Getting robbed and no complaints: KARACHI FILE
ONCE again the police are on the prowl. Not to catch a thief. They were never famous for any inclination to be on the lookout for thieves. With the Eid relentlessly drawing closer by the minute, they are out making hay, that is, raking in cash to have a happy Eid. If cash were raining from the skies, all would be welcome to take their pick. Our men in uniform are picking their stuff from fellow citizens’ pockets.
All Karachi newspapers confess being witness to this kind of activity for days. According to them the common sight on the busiest of busy roads is like this: You have a young man or two, a policeman or two, one or two motorcycles standing unpenitently by. This picture is animated by conversation. In the script the policemen dominate the dialogue that concludes only after the boys have managed to ‘please’ the officers.
So, the policemen’s happy Eid has begun and in full swing. Around three Ramazan weeks have gone by. Only one remains. Our police would be happy if the sacred Ramazan with its blessings came earlier, stayed longer. After another week or so Ramazan will have departed. But it will be back a year later. How nice to look forward to the next Ramazan and the next motorcycle documents check.
Few would disagree that the beauty of this comedy play is that it is so open. Everybody knows all there is to it. Would our genial Governor Mohammedmian Soomro be blissfully unaware of this straightforward activity of his policemen? Or, has our amiable IG of police no inkling of this great game in which his minions play the lead with such sang-froid?
Now a word to our good readers. Allah be praised that all of them are men and women of much education, culture and social consciousness. They are as well informed and conscious citizens as anywhere on this planet. How do they feel about this police diversion and its young victims, their own sons? Evidently, the parents of the boys harassed on the roadside in such crudely cynical fashion are quite comfortable. No complaints!
Witnessing such scenes and the dead silence suffusing them leaves one aghast. Citizens prefer to swallow it hook, line and sinker without feeling the pinch of this insult to themselves and to entire society. Not a whimper of a protest anywhere. You get this highway robbery, laced with humility, because you are willing to lap it up. So, rest assured you will have more of it. Do not fault the police. Fault the society that is willing to abide with this shame.
Let us now try to help ourselves to some more ways of looking at our environment. We are told over and over again that henceforth police will be under the vigilant eye of the elected local governments. The man that instantly comes to mind is the City Nazim Naimatullah Khan. It is said that he knows Karachi backwards — better than anyone going.
Is this Eidi cess by police part of his vast knowledge about Karachi or not? If the answer is yes, as it ought to be, what is he doing about it? We have no choice but to assume that he has his party cadres who helped him to his present eminence. Why not put these cadres to monitor this rampant extortion, and worse, this humiliation of our young people?
An elected government is all about public interest and the protection of it, or it is nothing, worse than nothing. If there is any one point on which this entire nation groans in one voice, it is the perception of the quality of police. Breathes there a Pakistani who does not know that police extortion comes in a hundred different forms, each uglier than the other?
Among those innocents we have our Governor, the Nazim, the IG and so many do-gooders around. There is no counting the pious and holy men who are training and dispatching our youth to Jihad a thousand miles away from home. They do not see evils right under their nose, or who knows, under their own patronage. Our Jihadis are more concerned about ‘Fuhashi’ and ‘Uryani,’ than stark corruption and cruelty
Just think of the wrongdoing with which this city is bursting at the seam. Police exaction is only one of a hundred evils that abound and flourish. Garbage and solid waste has not been attended to for years. The underground drains are fountains of sullage. Adulteration of food items, capped by over-charging, is something that touches every life. All this goes unnoticed by all our Maulanas who are pontificating from mosque loudspeakers all the time.
From the slaughter houses masses of meat is transported into town without the most ordinary precaution of a cover. A sight more hideous is impossible to imagine. No city father has eyes to see this. Food shop and vegetable stalls stand cheek by jowl with filth dumps. Flies, mosquitoes, indeed all manner of pests, proliferate in this city of mounting insanitation. Not a voice of protest from any Allama.
All this — and police Eidi, too!
The young and the artistic
YET another batch of students graduated from the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. And like the graduands before them, the class of 2001 proved their artistic mettle as well. The phase between post-thesis critique and the graduation ceremony itself presents ample opportunity to the, I dare say, culture starved elite of Karachi to view the work on display.
