Sunday, December 8, 2013

STIFLING EDUCATION

http://pique.pk/education/06-Dec-2013/stifling-education

  • Stifling education


December, 2013

Stifling education

The quality of Pakistan’s government school teaching, as well as the dire state of its textbooks, undermines the education of our children

 
A student at an ESL (English as a second language) institute in Pakistan failed a basic English exam, even though she herself taught English at a local nursery school. Sadly, the most common reaction to this is, “Oh well, they’re only little kids.”
And that is the pivot upon which this article turns. Does it matter how – or what – very young children are taught, and who teaches them? More specifically, what are the aims of education in Pakistan, and does the present system fulfil these aims?
The Constitution of Pakistan (1973) Article 7 (b)says, “The state of Pakistan shall… remove illiteracy and provide free and compulsory secondary education within the minimum possible period.” But the present picture of our education system gives a conflicted picture of whether or not these intentions are being made reality: schooling in Pakistan is not compulsory, although government schools and textbooks are free from years one to ten.
If literacy is defined as the ability of persons fifteen years of age and over to read and write, Pakistan’s literacy level is just 54.9% of a total population of more than 193,000,000 people. The small fraction of the country’s GDP spent on education in the budget (2.4% in 2010, ranking Pakistan at 161 out of 173 countries) could be augmented by decreased spending on and by officialdom, but that is not the subject here.
The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) says: “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory.” Malala was shot in Swat for highlighting the ban by the Taliban on educating girls. This makes those imposing this ban criminals, as well as those parents who do so for cultural reasons.
As for the question about young children: recent research at King’s College in London and Brown University in the US dealing with the secretion of a substance called myelin in the brain, and appears to provide the answer. The finding sindicate that the brain is at its most mouldable until the age of four. It concludes that from birth to the age of four is the best time for a child to learn a language. The better the education at that most receptive stage, the more the student is likely to learn. A teacher who is unable to converse in English herself is likely to waste this opportunity.
In Pakistan generous funding from international organisations is available, but ghost schools (institutions that exist on paper alone) and schools that offer less than the minimum requirements stipulated by the constitution,proliferate at a proportionate rate. According to a report issued by its ministry,12,794 schools in Sindh lack adequate shelter, 34,386 are without electricity, 26,669 do not have boundary walls, 23,349 do not possess a lavatory and 25,237 have no access to drinking water.
It is a requirement in the Punjab that government school teachers must possess at least a Bachelor’s degree in education. The same requirement does not apply to private school teachers. The cost of these qualifications is very low at government universities and colleges, but much higher in the private sector. Recent changes have also fixed the salaries of government school teachers to a minimum of grade 16, while government university teacher salaries start at grade 18.
The national education policy makes it mandatory for government school teachers to undergo additional training once every five years. This training is provided free of charge. In the Punjab – where the number of teachers is very large – it is not always possible for many teachers to benefit from these courses.
However, other short training courses, lasting from two weeks to six months are available, also free of charge. These courses are heavily sponsored by the British Council, USAID and other international organisations, which also provide stipends for qualified teachers willing to work in more remote areas of the country.
With all these benefits and regulations, it can only be that teacher absenteeism from their jobs and from these courses is – like other infringements in society – beyond the control of the authorities. In fact,many of the problems in the educational sphere in Pakistan appear not to be as a result of the rules,but that these rules are either overridden or too easily set aside. A major aspect of this problem is the quality of textbooks used in teaching students in government schools.
There is a vast difference between the textbooks used by students taking the OLevel exam,and those used by matriculates. This contributes to the ever-widening gulf between the haves and the have-nots, which starts with education, but goes on to other facilities (or their lack thereof), and manifests itself in the extremism, unrest and violence we see today.
Publication rights of textbooks in the Punjab are granted to private publishing houses. The books were once printed on the cheapest possible paper, such as newsprint. This, for a poor country, is understandable. The low standards seen in the rest of these publications is not, and these cannot be blamed on poverty.
I looked through some English and Pakistan Studies textbooks for classes nine and ten, approved by the Punjab Board for this report. The paper quality has improved, but even a child with the most generous secretion of myelin is unlikely to respond positively to such texts.
The English textbooks teach less English and more Islamiyat, and in the dullest possible way. If there are Harry Potter fans reading, think about Professor Binns, the ghost teacher who, without realising he was dead carried on teaching, boring his students to death. We start with a chapter about the Prophet Muhammad, which includes several lines in Arabic,and the full version of ‘peace be upon him’(in Arabic), every time a religious personage is mentioned. There are then two preachy little chapters about patriotism, followed by one about Hazrat Asma. Remember, Islamiyat is also taught as a separate subject.
Do you know what a “cataphoric reference” is, or an “anaphoric reference”? I have no idea either, and that’s in a class nine textbook for students who in many cases have very poor English. The students – most of them from underprivileged homes where education is scarce and English is not commonly spoken– are being taught terms they are unlikely to ever use again.
Some way down the line, these textbooks will produce a matric graduates who will not know to put ‘an’ instead of ‘a’ before ‘anaphoric’, but may have a nebulous recollection of what anaphoric means – only to forget it during his first job as an electrician’s or grocer’s apprentice. Besides this, the textbook repeats two chapters, omits one, and two pages in a new book are half-missing.
The problems run deeper with Pakistan Studies, which is once again a study in Islamiyat. Textbooks for this subject portray Pakistan as exclusively for Muslims. The only mention of minorities is at the end of the textbook for class ten. Clearly at that age they are considered equipped to handle such unfortunate facts of life in an appropriate way.
In her book, The Language Police, Diane Ravitch – an educational historian and policy analyst – criticises this stifling of the study and expression of views by groups with vested interests. Ravitch’s book explains how pressure groups of varying political persuasions have manipulated the content of educational textbooks, often at the expense of quality, accuracy and the education of those who read them. The result is what we see in Pakistan today.
We possess some extremely dedicated professionals – some of whom I consulted about this article, but did not wish to be quoted. Unfortunately,their voices are overridden by those unqualified in the field. If this continues, Pakistan will in turn be overridden by the rest of the world.

