PU-239 The Half Life of Timofey Berezin

The guy at the local 'video' shop makes sure that he lets me rummage through all the movies which people have rejected after seeing the front or reading the back cover. They turn out to be the best ones. It isn't surprising. My neighbourhood just has a different taste. I came to know this when I was told that the shopkeeper generates most of his revenue by renting out wrestling DVDs. Yes, people actually watch them.

PU-239 tells the story of a Russian who gets exposed to radiation (1000 rems) during an accident at the nuclear station. Just that you get an idea how lethal it can be; if exposed to 600 rems, you are supposed to die within a month. Anyway, before he gives up the ghost he tries to sell a stolen sample of PU-239 in a desperate attempt to raise some money for his family.

What made this flick beautiful to me were the striking analogies the character has made during the course of the movie.

"Light is a particle and a wave. This is hard to understand, how a thing can be two things at once. But a woman is also both a particle and a wave. She’s a wave when you see her reach down to pull a shell from the sea and you feel her beauty pass through you like electric current. She’s a particle when her hair brushes your face and her hands push into yours. And a child is also a particle and a wave. He is wave when the sound of his pain shoots through you and twists you away from yourself and he is a particle when the doctor hands you a baby. A small mirror. Women, children and light can be two things at once. They ricochet off the hard surfaces and illuminate the corners. Without them it would be far darker."

Immaculate catharsis...

"An element loses a particle and becomes unstable. A chain reaction is set in motion. Pulsing waves of desperation in every direction. Perhaps the lost part is clarity or hope. In the fallout, the man-made elements appear- isotopes of fear and anger that cannot be handled safely or buried in the ground. They take the shape of a mushroom cloud started above a desert that circles the globe and shadows us all."

"Uranium, Neptunium, Plutonium. They came from space; found their way here by comet and meteorite. No child ever wished this from a star. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl. Problems with half-lives forty-thousand years long. Half a life. Time takes half of us away and comes back later for the rest. We are children and then we are parents. We are long division. Slowly we decay into memory."

• If given a chance, would you like to live the exact same life all over again?
• Would you like to go back in time and change something?

These kinds of questions always mess up my mind. Answers to these questions tend to change as you move along the trade cycle of life. Great psychoanalytical tools though!

Satisfaction vs Ambition

We look before and after
And pine for what is not

I was once told that while you sit in the car, look at the person on the motorbike; if you are on the motorbike, look at the person on the bicycle; if you are on the bicycle, look at the person who has only one leg…

It might be a good philosophy to live by as it kills the greed and keeps you happy, no matter how less you have; still, human nature would always rebel and fight for more. The classic clash between the haves and the have-nots is a never ending story. But by following the above mentioned philosophy you might start appreciating what you have and your heart goes out for the underprivileged.

At times another aspect of this philosophy does arise in one’s life; where it has the ability to make you satisfied, it also has the tendency to make you stagnant. It might keep on gnawing at your ambition. If thanking God for what you have is good then wishing for more shouldn’t be a sin. Satisfaction and ambition shouldn’t act as opposing forces.

‘Wishing for more’, there arises a need to define the limits for ‘more’. I guess to define this; one must plunge into the discussion of ideal social organization. Every social system has its drawbacks. We have seen both China and America thrive under their respective systems. Where one is accused of abusing human rights; the other system provides less than 10% chance for a person born in a lower middle class family to move to higher social class.

I think the religion does provide an ideal social system but sometimes it seems too good to be true. Iqbal was right when he said

Yes! Perfection is possible...

2 am in the morning, garfield eyes, .02% of brain functioning (way below than what Einstein predicted in a normal human being) but behold what a mere mortal is capable of!. They appear to me like a pair of clown-like eyes or even better; two main sequence stars coming together in a globular cluster to make a blue straggler.

I was amazed that I didn't have a single label which referred to the main ingredient of life, food! The very thing which has never let me down.

There is no love sincerer than the love of food. ~George Bernard Shaw

You can always trust a chocolate bar to wipe away your tears, a medium steak to ease out tensions, potato chips to put an end to boredom and ofcourse our very own; the loving and caring, soft drinks.

Sleep 'til you're hungry, eat 'til you're sleepy. ~Author Unknown

Bye Bye Mush

Maybe as a nation we have developed a thirst for sensationalism; that is why when the general resigned so effortlessly, I was quite taken aback. I was hoping for another round of political melodrama but I guess the "last punch" proved pretty heavy.

I was among those unfortunates who due to lack of vision rejoiced when this guy took over the country. In our naivety we forgot that the democracy needs to take its roots in the system and for this it needs time. If the army keeps on poking its nose every now and then, how do we expect democracy to flourish? Just because the army intervention; we, the people of Pakistan completely forgot what PPP and PML-N had offered us in their early tenures. They themselves were no angels but after nine years of junta rule, they appear to be the saviors. If army had remained to the borders and had kept on serving rather than ruling the nation; these saviors would also have faced the same fate as PML-Q.

