http://ncpaa.org/

A Wedding to Remember – by Farah Hussain

On September 2, 2000, Zakir Hussein, the son of Noor Jehan and Tajammul Hussain married Sheeza Khawar, the daughter of Salma and Abdul Khawar. Their Nikah and wedding reception were both held at the North Raleigh Hilton where the banquet hall was glowing with outstanding wedding decorations. About 400 guests were there to celebrate the occasion and many had come from distant places in order to attend the event. This included Zakir’s Uncle, Mohammed Abdul Naeem from Virginia, his sister from Arizona, and Sheeza’s aunt, who flew in from California.

Zakir and Sheeza are both graduates of NC State University, where they met each other, and both now work at Nortel Networks. The bride Sheeza looked stunning in her wedding gharara while Zakir wore the traditional sherwani and turban. The baraat included the groom’s large, extended family and friends and Dr. Vahaj Ahmed, a well-respected person in the Pakistani community, conducted the Nikah. The food was spicy, delicious and plenty. The rukhasati was in traditional style while everyone was admiring the newly wedded couple. The next day was the Valeema at a Holiday Inn attended by 200 guests. Here, Sameer Umer, a friend of Zakir shaped a humorous speech that imitated Punjabi and Hyderabadi language styles. He also played a song that Zakir had been trying to record for Sheeza, which was hilarious. Overall, the event turned out to be a beautifully traditional Pakistani wedding, which would always be remembered.

The picnic area at Falls Lake Sandling Beach in shelter 2 was crowded with people on the afternoon of September 9th . The occasion was PAA’s annual picnic, organized and planned by Ghazala and Salman Khan. The crowd reflected many new faces that had just moved into the area. Among these were Nasir Siddique and Atif Ghafoor who were spotted helping out at the grill. It was a beautiful day and one could see the sun’s nearby reflection on Falls Lake. A welcomed newcomer, Zia Usmani, sang some popular songs, while yards away Khalil Ansari and Hasnein Haider were busy playing cricket. The food was plenty and women and children eventually crowded to get their share of ice cream and sodas.

Glucose serves as the main source of fuel in the body.  In diabetes, cells of the body are not able to obtain this simple sugar even though it is present in the blood.  The two common types of diabetes are the Type I (childhood-onset) and the Type II (adult-onset).  In the Type I there is an inadequate supply of insulin whereas, in the Type II the body produces diabetes insulin but the cells are not able to respond to it.  In light of the fact that diabetes is on the rise in the South Asian population and that it increases the risk for heart disease, kidney disorders, vision problems and neuropathy, among others, diet and exercise become an essential component in the management of diabetes.

 Our traditional diets consist of all the contents that are “taboo” in not just diabetes but many other health problems.  Studies have shown that often people with adult-onset (non-insulin dependent) diabetes can stop their medications with adequate weight loss and changes in diet.  We can begin by decreasing the amount of oil our foods are cooked with, adding more raw fruits and vegetables and definitely reducing those delicious deserts that consist of kheer and burfi from our regimen.  A balanced nutrition, exercise and weight management therapy for diabetes can markedly reduce the long-term effects of this illness.   

On September 24th, Air Commodore Shabbir A. Khan visited Cary, NC to meet and greet the Pakistani community. Those who attended his presentation were inspired to learn that certain individuals are playing a vital role in the elimination of illiteracy and the eradication of poverty in the rural population of Pakistan. Shabbir Khan is one such individual, who has taken on this immense task and dedicated his life to the mission of helping such people.

He stated that the majority of the rural population of Pakistan has no education and lives in extreme poverty. Although the existing programs are focusing on education, they often tend to neglect the rural areas. The Rashid Memorial Welfare Organization, however, is tackling these issues and providing the means to achieve the desired goals. This project focuses on the health, education, and welfare of those in greatest need of basic human necessities.  For those who are interested in being a part of this philanthropic mission, send an email to rashidwo@khi.compol.com or call (919) 388-1637.