Monday, November 4, 2013

THE BIBLIO BUS

http://pique.pk/culture/04-Nov-2013/the-biblio-bus
Pique November 2013

The biblio bus

The biblio bus

From a humble mobile library to an enormous educational feat – Rabia Ahmed meets the Alif Laila Book Bus Society



“Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”  
Walter Cronkite
1978 was the year General Zia became the president of Pakistan, but it was also the year that the Alif Laila Book Bus Society (ALBBS) came into being in Lahore, proving, that there is always a brighter side to life.
You fall over a library every few miles in an educated society, but the people of Pakistan, grappling with their own crippling problems, do not miss what they never had. Libraries are conspicuous by their absencein Pakistan, creating a crucial void in our lives.
Alif Laila, an NGO based in Lahore, started life as a single library in a stationary double-decker bus. It was founded in 1978 by Nita Baker, who had been living in Lahore for several years, but left Pakistan the following year. That original bus still stands, and remains stocked with books and toys. Basarat Kazim is the current president of the society’s six-member Board of Governors, with Rabia Khan as vice president. Alif Laila is now successfully associated with several organisations including the Punjab Library Foundation, UNESCO, UNICEF, Save the Children, Toyota, Tetra Pak, ICI and others.
Basarat Kazim,the author of several award-winning books for children, donates all proceeds from her booksto Alif Laila.I visited Basarat after hours at her office in the private school she works at in Lahore.
“I was a raw recruit,” she laughed. “I didn’t know what an NGO was, although I worked with Alif Laila since it began.”
“Later, in the early 1980s when Lieutenant General Ghulam Jilani Khan was governor, I posted my children outside his residence with a petition for approval of library premises,”Basarat recalled. “We were given the library premises anda library was constructed for us in the park in Gulberg II, where our bus was parked. That became Alif Laila’s reference library.”
The park is now a children’s playground, and the old double-decker bus guardsits entrance.Its upper deck is equipped for storytelling, the lower one filled with books.It is reserved forboys and girls aged eight years and younger. There is another double-decker called Dastangou (or Storyteller) parked nearby, and this serves asAlif Laila’s mobile lending library.
Alif Laila’s reference library is alow, round building with a wraparound veranda tucked under a tangle of trees and climbers inside the park, and staffed by a full time librarian.Girls of any age and boys below 15 can use it during and after school hours.
All Alif Laila libraries are bright, colourful, andfull of children.Alif Laila’s facilities are available across the economic divide, meaning all children from government and private schoolsare able to use the facilities. Family income and education levels are divides that ALBBS aims to bridge.
On the day I visited, the children at the reference library were from a local government school. Alif Laila’s own bus had picked themup, accompanied by an attendant, and they were to bereturned to school the same way later. I met Khadija [name changed], who is eleven, and Atiya thirteen. They havefour and seven siblings respectively, all at school. Their mothers are uneducated; Khadija’s father is a salesman in a store, Atiya’s an Imam at a mosque.
I asked the girls several questions, including the cliché, “What would you like to be, when you grow up?”Instead of the typical reply of “Mein doctor banoon gi,” the Imam’s daughter said she wanted to work for the police, and her friend opted for the army.Other girls in the group talked about becoming dentists and computer programmers.
And so it appears that Basarat is succeeding in her ambition: enabling Alif Laila to “foster the thought processes of children (particularly girls), until they are able to think independently and critically; to build bridges, know their roots, and stand tall and proud.”
In that well lit circular room,with its spotless carpet, surrounded by books, games and DVDs, children, books in hand,sat on chairs near the shelves, or snuggled into a pit of large bright cushionsin the centre of the room. They told me they were able to borrow two books from the lending libraryfor a period of two weeks. The feefor the service is Rs. 500 per child, per year for private schools, and Rs. 50 for government schools. Interestingly, the record for books returned in good conditionis appreciably higher for children from underprivileged homes. Perhaps they value the facility more.
Alif Laila’s first major grant after its initial fundraising efforts was a cheque for Rs. 95,000 from the Dutch Embassy. The money was used to buy audiovisual equipment. When donations started coming in afterwards, including a grant from the Punjab government, a small Suzuki van was obtainedfor transporting children to and from the library, and Dastangobecame Alif Laila’s third main library, driving out to children in their own communities with books, storytellers and puppeteers on board. There is now also a pert little rickshaw adorned with the slogan “Read Pakistan, Read!”puttering around Lahore’sModel Colony, Shah Jamal Colony, Gulberg III and Walton, loaded with books for children.
At the request of the basti’s residents, ALBBS branched out for several years, setting up, running, and actually teaching at schools in Basti Saidan Shah in Lahore, whichdesperately needed more schools. It initiated classes from nursery to the third grade, providing activity based learning, and worked in the area for almost twenty years. Other schools were established at Bhabra and the old Walton airstrip.
“The children were very smart,” recalls Basarat, “but extremely poor. Our aim was to ensure that at least one person in each family became literate. We ran those schools until the squatter settlements were moved to make way for residential projects.”
ALBBSnow concentrates on libraries, and also runs hobby clubs for girls at their resource centre adjacent to the library park. This centre is run by donations from the Global Fund for Women. Girls come, or are brought to the centre from their schools once a week, to take part in clubs of their choice: computers, electronics, crafts and art – with digital photography in the pipeline. They learn about recycling, make little electronic toys, learn to use computers, make cards and bangles, and paint.That is Alif Laila’s mission, to provide hands-on experience to “enhance the capabilities of young women, creating in them a sense of wonder, the urge to explore, experiment, discover, understand and innovate.”
In February of this year, ALBBS extended their services to Multan and Muzaffargarh in collaboration with USAID, with the message‘Read, Lead and Succeed’. Its mobile library visits 40 schools in the area, and it has fitted another 100 schools with library corners and books.Earlier, they ran a one-year pilot project in Sheikhupura, funded by the Open Society Foundation, whereby a room in a local government school was decorated, equipped for a children’s library, and more than 3000 books provided.A mobile library ran for the duration of the project, and now, after that period, ALBBS continues to pay expenses for the library at the school.
Alif Laila is associated with the Pakistan Reading Project, a programme launched by USAID and implemented by the International Rescue Committee here in Pakistan, which fosters reading skills. So, in addition to its own libraries, ALBBS helps communities set up their own.
A conference organised by ALBBS took place in Lahore this October, entitled ‘Setting up Community Libraries for Children’.Participants from allover Pakistan shared their experiences and attended workshops and training session with the aim of setting up libraries in their own communities.Many participants represented disaster struck areas such as Baluchistan, so they were also looking for aid for their projects – disaster relief is another field in which Alif Laila participates.
A member of the International Board of Books for Young People (IBBY), Alif Laila received funds under the ‘Books Build Bridges’ programme from IBBY during the 1995 earthquake in Muzzafarabad, and the2010 floods in Sindh, and set up libraries for 110 schools in the affected region.
The conference was full of purpose and activity.Participants learnt about the therapeutic power of books (called bibliotherapy), performed skits, and took it in turns torelate personal memories oftraining to ‘de-inhibit’, so that they may use this skilllater in telling simple everyday stories to children.
There are, as they say, several ways of skinning a cat. If the goal is to improve conditions and provide a better tomorrow for our children, imposing bans and policing the streets is one way; but by far the most enduring solution is to equip young people – and especiallythe mothers of tomorrow – with the necessary skills for peace and survival, so they can be independent, confidentadvocates for change and rights – again, especially those of women and children. This is what ALBBS tries to do. Whatever it costs, it works out cheaper than the losses endured by ignorance
.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

