Of Babies and Airplanes

Recently, a Pakistan International Airlines heading towards Manchester had to make an emergency landing at Poland because a pregnant lady on board gave birth to a six month old baby (the report seems to suggest that the baby is alright, which is great news). An air hostess on board delivered the baby, while the pilot had to land the plane in extremely treacherous conditions (the airport in Warsaw is notoriously difficult to land at - emergency brakes were applied in this particular case) Here is the article from the Dawn:

WARSAW: A six-month pregnant Pakistani who gave birth to a premature baby aboard a flight from Islamabad to Britain forced an emergency landing on Sunday in Warsaw, a spokesman for the Polish capital’s airport said.

'The pilot had to make the decision to land as quickly as possible. Warsaw’s Okecie airport was the closest,’ Jakub Mielniczuk told AFP on Monday about the Pakistan International Airlines flight.

‘The woman was six months pregnant. The airport doctor had to revive the premature baby who was immediately taken to a Warsaw hospital in a serious condition,’ he said.

The baby is alive, a medical official at the hospital where the infant was being cared for told AFP on Monday, but refused to provide further details. The PIA plane travelled on to the British city of Manchester on Sunday evening.—AFP

Ive always been very interested by immigration law and aviation law. This incident is an amalgamation of the two! The first thing that prompted me to do some research was the debate I had with my colleagues on this issue. The know-it-all INSISTED that a child born on board a plane gets (1) Free tickets for life and (2) citizenship of the country the plane is flying over. Now, I disagreed with both of the aforementioned facts and started doing some research.

According to Halsbury's Laws:

Nationality may be acquired in a number of ways. In broad terms there are four principles of acquisition :

(1)by place of birth ('jus soli' ― 'right of the soil');

(2)descent ('jus sanguinis' ― 'right of the blood');

(3)by naturalisation; and

(4)by cession or conquest of territory.

Of course, in the event of a birth on board a plane (or a ship for that matter), no one principle applies! This is because that would cause unneccesary hardship or an unaaceptable result to both the individual and the state. Lets take an example now:

Therefore, most countries have laws so that the child being born on an aircraft will only acquire the nationality of the parents. This is the rule prevailing in several European and African countries.

Now, specifically in relation to the baby born in Poland: (www.polishcitizenship.net, if anyone is interested in acquiring polish citizenship !!)

2. APPLICANTS WHO DO NOT HAVE FAMILY FROM POLAND. THESE APPLICANTS MAY BE ELIGIBLE TO ACQUIRE POLISH CITIZENSHIP IN ONE OF THE WAYS DESCRIBED BELOW.

• By birth on the Polish territory

A child who was born or found within the territory of the Republic of Poland, acquires citizenship of Poland when both parents are unknown, when its citizenship cannot be established, or who are stateless.

By the looks of it, the baby will be acquiring the citizenship of his/her parents!

Oh, and the baby doesn't get free tickets for life either. Check out this (not very academically strong though) link.

The curse of Eden

Ahh I love Sundays! Not only am I watching a very random Govinda movie (in my defence Sunday television sucks. Not only do I have to wait until Monday to catch Desperate Housewives, they don't show my favourite programme on BBC Food on Sundays. Oh, did I mention I enjoy Govinda movies :p I love the 'bus toh road pay chalti hai' type of Govinda jokes haha)

ANYWHO, during the 'intermission', I came across this ad:




and it made me chuckle. It also gave me some food for thought..Now, Im no misandrist, but I hate the double standards of Desi society. I'm at that point in life where I KNOW that it is not possible for men and women to be 'equal', especially seeing our society and religion. I accept it, yet I don't like it. So it's okay for the son to have a million and one girl friends (not that I condone that by any means) and parents take it light heartedly, it's just a phase after all. Heaven forbid if the daughter wants to marry someone of her own choice. All hell will break lose. I know of some employers who openly state that they refuse to hire any females as they will 'get married and leave and what's the point'.Why, oh WHY are we, as Desis, such two faced hypocrites.

I was at a friend's place recently and her grandmother was telling someone about her grandchildren. When asked about her eldest daughter, she said " MashaALlah say, uss ka do betay aur aik beti hai" ( MashAllah, she has two sons and a daughter). When the lady asked her gran about the youngest son's children, she replied " Uss ki to sirf do betiyan hain" (He only has two daughters). Not only that but her gran sounded positively apologetic when she said that.

