I HAVE a confession to make. As a child, I hated geography. But then my geography teacher was no Marco Polo. The only place she ever made me want to go was home. I never imagined that one day I would actually get out of the classroom and smell the coffee.
But as a grown up, I am now smart enough to appreciate the importance of the subject. When my daughter, Samar, came complaining about her ‘Geog teach’ (she lives in the rocket age, therefore she doesn’t have the time to say her words in whole), with all the understanding in the world, I sat down and changed her mind for her.
History has been rewritten many times because some dummy did not know his geography. Hitler and Napoleon are two amongst many who, I am sure, paid no attention to the chapter marked ‘Climate’. They made the error of attacking Russia in winter, and ultimately paid the price.
Christopher Columbus did not know his geography well for, on route to India, he took a wrong turn and landed in the Americas. This, of course, is not a good example because can you imagine what life would have been without the ‘Americas’? No brain-washing tide, I mean CNN. No hamburger, no pizza (I know they are non-American foods, but that is what all popular American foods are), no Monica Lewinsky and no muddling, meddling superpower. Life would have been a super bore!
And my favourite is the duo from Pakistan who hijacked a Pakistan International Airlines’ plane to India. One look at the hijackers and the smart captain knew that they were zilch in geography. He told them he was taking them to ‘India’, and landed in Hyderabad, Sindh instead. I bet the two hijackers are now taking their atlas very seriously behind bars!
Geography is specially important if one wants to go places in life. If the US Consulate won’t give a tourist visa; the other ‘geographical solution’ is a flight to Mexico. There, an amigo, for $1,000, will take you across the border to the US on a deluxe donkey. But don’t develop an inferiority complex. After a few illegal jobs, ‘horse power’ will forever erase the donkey episode from your life.
My daughter was so impressed with my lecture on the importance of geography that she is planning to do her Ph.D. in the subject (of course, I did not have the heart to tell her that the only place she will really get to visit and that is not marked in the best of world maps is the kitchen).
I have another confession to make. I did not know much geography in 1984 either when, being a Pakistani, I married an Indian (but now it’s no longer geography, it’s History)!
I HAVE a confession to make. As a child, I hated geography. But then my geography teacher was no Marco Polo. The only place she ever made me want to go was home. I never imagined that one day I would actually get out of the classroom and smell the coffee.
