Beyond Perception - Imran Siddiqui's debut Urdu rock album

Beyond Perception -
Imran Siddiqui's debut Urdu rock album - now on iTunes
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Imran Siddiqui
Redefining Urdu Rock

Imran Siddiqui is a global sound that is English and Urdu in the pure alternative sense, as far as the eye can see or the mind can feel, bringing a new postcard from the edges of reality to a global and a more aware audience, this is how Imran Siddiqui's music and song writing is being defined today.

Imran brings a brand new genre, structure, and mechanism of writing, singing, and producing an Urdu rock song, with subtle underlying rhythms of funk, blues, jazz, pop and ethno classical.

Imran Siddiqui aspires to reflect the scenes and lessons from reality and strives to make lives better even if he could make just one man think and prosper. His songs are about Life, God, existence and what lies beyond, people to people interaction or no action at all, blended with his own sometimes tragic and traumatic and at times happy and uplifting experiences that gives a bitter-sweet but an original taste in his song writing skills, lyrical activism and psychedelic vocals as demonstrated in his debut album "beyond perception".

Kahin Bhi - Anywhere, Afra Tafri - Chaos, Sari Rath - All night and Inqallab - Revolution, are songs that are organically musical in their own independent and versatile sense and will touch your heart and inspire you to think about your social surroundings with an open mindset. Most of the songs were written by Imran during his time spent on the streets of Pakistan, experiencing life as it is, in times of turmoil, happiness, and with the will to do something good for the people. Iltija - Prayer, talks about a conversation with God and how only he can help those who help themselves and others. Injila - Break of Dawn, is a song that is dedicated to all the daughters of the world. In this beautiful harmonious blend Imran talks to a child, his own daughter, and convinces her along with the rest of his world that instead of shedding a tear she will smile, no matter what the odds are.

Imran is in the process of reviving a lot of his prewritten lyrics, as well as putting out a new metaphor for his fresh material that can help bring the power of reason, in everyday life, to a whole new dimension. Imran has also finished his lyrical book "ROCKISTAN" that contains songs from "Beyond Perception" and much more.

The idea is to awaken the audience and provide them with the chance to read Imran's social activism through the magic of his reality based song writing and try to connect ourselves with each other, and see how we can make this world a better place for all. Watch for Imran's next album that is sure to add another perspective to the wonderful world of rock and roll.

Credits

Beyond Perception
All songs written by Imran Siddiqui
All vocals by Imran Siddiqui
Music composed by Waqar Ahmed
Except Injila, music for Injila composed by Shebi
Back vocals on Injila by Shebi and ET
Injila mixed by Taimur
Injila recorded at Nucleus entertainment studios
All other songs recorded at ZI Music.
Rockistan - Original songbook from Beyond Perception coming soon

Special thanks

God almighty
Rizwana Siddiqui and Imran's family
All the friends, colleagues and fans that have supported us all along the way.
Huqa Entertainment.

Think original and keep inspiring yourself.
Imran Siddiqui

www.imranmusic.net

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto - The 1st woman Prime Minster of the Muslim world

A sad day for Pakistan today, for losing a fighter for democracy Ms. Benazir Bhutto. But what does it mean for Pakistan and the global war against extremism and terror? Who could be behind this tragedy or gain from it and will the people of Pakistan be the ultimate sufferers in all this mess? Where does the world community stand now? Do you think if the emergency rule was kept in place, this would not have happened?

The fact is that many people will come and give their comments right now, the media has something new to show, but things would be quite different if we try to imagine whats going on in the minds of Benazir's family, her children in particular.

Now all those who were against her are standing united with one voice, why does it have to be like this?, why do we have to loose people in order to understand their value and strength? why wasn't there any security for her? And even if there were do you think that the people who wanted her dead wouldn't have thought of another way to get rid of her?

Have you ever walked the streets of Pakistan? According to international journalists and critics, Pakistan is a walking time bomb, any one on any street corner could get you killed, you will never know who is who in Pakistan. The government hires and trains terrorists, the radicals and extremists execute suicide missions, political parties rival each other to death, and family feuds that can get an entire generation massacred, that is another long story.

But the sad part in all of this is that she was going around the volatile country despite these dreadful conditions on the ground, because she wanted to do something for her people, she took the chances, she knew that instead of living alone and scared at home, it was better to die fighting.

