|||MAG||| May 10-16, 2008

Where the streets have no name

This is a title of a song by U2 - the world’s top most rock band and ironically it befits the situation in Pakistan wholly. Talk about price hike, the shortage of energy or the lawyers fighting for their rights but the saddening thing is that everyone seems more concerned about rights and political dominance. Where does the food and electricity come in the schema of all this? Dear Editor, we don't even need to look deep into this matter as if it were rocket science. What would the lawyers do if the treasury doesn't allow anyone to spend out of it? Be it for the good of the people. The treasury is not overflowing as it is - on the contrary - it is an empty cauldron that would practically do no one any good.
For once can we take a step in the right direction and at least address the issues that are in fact most significant to the masses? People sit sans electricity and praying to heavens for the atta and daal to become buyable. Let alone other gourmet food ingredients.
-Sabir Zafar
Lahore.

Thought-provoking Articles

It's good to see MAG doing so well. I like most of the things about it especially the thought-provoking articles. One such write-up was Ways to Boost your Memory in your last issue. It made for great reading and was also informative. I have been suffering from memory loss for the last few years now - nothing serious - just that I forget things all the time. I hope politicians of our country would read a little more than they usually do (which I’m sure they don’t). No, not voracious readers but simple readers, reading articles on memory boosting and retention techniques, so they don’t repeat a mistake multiple times which seems to be a norm with them.
-Sabeeha Hussain
Karachi

 

 

Omar Khayyam

A BOOK of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
O, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!

Look to the blowing Rose about us—'Lo,
Laughing,' she says, 'into the world I blow,
At once the silken tassel of my Purse
Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.'

And those who husbanded the Golden grain
And those who flung it to the winds like Rain
Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd
As, buried once, Men want dug up again.

-translated by Edward Fitzgerald

A Birthday

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life

And when like her O Sákí, you shall pass
Among the Guests star-scatter'd on the Grass,
And in your joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made One—turn down an empty Glass!
-Christina Rossetti

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