Perhaps the most constructive aspect of it all is the fact that young talent gets to show off their budding skills without having to indulge in gallery-politics and incurring expenditure for their work to be appreciated. And appreciated their work is, not just by elitist circles but by people from all walks of life who seemed to be swarming the place. The exhibition is divided into several sections, each representing the college’s various departments.
Content included elaborate architectural drawings and models, traditional textiles and thought-provoking awareness campaigns by communications design students. Most of the exhibits seemed to be of a quality that could compete with the big names currently monopolizing the local art scene. Aman Ahmed had a walk-in project in which visitors got to see a short promotional video about design. One of the textile graduates showed off a technique of dyeing fabric using an innovation on the chunri technique. Here, the part of the fabric to be left free of the dye was stitched tightly, and this created an unusual pattern with the vegetable and natural dyes which was chunri-like but not quite.
Another exhibit worth mentioning was Uzair Akram’s walk-in experience, an ad campaign for Amnesty International. Perhaps the most ‘touching’ (pun intended) part of that was when the visitor was forced to touch miniature replicas of human bodies hanging by their necks, in order to move through the exhibit. This sheer physical touch passed on an eerie feeling and drove straight home the point Uzair wanted to make. A mug designed by Maliha Shaukat as part of her campaign was a most eye-catching piece of pottery: purple, with a protruding eye. The informality of the ambience, complete with students at work added to the freshness of the exhibition, as did the creativity of these young minds.
One of the most striking pieces in the sculpture section was the one constructed by Ayesha Adil. She had drawn an analogy between an essential part of Pakistani culture, the dolling up of a bride to another integral national obsession, food. She drew parallels between presentation of food, the warq (foil) used to cover mithais and the silver and gold used to ‘present’ or rather adorn brides. Her take on it was to show the way women are commodified and presented as objects to satiate the senses, and that this commodification takes places to such an extent that their comfort and mobility takes a back seat.
This has arguably got to be one of the longest waits ever. The last time the city got a telephone directory was way back in 1996.
Now, according to the PTCL a new updated edition is supposed to come out every year. The explanation for the delay has been that a contract to give out directories a couple of years ago had to be rescinded after favouritism was proved. Phone users were told that this time around the task had been completed and everyone would have new directories soon.
Unfortunately, most people do not have the new updated edition. And it’s not as if PTCL is doing all of us a favour because providing them is one service that it is obliged to do for all its subscribers. This also means that no extra money has to be, or should be paid, to get hold of a new directory. The new excuse now is that not enough copies were printed and that the pace of distribution will pick up as copies come in.
For those who have yet to feast their eyes on this publishing marvel, the new Karachi phone directory is 3,002 pages long, and divided into three parts: A to H, I to M and N to Z. Most people I know have had a tough time getting hold of something that they are in any case entitled to. Both happen to live in Defence, apparently one of Karachi’s ‘posh’ areas, though the lack of amenities here is as remarkable as in other parts of the city.
The first lives on Khayaban-i-Shujaat in Phase VI, house number 96/2, and telephone number 5855370. She contacted the local exchange and was told that a lineman would come by and hand over the directory. Around a couple of weeks back, the lineman did come but he also asked for the usual chai paani (yes it was Ramazan but he wanted money for his ‘iftari’, I guess). On principle, the friend refused the chai paani demand. The lineman went away, without handing over the directory.
The other friend, who lives in Phase V has three telephones installed in his home. Now, under the rules PTCL provides a directory set for each telephone subscriber or number. The friend says he went to the exchange and after much hassling, managed to get one set. He told the supervisor that he had three phones — and had the bills to prove it — but the supervisor said he could give only one set, and if the subscriber wanted, he could speak with the divisional engineer. The friend did nothing of the sort, saying why should he have to waste his time meeting a mid-level PTCL employee for seeking something that was his by right.
Just what is it that brings about such a change in people during Ramazan?
Every day during this month a large crowd gathers outside a house at the intersection of Khayaban-i-Shaheen and Mujahid in Defence Phase V. They are all very poor people, mostly beggars, and show up by the hundreds at around 4.00 pm. They wait impatiently for their share of biryani, at the gate outside the boundary walls, or even on it. Now this is quite a busy junction, and the flow of traffic is badly affected as some one or the other suddenly jumps in front of your car, every now and then.
