Cross-border couples and their visa travails ~Indo-Pak Visa Part 1

Published in Aman ki Asha blog The News/Jang Group on July 27, 2011

“A marriage license doesn’t come with a job description or a set of instructions. There is definitely some ‘assembly’ required. In fact, putting together a marriage can be likened to assembling an airplane in flight” – Patricia Love

Every marriage needs a lot of reassembling in social, psychological and emotional terms. But when marriages take place across the Indo-Pak border they also involve a lot of political reassembling.

Indo-Pak marriages are different from other cross-border marriages – such unions between people from these two neighbouring countries are far tougher and more challenging than marriages across oceans between people with vast cultural differences. The distance between India and Pakistan does not entail crossing oceans or even cultures but one has to cross huge mountains of hurdles in terms of legal and bureaucratic formalities.

With the pendulous political love-hate relationship that exists between the two countries, marrying and staying happily married across the border (‘pyar border paar’) is no small feat. It takes a tough mind and resilient heart to brave the challenges.

There are personal challenges involved in every marriage. But the additional challenges in Indo-Pak marriages include taking certain decisions which may be painful. As a patriotic and a proud Indian, it was hard for me to surrender my Indian passport and apply for a Pakistani. Not that I had any grudges against the latter, but to give up your national identity is an experience you have to live, to know how it feels.

You might ask why would an educated woman change her nationality? The answer is simple. No one coerced me. I did it for the desire to have a peaceful family life and for the sake of our children (who were to arrive later).

My British, Canadian and Filipino friends married to Pakistanis live without any problems in Pakistan, using their original passports. But for an Indian this is not possible.
I did quite a bit of homework before taking this life-changing decision. I knew of instances where people in this situation had retained their nationalities, leading to many practical and political challenges. Most of them advised me to swallow this bitter pill and make the change, but finally, it was entirely my own decision.

In Pakistan, the ID cards of both parents are required to obtain documents for children like B-form, passport, and ID card. A mother with an Indian passport would mean inviting trouble, with more errands from office to office, or one section officer to another, to get ‘no objection certificates’ or NOCs.

Obtaining a visa to visit family across the border is any case a Herculean task if you don’t have connections in the high offices. And for a family like ours living in a third country I would, if I had maintained my Indian nationality, have to go through the gruelling process of obtaining a Pakistani visa each time we were to visit Pakistan. By giving up my nationality and becoming a Pakistani, I thought at least we have to struggle for the visa on one side only, when my children and husband want to visit India.

Unfortunately, my having been a born Indian, lived there for 23 years, and having parents still living there, does not mean that my husband and children will be given any extra consideration when they apply for an Indian visa. I know this is also the case for Pakistani women who are married and live in India. The visa policies work on a reciprocal basis.

Our visa troubles are not a once in a while exercise, but an annual struggle. The struggle which I have been undertaking for the past twenty years, almost each year, to visit my ageing parents exactly the way any married woman aspires to visit her family. As the time nears for the visa application, I always shudder with the apprehension of “What if…”

Families like ours have no choice but to face this ordeal every time they want to visit ‘home’. Visas may be sometimes facilitated and expedited for artists going on a cultural exchange or for businessmen but the procedure, the requirements, the scrutiny, the hurdles are all exactly the same for people like us. We have to stand in the same queue as those applying for a visit visa for a conference or meeting (there is no ‘tourist’ visa between our two countries), to visit to meet distant relatives once or maybe twice in a lifetime.

Each time I stand in front of the visa submission window of the Consulate of the country where I was born, which I still love and own as I did then, I feel as if I am being punished for my audacious decision to marry across border. My counterparts across the border must be feeling the same, I am sure.

Once, I was exceptionally lucky: I obtained an Indian visa while sipping a cup of coffee in the office of the Consul General, when the Consulate was in Karachi. The CG turned out to be my father’s student. We followed the usual application procedure of course, but he expedited it. Then, as we left, a plainclothes official intercepted my husband and asked for our purpose of having visited the CG’s room. He said that our car’s plate number had been noted and that we must not repeat this again.

All told, in the 21 years of my marriage I have been lucky that despite the hurdles and the painful waiting times, I have not faced any serious disappointments in ultimately obtaining a visa for India.