WHEN A LOVED ONE DIES

Express Tribune  Published: October 23, 2013


How do people cope with death and loss of a loved one?
Dumbledore’s response to this,
‘To the well organised mind, death is but the next great adventure,’
This was interesting because truly, how people cope with death does appear to depend largely on the mind of the person (or persons) involved.  More specifically it depends on the individual’s answer to the question; which is the final frontier, life after death, or the act of dying itself?
In other words, does life go on after dying, or does it all end with death itself.
Tina may not have succumbed to her disease had her family been able to afford the on-going treatment required to stabilise her condition. Her mother expressed less bitterness and anger than expected, and coped well with her grief, saying with simple dignity that this was as much life as was given her daughter on earth, and as much time as they were meant to spend with her now.
‘I am grateful to God for it,’ she said.
Some people would say her attitude was too accepting, but here it is important to perceive the difference between an acceptance of reality and an acceptance of a wrong, much as the two overlap.
In Tina’s case the fact that she died because of a lack of finances was a wrong, and it is right to consider this unacceptable and to make an effort to prevent such a thing from happening again. Her mother however was referring to something different. The key word in her statement was ‘now’, which implies a ‘later’, which is a time when Tina’s mother looks forward to being re-united with her daughter.
It is this that gives her hope and prevents her from falling into a depression.
Louisa Blair, in the Official Publication of the College of Physicians Canada notes that people’s attitude to death and dying depends on their understanding of ‘life and when one believes life begins and ends.’ In other words (and once again) for those who believe that this life is simply one stage in a continuous process and not the end, it is easier to accept the transition, or what we call ‘death’.
One of the most peaceful conversations I have had was with someone who had lost her mother that same day. Sitting together, we spoke of her parent, and how she must be doing at that time. The daughter spoke of her mother not as lying lifeless, but as well and joyful, and said that she imagined how wonderful it must be for her mother to be reunited with her husband after she died.
‘She must have been so happy to meet him,’ the daughter said with a smile on her face, and we talked of how much her mother had missed her husband, and how much they had enjoyed each other’s company. I like to believe that the visualisation brought the daughter a degree of happiness, because she spoke also of her mother’s happy reunion with her parents and with a son who had died some years earlier.
Human beings thrive when they look ahead. This applies to societies, which stagnate when they are mired in the past as well as to individuals for whom the thought that a person who dies is only parted from them ‘until we meet again’ is a source of pleasure and comfort.
My father, asked during his final illness about what he was thinking of, replied that he was no longer concerned with those around him, but that his entire attention was fixed on ‘looking ahead’ to meeting his mother who died when he was very young.
It gave me strength, as a parent’s conviction tends to do, that if he looked forward to death, so could I, when the time comes, be comforted by the thought of meeting him again and running the natural course of things.