The ‘big-hearted’ folk of the house have found a way to be pious by pleasing the poor. If the crowd becomes too rowdy, there is always an army of private guards waiting in their mobile vans to react. One of the beggars was overheard commenting on how rich and lucky these people (behind the free feast) must be. Perhaps the people of the house should have taken some pointers from a famous landed family living further down Khayaban-i-Mujahid.
Instead of making a show of wealth, these people have volunteered to become the treasurers for the various pick-ups that roam the city with powerful loudspeakers collecting ‘chanda’. Many of these pick-ups are parked outside their house, making announcements asking people to donate whatever cash they could spare. This is then followed by a well-rehearsed praise for the owner of the house where these vans are parked.
As the days of the Holy month progress and the cash flows in, the place has started looking more and more venerable, complete with a shamiana and speakers that blast naat and qawwali throughout the night. My friend hasn’t been able to get a good night’s sleep for days as this house is right opposite his home. But he dare not complain lest he be accused of being anti-religion.
And if you are thinking that in doing so the owners of this house are also depriving themselves of sleep, then you are wrong. I am told that they have disappeared like the devil, and are in their ancestral village. However, the servants have been told to keep up this show of piety. — By Karachian
Qazi is still the front-runner!: VIEW FROM MARGALLA
CHANGING sides in Afghanistan was too easy and profitable, too. But switching partners inside the country will not be so easy and it will be too costly as well politically for those who hold the political whip hand in this country. On the face of it even the Afghan switch-over did look too awesome and too risky in the beginning. But infact it was not so because it had only entailed betraying a foreign friend which in the first place had been propped up by Pakistan’s Establishment itself and secondly the only public support that this foreign friend had enjoyed in Pakistan was from the religious right which themselves were beholden to the Establishment for their political clout. So, the street wrath of the religious extremists that was witnessed in the early weeks of the US air raids against Afghanistan subsided like the soda froth when these elements saw the writings on the wall which were being scribbled in a hurry by their guide and mentor, the Establishment. Recent reports in the US print media have alleged quoting unnamed official and non-official sources that the Taliban had collapsed immediately following the withdrawal of support by the Pakistan Army. So, the switch over was indeed, too easy. And in return, the military regime has been offered billions of dollar and also the much-needed international legitimacy. A highly profitable trade-off, indeed!!
But it is not going to be so easy switching sides inside the country. The relations between the Establishment and the religious right in Pakistan date back to the war in Bangladesh. Remember Al-Shams and Al-Badar? This was the first time when the Establishment had sought the help of the religious right to achieve its political aims which it has always tried to palm off to the nation as national aims. Al-Shams and Al-Badar massacred their own fellow citizens in the streets of the then East Pakistan in the name of patriotism. This linkage between the Establishment and the religious right survived the dismemberment of the country. And in 1977 this linkage manifested in PNA’s movement against an elected prime minister. The PNA wanted the establishment of Nizam-i-Mustafa after toppling Mr Z.A. Bhutto. Instead the Alliance succeeded in establishing a military dictatorship. During the 11 years of Zia rule the religious right openly served as the political arm of the military regime on the streets of Pakistan. The Afghan war of the 1980s helped to cement this linkage between the regime and the religious extremists. The same elements were used later on the streets of Pakistan by the Establishment whenever it needed to get rid of the elected governments during the democratic interlude of the 1990s.
And until September 11, the present military regime was all set to finally impose a government of religious right through the elections. It had identified the Jamaat-i-Islami chief, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, as the future prime minister and for votes to get him elected in the parliament it was shaping up a leaderless ‘mass’ party out of Mian Azhar’s Ham Khyals. Qazi had already been interviewed by the ‘friendly’ foreign governments which matter and they had found him to be moderate enough to serve their purpose. Both a beholden Qazi and a highly indebted Ham Khyals would have had no objections to getting Musharraf elected as the President and amending the Constitution suitably to keep it parliamentary in spirit but presidential in letter. So, it was all fixed. But September 11 changed it all.
As a consequence a bitter confrontation has ensued between the two political collaborators — the Establishment and the religious right. Even the so-called moderate religious right elements, led by Jamaat had taken to the streets protesting against the military regime’s decision to change sides in Afghanistan.
