Gulbadan

NOTHING OFFICIAL ABOUT IT

This time the World Cup came home. The final was to be held in my city, and what a cool stadium the guys had come up with (though to be honest anything would have been an improvement from its previous shape which I had confused with a jail cell as a kid numerous times. Don't ask.).

The round robins, or whatever they are called, were rather boring, and the usual useless teams were disposed off. I remember going to see Pak vs Holland at Gaddafi and enjoying Waqar making mince-meat out of the poor souls. Pakistan, naturally, qualified for the quarters, and we heard we're going to Bangalore to play India. Ooh, fun!

Obviously, the excitement was unparalleled. But Wasim bhai decided to back out at the last minute due to the 'injury' (yea, try convincing the guy who stoned your house :p). Oh well, the match began, and well enough, as Ata-ur-Rehman, of all unlikely fucktards, removed Tendulkar. In fact everything went pretty smoothly till Jadeja decided to go berserk on Waqar, and all the good work was ruined in 2 evil overs. And then we batted, and oh what a start. Saeed bhai and Aamir bondi at their sublime bests. And then, oh, what comedy. What sheer, utter comedy. As any self-respecting Pakistani cricket fan would like to forget, Aamir was made to look like a complete baffoon by Prasad, and the only fetching he did was of his bails rather than the ball from the fence. After that of course, it all went downhill, and we crashed out. Half the people blame Wasim bhai, the others blame Aamir. I blame Miandad for making a mockery of his career by still insisting on playing.

Of course, every Pakistani fell in love with a random island nation called Sri Lanka when it ended up beating India in the semi-final. Divine vengeance or something, we reckoned. And Indian fans burning their stadium in disgust, to boot. Yes, yes, we were having a field day here.

And then we welcomed the Sri Lankans to our home town for the final. Naturally, being India-beaters and challengers to the perennially-constipated-and-stuck-up Australians, they got our full support. I still can't believe I ended up going to the final. Being a social outcast, I never get passes to the cool events. (I guess it helps having resourceful uncles.) Oh, how magnificent the stadium looked, and how passionate the crowd was. It was a dream for me. Notwithstanding the fact that I had horrible seats and couldn't see half the pitch.

De Silva batted on and on, and we cheered. The crowd star ted commenting on how the Aussies are overloading on chewing-gums due to the tension. And when it was all over, everyone was happy that the underdog had slayed the constipated giant.

WE RULE THE WORLD

The cricket world cup is fast approaching, and will naturally become the centre of my universe for the one month or so it continues (or at least till the day Pakistan is eliminated). So I thought why not build some anticipation by going down memory lane and remembering past world cups, or those that I had the opportunity of seeing (clearly I haven't seen all of them as I am not yet a dinosaur).

So it all started in 1992. I was an eight-year old living in Faisalabad, and remember waking up one morning and finding out that Pakistan was winning the semi-final. The only match I had previously seen was Pakistan being bowled out against England for 70-odd, and remembering I bat better in the lawn outside than this Rameez Raja fucker. Hehe. So I turn the TV on, watch a few big hits via Inzi, then see Moin Khan hit "that" six, and soon Miandad is jumping like a crazy retard, arms up in the air, and a quaint ground on the edge of the world is flooded with Pakistani flags and a couple of thousand really depressed white-boys.

Then comes the final. Imran Khan looks silly wearing a t-shirt to the toss. Some 'cornered tigers' symbolic statement, apparently. We bat. Openers useless. (I guess some things never change.) Imran hits a massive six, bats on and on. Miandad gets out playing reverse sweep (!). And then, wow, two lanky awkward boys make chicken qeema of the English. What massive amounts of fun! Innings closes with Salim Malik being run out in comical fashion.