DADIMA’S PRICKLINESS IN RELATION TO THE FLOOD (fiction)

Printed in the WWF 'Book of the Flood: An Anthology' (2013)
FATIMA’S DIARY:
Dadima was never so starchy unless something upset her.  When the Taliban did what the Taliban do, this time in Swat, she became cracklier than a starched cotton kurta. Her hair froze in upright positions, her forehead was pressed into tight creases, and there was no getting past her without being ripped at.
Dadima has her own comfortable place in Model Town in Lahore (we live there with her), so she didn’t have to deal with those heroes herself. It was her son, my uncle Ali (and periodically his wife, Mina), who lived in Swat, and it was they who suffered during the Taliban’s brief stint in that region, and Dadima always takes her children’s problems very personally.
Ali chacha hadn’t always lived in Swat. He once had a nice little business in Karachi, until people who didn’t see eye to eye with him on certain matters torched it.  He and my aunt had obviously been expecting something like this because their suit cases were packed and waiting in the spare room, and they left for Lahore within the day. 
For the next couple of months my aunt Mina stayed with us while Ali chacha made frequent trips to the ancestral home in Swat, not far from Miandam.
We have so many memories of that home, my cousins, my siblings and I. We spent long summer holidays in the V-shaped valley, playing and fishing in the surrounding streams, and climbing the mountains with one of the adults. Once, my father disappeared for hours while on a hike by himself.  People did not have cell phones in those days, and after an agonising wait he reappeared supported on the arm of an inarticulate Pashtun, his ankle bound with someone’s turban.
When his ankle was okay again, he took us all to a tiny settlement halfway up the mountain. The man who’d brought him back lived there. Had it not been for him, my father would’ve lain hurt under a walnut tree for God knows how long.
Dadima did not come along, but she sent provisions with us to last the whole village the entire winter that followed, because people in Swat are normally cut off from surrounding areas when the snows arrive. My father paid for extensive renovations to his benefactor’s house, and my uncle endowed the settlement with its first, and only, bathroom, proudly located in the centre of that small cluster of homes. Of course they had no piped water, so the flush tank would have to be filled manually.
My aunt Mina said that when she and Ali chacha were returning home after cutting the ribbon so to speak, she saw some women running their hands in a bemused sort of way over the flush, and wondered if she should have demonstrated the right way to use it, ‘with my clothes on, of course, and just pretending, naturally,’ she added hastily, but Ali chacha’s eyes still bulged at the idea.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ he said, ‘and anyway it’s not your responsibility anymore.’
Mina chachi said it was definitely her responsibility and the responsibility of every person in this country, but she allowed herself to be towed away, perhaps because Ali chacha was gripping her elbow so firmly.
Mina chachi was born and raised in Sweden, where, as we chided her later, people took their responsibilities more seriously than she did that day; while my father said his brother was ‘a rotten spoil sport.’
It was to this house that Ali chacha went from Lahore, sometime in 2002, and converted it into a hotel. My memories continued to centre on it, now as a comfortable hotel with a billiard room and pool, surrounded by the same magnificent countryside.
But only a few years later, the Taliban took over in Swat. You’d think that all that breathtaking beauty would inspire them with a measure of serenity and humility, but I guess the sight of God’s splendour does not affect us all the same way. Increasingly, people and particularly women, were losing their freedom, and businesses being torched in the same way as Ali chacha’s factory had been, and for basically the same reasons...a difference of opinion on matters such as the right to exist, and co-exist.
Although Mina chachi had continued to spend half her time in Lahore because that is where their children studied and lived (with Dadima and us), when Swat ceased to be the safe place it had once been, she didn’t want to leave my uncle’s side. Once again he pushed her firmly out of there, and she returned to Lahore to bite her nails and pace the floors.
Two women in a brittle frame of mind was almost more than the family could bear, so that was a difficult time for all of us, quite aside from our worry concerning Uncle Ali’s safety. Dadima alternated between begging him to come home, and praying for the eternal damnation of the soul of each and every militant. But Ali chacha was adamant and remained in Swat. He probably viewed the situation as an opportunity to vindicate himself on a mindset that had already hurt him and his family once.  He agreed, however, although not without protest, to convert the hotel into a low key rest-house minus the uryani and fahashi ; in other words, the billiard room and pool disappeared, because as in the Urdu idiom, they simply invited the bull to ‘come gore me.’
 Most unwillingly, he hung a picture of the Ka’aba prominently in the foyer, as well as placards in each room with a ‘traveller’s prayer’ in Arabic, and large arrows that said ‘Ka’aba this way’ or something like that.
‘I hate doing this,’ he growled at my father. ‘Why do I need to prove myself? I keep my faith in my heart and that should be enough for anyone.’ But as the eldest my father generally had the casting vote. It’s all very feudal. He said that since my uncle’s heart was so full of religious faith, he must use his head instead (actually ‘use your head for a change’ were the exact words he used) and do what he could to ensure his safety for the sake of his wife and children, and the rest of the family.
For once Mina chachi sided with someone else against her husband, so, including her in his ill temper, Ali chacha left the room.  Immediately, Dadima, standing all of an inch short of five feet to his six feet some, got stuck into him. When she finished, there was only an Ali chacha shaped hole in the floor where he had been reported standing just a few minutes before. 
‘Amma’s learnt a thing or two from the Taliban, whatever she may think about them,’ was Aba’s smug observation.
So Ali chacha returned to Swat, and led an interesting life. He never slept in the same place twice, set alarms all around, and built secret rooms in the house. It became a safe house. More and more people, with or without their meagre belongings, were fleeing to other parts of the country.  He took those who were on the militants’ hit list to the secret rooms with their eyes blindfolded, and smuggled them away afterwards. If the rest house didn’t make much money as a result, he earned much goodwill.
Since tourism, the area’s most popular source of income had disappeared, its place was filled by an already existing but now more flourishing illegal timber mafia that gave a percentage to the militants for the privilege of cutting down Swat’s trees. The locals joined in with a vim, felling timber and selling it to these merchants, who sent the logs downriver, or stored them along the river banks to be retrieved later. A man who tried to stop someone cutting down trees on the river bank was publicly whipped by a Swati Talib, who accused him of having designs on his neighbours’ halal ki rozi.
The Taliban took a bit more control every day and did what they had done wherever else they came into power. When the police surrendered to the militants, they shut down any business they considered un-Islamic, such as video stores, killed anyone they considered un-Islamic, such as girl students, and burned down hundreds of schools, especially girls’ schools, which they considered un-Islamic.
‘It’s a good thing Haaris and Sana never enrolled in school in Swat,’ a neighbour observed sagaciously, referring to my uncle’s children. ‘Sana might have had to wear a hijab!’
My father who was there, snorted, ‘I don’t mind if she has to wear a tent, honestly, so long as she’s alive enough to protest about it.’
Finally, later that same year the army launched a military action that contained the militants to some extent. It was an uneasy sort of peace, not enough to restore the urian room and fahash pool, but at least Mina chachi was able to visit her husband in Swat.  
The following summer was hotter than usual. The local children returned to the streams and rivers, and Ali chacha invited Aba to ‘get lost in the mountains’ again.  So we spent a week in the valley after a gap of several summers.
Swat had changed. Our favourite apiary at the foot of the house was burnt to the ground. The bazaars, although functioning again, were subdued in a way you couldn’t quite put a finger on.  When store shutters were down, we saw that some of them had large green and white flags painted on them.  It was apparently an indication of a place having been reclaimed by the army. In other places we saw large signs that asked people to be patient because the army was working to help them. The most noticeable change however was the awful thinning, in places a complete absence of the beautiful trees we used to love. I returned to Lahore with an uneasy feeling that there was more than age involved in this, my transition from childhood to maturity.
Soon after, the River Swat, already higher than usual, broke its banks.  Ali chacha of course was right there. I will let him describe what occurred that summer of 2010 in Swat, but I warn you, he’s a bit... erratic as a writer.