Coming from a moderate and open minded family, I was really shocked to hear what she had to say. Some people may dismiss that by saying that she's an old lady and her thinking is outdated. I beg to differ! Even now, in this day and age, social evils like infanticide exist in Desi land. Or, on the flip side of the coin, women keep giving birth to cricket team-esque size of families, in the hope that the all coveted male heir, the one-who-carries-the-family-name, will be born. Why is there so much hatred against females? Even swear words in our culture mostly have female centred meanings.

Even if one overlooks incidents of newly married daughter in laws being burnt alive by their in laws as something that will not happen to most urban Desiites - What about the so called educated women who still insist that their daughter in laws bring a truckload of jahez with them - How does one justify/rationalise THAT?
Incidents of forced marriages, vani, karo kari , marriage to the holy Quran (God forbid) and other such social evils are all done in the name of religion. Don't the perpetrators of these horrendous crimes realise that they will eventually be answerable to God one day?

Who are we, the educated Desiites, to blame the Taliban for flogging women and putting them under chaddar and chaardiwari, when our society has programmed us that male = good and female= evil. When the educated men and women of our society create problems for other women, who are we to point fingers at a bunch of mountain people who've probably never seen a book in their entire life. And who am I, as a woman, to point a finger at men when it is women after all, who will date married men and ruin homes and consequently destroy the children from the broken home. Women in the workplace backstabbing other women to get to the top at any cost. The in-laws ( usually the women) trying to get the daughter in law under their control, because they feel threatened, the scheming aunts making their niece's life miserable. The list just goes on and on.

I have been very fortunate (mashAllah say) to have parents who have treated me the same as my brothers and I am thankful to God for that. I do know though, that it is a dog eat dog world out there and there will be times, whether at work, during marriage, out in court, or even out in the market, where I will be discriminated or treated badly JUST because I am a woman. I very much doubt that this is what God intended. Everyone thinks that praying 5 times a day, fasting, haj (all haqooq-ul-ibad) makes a person a good Muslim. Haqooq-Allah (e.g. not hurting some one's feelings or not causing harm to someone) are JUST equally important as Haqooq-ul-ibaad. Then why are women all over Desi land, or even the world, cursed and treated like pariahs?

Farewell o ye Scrubs - "My Finale"

Disclaimer: Scrubs spoiler ahead! Read at your own risk!

Okay so this is the time to admit that I'm a major scrubs buff. Ive been following it up ever since I was aware of its existence (my best friend at uni introduced me to it) and I have been hooked ever since.

And now, Scrubs is finished. Khallas. Kaput. Over. I can only describe it as the end of an era. I wont say that I'm absolutely heart broken but I have to admit though I did shed a tear when JD was imagining his future - I think the music, something along the lines of the "Book of Love" perhaps, was just apt. I thoroughly enjoyed every single episode. From the Janitor's antics ( knife wrench, drill fork, any body remember that?) to JD's daydreams to the dance sequences to the stupid stupid jokes. Loved it all!

I just loved how the Janitor's name was never revealed! and of course, it was JD who had jammed the door on the first day with a penny (accidentally of course)! I knew it ALL along :P Classic! and the last sequence, was just brilliant!

with JD's walk of fame was great as well..It was great to see all the extras pop up too..Especially Hooch.. Hooch is crazyyy! lol

I know this is probably going to sound REALLY corny, but I've felt that Scrubs, despite being a slap sticky, humorous show, has always had a moral-to-the-story type of ending: something which Ive always learned from! Take Bob Kelso in an episode (dont remember which one) "Nothing in this world that's worth having comes easy" really hit home. It made sense somehow...

Similiarly I loved what JD said:

"Endings are never easy. I always build them up so much in my head, they can't possibly live up to my expectations, and I just end up disappointed. I'm not even sure why it matters to me so much how things end here. I guess it's because that we all want to believe that what we do is very important: that people hang on to our every word, that people care what we think. The truth is, you should consider yourself lucky if you even occasionally get to make someone, anyone, feel a little better. After that, it's all about the people you let into your life."

I don't know if it's just me being all emotional, but it kind of put things into perspective.

sigh... farewell oh ye Scrubs.. I will miss thee.

Ludo - a rule book?

On a boring, depressing sunday afternoon at my friend's place, what with the godawful weather and a feeling of impending doom looming upon us, we decided to lighten up the mood... by playing Ludo!