The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) is in the process of reengineering the cumbersome labor certification process. The ETA intends to make fundamental changes that will streamline the process and improve effectiveness. The Department of Labor’s description of the redesigned process represents the Department’s current thinking and may be modified.

The permanent foreign labor certification process for employment-based immigration in the U.S. has been a two-tiered system involving both State Employment Security Agencies (SESA) and the U.S. Department of Labor for more than 30 years. The current system has been criticized for being costly, burdensome, and inefficient.

The redesigned process envisioned by the Department will require employers to submit their applications directly to ETA processing centers and will streamline the role of SESAs in the labor certification process to include only the prevailing wage determinations. Employers will no longer be required to conduct job recruitment through the Employment Service.

In the current system, prevailing wage determinations are made by SESAs as part of the normal process of reviewing an application and informing the employer of any deficiencies therein. In the new process, the employer will still be required to obtain a prevailing wage determination from the SESA. The employer will be required to contact the SESA to obtain the prevailing wage determination for the occupation in the area of intended employment.

The employer will also be required to conduct an adequate test of the labor market for qualified U.S. applicants at prevailing wages and working conditions during the months preceding the filing of the application. The recruitment efforts will likely consist of both mandatory steps and alternative steps chosen by the employer from a listing of additional recruitment steps that will be specifically prescribed by the regulations. All recruitment will be conducted prior to the employer filing the application.

The employer will be required to maintain documentation of the recruitment efforts it has undertaken and the results thereof, such as the lawful, job-related reasons for not hiring U.S. applicants for the position. After the recruitment period has ended and the employer has assembled the requisite documentation in support of the application, the employer then submits the application directly to an ETA processing center.

As part of the ETA’s efforts to take advantage of technological innovations that will increase efficiencies in the program the current proposal requests that the relevant forms be standardized and machine-readable to eliminate the need for data entry by the ETA processing centers when an application is first received. The final article in this series will further discuss specifics of the ETA’s intended changes and the likely impact these will have on the public.

By Robert B. Spiro, Attorney, Bashyam & Spiro, LLP, concentrating exclusively in matters involving Immigration and Nationality Law, (919) 833-0840.

Why did I go to the Rumi Festival? I don’t know. Maybe it was to find myself or to find something that would enhance my perceptions of beauty, love, faith and all that jazz. It seemed there was no particular reason for going except to experience life and the descriptions of the roads we take, whether they are alleys or highways. And when Robert Bly interpreted this most mystical of Sufi poets, a type of awe encompassed us, especially those of us who had always wondered at those magicians that are able to bridge the gaps between different cultures.

I had not read much of Bly before this. When I had seen his picture in the newspaper a week beforehand, I saw him as a very jolly looking Swedish man. I don’t know why I chose Sweden, but it seemed to be the country with the remotest connection to Rumi and the poetry that I had read in my Pakistani environment. “This man can’t grasp the essence of Rumi” I thought to myself. “At best it’s going to be a condensed and sappy version of what Americans would like to hear.”

Of course, this was farthest from the truth. I had grown up with my father quoting Urdu and Persian verses to me. Verses that I understood because of the nuances of his voice and the emphasis on certain words. Could someone like Bly who had studied mythology and never lived in countries like Iran or Pakistan aim to such a height? My doubts proved futile. Bly not only repeated his verses, as many Persian and Urdu poets have done to drive home a point, but he used hand gestures and captured rhythmic nuances that I never knew could permeate a non-native speaker. Within his presentation, he inserted contemporary references to mainstream American culture like different colored tiles in a well-planned mosaic. For example, on a poem discussing the literalism and the one that hangs on to imagination, Bly pointed out how contemporary American culture had become so literal, where we could even start believing politicians and then proceeded to quote a verse from the Mathnavi.

