File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2003/postcolonial.0304, message 245


Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 12:47:37 -0800
Subject: Re: Zero Arrival
From: Tim Bradner&Shehla Anjum <anjum-AT-alaska.net>


Your piece is interesting, but can use a bit more editing and the removal of
some scaffolding (and cliches) that detracts from your writing. Loved the
bit about signifiers was nice. I like the use of the second person, it made
the piece very immediate and draws a reader into the moment. As veteran of
dozens of late-night arrivals at Karachi airport, I found your descriptions
and images quite palpable.

There seems to be something missing in your posting. I deliberately left
your post in this message so you can what didn't come through. Good luck
with your writing.

Shehla Anjum 


> From: saeed urrehman <urrehman-AT-myrealbox.com>
> Reply-To: postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 17:21:19 +0000
> To: postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Subject: Zero Arrival
> 
> All comments on this piece of writing are welcome.
> 
> saeed
> 
> ------------
> Zero Arrival
> by Saeed Ur Rehman
> 
> It is raining down below on the tarmac. You can see it on the TFT monitor as
> the crew announces things about turbulence and seatbelts. You follow all
> instructions without thinking about them. The night sky glows with lightening
> through the windows. The plane shudders and sinks. A heavy muffled thud and
> the sound of tyres trying to stop. A 4:30 am landing at Islamabad airport.
> Scampering after the cabin luggage. Long queues in the aisles. Instant
> formations of amphibian creatures. Your turn at the stairs. Down below, you
> can see a red fire engine leave, unwanted. A bus takes everybody to the main
> building. Waiting for the luggage. Shuffling of feet and suitcases. Trundling
> of trolleys. X-ray machines scanning the bags. Sky blue shirts and dark blue
> trousers with badges on their shoulders rub sleep off their eyes and
> monitoring screens. Outside. Worried haggling with a taxi driver about the
> fare to the Daewoo Bus Terminal on Peshawar Road, Rawalpindi. 300 rupees.
> Shuttling in a rickety
> 
> The Daewoo Bus Terminal. Magazine stalls. Public telephone points with
> operators dozing at the counters. Efficiency and early morning drowsiness. One
> ticket to Lahore please. 390 rupees for our super-luxury bus service. What
> does that involve? A meal and a lot of legroom. Does it have a toilet? No.
> What kind of luxury is this? Isnt Daewoo a multinational presence? No, it has
> localized itself by simultaneously upgrading the standard of Pakistani
> transport industry and downgrading the international buses. Your ticket
> please. Oh who is this woman? Our ground hostess. What is her function? She
> makes announcements and serves food while college boys enjoy their risque
> laughter. The road is smooth. It is the motorway: Pakistans symbol of clean
> modernity that bypasses all other symbols (cities full of horse-driven tongas)
> on the way to Lahore. Above the driver, ads and entertainment silently
> interrupt each other on the TV in a programme called Consumer Plus. If you put
> the headphones on, you
> anizing.
> 
> is the problem. Somewhere deep down you know that you are using lazy
> metaphors. Dead signifiers are the best shortcuts to the death of your own
> thought. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Listen to the prayer calls. Listen to the
> sound of honking horns of commuter vans. See. You are made of dust that is why
> you have to inhale smoke. Dust to dust. Ashes to smoke. There is no logic. The
> demand for logic itself is illogical. Your one dimensional ifs, whys, buts and
> therefores will be surpassed by the implacable logic of things. Contradictions
> make the social sphere persist like the hands of the beggars at traffic
> signals.
> 
> Enter home. Lie to your parents. About what you have been doing in the
> seductive and horrible Australia, a Western country in the middle of the
> Pacific. You never made love, never drank and became a vegetarian because
> Halal meat was difficult to find. Take a shower. Find an empty room. Bolt the
> door. Sleep. Sleep through all the prayer calls, pretending not to hear them.
> Come out in the middle of the night when everybody is sleeping. Go to the roof
> of the house. Not a single star in the sky. Human beings have eaten the stars
> while running on the roads. Night thoughts. The sounds of tyres cutting the
> heart of tarmac in the distance. Sit for a while on a chair broken by the
> inclemencies of life. Your words sentence yourself. Go downstairs. Sleep again
> through the prayer calls till late in the morning. Breakfast table. One
> relative tells you that it maybe possible to get a good job through some of
> his connections. You are divided among many people and you are being spoken in
> many voices
> 
> 
> 
> 
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