ALI’S DIARY:
My niece Fatima is right, I don’t have her passion for words, and neither do I have her cheek. In my day uncles were meant to be respected. I’ve always said that when we burped her as a baby, Fatima brought up the alphabet instead of milk. But she wants me to do this, and Mina agrees. So I will try to write about what followed, although mostly, I’m glad to be alive, that’s all.
It was unusually hot and the glaciers melted too much that summer. But just how much, we realised later when the floods came without any warning, as they generally do in these parts.
Munir, my cook, and his wife were walking around a bend in the river some distance away, when they heard a swift coursing sound. His story will give you some idea of what happened.
‘A wall of water was rushing towards us, as big as a mountain, frothing and boiling like soup with claws. It was coming so fast we couldn’t move out of the way!  We both lunged for a tree as our only chance, like a babe recognises the breast, and wrapped our arms and legs around its trunk; almost immediately the sailab reached us.’
‘It plucked our tree off the ground as easily as this,’ he brushed a twig from the ground, ‘but even though we tossed and turned over and over in the water, we clung to that tree. At the time we had no thought of anyone else, just ourselves.’
Had Munir been able to look around, he would have seen that the river had taken a huge bite out of the mountain. Of the houses on the mountain top, some hung over the side as though peering down, and of the rest nothing remained but bits of wall and metal that cascaded all the way down the slope to the water.
‘I saw all sorts of things inside the water, trees, pipes, a cycle turning over and over, and...’ he shuddered, and looked at me with tortured eyes, ‘and human bodies...’ 
‘It was full of grit which scraped away the skin,’ he held out his hands.  His arms, knees and feet were covered with deep cuts and gouges. ‘Rocks and trees were tossing around like playthings.  We could not protect ourselves from being hit, because that would mean loosening our grip. Once my wife did lose hers, and the terror in her eyes as she swept past me...’ Munir’s shook his head, as though to shut out the memory. ‘I could not hear her screams. I could hear nothing but the water, but I managed to reach her hand and hold on to it, thank God.  And then we were flung onto the bank.’
Seeing my questioning look he added, ‘Her arm is in a sling and her shoulder bandaged. It’s very painful for her to move her neck, otherwise...praise God. For others it was worse.’
‘It feels wrong to complain of our injuries, because our neighbours, our entire village except for those who were away at the time...’ his voice broke, ‘almost everyone is dead. The village was close to the water, you see, and the land does not slope away as much as it does here. The river rushed down and spread out on both sides. The current was very strong. Some people were carried away and drowned, others hit by walls or logs, or terribly wounded by metal sheets from the roofs of houses.  Whatever hit my wife’s shoulder...it too was large and sharp, although we never knew exactly what it was. The water was so dirty, and everything happened so fast!
Munir wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand, and smiled wanly. ‘We did not recognise each other when we were thrown onto the bank, we were so covered in mud and blood, but praise God, we are alive.’
Following the earthquake in Kashmir in 2005 I’d seen plans for houses using ‘green material,’ designed by the Heritage Foundation.  They used bamboo frames instead of metal, and lime and mud instead of cement as mortar. 
Why do people not use these materials for their houses, especially when they are so easily available here? Why does the government not make a push to popularise such things? Not only are these houses prettier, they cost much less; and being lighter, are far less lethal as debris during earthquakes and floods, as compared to those metal sheets Munir mentioned. Contrary to what people think, these houses also last a long time, and insulate better against the weather than cement and stone.
So that’s one for you, Fatima, seeing that you’re planning to study architecture. I hope one day you’ll be able to get around all obstacles, bureaucratic and mental, and use such things in your designs where they matter.
On the evening Munir spoke of, I too heard a thundering sound, and couldn’t understand what it was. I went on to the veranda to check.
The house is built on a slope not far from a little stream. But when I looked, a great roiling mass of water, carrying ‘bridges and horses, hedges and ditches,’ was thundering down the mountain along the stream bed. The house was off its path, but only just. I was showered with water, as I stood there with my mouth wide open, I’m sure.
Even though the flood passed in a flash, the roaring continued, approaching rather than receding. Puzzled, I looked up the mountain, and froze.
Not more water, but huge logs were slipping and sliding down the slope, like so many gigantic legs, and I was on the side of the house that faced them.
I vaulted over the veranda rails, and tore around the house, reaching the back just as I heard the first crash, followed by what sounded like a hundred battering rams. The house shook and I heard windows shatter. A door on my side of the house listed free and fell. It must have made a crashing sound when it fell but the thunderous noise in front drowned out every other. Logs rolled past me on either side of the house. I had backed into the garden, but jumped back onto the plinth and flattened myself against the wall when some logs came over the house and down the sloping lawn towards me.
