here's something for the south asian journos out there, please stop being cheesy and corny about Indo Pak relations ...i mean what was that Aman ki Asha thing?...isnt that corny enough...imagine me walking to my indian friend's house and saying " i have come to your house with the message of peace and love"...how corny and cheesy would that sound? apart from being comical. Would it be really dificult to just live peacefully without any annoying displays of cheesiness ( GEO News i am talking to you).

And finnally when you die you have to explain your actions to God ( if you believe in one), ...even there you have to explain!...Christ!!....and you know what i''ll do when i get there? i would say....Dear God...here's what i have done, you have as witnesesses the two angels on my sides, send me either to hell or heaven i dont care...but just dont prolong it like Saas Bhee Kabhi Bahu thee ( it might have ended..-is it? but we have Teray Pehlu Main on the other side of the border that comes on Geo Tv..what episode are we on now?)

See ya

Bye