She died at the same spot where Liaqat Ali Khan had been assassinated many years ago. I hope and pray that Pakistan and Karachi in Particular stays safe.

May God rest her soul in peace, and in heaven.

More from here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7161590.stm

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071227/ap_on_re_as/pakistan

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PAKISTAN?SITE=CACHI&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-12-27-voa12.cfm

A moment of solidarity

Everyone has a special way to give thanks to the creator, but the main idea of giving, understanding and appreciating what we have, stays the same, anywhere around the world or maybe around the entire universe.

So on this special day I wish everyone a Happy Eid, A Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukkah.

May we learn to live with each other, in harmony.

Peace!

Suicide attack in Pakistan mosque on Eid day - Shameless

CHARSADDA, Pakistan (Reuters) - At least 38 people were killed on Friday in a suicide bombing at a northwest Pakistan mosque, where a former interior minister was offering Muslim Eid festival prayers with worshipers, officials said.

More here from Ammad Waheed:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071221/ts_nm/pakistan_blast_dc

My Take

My Take on Ijtihad and Irshad Manji

When I first heard about Irshad Manji, I said to myself: “this is one person I’d like to sit down and just have a conversation with”. I feel that she has every right to present her perspective – just like every other person on this planet. It was funny- as soon as I started to work on lining up an interview with Irshad, I faced a lot of criticism from a few friends and colleagues. Surprisingly, many of my critics were journalists. Many people asked why I wanted to talk to her. They passed judgments on her from top to bottom. They also emphasized that radicals will come after my life -just as they go after hers- simply because I wanted to understand her views.
Amazed and astonished that a Pakistani journalist in America would still want to talk to Irshad, the woman who only wants to remind people to think and reflect before they act, critics tried their best in different ways to remind me to keep the balance. I reminded them that in her film, “Faith without Fear”, Irshad kept the balance by keeping her critics alive- and engaging with them. In journalism, we call this ‘impartial reporting’.
I asked a few of my peers if they’d ever met Irshad Manji. The answer was NO. Had they ever spoken with her? The answer was NO. I further asked– have you ever read Irshad’s work? The answer again was NO. My final question was:
“If you have never met her, never spoken with her, and have never even read her work- then how can you dislike her – and even hate her?”. How can we jump to such a conclusion without even trying to understand someone and their views?
Unfortunately, this is exactly the kind of tribalism Islam came about to change- but which we as an ummah have only adopted. Many of us have been brought up in such a way where asking questions, finding the truth or accepting a different point of view – the basis of “ijtihad”, Islam’s own tradition of critical thinking, debate and dissent- is simply off limits. We have allowed a select few to dictate the rights of people all over the world- living and breathing in so many different circumstances, cultures and traditions.
When we don’t have the strength to condemn a Muslim killing another Muslim, or a Muslim taking any innocent life, then how can we despise someone who talks about stopping the senseless bloodshed?
Irshad speaks her mind- and her mind speaks ijtihad- something that’s native to every human spirit- the power to think, reflect and reason. All you have to do is develop it- just like any other thing you work on personally. We work hard to pass an exam but the biggest most imperative exam of all- the one to take action- too many of us are simply ignoring, every second of the day.
READ, my friends, then listen- and finally, talk.

Imran Siddiqui
www.imran.mobi

You can also read the article on truth booth
http://pressthat.wordpress.com/2007/12/03/my-take-on-irshad-and-ijtihad/

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Buying the War | Excerpt | PBS

Bill Moyers Journal: Buying the War
Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 9 PM on PBS (check local listings)

How the administration marketed the war to the American people has been well covered, but critical questions remain: How and why did the press buy it, and what does it say about the role of journalists in helping the public sort out fact from propaganda?

In this clip from the premiere of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS, Bob Simon of 60 Minutes, who was based in the Middle East, talks about the reporting he was seeing and reading out of the beltway, and John Walcott and Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder newspapers (now The McClatchy Company), discuss their work burrowing deep into the intelligence agencies to determine whether there was any evidence for the Bush Administration's case for war. On Wednesday, April 25 at 9 P.M. on PBS (check local listings), watch "Buying the War," a 90-minute documentary that explores the role of the press in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, which includes interviews with Dan Rather, formerly of CBS; Tim Russert of Meet the Press; and Walter Isaacson, former president of CNN.