And since the Jamaat was also seen vociferously denouncing the Americans for air raids against Afghanistan, Qazi seems to have lost his acceptability in Washington as well. But then if one looked back on the political moves that the present military regime had made since it came to power on October 12, 1999, one could easily see that all its moves had just one objective — to destroy the leadership of the mainstream political parties. Even today, the regime’s important pillars are heard insisting frequently that come what may they would not allow either Nawaz Sharif or Benazir Bhutto to come back to power. So, with elections only about nine months away, one cannot see the Establishment going anywhere but back to the religious right for help to stop NS and BB from coming back.
The US which has always found it more convenient and less messy to deal with dictators and monarchs in friendly developing countries also has an affinity with Pakistan’s religious right dating back to 1950s and ‘60s. And during the 1980s it had worked very closely with these elements in Afghanistan in its war against the Soviet Union. So the US understands the Pakistani military as well as its religious right better than the country’s democratic forces which are perceived by Washington to be ‘corrupt’. So, why not help each other so that those who want democracy in this country are kept out of the reckoning for as long as it is possible? Going by this logic one cannot but reach the conclusion that it would serve the interests of both — the Pakistani Establishment and the US if a pliable parliament is allowed to emerge after the October 2002 election headed by ‘our man’ the Qazi!! This would also fit into the religious realities of the region. No matter what the conquerors of Afghanistan would like to believe, they would still have to live with beards and burqas (viels) there. Even the most moderate Muslims in that country would continue to cover their faces with beards and their women with burqas. Of course they would not be as extreme as the Taliban are in their beliefs, but they would still like to give an Islamic face to their government.
Neighbouring Iran is already under a government whose religious propensity is striking. India, which neighbours Pakistan, also has a government led by a party which is known to promote that country’s religious beliefs rather than its secular tendencies.
There is, therefore, no place at least for the time being it seems for either NS or BB or even for democracy in the emerging regional scenario. — Onlooker
Manufacturing support for war
LAST week, I gave you excerpts from an American document, “Defending civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It.” Not that it matters any longer but I want to continue to bring campus opinion in the US. But before I do that let me give you a little story. I told a friend the other day: “There’s a Jew behind every Bush.” My friend asked me to change it into: “There’s a Bush behind every Jew.” Which one do you prefer? Back now to my US campus round-up.
A teacher of anthropology, MIT: “Imagine the real suffering and grief of the people in other countries. The best way to begin a war on terrorism might be to look in the mirror.”
A professor of linguistics, MIT: “What the US calls counter-terrorism is terrorism by another name. Operation Infinite Justice — the Bush administration’s code name for proposed military action against terrorists — is ‘cowboy law’.”
Harvard lecturer in history and literature: “I deplore those who are deploying rhetoric and deploying troops without thinking before they speak.”
Professor of anthropology at Brown University: “Despicable acts of mayhem such as those committed in New York and Washington are a measure of the revulsion that others feel at our actions that seemingly limit those rights (to self-determination). If we perpetuate a cycle of hate and revenge, this conflict will escalate into a war that our great-grandchildren will be fighting.”
Director of the Yale Centre for the Study of Globalization: “It is from the desperate, angry and bereaved that these suicide pilots came.”
Brown University student: “It’s good for the government to know that there are people who prefer peace to bloodshed. Not all Americans want revenge.”
Professor of economics, Brown University: “If people have some patriotic fervour, they are going to have to work for the CIA, slitting throats in dark alleys.”
Speaker from the Islamic Academy of Las Vegas: “Ignorance breeds hate.”
“Hate breeds hate” — sign at University of Maryland.
Brown student activist: “I consider myself a patriot. I think this country does wonderful things for its citizens, but we must acknowledge the terrible things it often does to the citizens of other countries.”
Professor of history, Columbia University: “I am not sure what is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House.” Unidentified speaker at a Haverford College Quaker meeting: “No matter how desolate the World Trade Centre site was, there was a place even more desolate — Afghanistan.”
Faculty Forum on alternative to war, Washington University of St Louis: “The United States would have done the right thing by not going to war: responding as a responsible member of the international community rather than as a vigilante gunslinger in the old West, riding out to capture the bad guys and bring them back dead or alive.”
Harvard sign: “War is also terrorism.”
Student protesters in Harvard Square: “One, two, three, four — we don’t want another war! Five, six, seven eight — stop the violence, stop the hate!”
