Mukhtar Mai Weds Nasir Gabool

"He says he madly fell in love with me", Mrs. Mukhtar Mai Gabool, as we would now know her, said with a big laugh when asked what finally persuaded her to say yes. She finally put it out for everyone adding a little tinge of romance.

There have been several stories and even more opinions floating around with the recent marriage of Mukhtar Mai with her Guardian Constable Nasir Gabool highlighting several facts and intriguing stories (or rumors). Nevertheless, she again, has stood tall and against all odds proved wrong the prevalent stigma of narrow-minded Pakistani society.

I happen to watch her farewell (rukhsati) ceremony on Geo and was rather startled with the aura of her personality presence within the crowd. Though, a lot of credit is owed to her awe-inspiring heroism of her sadden tale, rather she is more shrewd than predicted. She was confident in her words, very much comfortable with the situation (given the fact that she is the second wife of Constable Gabool) and high in command of not only herself but also everything that surrounded her, inclusive of Constable Gabool and his first wife.

She made clear and definite statements on why and how she agreed to the persistent request from Gabool and his family. She made her future plans crystal clear identifying Gabool’s involvement and limitations on her decisions. Her comments were not to be questioned twice, if she’s made a statement that’s pretty much it. She certainly holds good command on her thoughts and has them very well defined and laid out. Regardless of the sympathies, I had always been fond of her audacious and undying will to fight-back and now I admire her strong personality trait.

With her strong and vehement personality, I wonder how competent Nasir Gabool would be in order to cope with her. In terms of a healthy relationship, it is believed that the husbands’ personality should be a touch higher such to empower his female counterpart in order to remain dominant in a relationship, not to torment and enslave her wife, but rather to achieve a balanced-married-life. However, it does not seem the likely case with Mr. Gabool’s second marriage. Evidently his counterpart is a much stronger personality comparatively and apparently already very dominant.

Having said that, she does attract global attention and I, again, praise her the way she has posed herself not only as a strong defiant woman of today fighting for her rights and justice, but a Pakistani women. Though her ordeal has struck some massive blows to the dysfunctional Pakistan society, globally, but it also has pulled a few strings and tarnished great awareness among the not-so-civilized parts of Pakistan.

How Recession came in Gawal Mandi?

Lately, after recovering from being completely drenched in work, I spared some time out to find my(LOST)self. I gathered with some old friends and spent an evening commemorating our old begotten times

It was only during that time, one of my, self claiming, financial expert friend happen to explain us the steps that led to recession in Pakistan. Given the mood of the evening was light and the company (mostly engineers) were alien to the finance subject, he put forth a hilarious and very much comprehendible scenario that led to recession in Gawal Mandi:

"Pajja is the proprietor of a Siri-Paya and Nehari Shop in Lahore's Gawal Mandi . Sales are low and, in order to increase them, he comes up with a plan to allow his customers to eat now and pay later. He keeps track of the meals consumed on a ledger.Word gets around and as a result increasing numbers of customers flock to Pajja’s shop. Pajja’s suppliers are delighted and are very willing to sell more and more raw materials for the meals he prepares. Pajja shows them his ledger of receivables and they extend him credit.A young and dynamic customer service consultant at the local bank recognizes these customer debts as valuable future assets and gives Pajja a credit line and then increases Pajja’s borrowing limit.Taking advantage of his customers' freedom from immediate payment constraints, Pajja jacks up the prices of his Nehari and Siri-Paye. Customers dont mind as they are not required to pay on the spot. Sales volume increases massively; Banks and suppliers lend more; Pajja opens more outlets. He sees no reason for undue concern since he has the debts of the customers as collateral.At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert bankers recognize Pajja's customer loans as assets and transform these customer assets into BONDS. These negotiable instruments are given exotic names such as SIRIBOND, PAYABOND, MAGHAZBOND AND BONGBOND. These securities are then listed on the Stock Exchange and traded on markets worldwide. No one really understands what the names mean and how the securities are guaranteed but, nevertheless, as their prices continuously climb, the securities become top-selling items.One day, although the prices are still climbing, a credit risk manager of the bank decides that the time has come to demand payment of one of the debts incurred by Pajja. Pajja in turn asks his clients to pay up. One by one they refuse; the clients cannot pay back the debts. Pajja refuses to serve them any more. The clients stop coming.Pajja is really screwed now. He cannot fulfill his loan obligations and therefore claims bankruptcy. All Bonds drop in price by between 80 to 95%.The suppliers of Pajja, having granted generous payment due dates and having invested in the securities are faced with similar problems. The meat supplier defaults on payment to the sheep and cattle supplier and claims bankruptcy. The atta supplier is taken over by a competitor; Pajja lays off the cook and staff. Bankruptcies soar, unemployment mushrooms.The bank that lent the money in the first place is set to collapse. It is saved by the Government following dramatic round-the-clock consultations by leaders from the governing political parties with Pajja commuting back and forth in his Executive jet and Mercedes 500SEL, brokering the deal.The funds required to save the economic collapse are obtained by a tax levied on the citizens, most of whom do not eat Nehari or Siri-paye."