The logs stopped attacking after a while, although I could still hear dull roars far below. I unglued myself from the wall, and picked my way shakily over what seemed to be an entire forest to the veranda I had left moments ago. It was stove in at the base where logs had crashed against the foundations. Logs had been thrown up at impact and shattered the rails I had vaulted; they, the rails, were now just so much twisted metal on the veranda floor, amidst broken bricks, tiles and plaster.  The doors leading into the house lay in splinters, the window frames crushed.  Glass was strewn everywhere.  I could see damage on the roof, and huge cracks in the walls, and some logs had broken right through. Had I remained there a moment longer, I would have been ground into the walls myself. Ali paste; fun.
Inside, the furniture in the front two rooms was smashed and covered with glass. Thankfully, the rooms behind were almost intact, although liberally covered with plaster and dust.
Returning outside I spotted what looked like an arm jutting out between logs near the front steps.  Bending down to get a better look, I saw a sight I will remember as long as I live: it was a body, a human male, without a head.
A wave of nausea rushed up within me as swift and furious as the river, and I vomited where I stood. Even when I had nothing left to bring up, I retched and gasped, whimpering like a child. By the time I could bring myself to drag the body out from under the stairs, and cover the poor wretch, dusk had settled.   
Here if anything was a symbol of what the people of Swat had been through these past years. Beheading was something of a speciality of the militants, and this specimen was clearly a victim of some ‘religious’ zealot. His body had either been abandoned somewhere or buried and then washed down with the flood waters. They say lightening never strikes twice in the same place. Well, stuff them.
I left the house at first light to survey the damage in the immediate vicinity. The destruction was mind boggling. Where the ground was more level, the water had spread and covered entire villages and fields. Where it sloped steeply the flood had battered its way through, cutting the earth out from under mountain dwellings, bringing them crashing down. What might have stood firmly rooted along its path offering some resistance, appeared to have rained all over my house last night, the trees.
I pushed my way through to some places in my jeep, but I could only do this where I knew the terrain well. In mountainous areas with roads as damaged as these, there is always the danger of going over a cliff. I spent the whole day shifting people and supplies from water to drier land. By the end of that day I felt like I too would be saturated to the end of my days, with water and tears.
Phone lines were down. You could see them, the poles leant drunkenly, wires snapped and dipping into the water. So thank God for cell phones which were up and running once again.  I spoke to Hashim that night. I needed him.
My brother is a crusty old so and so much of the time, but when you need him, he’s there, such as now. Here he is, taking this cursed writing out of my hands.
HASHIM’S DIARY:
We had little to say when we saw the damage for ourselves. Ali’s appeal for help had mobilised us. Leaving my sister in the house with the children, we left for Swat, Ammijan, Mina, Batool and I. As the roads were mostly impassable, we rented a helicopter from Islamabad, which cost some, but we got there. We landed in a sodden field, lifted Ammijan, Mina and Batool into Ali’s jeep, made several more trips to retrieve our supplies, and left for the rest house.
Ali looked tired, but clearly relieved to see us.  He even cracked some corny jokes about this being operation ‘Fly Swat.’ I wish the problem was as trivial as even a million flies.
We reached home late. The next day we worked out a plan of action. Ammijan, Mina, Sher (a young Afghan Ali had met), and Munir made as much space as possible in the rooms. Ali and I, with Batool, who, as a doctor was crucial in case someone needed medical aid, we drove around and brought in the homeless until the house was full.
The area was in a terrible state. A chocolate river ran alongside us carrying its destruction upon its back: cars, bloated human and animal carcases, doors, chunks of concrete, and trees. On the other side trudged another line, the river’s victims, making the long trek to camps set up by various agencies that provided survivors with food and other essentials.
I read these words somewhere, and they come back to me now: ‘Eat one of my new starvation pills, they taste like silence.’  It took hours for people to get to these camps, and hours for them to return, but they had no alternative. They did this every day in silence because they were hungry. In places where a bridge came between the persons and the camp, they lined up again and waited to cross the bridge, because as often as not proper bridges had been destroyed by the flood.  These new rope and log bridges were built in a hurry and were too fragile to take heavy loads. So people crossed a few at a time, swaying precariously over the swollen river which laughed mockingly at them, displaying its grisly load.
‘I spit in its face every time I cross,’ a man told me, his young face prematurely lined and bitter. ‘It took away my home, and my little son. He was only two.’ His face twisted and he turned away to hide his tears.
I asked him what he did for a living, and he said he cut trees. What could I say? That it was his work that was partly responsible for his son’s death and the loss of his home? That if he had planted trees instead of cutting them down, maybe the flood would not have been as severe, that maybe his son would have been alive today? What a dreadful indictment. And yet how else could he have fed his family?
It was this man who told us where the logs that damaged our house had come from.
‘There is a big timber godown up that way,’ he pointed vaguely up the mountain. ‘We stacked the logs there and they were taken away later, when their boats were free. The flood must have broken it open.’
