There is this Swoy-parast[1] who lives somewhere near Greenland. Not necessarily the island; it could be the figurative cloud cuckoo land where everything is green — from the chaddi to the notional flag. This particular Swoy-parast is not a Kashmiri, but occupies (no pun intended) a bully pulpit from where abusive intercontinental speeches are pelted at Kashmiri nay-sayers like me, what with the Swoy-parast having written a book on Kashmir, which is all it takes to obtain authority and to bully Kashmiri skeptics.
The Swoy-parast spends hours concocting an elaborate apologia couched in Leftist jargon of swoy-parasitism, wherein ‘Nizam-e-Most Awful’ is a Utopian State where acid gets ‘accidentally’ spilled on uncovered female faces and the ‘Klashkoofy[2]’ of 1990 is an ‘innocuous’ chor-police game played by ‘innocent’ kids that would put those kids of Lord of the Flies fame to shame.
Anyway, this Swoy-parast and
I were added to a tiny secret Facebook group by a mutual Facebook friend for a
mysterious reason only Mark Zuckerberg would know about. What follows is my
last semi-private conversation in the group with the Swoy-parast on
15th August:
SWOY-PARAST: [posts] Joke
of the day – “Happy Independence Day!”
ME: LOL
SWOY-PARAST: Really LOL or
are you being sarcastic?
SWOY-PARAST: Anyway,
thanks for this breather. I am completely exhausted fighting with you on that
Inqalaab (revolution) thread.
[So easily exhausted, I
thought. Age is showing on this warrior. Apparently, using photos from younger
days as profile pictures has not been working.
The Inqalaab (Inka Laab,
as against Sabka Laab) was a Facebook thread where the swoy-parast brigade
suffered a series of humiliations from yours faithfully, a thread whose sharing
permissions have since been restricted. “Lest The Reek[3] earn
a bad name.” What’s in a name? quoth the Bard. That which we call The
Reek, by any other name would smell as putrid.
[The Reek is
the ostensibly ‘human rights’ struggle to form Islamic Republic of Kashmir
(IRKsome State) and/or the struggle to merge Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley
with Pakistan. Please note that The Reek has no
connection with the Nazi Reich, yet, though a seemingly liberal swoy-parast comrade has suggested doing a Subhas Chandra Bose and
seeking the help of Hilter’s ghost. Like I have always maintained, “History is
not a science; it is a séance.”]
ME: [responding to the
comment on Independence Day joke] Not sarcastic. It is really a good one, since
there is no such thing as ‘independence’; only ‘interdependence’.
SWOY-PARAST: Let us cut
the nonsense. I despise your position on Kashmir and I hate all the
semi-literate sheep that you herd in your Moderate group.
But Sualeh, you, you I can
be friends with...
[Damn, I thought. The
Swoy-parast wants to buddy with me! And to take me to Swoy-parast rave
parties where I’d be made to smoke what they do and share their visions! Ah,
the ol’ ploy of cunning (Unhappiness) Factory Bosses of compromising the
Workers’ Union Leader the Swoy-parast thinks I am. But, no
problem: I’m comfortable being friends with people whose political positions I
disagree with, for my fight is against an ideology (a theology, actually) and
not against individuals.
But I wondered if
this Swoy-parast would express the desire to buddy with me in
an open forum in front of all swoy-parast comrades... Hmm...]
SWOY-PARAST: Do you even
know how despicable the semi-literate Moderate sheep you herd are? How
horrible? How dirty?
ME: See, I am no herder or
leader and I am not responsible for the actions and words of other people.
[What’s with the snooty
semi-literate semi-literate jibes? I wondered. In the case of this
particular Swoy-parast, I could barely make a distinction between
Ivy League and Poison Ivy. I would any day trade off any academic degree for a
saner mind and better perspective. Perhaps this Swoy-parast had
assumed that I am highly literate and wanted to use that to fill me with
contempt for the members of Moderate group whom the Swoy-parast has
assumed to be ‘semi-literate’. The dukhtaraan (daughters) of assumption! For
the record, I am not even Post-graduate.]
SWOY-PARAST: And I don’t
know how you can cozy up with those two horrors. And I feel it is not
worthwhile to speak with someone who can be friends with those two.
[This was it. It is one
thing trying to befriend me, but it was abysmally low, even for a swoy-parast,
to try to create a wedge between me and my two best friends who are among the
most wonderful humanists, secularists and rationalists I know.
And I marvelled at the
human capacity for self-deception. As I mentioned earlier, my fight is against
an ideology and not against individuals. And the Swoy-parast was
also saying “Sualeh, you, you I can be friends with,” despite despising my
political position on Kashmir. Then what Karakashi logic is it to expect that I
will dump two good friends whose ideology also matches with mine, for someone
who keeps abusing me, despises my position, and has an ideology I am against?
:-/ Yet another utopia.
It was getting clearer
with each passing day that swoy-parasitism is a psychiatric
problem and cannot be addressed through logic and rationality.]
ME: //And I feel it is not
worthwhile to speak with someone who can be friends with those two.//
If this is your last speech,
good.
