Pakistan and Webby Awards Was going through the Webby awards list .. ( these are the Oscars of the Web !! ) , found links to several interesting sites..
One was the online version of the PBS Frontline .. immediatly started watching a documentary on Pakistan and remained glued to it throughout .. ( in no small measure , because i have fallen in love with the beautiful young (for the lack of a better word) documentarer ! (is that a word ? ( are brackets within brackets like this allowed ? ) ) ..( this is like hyperlinks , my mind keeps jumping from thought to thought so I have to produce all these brackets) ..ok now closing all and returning to the main thread ) ..
These are the links to the Webby's and these are the links to my lady love :) .. ..
Do watch it !

Seriously though, the documentary in a weird way seemed so much more accessible because I could understand the language in the interviews immediatly (being Urdu ,very near to my native language Hindi ) and gave me a fleeting glimpse of whats the current mood of "that country on the other side of the border" was ..

I think for most Indians of my generation and even a generation before , we were brought up in an atmosphere which always potrayed Pakistan as the enemy , as the one country to be hated , to be reviled and abhorred. So much so that rather comically , some of my friends dont buy shirts if they see that it is "Made In Pakistan" . Ofcourse the main issue of contention is the Kashmir issue . However I still feel that Kashmir and hatred of the "other" country seems to be much more a part of an average Pakistani's psyche than an average Indian's . ( another one of my side notes here .. I took a test today of where to place a comma and apostrophe and failed miserably , I think I do need this book .. if you still dont understand why heres the story which should bring in some realization .. :)
A panda walked into a cafe. He ordered a sandwich, ate it, then pulled out a gun and shot the waiter. 'Why?' groaned the injured man. The panda shrugged, tossed him a badly punctuated wildlife manual and walked out. And sure enough, when the waiter consulted the book, he found an explanation. 'Panda,' ran the entry for his assailant. 'Large black and white mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.' .. Do you get it now ? )
In the US where we are all clubbed under "South Asians", I have had an opportunity to interact with some of them and I did get that vibe. It seems to be fundamentally linked with a Pakistani's very being . I am not exaggerating ..This documentary also points out that .. And that is why Musharraf may try as he might , but he cannot for fear of alienating his people skip around that sore point.
Ofcourse things are looking up these days, with cricket (by all means a minor religion in itself in both countries) ties being started and promise of talks in the future. I personally think Musharraf thought not democratically elected is good for Pakistan , as he appears to be promoting institutions of liberty throughout the country, is progressive and appears to be in control.. I have my fingers crossed. ..
Ofcourse I condemn the proxy war being waged by Pakistan , the terrorists it supports etc.. but still I encourage all my Indian friends that before they are awashed in the typical jingoismistic fervour which accompanies any mention of Pakistan to read the history of the Kashmir conflict and they might see that there are always two sides to every conflict , not one necessarily correct all the time.. ( a further example to substantiate this point . the war in iraq .. the conservatives in this nation do believe that the war was a necessary step and America is safer than before .. )

I read a post on slashdot which says that a researcher and his student have come out with a way to flood a P2P network with bogus files.. I think I experienced that yesterday .. I tried to download some songs through a file sharing service and found that apart from the opening few seconds the rest of the song had random electronic sounds.. hmmm no more free music :( .. which is ofcourse good .. but who doesnt like anything which was free ;) .. arent the best things in life supposed to be free..

And I also after spending 4 hours at a shoe store , ( this looks too much like something a girl would do I know.. but I wanted value for money hmmph !! ) .. i bought two pairs of fantabalous shoes.. I realize if I have to impress pretty young journalists like the one in the Pakistan video I better get my act together :) , graduate student like, socks with sandals will not do any more..  ¶ permalink