It was Mohammed Reza Lotfi that was the river running behind the rhythm of Rumi’s words. His fast and slower strumming of the sitar and mastery of other intruments of the East echoed the heart of Rumi’s delving into the pain and ecstasy of our everyday experience. While Lotfi followed Bly’s words, the instruments followed Lotfi. And although this musician of Rumi and Hafez did not fully understand the translation, he knew when to stop and when to interject the right cadence of sound, proving the power of the universal language of the soul. It was a synchronization of music, poetry and emotion which wasn’t over rehearsed but more novel with each moment, introducing the audience to sounds, not only of another culture but another time that was humble enough to fly into ours.

To find out more about Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi check him out on the Internet at http://www.armory.com/~thrace/sufi/. Samples of Mohammed Reza Lotfi’s music can be heard on amazon.com.

The Urdu Majlis enthusiasts met after a summer break on September 16th at Caldwell Hall of NCSU. The poet of discussion was Ali Sardar Jafri, the vanguard of the Progressive Writer Movement who recently died on August 1, 2000, and gave a new sense of direction to Urdu Poetry and criticism. Syed Arif introduced the poet and pointed out certain distinctive features of Jafri’s poetry and philosophy, and Asma Khan, Maimoona Zariwala and Romesh Shonek recited passages from the poets’ well-known nazms.

A sumptuous dinner followed the next session where Tanzeel Chohan, Jafar Abbas and Afroz Taj recited their newly composed ghazals and nazams, and Rashda Faridi read two poems written by her sister who lives in Lahore. Newcomers to the Urdu Majlis included the Rehmaniya Khalid of Lahore, who is visiting, Kamran Ahmed and Amena Hassan.

On September 30^th, Payamber editor Asif Rashid got engaged with Farah, daughter of Noor Jehan and Tajammul Hussain. Their wedding is on November 4, 2000.

    Ruttie Jinnah

Quaid-e-Azam, Mohamed Ali Jinnah was a very private person and little is known about his personal life. Jinnah was only fifteen when he married Ami Bai, the daughter of Bombay's rich merchant Gogal Leera Khaim Jee. At that time he was a student at Madersatal Islam in Sind but later joined the Church Mission Society High School in Karachi for seven months. After this period, he became involved in a business for the exporting of fish to England and left Karachi for London in January 1893 at the age of sixteen, in the hopes of expanding his business.

In London he joined Lincoln's Inn, a prestigious Law Institution, and decided to become a Barrister, receiving his degree on April 29, 1896 at the age of nineteen. He returned to Karachi and then moved to Bombay to practice law, although his wife unfortunately passed away in Bombay during the cholera epidemic.

It took three years for Jinnah to become a recognized attorney and he was quickly appointed as the Magistrate of the Bombay Presidency. However, he declined the position and started his own independent practice, rapidly becoming a popular personality among the elite of Bombay. In 1905 he was nominated along with Gopal Krishna Gokhle, to present the case of self-government at the British Parliament in London. He became a member of the Indian National Congress in 1906, the year when the All India Muslim League was founded in Bengal. In October 1913, upon the persuasion of Maulana Muhammad Ali Joher and Syed Wazeer Hasan, he eventually joined the Muslim League, which was the turning point in his life and the start of a long journey as a politician in Indian history. He was now thirty-seven years old.

All these years he never remarried. During his law practice he socialized with the rich Parsi community and many invited him to their private parties at their homes and private clubs. His remarkable personality and distinctive style of speaking, made him very popular and respected among this highly educated and affluent community.  It was at this point where he met Sir Dinsha Patit, and his young daughter Ruttie Patit. Sir Patit became very fond of Barrister Jinnah and often invited him to his home for dinner where they had lengthy discussions on Indian politics. Ruttie, who was born on February 20, 1900, was very popular among the Bombay's elite community where she was known as the "Rose of Bombay". She was mostly tutored at home in the areas of English literature, business and politics, and developed mature thoughts about the independence of India, social equality, and nationalism at a very young age. Ruttie, who was an exceptionally cultured and educated person herself, greatly admired Jinnah's elegant personality, his method of reasoning and his absolute command on political, literary and cultural issues. In 1916, Sir Dinsha invited Jinnah to join his family who was vacationing in Darjeeling. Here Ruttie and Jinnah discovered a perfect match in each other and decided to become life partners.