Sign at the University of Michigan: “Revenge is Not Justifiable” and “No Racist War”.
Part-time student, University of California-Berkeley: “The media has stirred the country into a forth of hatred and revenge. All this so-called support for military action has been completely manufactured.”
Professor of Journalism, University of Texas-Austin: “My anger on this day is directed not only at individuals who engineered the September 11 tragedy but at those who have held power in the US and have engineered attacks on civilians every bit as tragic. The (terrorist attack) was no more despicable than the massive acts of terrorism the US government has committed during my lifetime.”
MRS Akhtar Taufiq and Mr Manzur Ahmad from Habibullah Road here have sent me a joint letter. It states and I quote:
We have recently returned from Minnesota in the United States after a four-month vacation. Minnesota, as you know, is one of the healthiest American states. It was summer when we landed there and it was autumn when we left. In summer there, the air is clean and bracing, and that’s when it’s the best of times, weatherwise. Living there was so peaceful, so soothing and so relaxing that we felt as if God was in heaven and all was well with the world. We were enjoying and savouring every minute of our stay there.
But then one morning as we got up — it was September 11 — what suddenly fell from the skies, with its repercussions all around the world — destroyed the peace and serenity of our environment. Everything just exploded. It robbed us of our holiday mood, even of our sense of security.
It’s now nearly three months down the road, but our world still continues to shake in a state of crisis. We think the prevailing situation calls for deep analysis and reflection. One way, and perhaps the right way, of looking at it is that it is all part of God’s plan; that God is abandoning and punishing us, because human beings, whether in the East or West, have degenerated and are becoming more and more materialistic, selfish and immoral in their attitudes towards life and its values.
There is need for us to descend into the very depths of our being and then re-emerge with a clean persona at personal, communal, national and international levels, firmly upholding the scales of justice and moral principles even when our narrower interests and compulsion pull us in a different direction.
Unless we do that, we may be heading towards a situation which may unleash God’s wrath upon us. It is a wake-up call to us to avert the possibility of impending dooms .... we do not know.
WHAT has happened to the West Indies? I mean to be whitewashed 0 = 3 in a Test series is nothing new thing but to surrender without putting up even half a fight! And to think that the West Indians were world beaters not very long ago. The victors, Sri Lanka, won the first Test at Galle by ten wickets, the second at Kandy by 131 runs and the final game, again by 10 wickets in Colombo.
When the West Indies made 448 in the first innings at Galle, everyone thought they were on to a good thing. Brian Lara had made 178 but off-spin ace Muralitharan still managed to get six wickets for 126 and the Sri Lankans replied with a mammoth 590 for nine declared with centuries from Sangakkara and Tillekaratne. Muralitharan then proceeded with his demolition act with a haul of 5 for 44 — match figures of 11 for 170. The end was a mere formality with Sri Lanka requiring no more than six to win.
In the second game at Kandy, Sri Lanka (288 and 224 for six declared) won quite comfortably, with the West Indies scoring 191 and 190. Their margin of victory was 131 runs.
In Colombo for the final Test, the West Indies made 390 with Brian Lara playing a lone hand by hitting a magnificent 221 but Chaminda Vaas, the left-arm pace bowler, took a career-best 7 for 120 (later, these figures were to be improved). Sri Lanka made 627 for nine declared with a double ton from the middle order batsman, Hashan Tillekaratne. The visitors were bowled out for 262. Brian Lara hit another 130 but Vaas took 7 for 71 — match figures of 14 for 191. Do you remember any batsman hitting 351 runs (Lara) in the two innings of a Test match and yet finding himself on the losing side?
As one looks back at the series, one finds that the West Indies had no middle order and once they had lost their first four wickets, they crumbled like a house of cards. Frankly, I can’t recall a weaker West Indian side in all these years I have been following their fortunes.
BMC Hospital starts working after a long wait: DATELINE QUETTA
THE Bolan Medical College complex is at long last complete. It is the only teaching hospital in Balochistan. It was a prestigious project of the federal government, initiated during the NAP rule in the province in 1972. It was supposed to be financed under the federally-funded Public Sector Development Programme.