Aamir Sohail gives Botham and his mother-in-law appropriate invitations to visit the country (get the joke, get the joke!), Mushtaq is a little, adorable genius! Aaqib grabs the catch of his lifetime, and does the coolest possible celebration! Wasim bhai swings one out, and then brings one back in, and the entire nation realizes the day is special! Moin grabs one running, Rameez takes his first skier, Salim Malik proves useful for once and gets a wicked throw in from the ropes, and (in a surprisingly consistent display of fielding prowess) Rameez grabs his second skier. Arms go aloft, heads are bowed, flags flood the MCG, we rule the world!

After the match I went out, got together with about 5-6 friends from the neighborhood, and carried out a few victory laps of the community playground, complete with flags, whistles and frying pans for sound effects. Also donated 100 rupees to Imran Khan's fund when he came to collect donations for his cancer hospital.

:D

So my four years in LUMS are almost drawing to a close. I joined the institution with great hopes and aspirations. Most of them included me impressing numerous women with my superior intellect and wit and making them swoon left right and center, spending my time surrounded by them and abandoning londa pursuits once and for all. Sadly that never materialized and most of my time here was spent enjoying (begrudgingly of course) the sausage fest that happens to be my posse of friends. There were instances here and there that broke the norm, but mostly I was a social outcast playing video games in a loud computer lab surrounding by a rather motley crew of londay.

Having said that, I’ve now decided to chronicle my time at this esteemed institution year-by-year, and will be doing so in two parts (it's too taxing to write an account of all four years in one go). First part follows (covering years one and two):

First year:

Being the ungrateful twit that I am, started out sullen and glum that I wasn’t admitted to any sexy American university and will now have to spend my time in this hell-hole.

Was impressed by the amount of poondi on show. Fantasized about getting it on with most of them.

Life’s first interaction with so many Karachi-people, of which LUMS was flooded with, was rather shocking. Naturally, made fun of their accent. Ironic that will be spending first year out of college with them. Heh.

Spent more time wasting money at Neomatrix playing games than at college. Realized country’s upper-class youth is going to the dogs.

Started doing Accounting & Finance major. Thoughts at the time: oh, this is rather easy and straightforward and I seem to be doing pretty well in it - appears to be something I can do for a living. How fucking wrong was I on all counts.

Developed strong hatred with resident Islam expert Dr.Khalid Zaheer. Reasons were purely personal: he used to have a morning class and a quiz in the beginning, and since I was always lazy I never made it on time and missed most quizzes, resultantly getting my worst grade ever (till date at least).

Closed year in love with a history teacher who never showed up again. Oh what charisma his ponytail had.

Second year:

Made out outside music room. The miffed sound of a drum beat gave a nice, rhythmic flow to proceedings.

Went to India for first time. Realized Indian girls don’t shave armpits regularly. Wondered if things were the same back home. Certain events changed course of life.

Got together with bunch of idealistic, ambitious boys and girls and started AIESEC in Pakistan. Got heavily inspired by certain Aussie girl.

Realized ACF major had no poondi. One student was nice “overall”, while one had a pretty face. Wished for some kind of genetic incubator that would combine the two and come up with a more saleable product.

Doped for first time. Felt disappointed at lack of buzz. Got weird shivering sensation instead that scared the living daylights out of me.

Got involved in some serious hanky panky for thrills and cash. Mostly thrills. Spoiled reputation. Yea, as if that matters.

Got threatened by friend’s father for landing his son in the deepest of all deep shits. Realized hanky panky has limits. Also realized some uncles need not be pissed off.

Closed year interning with some chartered accountants. Started pitying their lifestyle.

My friend complains his writings don't get him enough credit and respect. Now, that would change if he would move off his ass and for once abandon that bed he spends his days on and actually do something about it. Like, I don't know, kidnap the editor of The Friday Times and force him to publish his stuff in the 'respected' magazine.

I can do my bit though (short of providing a rope to be used in the kidnapping, that is). Here is my friend, in all his friendly glory:

On King Musharraf

On Leonardo Di Caprio and party

On degradation of Urdu/Punjabi by burger kids in LUMS

And other stuff at:
http://pkblogs.com/uaral

Enjoy. And tell us where we can find the above-mentioned editor.