We packed over two hundred people in the house, and three hundred outside. They cooked food themselves, and with so many fires, until we could get other fuel they used firewood, which meant more trees were cut down.  Just like when they needed the money and the wood was there for the taking.
We bathed cuts, and boiled water, and I discovered that women were strong in odd ways. When we were treating a terrible wound on a man’s arm under Batool’s guidance, Mina and Batool who turned any room in which there was a lizard into Jurassic Park, tut-tutted happily over the patient while I, the intrepid mountain climber, felt light headed at the sight. When Ammijan presided over a difficult birth, Ali and I left the house as one. We’d rather face the swollen river than an unborn baby that might not make it. 
Aid agencies, both local and foreign soon discovered us and relief goods poured in. We no longer needed wood as fuel, because kerosene, and stoves, cartons of food and useful gadgets arrived. Ali looked longingly at a nifty camp stove, and Batool at a cot that folded to fit her pocket (or near enough), and Ali and I had a mock duel with a pair of Swiss army knives till Ammijan fixed us with one of her glares, ‘Do we need any more injuries?’ she snapped holding out her hand.
‘Dear mother, thou art a basilisk,’ murmured Ali, handing back our knives. But things had improved. The International Red Cross sent a carton full of medicines for which we were extremely grateful. The Red Cross worker, a British lady, also gave us a small bottle, which, she said, was her personal gift, a cure for boils and heartworm.
Ali turned the bottle around. ‘What is it?’ he asked curiously. ‘It’s very light.’
‘Of course it’s light. That’s moonbeams collected at the full moon, while chanting the Hail Mary ten times. Just rub the bottle over an infected person’s chest. It works wonders. ’ She waved and left Ali standing there with his mouth open. This time it was Ammijan, who snorted and muttered something about white mullahs, while Mina chortled, ‘But she meant well, she meant well!’
Local NGOs gave our captive audience invaluable information on health measures such as hand washing, and boiling drinking water. Other groups such as the WWF gave talks on bio-gas and lectures on deforestation and global warming, although with all that hot air coming out of Islamabad, I fear there’s little one can do to stop the latter.
There’s little effort from above to back up all this information by means of an infrastructure that helps turn awareness into reality, so before very long the uneducated public, in beyond its depth to start with, gives up.  After all, once again, we, in our little camp, used firewood until alternatives were delivered to our doorstep just a few days ago.
Yesterday morning, a week after our arrival at Swat, Fatima appeared suddenly at the house. Aghast, we could only stare at her. Before Batool or I could say anything though, Ammijan pushed a sheet into Fatima’s arms and asked her to tear it into strips for bandages, as though she’d been there all along. ‘This is her job, as much as yours,’ she said shortly. ‘Let her do it, and ask questions later.’
It appears our daughter begged a ride on an NGO jeep. By this time roads were a bit clearer, if not by much. She said if she’d been stranded, she’d have come with them whichever way they managed to go.
As it turns out, Fatima was invaluable, not least because she can now take over from me.
Over to you, kiddo.
FATIMA’S DIARY (AGAIN):
Yeah Aba and I’m not a kiddo. I taught these women to preserve fish, remember?
I read about it long ago in one of those Laura Ingalls Wilder books. Ali chacha said they used to have the Little House on the Prairie series on TV, based on her books, when he was a kid, and it made him puke. Be that as it may, the books are definitely better. I thought about them when I saw dead fish lying around here (the smell wasn’t good), because Laura’s family smoked meat and stored it. It was done like this:
I suppose when the waters came through and then receded here, the fish was left high and dry, the poor things. So Safia and I (she’s one of the women at the camp, the zippiest old lady I’ve ever met. I mean to keep in touch with her) went on a hunt for a hollow tree. With so many logs lying around, we found one before long, and had it hauled back to camp.
We covered one end of the tree trunk, and stood it that end up on a small brick fireplace. Then we caught some fresh fish. There was not much point using the dead fish lying around and finishing what the floods tried to do, kill the (rest of the) people of Swat. We cleaned, drained and salted it, and hung it inside the trunk by means of cotton string that we dangled inside the cover. Then we lit a fire using damp wood in the brick fireplace. That was the easiest part, because most of the wood in Swat those days was damp. The fire of course smoked, and the smoke went right up into the log and hung around, drying the fish and smoking it. And lo and behold, fish that you can keep for days on end.
I got some awed looks from my students and one of Dadima’s rare smiles and even Abba and Amma looked as though they might keep me after all. There is something to be said for the ability to read after all, even if it’s just children’s fiction.
What do our countrymen do without this ability?
I’m adding this journal’s very last words...from Dadima, as requested by all her children:
DADIMA’S DIARY:
I am glad Fatima joined us. You cannot always protect children from disaster. There is too much of it around. They need to know, they need to help. The divide between our rich and poor is too wide for imagination. Seeing something on television is not the same as being there. Would Fatima have seen those dead fish had she not been with us?