SWOY-PARAST: Also, you so
gleefully agreed with that Peekay[4] man in the
Moderate group.
[The man the Swoy-parast mentioned
is a small fry in one of the many inebriated factions of Peekay,
another swoy-parast organisation formed by right-wing Kashmiri
Pandits as a counterweight to The Reek after the exodus of the
Pandit minority community due to Islamist ‘Kalashkoofy’. And this Peekay man
is a masochistic Khunza Kokur (plucked chicken) who keeps
returning to the Moderate group for daily grilling.
Does my commenting on the
Pakistani News link that the plucked chicken posted amount to me being in
cohorts with Peekay, an organisation we grill in white wine
marinade on a daily basis, the same Peekay that considers
Moderate group as Adversary No.2, the first being The Reek? Often,
accusations of bias emanate from biased perceptions. Being a Moderate means
being accused by both swoy-parast extremist camps for batting
for the opposite camp. This predicament of the admins of the Moderate group
reminds me of the Kashmiri saying: Passis kharaan poss; gharawaalis
doshwaiy (One guest dislikes the other guest, but the host dislikes
them both).]
ME: Yes I did agree with
the contents of the Pakistani article that he posted.
SWOY-PARAST: Ha! That
makes you a sick and compromised poor little soul.
ME: But I have also agreed
with you occasionally.
SWOY-PARAST: Ha! When was
that? Wouldn’t I remember then? Huh?
ME: [after searching the
archives] Here is the link to a Moderate thread. < link to MVJKL thread >
As you can see, I agreed there with the bulk of the facts in your article,
though I had reservation about a couple of factoids that contradicted the bulk
of the facts I had agreed with. Does that simple agreement make me a swoy-parast as
well? I am a rationalist who will agree with some fact no matter who says it,
strictly on a case-to-case basis.
And if you notice, you
were being extremely abusive on that thread against group members. But I, as an
admin of Moderate group, defended you though you did not deserve the special
treatment. The thing is, I was aware of your habit of playing the
chest-thumping ‘victim’ after being confronted for your abusiveness and of your
habit of running to your wall and weeping on the shoulders of swoy-parast comrades,
saying how horrible the people in the Moderate group are.
Nonetheless, my treating
you with kid gloves was futile. After pelting a volley of abuses, you flew to
your perch on your Facebook wall and rained tears and extracted solidarity from
your Islamist comrades. Bad habits die hard.
SWOY-PARAST: [No answer.
Leaves the semi-private group.]
......
Epilogue:
A little bird told me that
a post appeared on the Swoy-parast’s personal wall that is
inaccessible to me:
//“Sualeh Keen: You so
gleefully agreed with that Peekay man in the Moderate group!
You hypocrite! Do you really think you have any credibility left when you
associate with such known bigots? Who are you, then, to raise fingers at
figures in the azadi movement and call them "fundamentalists"? I dare
you to discuss this with me!”//
I was reminded of the
lyrics of Megadeth’s Sweating Bullets: “Well, me... it's nice talking to
myself.” In hindsight, which is always 20/20, the whole song seems apt. But I
am not surprised. Bad habits die hard.
And I am happy for the
plucked chicken; he is becoming famous among the swoy-parasts. He
may yet become the general secretary of his 5-member Peekay faction.
I can already hear him clucking in happiness: PK PK PKKKAAAKK (Here PK can
stand for Peekay or for Pakistan — take you PicK.)
P.S.
Please don’t ask me who
this Swoy-parast is. Thank you in advance. I don’t like to
play dirty. And I am not going to reveal her name.
P.P.S.
I have a feeling that the swoy-parasts, overly-optimistic
used-car salespeople as they are, would send yet another head-hunter my way, to
try to seduce me to their side. You see, people who have faith in a utopia
never give up, despite all evidence towards the contrary. Each fool is replaced
by another fool who thinks she/he can achieve the impossible and that the
previous one was, well, a fool, and tries to chase the same mirage again and
again... ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
However, hoping against
hope that the swoy-parasts utilise their time in polishing the
marble of their castles in air and not waste it in trying to conscript me in
their deluded ranks, I dedicate a song to them. Hope they get the message loud
and clear (it is repeated again and again in the song, just in case they miss
it :)
Terms (Courtesy- Sualeh
Keen):
1. ^ Swoy in
Kashmiri means stinging nettle. And swoy-parast means a worshipper of that.
There is a Kashmiri saying, "Anyim swoy, vowum swoy, lajyim swoy
panasee" (I brought the nettle, I sowed the nettle, I only was
stung by the nettle). Ergo, the separatists started an violent armed uprising
and now that their militancy was crushed leaving so many dead, they are crying
and saying, 'Foul! This is human rights violation!'
2. ^ Kalashkoofy means
Militancy. Militants were armed with Kalashnikovs (AK-47's). Kalashkoofy is a
portmanteau of Kalashnikov and Bewakoofy (stupidity). This was coined by local
folk artists to refer to militancy.
3. ^ The Reek is
a pun of Tehreek(e-Azadi).
4. ^ Peekay is
a pun of Panun Kashmir