Two days later on April 27, the Bill Moyers Journal airs its regular timeslot on Fridays at 9 P.M. with interviews and news analysis of underreported stories across an array of beats, including: the environment, media, politics, the economy, arts and culture, and social issues.

more from here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5Kngf803dQ

and from here
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2007/04/preview_buying_the_war.html

and here
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html

This is what you get!

This is what you get for being fair, dedicated and devoted to your country. This is what you get for standing in the name of honer, justice and freedom, in the face of oppression. This is the chief justice of Pakistan being manhandled by the police of his own country. The same police officers who swore to uphold the constitution of Pakistan. This is how they treat the man who is the Chief Justice of their Supreme Court.
In order to follow orders, orders given in haste
these are the levels we can come down to.

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"According to the Advocate General of Sindh, Justice Chaudhry is still the Chief Justice of Pakistan, and should be allowed to exercise all due privileges. However, the flags of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the Supreme Court have been removed from his home and his name and references were initially removed from the website of the Supreme Court of Pakistan; but were restored 24 hours later. The reason presented by the Officials of Supreme Court for the removal of the information from the website was that it happened due to some technical errors.

According to BBC Urdu and The News (Pakistani newspaper), the supreme judicial council planned to look into the inquiry against Justice Chaudhry. Out of the three Judges of the council there are corruption cases already pending against two judges (one for financial corruption and the other for a case related to fraud in land) and the third Judge allegedly had his daughter admitted to a medical college on the recommendations of the Chief Minister of a province of Pakistan."

More on The Suspension of Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, from this link:
A lions tale

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iftikhar_Muhammad_Chaudhry_(suspension)

image credits

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Iftikhar_chaudhry_agencies.jpg

The people of Pakistan and the Police

It does not surprise me the way Pakistani police and the intelligence covert operatives in civilian clothes have manhandled the innocent simple citizens of Pakistan, especially when I have not only seen it all with my own eyes but have been beaten up and locked in jail by the Pakistani police, only for not having a drivers license. But keeping Musharraf's position aside, I am sure he wouldn't have even known whats happening to his people until he saw it all himself, then he must've asked his allies what are they doing and they must've said, Sir, don't you worry, we will take care of everything, the situation is under control, so what if we are beating up women and children. And then being helpless as he must have been, he may have gone silent, to find alternatives to the dangerously deteriorating situation in Pakistan, which by any chance is not new but at least six decades old. The people who know the currents and the under-current know it all so well. So maybe, he did know, does that matter now? has it ever mattered? Things will only change when the entire collective soul of every single Pakistani, especially the poor ones, will scream out loud, only then change will come.

The brutality of the police action does not stop here, even though they are cruel enough to cowardly attack women, children, the youth, old and weak, with buttocks and guns, but I am sure if the youth and other student organizations, and the average Pakistani, if they all would've picked up arms and ammunition against the police and the internal Pakistani CIA operatives, then things would've been very different.

When I saw Zaid's Documentary " Missing in Pakistan", that very impressively highlights the 500 plus missing people in Pakistan, which you can find here, and in that excellent documentary when you see the shot where a Pakistani police man is pulling two young girls from their hair and then dragging those innocent little girls down the floor in front of other people, at that time, I asked myself, If I had a gun, and would've walked up to that police man and had asked him to let the girls go free, with my gun pointing straight at him, what would he have done?? On second thoughts, if he wouldn't have listened to me, and wanted to show how strong he is and would have tried to attack me, would I have pulled the trigger?

Maybe I would have..., because the way police in Pakistan works is very different compared to the police of the rest of the world. They don't talk, they just attack, and to be fair with statistics, at least 99% of them do. No police man in Pakistan will ever be thankful that it was my paid taxes out of my hard earned legal money that he gets his pay check. His pay check might be small but it did come from somewhere, even though my pay check was small too but I still had to pay my taxes and that police man did get paid, so why is he attacking a simple hard working average fellow Pakistani who did nothing wrong but help that same police man get his salary. Well, thats simply because of ass kissing. Because in Pakistan the only way to climb the ladder of success is to pick balls or butt kiss, and thats what most of the police men were doing on the streets of Pakistan during and after the state of emergency organized by a state in an emergency, they were all simply impressing their superiors. In their own words they were saying, look at this Sir, look at what we are doing for you, whatever your wish is, that is our command. And that means, during the killing spree executed by the police and the intelligence operatives, they might have ended up killing their own family members as well.

