Marbles

See the comments. Just one interview in good English and the perceptions are already changing. If there's one thing the Taliban have learned over the years, it is how to do PR. And the fact the the interview was given to a Western female journo in Kabul couldn't have helped more.

2011

Since you seem to have insider knowledge of the deepest covert operations conducted by the US and its proxies across the region, anything anyone might say would sound redundant. But I have only one observation to make. You seem to credit the US with so much power and reach to shape every bit of policy and its outcome, as if they or any of their proxies could never fail in their objectives. I am sure the Americans feel flattered.

GHQ Rawalpindi wins the war after 20 years of perseverance. US and India bite the dust. Since the West and its allies like to blame Pakistan for the resurgence of Taliban, we might as well take the credit for once. #copied

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/jan/15/coronavirus-live-news-hospitals-in-brazilian-state-at-breaking-point-amid-oxygen-shortage-global-deaths-near-2m

For those who say nations should forget past experiences and move on, this is yet another example that collective historical memory is difficult to shake off. Other prime examples are Confederate flags inside the US Capitol about 150 years after the US civil war ended. Some Pakistanis believe polio vaccine is a foreign conspiracy to sterilise Muslims, because CIA ran a fake campaign with legit doctors who went from door to door on a spying mission while administering plain water to infants. Iran's distrust of everything and anything that comes out of the mouths of white men in suits. Etc.

"During his visit to Saudi Arabia, Vladimir Putin was greeted by a tune very familiar to him. Though judging by his facial expressions, he couldn’t quite remember where he had heard it before."

Farewell by Agha Shahid Ali, a poet from Kashmir ------- At a certain point I lost track of you. They make a desolation and call it peace. when you left even the stones were buried: the defenceless would have no weapons. When the ibex rubs itself against the rocks, who collects its fallen fleece from the slopes? O Weaver whose seams perfectly vanished, who weighs the hairs on the jeweller’s balance? They make a desolation and call it peace. Who is the guardian tonight of the Gates of Paradise? My memory is again in the way of your history. Army convoys all night like desert caravans: In the smoking oil of dimmed headlights, time dissolved- all winter- its crushed fennel. We can’t ask them: Are you done with the world? In the lake the arms of temples and mosques are locked in each other’s reflections. Have you soaked saffron to pour on them when they are found like this centuries later in this country I have stitched to your shadow? In this country we step out with doors in our arms Children run out with windows in their arms. You drag it behind you in lit corridors. if the switch is pulled you will be torn from everything. At a certain point I lost track of you. You needed me. You needed to perfect me. In your absence you polished me into the Enemy. Your history gets in the way of my memory. I am everything you lost. You can’t forgive me. I am everything you lost. Your perfect Enemy. Your memory gets in the way of my memory: I am being rowed through Paradise in a river of Hell: Exquisite ghost, it is night. The paddle is a heart; it breaks the porcelain waves. It is still night. The paddle is a lotus. I am rowed- as it withers-toward the breeze which is soft as if it had pity on me. If only somehow you could have been mine, what wouldn’t have happened in the world? I’m everything you lost. You won’t forgive me. My memory keeps getting in the way of your history. There is nothing to forgive. You can’t forgive me. I hid my pain even from myself; I revealed my pain only to myself. There is everything to forgive. You can’t forgive me. If only somehow you could have been mine, what would not have been possible in the world? ----- My memory is again in the way of your history. It is one of those instances when one line of poetry can say more than reams of prose. Such a powerful and beautiful verse!

Those who are worried about Whatsapp should get rid of their Facebook accounts first