During a joint session of the Muslim League and the Indian National Congress in December 1916, Jinnah presented his proposal on Hindu-Muslim unity. When both parties overwhelmingly accepted it, Ruttie Patit was present and was greatly impressed by Jinnah's ability to influence both parties, when he had made them simultaneously agree to join hands together to gain independence. Soon after the session ended, Jinnah proposed to Sir Dinsha Patit for his daughter's hand in marriage. But the dream of marriage for both Jinnah and Ruttie would not be realized for another two years due to legal battles between Jinnah and Sir Dinsha Patit, who rejected his proposal. When Ruttie Bai turned eighteen she left her home, accepted Islam, and changed her name to Marium Bai. They were married on April 19, 1918. On August 14, 1919 Marium gave birth to their only daughter, Deena Jinnah, while they were in London. Jinnah was representing the Muslim League on a mission to persuade England to include a Muslim representative in a peace conference in Paris. They returned to Bombay after three months.

The Muslim world was going through a very difficult period of occupation by Britain and France after the end of the First World War when Palestine and AlQuds were lost. Jinnah, disappointed and frustrated, decided to stay away from politics for a while and concentrated on his law practice and taking care of his daughter. Both Ruttie and Jinnah enjoyed life for over three years until Jinnah decided to return to politics in 1923 as a leader of the Muslim League. When Jinnah became highly involved in politics, his profession created a gap in his family life which lead to separation. When Deena was 9 years old, Ruttie died on February 20, 1929, on her twenty-ninth birthday. Her tomb is in Bombay. Jinnah spent the remaining nineteen years of life alone, keeping himself absorbed with his life long effort called Pakistan.

Seven years ago the sight of dhol walas in bright yellow outfits, carrying huge dhols was something unique and out of the ordinary. Today, they have become a part of the tradition of Lahore and have earned their place in the city. Seeing them sitting on sidewalks and waiting for a booking, is nothing new, since they have been swept into the bustle of city life.

This was not always the case. Dhol walas struggled to earn a place in Lahore when they introduced the playing of the dhol at weddings some six or seven years ago. At this time, they started to become visible all over the city. The dhol walas have become a tradition of sorts in Lahori weddings, which is one of the reasons why they have flocked from all over Punjab to Lahore to earn a living. They can be seen sitting on the sidewalks of different areas of the city, primarily on the Main Boulevard, Kalma Chowk, Choburji, Data Sahab, Baghbanpura, the Defence Society and the Shah Jamal Colony. Leaving their families and relatives behind them, they come from far away as Jhang, Faisalabad and Sialkot and put up tents in “kachi” abadis all over Lahore.

The dhol, a percussion instrument made from a large wooden shell and goat hide strung together with rope, is played with cane sticks. It has its roots in Punjab, which is why it is so popular to date in Lahore. For quite some time, it was also used to celebrate a favorable harvest or good news. Nowadays, women play a smaller form of the dhol on marriages, mostly mehndis, all over Pakistan and India as a backdrop to wedding songs. Professional dhol playing, however, remains a tradition in Punjab alone and most prominently in Lahore where a mehndi is not a mehndi without the dhol walas and their instrument’s resounding beat.

Zakir Ali, a dhol wala sitting on the Main Boulevard of Gulberg, has been working for the past six years in Lahore. He originally belongs to Shah Jeewna, Jhang, in interior Punjab and belongs to the Sheikh Pirain Biradari. He recalls how he first came to Lahore with his cousins and uncles to play at weddings. Zakir continues to trace the history of dhol-playing in his family to several decades ago when his ancestors used to play at mazaars. Before he came to Lahore, he also went all over the country from tomb to saintly tomb. From Shabaz Qalandar’s mazaar in Sindh to Baba Farid Gunj Shukkar’s in Pak Patan, Hazrat Sakhi Sarwar’s in D.G. Khan and Hazrat Bari Imam’s in Islamabad, Zakir and his troupe have been all over the country. However, they were discovered while playing at the mela of Hazrat Shah Jamal about seven years ago when they were requested to play at a wedding. This started a trend in Lahore, which has now become a veritable fashion.

