Headline May 06, 2017/ ''' STUDENTS OF SANDUNES '''

''' STUDENTS OF SANDUNES '''

*LEST YEE ALL FORGET*  -  that for  *Proud Pakistan* at the very outstretch,  in a decade or so   its most formidable son, O'' Captain Imran Khan would be dead-

But then just so dead, well before the century is out,  would be its  other outstanding sons : Dr M Jawad Khan, Engineer Shahid shakoor, Engineer Imran Basit, Dr. Masood Reza, Munawer/MS Michigan University, Fahim Khan, Dr. Imran Bokhari, Rumi/AKD, Shafique Baluch, Haider Naqvi

And equally dead would be Shahbano Imran, Sabiha Shahid Shakoor, Talat Masood, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama,  Shahbana Rumi, Sajida Sultan Abbasi, Uzma Naqvi, Merium, Rabo, Dee, Haleema, Saima, Paras, Sorat, Zara Suhail, Sameen, Zilli,  and lest I overlook:

Hussain, Faraz Majeed, Ali Hassan,Awais, Umer Khan, Wajhat Raja, and all Prime Ministers, all Presidents, all Emperors, all Queens, all Kings, and all ordinary, and  unclassified mortals.

And by a simple statistical work : 79% of the present living mortals, would be gone to eternity: ''Ashes to Ashes and Dust to Dust''

Alas, the only earthly reality then,  is Death. And more than anybody else, Omer Khayyam puts it at its very  best :

'The world heeds not of your coming and going-

 like into an ocean, a pebble cast.*

But amongst the few things that would  Glitter and Glow   right through to eternity would be the Lord God's name-

And !WOW!  -the World Students Society casting its  *Angelic Motherly Work*   over all the Students of the World, over the whole of mankind, over the whole of Humanity.

Not dropping everything, and joining up would be worse than a crime. It would be a Sin. For which you will be accounted for  

*On The Day Of Judgment*.    

YOU KNOW WHEN  you are reading a  good book by the number of times you place a finger in to mark your place and stare at the walls.

Antara Ganguli was one great master.

*Tanya Tania* is like being in the 1990s Karachi and Bombay [Mumbai] at the same time, a time when these two cities were both terribly ugly and hauntingly beautiful.

As you read the deep, soulful and fun letters, that Tanya in Karachi writes to Tania in Bombay, you come to understand that that this cannot possibly end well, for wherever there is a deepening of friendship there is envy, jealousy and, well, also evil.

As these two girls come of age, they also want to belong to each other, except Tanya wants to belong to Tania more. 

This is a story of what happens when love is lopsided and skewed, and how much damage you can cause to the one who loves you slightly less than you love them.

What is initially a means to kill boredom ends up becoming letters fraught with death and despair, yet also filled with life-affirming stories.

Writer Fatima Bhutto found the book to be a page-turner. I found it to be every intense, and I put parenthesis in my readings just so I could make the inevitable pain pf the  'pen-pals' separation bearable. I had to armour my heart before racing to the end.

Each letter makes you dive into the response with fervour, reasons Aisha Sarwari in her brilliant review. The story brings to mind nostalgia for the era of stamp postage stamps and postmen, a time when we used to wait anxiously for letters to arrive.

The letters themselves remind you how intrusive emails and Whatsapp messages are now   -they give you no opportunity to crave them   -instant messages settle into your life like sand in your eyes at the beach. 

Ganguli could have told us how similar  Bombay and  Karachi  are, but instead she shows us with the sea,  with the streets and with the people who manage our houses.

The backdrop against which these letters are set is tenacious and wanting  -the mess one's parents generation create because they know not how to navigate intimacy and ambition.

The author is equally descriptive in defining how the politics of India and Pakistan    -two countries that sit almost in each other's laps, but never look into each other's eyes   -have marred these young girls lives.

She defines with varying color, hue and light how countries turn fascist and how utterly normal lives turn grey and murky almost overnight as a result.

With just a few strokes of her artistic paintbrush, Ganguli shows us everything that is putrid about class struggle, religious bigotry and the disregard with which-

*South Asian families raise their daughters compared to their sons* 

So, as letters fly back and forth, a simple friendship turns obsessive.

The Honour and Serving of the latest  *operational research* on  *Lines in the Sand*  continues. Thank ya all for reading and sharing forward. And see you on the following one:

With Loving and Respectful dedication to Humanity. See thee on !WOW! -the World Students Society, Sam daily Times : The Voice of the Voiceless and  Twitter-!E-WOW!   -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Transmuting '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless