Dynamics of First Love

Those who have experienced love are testament to the fact that love is, indeed, breathtaking. If it grips you, it will make you do silly, very silly things. Things one could not imagine of doing in everyday life as the feeling of first love is everything but normal. If you are in love for the first time it is very much expected that your good sense will go out the window, very soon, intentionally. It is for this reason that the following would only be really understood by those who have gone through this wonderfully insane feeling-first love!

THE FALL

The phrase FALLING IN LOVE is the perfect way to describe being in love. As to me, falling in love is like the jump of an immature adrenaline junkie off a cliff. The immature boy is not aware of the potentionally life threatening consequences if something goes wrong. He is too busy being mesmerized by the view of the water (Let's assume that the water is his beloved) below. The boy sees the water (his beloved) for the first time and is mesmerized by the sheer beauty of the view from above. He has never seen a more beautiful view and without thinking the dynamics of the fall, he becomes adamant on meeting the water. He, thus, takes the fall. He is tearing down the air waves to meet the water (his beloved). As he gets near to the water; he is so nervous he thinks his heart may burst out of his chest. But this is excited nervousness and the fall pushes him further towards the water.

THE SPLASH AND THE ADDICTION

 He finally splashes in the water. A sense of calms overwhelms him and he luxuriates in that feeling for some time. He feels complete in that very moment. And in no time he gets hooked to the fall, the speed at which he tears the airwaves and the splash. So much so that life outside the fall fails to amuse him. His whole life begins to circulate round the fall to meet the water (his beloved). However, one fine day he jumps and midway through the jump he sees some rocks in the water. He lands safely and ignores the rocks, and that day onwards the rocks keep adding up but he overlooks them every time. His confidence to land safely is immense and he thinks of those few rocks as harmless.

THE BETRAYL

A day comes when the adrenaline junkie is fully addicted to the fall and the feeling of meeting the water(his beloved).He considers this fall as an any other fall but mid way through the fall, he realizes that the water(his beloved) is changing colours. The beautiful clear water is turning in to hard rock ground.  A sense of disbelief surrounds him and he thinks that the ground would change in to water any second but this thought quickly leaves his mind as he approaches water and can see the ground more clearly.

The adrenaline junkie cannot figure out as to why would the ground change colours but he has little time to do so. In utter desperation he tries to go back, but where is the poor boy to go. After all, He is in mid air.

Just before touching the ground, he closes his eyes and wishes that the ground changes in to water but before he could open his eyes, he is dashed onto the ground, have broken every bone of his body.

THE RECOVERY

The boy is rushed to the hospital. He believes that he cannot survive, not because he has every bone in his body broken but because of the deception of the water (his beloved).Why did the water change colour? Were my splashes too hard? Was I in a dream? Questions and contemplations surround him and he has everything but answers. A heavy dose of patience is mixed with a concentrated dose of time and is circulated in his veins. For time and patience is the best medicine for a heart gone sour. It takes time for the adrenaline junkie to get up on his feet, but he still remembers the deception.

THE REALIZATION

He goes back to the cliff and sees the view and to his amazement it is still as breathtaking as it was. However, he sees those stones in the water and realizes what he missed. He had misjudged some indications that the water (his beloved) had given him as he was completely absorbed in the fall. He smiles, as the adrenaline junkie is no more a boy, he has started his journey towards becoming a man.

CONCLUSION

The above, as I said before can only be understood by people who have gone through this amazing feeling of being in love for the first time. You love the view, you love the fall and you cannot stop yourself. But if you don't pay attention, sooner or later the beloved is going to change colours. Your job is to pay attention to those changes, but if you can't, you must find a way to prevent breaking of bones of your body .A parachute, may be!

Written By: Muhammad Saeed Khalil

The Decline of Media in Pakistan

It all started during the Musharraf regime. PTV had remained the primary electronic media source to the people of Pakistan for over 40 years, when a military dictator decided to set the boogeyman free. Unfortunately for him, the boogeyman ate him up without any signs of a burp whatsoever.

The media started on a high, no doubt, as it was efficient and hardworking and showed it in its approach. From entertainment to infotainment and from political to social, religious, cultural and economic programs, every thing that came from media had some thing to offer and one could have easily ignored some short comings it had. The media was to see a new high as it played a pivotal role in the movement for restoration of Judiciary. In short, the news media of Pakistan made sure that the final nail in the coffin of its creator was put, firmly.

Since then, the media is in a nose dive as it has time and again ignored the importance of professional integrity and moral values and thus have taken a 180 shift in its course of action, so much so , that it has reduced itself to the belief that “sensation sells”.

Post 2008, we live in the age of a revenged democracy and a unbridled media. Every three or four months a new issues creeps up on the T.V screens and the media diverts all its attention to it, as if that’s the only problem left with the country where only 16% youth are educated in true sense of the word. By doing so, it has made the people immune to hearing about high level corruption and wrong doings by the politicians as no evidentiary results are there for the people to see. There is just one breaking news after the other.

Post 2008, the media has seen new lows. From cheesy crimes shows to breaking news tickers (which really isn’t all that breaking most of the times), from showing gruesome pictures after a bomb blasts, to asking questions like, “How do you feel?” from families of the one’s target killed in Karachi. Of course they feel awful! What answer do you expect? But there is a bunch that trumps all this, talk show hosts!

They come in a variety; from the screaming ones (Jasmine Manzoor Alert!) to the Phadda lovers (Hamid Mir Alert!)  then you have the often-not-prepared-for-a-programme (Kashif Abbasi and Aamir Sohail’s episode), but the one who really takes the cake is Kamran Shahid who have done it all for ratings(Watch frontline with Kamran Shahid for a month, you’ll know what I am talking about).The guests are equally horrifying, from the glass throwing ones (that is an epic video btw) to the ones who just love to use the BEEP words (Mushahid Ullah Alert!). There is also a new breed of PTI workers and members who talk everything but sense on these shows. Having said that, these are exceptions, of anchors and politicians who keep their dignity and decorum intact while interacting on national television. E.g seldom will you see fights happening and nonsense spoken on programmes hosted by a Talat Hussain or a Moeed Pirzada.

More over the hype that media gives to these non issues is nauseatingly disgusting, Time and again media has done this. It happened when Sania Mirza and Shoaib Malik decided to tie the knot and hundreds of hours of air time was wasted on them. And recently in the case of Veena Malik, has anyone ever stopped to think who really created Veena Malik? With all the publicity and the hype given to her nude photo shoot (sorry, semi nude photo shoot) and her escapades with Ashmit Patel, repeatedly shown on television news channels deeming her besharam and behaya. Would it not have been better that the Pakistani media highlighted the fact that Pakistan is the leading viewer of porn sites in the world. The answer is NO. They would not do that because it takes dedication and hard work to find out the facts and have a healthy debate on such a topic. Showing Veena Malik nude pictures (sorry again!!) and playing background scores with it is a much eye catching prospect for the media.

The media has drawn itself in to the quagmire of ratings (which is also a flawed system) and is slipping in it day by day. There are some suggestions/guidelines though that the media should follow in order to restore its fast losing credibility.

First and foremost is the formation of an organization of all the news channels to agree upon a decision to make editorial boards for all the shows hosted by anchors in order to tone down the role of a news anchor i-e to make the editorial board stronger than the anchor, so that he can be an extension of the editorial board and not have the power to say whatever so he wishes.

Secondly, there should be a clear cut demarcation between a political talk show host and an entertainment program anchor. The latter does his program for entertainment where as the former should base his program on pure journalistic lines. This can only be done if the first suggestion is worked upon.

Thirdly, the anchors themselves have to realize that with great power comes great responsibility. They are the lucky ones who can raise any issue of this nation in heaps of misery. The plastic bag is killing the environment, the population of Pakistan is going to be the biggest problem in the next ten years, yet if they choose to look the other way towards repeatedly focusing their energies on a letter not written to the Swiss authorities then that would be an injustice to the nation in general and their profession in particular.

Lastly the government needs to breathe new air in to PEMRA (Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority) to propose laws in collaboration with the media channels and then regulate it strictly because so far it has proven to be a toothless agency having no control over the ratings hungry media as in the case of Maya Khan. Where in some other country a person’s career would have been over, here, she was given a new morning show on a private channel.

All these suggestions are not new but have been over looked time and again. The result is the latest media gate scandal where two anchors are seen playing a fixed match with Malik Riaz. Mark my words; this is just the beginning, because if the media continues on this rate, more scandals are in store.

The rat race of ratings and the virtual absence of any editorial boards is alarmingly dangerous and potentially killing for media as the quality of programs and credibility of the media dies down every day. Here is some food for thought for all media anchors and media persons. A decade back a military dictator set the media free. Unfortunately it is striving ever so hard for another military dictator (which I hope never comes) to curb that freedom and liberty. But this time he won’t just curb it, he would throw it some where in deepest annals of the Indus.

Muhammad Saeed Khalil

Department of Political Science, University of Peshawar