Category: World

One of the biggest modern day robberies in restaurants is of Mint Margarita. They charge as if they are offering Margaret with the Mint. Prices are like Rs.300 or Rs.400 per glass. Some places offer the same for over Rs.500.

All it has is iced water, mint, 7-Up and lemon. Some may add salt. That’s all. After some sips, there’s only ice hitting your brain more than your thirst. But people are obsessive about this particular drink.

Same goes with the lime water. A little cheaper than Mint Margarita but more or less, it’s nothing but a robbery.

Anyway, one has to drink something. Even water isn’t at regular price when you are inside. But still, it’s water. It is what it is. Like – or unlike – Coke.

Dear consumers! There’s no Margaret with Mint Margarita. It’s just iced mint. Stop being obsessive about it. Her.

After Alex Murdaugh’s sentencing, one thing that comes in mind is that even though human history is full of murders but something isn’t right in America right now.

Here’s an epiphany:

Robbers and thieves murder for food or wealth. They have a reason or motivation, sometimes accidentally; but they do it to gain something or to remove the witness.

Some murder for revenge. A clear motivation.

Some murder to hurt a particular person. Another clear motivation.

And there can be other reasons. All wrong but there is always something behind the ugly action.

But America’s recent history of murders – and mass murders – is insane. Convictions have shown that murderers murder for fun there. Murder to taste blood. Murder for the sake of murder only. No clear motivation. No revenge. Nothing. Just murder. For fun.

Like the recent case of Bryan Christopher Kohberger who stabbed and murdered 4 students.

And some, when they aren’t caught, goes into a habit until they are caught. For example, in a small Muslim community of Albuquerque, New Mexico, a man is killed every once in a while and murderer is yet to be caught as there is no dot to connect between the random murders, except the pattern of murdering.

Maybe it is something like rape when rapists don’t enforce themselves on others for sexual pleasure but to show power.

Remember that serial rapist Marc O’Leary? He did once. Didn’t get caught. So he went into this habit and was only caught accidentally. Sexual pleasure was secondly for him.

School shootings are usual news in the US. Kids are perhaps as much unsafe there as they are in Afghanistan. Other countries wake up from slumber when their schools are targeted and the US is still debating about freedom of guns and bullets.

Anyway. It’s insane. America is giving tough time to Russia and China at global level, but deep down the society at individual level is scary as hell.

As if every murderer there is an American Psycho – who is into murders and executions just for fun or addiction.

It’s debatable. This epiphany. But if something is wrong with a murder anywhere, then something is insanely wrong with murders in America.

Russia attacked Ukraine in Feb 2022. It’s September 2022. Ukraine is yet to be conquered. Or defeated. How embarrassing is that for the not-so-red army?

Let me rephrase.

Russia has the biggest arsenal of A-Bombs. It spends around $70 billion annually on its military with active personnel of over 1 million and over 2 million in reserve. This country has its own R&D in weapons and is a provider of tanks, jets and weapons to the world.

In comparison to that, Ukraine has an annual military budget of less than $5 billion with zero A-Bombs. It has less than 0.2 million active personnel and less than 1 million in reserve. And it doesn’t export war weapons or equipment at a massive scale.

Right now, Russia is considering the import of weapons from North Korea. Yes, it is embarrassing.

Just recently, the Ukrainian army was able to re-capture lands from the Russian army. The tussle between one of the biggest vs one of the smallest is not ending any time soon.

Now visualize how stupid you are.

There is another country that has weapons of mass destructions. A-Bombs. Arsenals. Depots. Long-range and short-range missiles. One of the biggest armies. One of the finest air forces. Navy. Everything. Yet the country remains an insecure state – internally and externally.

Two choppers can penetrate around 200-km and operate, kill and go back out of a military city, yet no one bothers. The largest province can fall under the fate of collateral damage, yet nothing shakes. Dig the earth and out come missing bodies. Or you may land on a landmine and the ashes of your body may spread in the air with the wind blowing from east to west…  because humans are insecure.

