Lunch: Dhokray with khopra & hara dhanya chutney, Karachi

Lunch: Dhokray with khopra & hara dhanya chutney, Karachi
Originally uploaded by Ameer Hamza

Via Flickr:
Dhokray or Dhokday is a typical South Asian dish prepared using bajray ka ata, kala and safed chunay (black and white chickpeas), bengan (brinjal), hara dhanya (corriander leaves), piyaz (onions), aloo (potatoes), namak (salt), mutter (peas), methi ki bhaji and cooked with oil. It may also have a fish or a meat piece added separately to provide a complete taste. Other winter vegetables may also be added according to the taste of the cook or chef.

Green chutney is made using khopra (coconut), hara dhanya (corriander leaves), lehsun (garlic), namak (salt) and hari mirch (green chillies).

This dish and chutney were sent in by our good neighbour who wishes to remain anonymous. This was sent today on the occassion of Birthday of Prophet of ALLAH, Hazrat Muhammad (salau alihi wasalam).

Greed at the forefront of terrorism

In Karachi every second man believes that most Pakistanis who are caught abroad having connection to a certain illegal activity is a Punjabi. That may be a pun but after repeatedly reading carefully the data of men and women caught in various countries (of Pakistani origin) I can confirm to my readers that indeed the assertion is to the point on most occasions but not all.

Pick Dawn (Pakistan's top English daily) any time of the year and the chances are you would find lot of Pakistanis caught smuggling heroin / drugs, caught while crossing into either Turkey or Greece; caught while attempting to fleece a foreigner women by first marrying her then getting off with her hard earned money. Most of the times the mention of a certain Pakistani caught, executed, remanded in custody will be from our biggest province, Punjab. Yet, somehow, Punjabis of all shapes and sizes deny this vehemently. As I write this blog today, early Sunday morning, I have yet another evidence to prove that greed and not religion is at the forefront of terrorism dropping from Pakistan's soil. Yet again men from Punjab are to be found guilty; yet again our Punjabi brothers will deny anything to do with this. But somehow, the entire operation in Mumbai last week was carried out by Punjabis (I won't call them Muslims for various personal reasons). The damning proof is for everyone to read from Guardian, ne of the best English papers in the world today:

'Ajmal Amir Kasab, interrogated in custody after last month's attacks, which killed 163 people, reportedly told Indian security officials that he came from a place called Faridkot in the Punjab province. His father was named as Mohammed Amir, married to a woman named Noor.'

and further,

'A villager, who cannot be named for his own protection, said the village was an active recruiting ground for the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. 'We know that boy [caught in Mumbai] is from Faridkot,' he said. 'We knew from the first night [of the attack]. They brainwash our youth about jihad, there are people who do it in this village. It is so wrong,' he added.

According to the villager and other locals, Ajmal has not lived in Faridkot for about four years but would return to see his family once a year and frequently talked of freeing Kashmir from Indian rule.'

Greed is a natural phenomena but a disproporionate quantity of it may be found amongst most Punjabis. For instance, they divert lot of water causing massive poverty in Sindh province; they disallow other ethnic groups to become part of our elite army; Punjabis remain an exclusive nation which sees itself as a superior ethnic group in Pakistan; they have more education than anyone else in Pakistan (this last example may not be itself a bad greedy bit but certainly it allows for much more), much thanks to Punjabi bureaucrats who are sincere to their own nation but not to all Pakistanis. Punjabis, as the popular saying runs around much of Karachi, interior Sindh and Baluchistan, can sell his mother for good money. So why won't he kill / maim helpless Mumbai wallas for millions of bucks (investigations into the actual amount paid to these terrorists by LeT are underway)?

I think that I am increasingly sounding very anti-Punjabi but for all these years data analsis collected in my brain tells me that indeed Punjabi greed has made Pakistan poorer not richer.

And somehow, we need to stop all this. This tremendous appitite for more and more money is causing massive international embarassment for all Pakistanis. I hope that saner voices among Punjabis would prevail in future and would be able to stop younsters, in search of a free ticket to Mumabi and a million dollar prize, from acting like killer machines.

Just hopes!

Eid Mubarak