The only time I faced a major setback was after the Kargil war, when tensions were so high that I could not visit my parents for three years, despite running from pillar to post, pulling various influential strings. Then, not even ‘high connections’ were willing to go out of their way to help me. However, for a vast majority of women from India married to Pakistanis, especially those living in Pakistan, it is by no means a smooth sailing.

Ilmana Fasih

The writer is an Indian gynaecologist and women’s health activist, married to a Pakistani. She blogs at https://thinkloud65.wordpress.com/

Zehaal-e-Miskeen -~Amir Khusrau

Khusrau was a master of  Persian ( which used to be the language of the court) as well as  Brij Bhasha ( the language of the common man) .

Zehaal -e Miskeen is a master piece written in both the languages in Persian (bold) and Brij Bhasha (italics). In the first verse, the first line is in Persian, the second in Brij Bhasha, the third in Persian again, and the fourth in Brij Bhasha. In the remaining verses, the first two lines are in Persian, the last two in Brij Bhasha. The poem expresses the agony of separation from the beloved,  in both the languages with a superb fusion…which to my understanding signifies how different yet similiar is the expression of the agony of separation amongst the elite ( representing Persian) and the common man ( through Braj Bhasha).

Zehal-e miskin makun taghaful, duraye naina banaye batiyan
Ki taab-e hijran nadaram ay jaan, na leho kaahe lagaye chhatiyan.

 Do not overlook my misery by blandishing your eyes,
and weaving tales; My patience has over-brimmed,
O sweetheart, why do you embrace me.

Shaban-e hijran daraz chun zulf wa roz-e waslat cho umr kotah;
Sakhi piya ko jo main na dekhun to kaise kaatun andheri ratiyan.

 Long like curls in the night of separation,
short like life on the day of our union;
My dear, how will I pass the dark dungeon night
without your face before.

Yakayak az dil do chashm-e jadoo basad farebam baburd taskin;
Kise pari hai jo jaa sunaave piyare pi ko hamaari batiyan.

 Suddenly, using a thousand tricks, the enchanting eyes robbed me
of my tranquil mind; Who would care to go
and report this matter to my beloved?

Cho sham’a sozan cho zarra hairan hamesha giryan be ishq aan meh;
Na neend naina na ang chaina na aap aaven na bhejen patiyan.

 Tossed and bewildered, like a flickering candle,
I roam about in the fire of love;
Sleepless eyes, restless body,
neither comes she, nor any message.

 Bahaqq-e roz-e wisal-e dilbar ki daad mara ghareeb Khusrau;
Sapet man ke waraaye raakhun jo jaaye paaon piya ke khatiyan.

 In honour of the day I meet my beloved
who has lured me so long, O Khusrau;
I shall keep my heart suppressed,
if ever I get a chance to get to her trick.

Another beautiful rendition of Zehaal-e-Miskin by Warsi brothers: 

In love with Ghalib , the witty.

Recently I grabbed a book called Yadgar-e-Ghalib, by Altaf Hussain Haali in Urdu, and read bits from it. This has rekindled my fancy for him all the more.

Mirza Ghalib the humourist , is awe inspiring. Leave aside his superb poetry , his wit with which he lived and laughed off the troubles of his tough life, reveals a person extremely fascinating to read and know. He was an open book.

No doubt he indulged in various vices which would easily label him as a reckless person. But the honesty with which he admits all his vices and even laughs at himself makes him an adorable scamp and one feels like a shrewd hypocrite in front of him.

Ghalib teaches us what is it to live with a life of stark poverty, tragedy after tragedy of losing one’s progeny seven times, living off without a source of income and still to be able to maintain sanity and humour to enjoy one’s present day. (Although being a woman I hail and salute his wife as an epitome of patience and forebearance.)

Reading through I learnt what a friend he was. He never procrastinated in replying back to the letters. And many of his friends send him letters that were ‘bearing’ i.e. without a stamp, and he postpaid twice the amount to releases those letters from the postman. His silver tongue and the golden pen, won hearts of his friends and critics alike.

He wrote that he wanted to write a language, that whoever reads his letters gets elated. (Yes Mirza you still make us elated by them.)