Dhol walas have, however, had their share of problems. In the beginning it was difficult to adjust and be accepted in the city. Later on, when more and more dhol walas came to Lahore, each had to find his niche so that he would have a steady income. They have also had problems with this income, which fluctuates according to the wedding seasons. Newcomers, in particular, have had to face a lot of adversity.

Being a dhol wala may be a good investment for those whose families have been in the business for a long time but it is not a profession, which has rapid rewards for the amateur. A quality dhol, such as those made in Sargodha, Chiniot, Gujrat and Jhelum, is not cheap, costing about four thousand rupees and needing constant maintenance for lasting endurance. Persistent misuse can damage the instrument, an expensive prospect for a dhol wala who has meager earnings. Also, it is extremely difficult for a novice playing the dhol, who is competing with those that have dhol playing in their genes. A young boy, Khaliq, from Lahore, sitting with Zakir and his troupe at the Main Boulevard, says that he has been trying to learn how to play for the past three months but can never play as well as boys of the same age belonging to a family of dhol walas.

Not knowing whether there is going to be enough money to feed the family back in the village is another problem. “Money”, says Zakir of the Main Boulevard “is best in the winters. In the summers we sometimes sit the whole day through without work but in the winters there is plenty of work to go around. Because of the huge number of weddings in Lahore, every dhol wala gets to earn quite a bit of money, sometimes as much as ten thousand rupees per month. The number of dhol walas is about fifteen hundred during the summers and about four thousand in the winters. Despite that, we get to earn a reasonable amount of money in winters”.

Sajjad, a young dhol wala from Faisalabad who sits on the Choburji Chowk, has been in the business for the past two years. His wife and two children live in the village where he visits them every three to four weeks. According to him, three people working on one wedding earn about a hundred rupees each, plus food and transport. He says, “Even though the rozi (income) is greater in the city, the treatment meted out to us is shameful. There is no respect in the city and I miss the villagers’ warmth. The city is so ruthless. If I could get the same money in the village that I get here, I would not hesitate to go back”.

Today, dhol walas are a very significant part of the Lahori culture. They add to an already hospitable, merry, easygoing environment where weddings are celebrated with traditional pomp and circumstance. The dhol walay add a new flavor to these events which is seen nowhere else in Pakistan. They have largely replaced the police and army brass bands and even the girls who sing loudly and discordantly when the mehndi is brought in! Although they sadly continue to be mistreated and marked off derogatorily as ‘maraasis’ instead of the professional artists that they are, the dhol walas have a place in society which they deserve, as they keep alive the art of playing a rich and colorful instrument.

[Sobia Aslam is a correspondent for Payamber from Lahore. Sobia is studying for a master’s degree in Mass Communication at Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore. She is a free lance writer and her work is often published in Dawn, The News and The Nation, and in Internet magazine: Chowk. She is also the youngest member of the permanent writers' panel of Spider, Pakistan's first Internet magazine. Sobia aspires to be a journalist and hopes to pursue further studies in the US.]

Pakistan has a large young population, which speaks and understands English and their competence can easily be used to increase the supply with IT skills. If we define the 17-21 year-olds as the group that can be educated and quickly trained in IT, we are looking at a pool of some 12 million people in Pakistan. Of these, slightly more than one million are in various kinds of secondary and other educational institutions; 88,000 in secondary vocational schools; 796,000 in colleges teaching arts and sciences; 160,000 in professional colleges; and 100,000 in universities. In other words, only eight per cent of young men and women belonging to this group are receiving advanced education and an insignificant number are becoming proficient in IT.