This insecure state goes into talks with their bloody foes every once in a while, to be in conflict again, again and again, so that people won’t be able to forget 144 or 444, and the holy war of blood continues forever. And ever. This goes on and on because you are myopic with the least idea of history of mankind. Of any kind.

When flood comes, we have nothing to offer. We let the bodies float. Their homes. Their crops. And their whole existence and decades to come. We beg the world for help. Because we have utilized all our funds already on least important priorities. The Finance Miftah has already taken the last bite from not-yet-drowned struggling lives. For him too, priorities are based on taxing those who are barely surviving.  

The world order has changed. It is not about territorial gains anymore. It is about capitalism, MNCs, wealth, technology, education and smartness. America left Afghanistan because it was expensive to sit on a land which has absolutely nothing to offer to humankind. Idiots think that America lost in Afghanistan. Well, the loser has an American Dream that every fragile ego wants to dream while the winner has yet to see a railway track or a proper school. Twisted idiots.

Ukraine is an example that reveals how brainwashed you are. You already have enough to defend against a giant army. You already have enough to defend against anyone. Your insecurity and all the internal follies and the games with blood are all related to certain duffers on the top who are addicted to vampirism. Even in the worst of economic times, the deep state made sure that their funds won’t suffer. Let the whole country suffer. When the whole country suffers, the whole country shall look for boys. Then boys shall come. In choppers. Throwing food. Man-o-salwa. Play this on repeat.

See how stupid you are?

You need unbureaucratic institutions. A human version of police. Non-political military in barracks with scrutiny. Highly funded R&D. Science based schools, colleges, and universities. Liberal arts. Acceptance. Rationality. And a little minding of your own fuckin’ business without poking your circumcised brain in every other belief system.

Her majesty is gone.
Took too long.
His Majesty has taken the throne.
And you have His Highness all along.

Everything rhymes these days. Cool.

By the way, the actual hero who died in recent days was Mikhail Gorbachev of Russia who ruled from 1985 to 1991. He stopped the red bloodshed and made smooth transition to peace after fall of Soviet Union. He was way ahead of his time and was not blamed for corruption even by his enemies.

Even the strongests die. Doesn’t matter. Everyone dies. What matters is how you lived and loved. Here, in this part of the world, we die randomly. Random incidents and accidents. Flood has taken a whole generation to decades back where people have to start struggling and living their lives from point zero.

Maybe, someday, we will start valuing LIFE here, which is as vulnerable as a dream but as impactful as a bad nightmare.

Cold War between America and USSR made the way to space. Just to attack each other’s capital at a distance of 7,816-km through rockets, the two went up in the air. Up, up, Until space. And then moon. Cold War is the reason that world is getting into the extended universe today. Interstellar.

Capitalism is the reason people have stuff. So much stuff, inside and out. Cars. Mobiles. Laptops. Clothes. Shoes. And hundreds of unnecessary things. Capitalism has offered cheap fast food 24/7. Globalization and McDonalization. You can tap your screen and anything will be at your doorstep at a pretty competitive price. The connected world through smartphones and internet at almost ZERO charges (as you are the product in such cases) is a blessing (in disguise) of capitalism. No more expensive calls or long awaited letters.

Colonialism had its own givings. Rails reached all across the world from UK within three decades only because of colonialism. The tracks were constructed in Africa and Asia which failed to expand after colonialism collapsed. Afghanistan has none even today.

Colonialism is also a reason that world have maps today. When Europeans sailed into oceans to find and conquer new worlds, they made maps. East India Company gave India its first accurate and comprehensive map. The same colonizers found heritage sites like Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro which were nothing of concern for locals.

Colonialists came with technology. They built dams and dug canals. Made new cities with new businesses and banks. Some of the giant cities of South Asia were established / expanded by the British Raj; including Karachi, Calcutta and Mumbai. Our tourism hotspot – Murree – has also a colonial history. Every major city of South Aisa has Raj’s monuments, schools, universities, hospitals, roads, bridges, tracks, museums, libraries, etc.