I wonder when the Pakistanis in power and the powerless Pakistanis will stop to ponder on this thought, that since the day Pakistan was created she and her people have always been used and abused as buffer-zone inductees and slave camp laborers, brainwashed to battle each other, in order for others to take advantage of the position, location and the situation in Pakistan.

God help the people and may the people help themselves and others.

Media scene of Pakistan in pampers & its leaking.

Some of the Media outlets in Pakistan are still off the air since the hard stance the Government of Pakistan took on the Media industry in October 07. A lot of perspectives came out since the imposition of the state of emergency and some of the journalists, producers and activists went out on the streets of Pakistan protesting against Musharraf's actions against the media. But its surprising that no one ever talked about why the media was being scrutinized by the same person who gave all the freedoms to it.

The fact is that the Pakistani media industry can be compared to a little baby whose pamper is leaking with too many holes in it, and the baby doesn't even know about it. It is shocking to observe how and what the media in Pakistan has been playing on their air-waves. From pieces of dead bodies, to blown up heads, all the worse that you can ever imagine was being shown on Pakistani media, eventually desensitizing the audience to bloodshed, murder and mayhem. They say that media is reflecting the current society and the government, but the question is that medias job is not only to portray the current trends of a society but also to change them for the better.

But how can anyone do something like that when they themselves don't know how to do it? Not even once from the lobby controlled media scene have we seen a positive approach to the crisis situation in Pakistan, since the day networks have been allowed to broadcast their free will. Mostly there has been criticisms and zero solutions. Majority of the Television anchors are young kids, the program hosts are ill mannered and under prepared promotion hungry blabber mouths that just keep rambling about things totally unrelated to the future and progress of Pakistan. Face promotion is what most of the television media community is pushing for on-air.

The management, marketing and programing divisions have no strategic or moral sense of how to market whatever, wherever, to whom and at what time, as if its a non stop donkey race going on to win the hearts and minds of the innocent people of Pakistan who mostly have nothing else to do but watch the crazy political and ever democratic situation in Pakistan, made only worse by her own baby media. After the airwaves got shut down and our TV program was not on the air anymore, we went Live on radio and most of the callers calling us from Pakistan, the interior rural Pakistan were complaining that they have lost all their entertainment since the channels got shut down. Not one caller talked about what they were getting out of the media, it seemed as if a long awaited emotionally placed drama serial had just ended abruptly.

No one complained about missing news but the entertainment aspect of the news. In fact people missed watching how the politicians are invited on to the shows and insulted and abused, while the anchors feel proud on this baseless questioning, or how sex hungry commercials flood the airwaves or how not even one channel talked about making things better in Pakistan, no, none of that was missed because it never existed. Even the politicians themselves, most of them have nothing to do with enhancing the political environment of the country, no one trained or educated enough to handle core issues that can improve the livelihood of their own people. Imagine this, news for the audience was entertainment not information, because of the way it was being packaged. Guests coming on air, while they scratch their testicles in front of the cameras, hosts acting like referees and real estate agents and drug mafia brokers, trying to make the 2 parties fight rather than bringing to them a one cohesive point of view, or simply standing at different points of view but in a decent humane manner.

That happens when the media industry is being run by rice exporters and stock brokers because they start treating all the content as if its some sort of a commodity that you can black market or just stock in pile, the real news and its message just totally lost somewhere in between. And obviously they hire human resource that are just as dumb as the owners of these media outlets, so what execution? With no laws of broadcasting and ethics in place, wild dogs left out to rule the streets, bad mouthing, disregarding and disgracing their own people, if the media industry wants to be the watchdog over the Government, then who's watching the media? They need to be taught real and authentic broadcasting, help educate and uplift their people and guide them so the channels could be bearable and viewable in order to develop an educated, intelligent, thought provoking audience that can not only reflect but can also think?

I wonder when that day will come?