Dadima over and out.   [Ali chacha dies laughing] 

Monday, October 7, 2013

THE CUCKOO'S CALLING


The Cuckoo’s calling


http://pique.pk/culture/07-Oct-2013/the-cuckoo-s-calling

October, 2013

The Cuckoo’s calling

J.K Rowling


 
‘The Cuckoo’s Calling,’ J.K Rowling’s second venture into the world of adult muggles, is the first of a promised series featuring Cormorant Strike, a private detective.
Rowling had wished to return to writing via crime fiction, starting with this book but wanted to do so ‘without hype or expectation.’ So, she used the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Unfortunately Galbraith’s real identity did not remain secret for long but Rowling wishes to continue using the pseudonym for the series, perhaps whenever she writes science fiction, just as Agatha Christie used the name Mary Westmacott whenever she wrote romance. 
“It was a fantastic experience,’ Rowling said, speaking of this brief period of anonymity. ‘I only wish it could have gone on a little longer,’ she said. She has filed a lawsuit against the persons who broke her cover.
Whilst the cover existed, the book was turned down by at least one publisher. No publishing house would have refused a known J.K Rowling book, even if she were to write as badly as Rita Skeeter.
On the other hand, when the manuscript was accepted by Sphere Books (a trade name for Little, Brown and Company, the publishers of ‘The Casual Vacancy’) even before she was known as the author, Rowling must have been chuffed. She was published  on her own merit. Not that she, the author of Harry Potter should lack confidence in that regard; which proves her other point, about expectations.
There are similarities between this book and ‘Casual Vacancy.’ Both express Rowling’s personal aversion to the spoilt rich segment of society and her empathy for the struggles of the less well off. She’s obviously been there herself and is able to take her readers there as well. 
Even while it was thought to be the unknown Galbraith’s first book, ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ sold some copies, but when it was exposed as J.K Rowling’s latest effort, sales shot right up on Amazon.
The projected books will continue to star this book’s protagonist Cormorant Strike, an Afghan war veteran, known from now on as the man linked to the investigation into the death of Lula Landry, a supermodel. 
(As an aside, celebrity names are rarely this alliterative nowadays. I wish she’d chosen another name for her famous model).
There are, of course, faults in the book, and the biggest one would have struck me even if I weren’t looking for it: Rowling here is too meticulously descriptive, which she wasn’t before. You wonder at times where a particular description is leading to?, whether it has a bearing on what follows? Will a minutely described object turn out to be a murder weapon? The closely detailed dress incriminating evidence? But no, she’s simply setting every scene very carefully before she starts the action, actually a bit too carefully. It’s only towards the end that she stops projecting the impression of being a creative writing major, doing her careful best to sketch everything as she was taught. Perhaps being less descriptive was a failing she found with her earlier writing.
On the other hand, the descriptions stop short of being tedious, and do help in visualizing the scenes and the characters although they really could have been less stand alone and more woven into the action.
So, did I read this book thinking, ‘Oh, I’m reading a new crime fiction called ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling.’ Or, did I read it as ‘Hey, a new book by J.K Rowling!’
I have to admit it was the latter. You can’t escape it, not if you’re as huge a fan of Harry Potter as I am.
Knowing who the author is increases the challenge Rowling faces: she must make the reader enjoy the book because it is good, not because she wrote it, and generate a wish for sequels.
Did I enjoy the book?
Yes, very much. The story unfolded well. The characters were skillfully drawn; I’d like to maintain their acquaintance, and I’m looking forward to the next book in the series, which will apparently be released in 2014.
This book is more interesting than ‘The Casual Vacancy.’ The plot grabs you; when everything is about to be resolved at the end, I found myself covering the rest of the page with my hand, so I didn’t see the ending without meaning to.
Still, the only way Rowling can now prove her undoubted skill in this genre is if she succeeds in selling subsequent books in the series as well as this one has sold; and also if she manages to totally eliminate Harry from their pages, and replace him with Strike.
A new hero has been born, a most interesting one.