Still it was good to see him go (although not the way I wanted). We hang democracy but let the junta go with a guard-of-honor.

It was disturbing that people still had "mixed" feelings to see him go but on the second thought I don't blame them. I know it is difficult to be optimistic in these times of despair. It would be foolish to consider this ousting as a panacea for the problems of Pakistan; still, generals are at their best in the battlefield and they have no place in the public offices.

Did anything good come out of these nine years? I think in his efforts to make Uncle Sam happy and bath the country in enlightened moderation, he did loose the reigns on media; so much that it went out of his control. Media got its complete freedom and these guys are not going to sit quietly now. Every government would be under their scrutinization. Secondly the 'lawyers' movement' which emerged from this whole fiasco stands for one of the core problems faced by this nation; free judiciary. I hope in future no Justice Munir legalizes army rule under the umbrella of law of necessity.

"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed—that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness…but when a long train of abuses and usurpations , pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new Guards for their future security".

True! People don’t talk like this anymore.

Long live Pakistan.

Ingrid Michaelson

I discovered her in those weekly music reviews. Perhaps it was the laid back style or just the innocence of lyrics that has kept me glued to her songs for the last two weeks.

“Giving Up”

What if we stop having a ball?
What if the paint chips from the wall?
What if there's always cups in the sink?
What if I'm not what you think I am?

What if I fall further than you?
What if you dream of somebody new?
What if I never let you win, chase you with a rolling pin?
Well what if I do? I am giving up on making passes
and I am giving up on half empty glasses
and I am giving up on greener grasses.
I am giving up. What if our baby comes home after nine?
What it your eyes close before mine?
What if you lose yourself sometimes?
Then I'll be the one to find you
Safe in my heart.

"Starting Now"

I want to crawl back inside my mother's womb
I want to shut out all the lights in this room
I want to start fresh, like a baby in a sink
Scrub away all these thoughts that i think of you
So life moves slowly when you're waiting for it to boil
Feel like i watch from 6 feet under the soil
Still want to hold you and kiss behind your ears
But I re count the countless tears that i lost for you
But before you finally go *(before you go)*
There’s one thing you should know:
That I promise -
Starting now I'll never know your name
Starting now I'll never feel the same
Starting now I wish you never came into my world.
I want to crawl back inside my bed of sin
I want to burn the sheets that smell like your skin
Instead I'll wash them just like kitchen rags with stains
Spinning away every piece that remains of you.
It's my world, it's not ours anymore

"Glass"

Rolled around on kitchen floors.

Tied my tongue in pretty bows with yours.

And now we pass and just like glassI see through you,

you see through me like I'm not there

You could make my head swerve.

Used to know my every curve.

And now we meet on a street,And I am blind.

I can not find the heart I gave to you.

Sometimes what we think we really want we don't.

Sometimes what we think we want we really don't.

Sometimes what we think we love we don't.

And I am blind. I can not find the heart I gave to you.

And when we meet on a street,Then I am blind.

I can not find the heart I gave to you.

Death in disguise?

Today a child died in his/her mother's womb. A flower plucked before it could bloom. Without playing god; if that bloom was one day going to be smeared by the harsh winds of human nature, wasn't it a blessing?

“Those who are plucked in youth and innocence are among the fortunates. It is we sinners who have to plod and labour through the whole span of life…”

Perhaps it is only me with such a gloomy picture of this world. I remember these lines penned down by a friend


Where breeze mourns the loss of love
Where mercy lies under, assault above
The sinners are king and crime the queen
The bullets command and injustice rules
Where honor and virtue have left the scene
Where money allures and ego thrives
Where greed rules and hatred drives
The Eden of thorns nearby grows
Where roses stink and gloom glows
Saad Javed


Nothing but mourning for the mother was to be. Her only solace is in religion; holding onto which a person dares to live on. How indispensable is religion at these times!

Certainly these are the hard times when in absence of hope and in depths of despair you catch the fading flicker of dying faith and reinvigorate it because you have nowhere else to turn to. People forget and forgive saying that god will take revenge and punish on their behalf on the Day of Judgment. Is this inability to take action or just being a destitute of courage?

What makes your heart wrench even more that the poor girl would now be persecuted for the loss of the child. Unable to produce an heir; a constant threat of being given a divorce would loom on her head.

Somehow we consider that allowing a woman have your seat in the bus or letting her break the queue would elevate her status in the society. I think we would do much better if we could remove the fear form a girl’s mind that she would not be chucked out of the house for being fruitless.

A silent prayer for that mother; may she be able to bear this loss and may another flower blooms; filling her life with smiles.