Spanish Colonialists went to North and South America and made their ways there. All the colonizers were cruel and unsympathetic, no disagreement. They annihilated some of the oldest tribes in America, Australia, Africa and New Zealand. There is not a single New Zealander aboriginal alive today.

New Zealand didn’t even exist for humans as no one reached there till 800 years ago. Today, we have Kiwis who lose finals in Cricket and Lord of the Rings.

Darwin and his theory of evolution also resulted through colonization. He was part of a sailing mission to find and conquer new world. European colonizers used to set voyages with scientists, botanists, etc. So came Darwin in one of the voyages of Royal Navy. He collected and studied species across the world for years and thus evolved Darwinism.

A thousand years back, Asians ruled the world, Europeans didn’t count, and America didn’t exist. People feared the giant armies of Asian Empires, particularly of Arab, Turkish, and Chinese. But they were least innovative and had no thirst of finding new worlds beyond oceans. They just wanted to rule Asia.

For example, gunpowder was innovated in China. For 600 years, it was used in fireworks only, and no one thought to use it as a weapon. But then, one day, Constantinople’s walls were bombarded by gunpowder by Turks. Fateh!

Anyway, when Europe was thirsting around the world and finding America and Australia, Asia was busy fighting Asians. When Europe was rising from ashes with ships, warships, companies, banks, royal armies, scientists, innovation, rails, and technology; Asians had swords and elephants. Soon, Asian giants succumbed to mere couple of hundreds of Europeans. A few intelligent and cunning colonizers conquered the rich world of Indus and Ganges.

Such is the history of the world. Cruel.

No one talks about the Russian soldier who was wounded in snow when Napoleon came. We don’t even know the history of common people and their sufferings. We know the history of emperors and empires only. Only fiction based on true events told us some actual stories. War & Peace of Leo Tolstoy told us that the wounded soldier staring the sky was Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky. Relax! It’s a fictional character. Just like Zia of A Case of Exploding Mangoes. Pun intended!

After all, fiction is the powerful imagination of the unheard.

Greed made every single product around us. Capitalism made this whole world of today. We were going to be a century back (comparatively, not genuinely) without capitalism. Wars made new empires. Empires made nations. Nations bacame states. States give us goosebumps today with looney-tunes on parade days.

And then the system brainwashes you. Let me give you an example.

Mass transit is a system for public. A service. There can be debates and disagreements but the state makes you think that it’s a burden on nation. The service is not generating enough revenues and is running on government support on taxpayers money. And you forget, you are the taxpayer and it’s a service for you. You keep your eyes close on huge useless military budgets. You have no questions for fencing and unfencing of the border. You have no issue on hundreds of billions utilized on houses of generals, governors, ministers, bureaucrats and their luxury kitchens and cars and roads to their homes; but, metro is a burden. And you debate these burdens with your friends. This is the system and you just keep on playing as a pawn for the queen.

Nothing catchy in homeland. Any homeland It’s just the business of the riches that makes you a patriot. Or a traitor.

By the way, are you a fan of Shahrukh Khan? Haven’t seen a human-brand bigger than him. The tunes of his songs takes us back to late 90s and early 00s. Nostalgic compositions of A. R. Rehman, the finest one after R. D. Burman.

Easy! It’s Random Numbness. SRK can have a cameo appearance anytime.

90s had its nostalgic charm. Telephones were there but no smartphones. Computers but no laptops. CDs and DVDs were the game changers but VCRs and casettes were alive. Marriages were organized mostly on streets. And 80s. 70s. 40s. 1800s. As Sylvia Plath wrote, “I’m nostalgic for a place that doesn’t exist. I’m homesick for lips I’ve never kissed.“

Nothing serious. His Highness didn’t post anything new for last some weeks. So, here is this Random Numbness on ideas / ideologies we hate but these ideas / ideologies shaped us. And the world around us.

Ending this with John Lennon:

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you’re so clever and classless and free.
But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see,
A working class hero is something to be.