Its initial cost was estimated at Rs75 million. The original site of the BMC complex was in Mastung. The first batch of students had agitated and convinced the NAP government of the need to build the college in the provincial capital. The original blueprint of the complex, approved by the NAP government, had proposed the site in the Sariab area of Quetta. Even the contract was awarded to the Masti Khan Construction Company of Karachi to build the complex at a cost of Rs75 million. When the NAP government was overthrown, the BMC complex project was politicized by successive governments in the province. The site was changed and the present one in the seismic zone was selected.
Now the present site is sandwiched between two huge Afghan refugee settlements of Kharotabad and Hazara Town. Thus over 70 per cent patients treated by the hospital are Afghan refugees. Its completion took three full decades. Its actual cost exceeded to Rs1.2 billion. Now it is operational at a big scale, though not fully and according to its capacity.
But it is the biggest health-care centre of the province by any standard. The government of Pakistan had imported equipment and machinery for the Dhaka Medical College in 1970. The machinery was diverted to Karachi during the peak days of the Bangladesh war and days before the fall of Dhaka.
Finally, the Indian troops occupied Bangladesh, and the machinery arrived at the Karachi port. Subsequently, the equipment and machinery were shared between the JPMC Karachi and the Bolan Medical College.
The cost escalation of the BMC complex had two specific reasons. One is normal rise in the cost of construction due to long delays, as the project took more than three decades, and the other and more obvious reason was the rampant corruption. Being a federally-funded project, its resources were diverted for buying loyalties of political opponents or for funding political campaigns of the loyalists in Balochistan.
Invariably, it remained a normal practice of the decision-makers in Islamabad to give minimum or no funds to Balochistan projects. That was why federal projects would take decades for completion. Some of them are still incomplete, though these were initiated some four decades ago. The BMC complex is a classic case. The cost of the project was first revised to Rs250 million in 1978 and in the second revision it was Rs1,193 million in 1990 and the third and final revision made it a Rs1.2 billion undertaking.
Newsmen keeping a track of the activities of the present government found the policy-makers nervous when they talked about the BMC or the project for widening the Pat Feeder. However, the present government used all its resources, power and influence to get the BMC complex completed and the hospital shifted. The governor, as well as the outgoing corps commander, took keen interest in the completion of the complex. A senior officer of the Pakistan army was virtually posted to ensure that the complex was completed and the provincial government Sandeman Hospital shifted and work started. Credit goes to Governor Justice Amirul Mulk Mengal who made frequent visits to ensure that the hospital was shifted and got all the necessary equipment for its smooth functioning.
At present, the hospital, with 800 beds, is fully operational. It is a teaching hospital with all modern facilities. It has almost all the important general and specialized wards to accommodate patients. It has 18 operation theatres, all in a row and properly planned, equipped with sophisticated equipment and machinery. When this correspondent visited the hospital, the gynaecology ward was made functional the same day and six delivery cases were handled, with mother and child in superb health. It has a complete pathology lab. The medical superintendent, Dr Shafi Zehri, told Dawn that it would be a complete lab with sophisticated equipment matching any well-reputed lab in Pakistan.
The hospital has an ICU with 14 beds and it is well-equipped. About 650 beds are allocated for the general wards and the remaining 150 for ICU and other specialised units. During the present emergency situation as a result of the Afghan war, the hospital management has made a provision of 400 beds for handling any disaster. It is a part of a contingency plan and disaster management by the BMC administrator in the wake of the Afghan war in our neighbourhood.
The process of installation of MRI and other modern equipment is on as the government of Balochistan has pledged to provide the necessary funds for equipping the hospital with all facilities. With the greater allocation for the social sector following the events of Afghanistan and conversion of loans into grant by friendly governments, the BMC is expected to get a bigger share from the enhanced funding. A number of projects are prepared and some others are processed for approval.
The BMC administrator, right from the beginning, has tried to benefit from the efficiency of the private sector. He has privatized most of the services, including cleaning, medical gasses, maintenance of power supply, plumbing, security, boiler, ventilation, heating, cooling and sewerage treatment. This has also helped the hospital to maintain an environment-friendly look: no dirt and no waste seen anywhere. The credit goes to the hospital administration for properly monitoring all the services round the clock.
It is the first hospital in the province where the sterilization process is centralized and a lift has linked the service with the operation theatres for proper handling of sterilized equipment and stuffs.