For the development of the IT sector, there should be an increase in the enrollment rate of this group in colleges and universities. This could be done by a combination of policies: by encouraging the private sector to set up new institutions and by introducing distance learning. The government should adopt a reasonably ambitious target for increasing enrollment in secondary and higher institutions. The government could work with the goal of putting two million people in advanced educational institutions by 2005. This would mean doubling the present rate of enrollment which implies a rate of growth of 14 percent a year in college attendance - not an unrealistic target to aim at.

Of the total enrollment in secondary and other institutions, the government should aim to place a hundred thousand students in IT institutions. Some of these institutions should use distance learning to provide IT skills. Virtual universities providing IT education are becoming popular all over the world - in developed as well as in developing countries. They have several advantages over instructor based "fixed" institutions. They allow flexibility; students can take instruction at a pace that suits them. They can self-test for the skills they have acquired. They can also acquire proper certification on-line. And, most attractive of all, these programs are relatively low cost and can be run by the private sector. The government resource commitment is marginal; an attractive feature for a country so short of resources as Pakistan. Even the accreditation of the institutions could be left in the hands of the private sector.

By producing a hundred thousand IT graduates a year by the end of this decade, Pakistan would have set the stage for becoming a major global player in this industry. Today, an IT graduate can produce $20,000 worth of exports. By retaining 75,000 graduates for staffing domestic industry out of the 100,000 trained every year, Pakistan could begin to add $1.5 billion in export earnings a year in the second half of this decade. By 2010, Pakistan could be earning $8-10 billion in IT exports a year--a result that can be achieved just by focusing on providing adequate training to its large population. There is an added advantage, if Pakistan places emphasis on training women in IT. Women are less inclined to migrate than men. There are some successful IT firms in Pakistan which have managed to reduce the turnover of workers by employing mostly women.

However, Pakistan should be prepared to lose about 25,000 graduates a year to the industrial world - about the same proportion India loses every year of its graduating classes. These people would add another $2 billion a year to the total income of the Pakistani expatriate community, helping the community to further increase its aggregate income. The total income of the Pakistani Diaspora is about equal to the gross domestic product of their homeland. With the export of 25,000 IT workers, the expatriates will see their annual income increase at the rate of 6-8 per cent - a rate considerably higher than the projected increase in the country's GDP.

With incomes increasing continuously, the expatriate community will add to its already large asset base. At the same time, IT workers from Pakistan employed in North America and Europe will pick up new skills. With assets and advanced skills at their command, this group of IT specialists should be able to do for their country what has already been done by the similarly placed citizens from China and India.

In opting for a growth strategy centered on the development of the IT sector, Pakistan should not be discouraged by the fact that a significant proportion of its trained citizens will leave the country for foreign lands. But the people who leave can also contribute significantly to the development of the homeland. We should not be deterred by the escalating battle for brain. We win even by losing. 

LAHORE - The Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) has decided to start an ambitious Java language-training program in collaboration with the private sector. At least 300 scholarships would be available to needy students--preferably students with a BCS. There is a great scarcity of the Java Certified Faculty in Pakistan. To alleviate this problem, lectures delivered by the seasoned JCPs will be recorded on video or compact disk and then provided to the educational institutions free of charge. The first batch of these Java trained professionals would also help diminish the scarcity.

To qualify for admission in Java Certification Courses in different private educational institutions, the students must pass an entry test. The fee for this course is Rs 20,000 per student. The Java course has been introduced following a mounting pressure from the local software houses, which were facing a scarcity of the JCPs in the nation's domestic market. (APP)

Microsoft plans to help Pakistan in the establishment of software technology parks according to Nauman Ahmed, a Microsoft's official. In Lahore where 75 percent of Pakistan's software exports are originating, Punjab Small Industries Corporation (PSIC) is already working to locate a 'Cyber City' on 120 acres of land. It is located near Village Sultankey at Sunder Raiwind Road. Local software developers and exporters will be able to employ the IT professionals graduating from the computer institutions.