A little historical fact about Ludo from Wikipedia:

Pachisi (as Ludo was then known) is said to have originated in India during 6 A.D. or earlier. Traces of early boards survive in the cave temples of Ellora in the Deccan region, and also at Agra and Allahabad. The Mughal emperor Akbar Khan (1542-1605) had a huge open-air board of marble. In the centre was a dais on which he and his courtiers sat. Instead of pieces, the emperor used girls from his harem, (sigh...ofcourse the Mughals would so such a thing) perhaps emulating Sultan Mohammed who is said to have played “living chess” in Grenada in 1408. In the 1890s pachisi was adapted and modified (and subsequently patented) as Ludo, under which name it appeared in England about 1896.

Now, I'm guessing most people from Desiland and places nearby are well aware of this game. Im going to literally translate the Urdu terminology into English, so apologies for any funny translations. Here's what the general undisputed rules of the game are: Minimum of two, maximum of 4 players, get to choose a colour each, which represents their 'house' - with four 'gotis' or pieces. Each player needs to roll a 6 on the die (or dice, depending on how fast you want to finish the game)to get one piece out of their 'house' at a time.

As a 6 is rolled, that player will then move their way across the board, until they come to their final 'house' in the center of the board. Along the way other players' gotis may be 'killed' if the lucky player rolls the dice and gets an exact number which lets him/her land EXACTLY on someone else's 'goti'. Oh, and your 'goti' is untouchable if it is 'standing' on of those 'stops' ( surprisingly, you only find the extra stops ( i.e. 8 spaces away from the home stops) in desi Ludo boards - see image)

THOSE are the undisputed rules of playing Ludo. So yea the story goes that me, my friend and her younger brother started off playing Ludo. Her younger brother INSISTED upon choosing the green colour. Why, I asked him? "Kyunkay green Islam ka rang hai aur lucky hai" (Because green is the colour that represents Islam and is lucky too).

Now, WHO could argue with that pearl of wisdom! Ive seen a lot of Ludo superstitions (my favourite one being where my cousin would roll the dice and WHACK the dice bucket on an unsuspecting victim's head) but THIS one took the cake.Anyway, off we got started and that little tike was REALLY lucky! He kept on rolling 6s after 6s while I was still stuck in my miserable blue house. Maybe there was something to his theory. Smart alec!

Those were the general undisputed rules. Now, rather surprisingly, the smart alec tike had his own variation of the rules I'm normally used to. Of course, Ive come across some other variations as well and I have no idea which set of rules apply?

Variations:

1. If your 'goti' lands upon another on of your 'goti', you now have what is called a 'double goti' and your double goti can only move about in even spaces ( so if you get four, you move two spaces and so on). The double goti is untouchable and in fact, no one can move their goti across a double goti, and ofcourse that inevitably creates a goti traffic jam

2. You can't go into your final house unless you have killed another player's goti. If that means taking a couple of rounds of the Ludo board until you kill another player's goti, then so be it. BAHAHAHA.

3. If you are using two dice (is that an oxymoron?), you are allowed to abandon one die once you are moving up the path to your final house.

4. If you roll three 6's in a row, then you forfeit your turn, as the dice has been 'burnt'. I found this one to be the most disputed rule!

5. If, when you roll the dice and it falls of the Ludo board, it is considered to be burnt as well and the player who rolled it forfeits his/her turn.

So we had a healthy debate whilst we played the game regarding the rules. Lets just say that actions speak louder than words and the little tike won. Darn it!

I tried to save face by flipping the board over and trying to beat him at snakes and ladders, but by the looks of it, it just wasn't my day! I should've insisted upon the green goti this time round around, me thinks. How I yearned for the snakes and ladders board of my childhood, which had a GIANT snake at 99 which slid you straight down to 2! How FUN was that! They don't make such good stuff anymore, me thinks.

Snakes and ladders reminds me of the Indian game show, saanp aur seeri. I absolutely LOVED watching that show on Zee Tv. Even the host of the show looked like a snake! I so BADLY wanted to participate and get a chance to slide into that pool of water. I also dreamt about being a contestant on fun house (on STN, anyone remember all those great shows - Alf, Flash, Gumby, Camp Candy - I coul go on and on!) and Aik Minute on Zee Tv again ( where the contestants had one minute to do a certain task - how cool was that :p)

Well that was a nice trip down memory lane. Back to the point though, I wonder how many variations of Ludo exists? Any contributions people?