His letters talked.( Yes one can hear you talking through them, Mirza)
One of them said:
“sau kos se ba-zaban-e-qalam baatein kiya karo aur hijr mein visaal ke maze liya karo”
(from hundred of miles talk with the tongue of the pen and enjoy the joy of meeting even when you are separated]).

He joked openly about his being a non-conformist and a sinner. When Ghalib bought a house in Gali Qasim Jaan, he wrote,

‘Masjid ke zer saya ek ghar bana liya hai,
yeh banda kamina, humsaya khuda hai’
(I have made my house on the shadow of the mosque; this wicked fellow is now a neighbour of God).
The mosque he was referring to was the Delhi’s famous Jama Masjid.

During Ramzan somebody asked him if he fasted , and he replied : “ek na rakha.”( I did not keep one.).

On yet another hot day in Ramzan, Mirza was playing chess when a friend, Maulana Arzoo came.
Maulana remarked :“I had read in a Hadith that the devil is imprisoned in the month of Ramzan. But today I doubt the validity of the Hadith.”
Mirza retorted: “Sir, the hadith is absolutely correct. But you be aware that this is that den where the devil is imprisoned.”

Making a serious satire at the gluttony that people indulge during the month of Ramadan he said:

Iftaar-e-saum kii jise kuch dast.gaah ho
us shakhs ko zaroor hai rozaa rakha kare
(The one who has the wherewithal to break his fast
that person should indeed keep the fast)

Jis paas roza khol ke khaane ko kuch na ho
roza agar na khaaye to naachaar kya kare
(The one who has nothing to break his fast with
what else can he do but be constrained to ‘eat the fast’)

And on being questioned for not fasting he said:
Ruza mera eman hay Ghalib! Laiken
Khas Khana wa barf aab kahan say laoon?
(Fasting is part of my faith, but from where should I get khus curtains and chill water for it ?).( Correction courtesy Sohail Bhai).

On another occasion, in a letter that he wrote to a friend, in Persian:
“These days Maulana Ghalib (God’s mercy be upon him) is in clover [very happy]. A volume of the Dastaan-i-Amir Hamza has come — about 600 pages of it — and a volume of the same size of Bostan-i-Khayal. And there are seventeen bottles of good wine in the pantry. So I read all day and drink all night.
The man who wins such bliss can only wonder What more had Jamshed? What more Alexander?”

Ghalib often bragged about his reputation as a rake. He was once imprisoned for gambling and later narrated the incident with great fancy.

Once, when someone praised the poetry of the pious Sheikh Sahbai, Ghalib immediately retorted:
“How can Sahbai be a poet? He has never tasted wine, nor has he ever gambled; he has not been beaten with slippers by lovers, nor has he ever seen the inside of a jail”

When someone poked fun at him for being a drunkard and that a wine-bibbers’ prayers are never answered he said with a laugh, outwitting the person:
“My friend, if a man has wine, what else does he need to pray for?”

He did not even spare his ‘economic poverty’ from the wrath of his wit. ( But Mirza, we know you were far richer the many rich then and now)
Qarz kii piite the mai lekin samajhte the kih haan
Rang laavegii hamaarii faaqah-mastii ek din

The King, Bahadur Shah Zafar was planning to go for Hajj and Ghalib heard it. He wrote to the King :
Ghalib, gar is safar maiN mujhay saath lay chalaiN
Haj ka sawaab nazr karooN ga hazoor ki
If he will take me with him on the Pilgrimage
His Majesty may have my share of heavenly reward

He never minced words about his inclination towards practicing the faith.

Jaanataa huun  savaab-e-taa’at-o-zahad 
Par tabiiyat idhar nahiin aatii 

(I am aware of the reward of religious deeds in the next life, but I somehow do not get inclined towards them.)

It isn’t that those who live happy, are not sensitive and pained by the troubles that come their way. Like everyman with a mind and a heart , to be hurt by the whips that life lashes at them, Ghalib too felt his share of pain.

He wrote:
Sozish e batin ke hain ahbab munkir warna yaan
Dil maheet e girya aur lab aashnaa e khanda hai.
(Though my friends give no credence to my inner aches
While my lips are all smile, my heart is but a tearful waste).

Indeed, his wit must have been therapeutic to his own self, but to readers like me it is very addicting.

P.S. I am extremely indebted to Sohail Hashmi bhai, who I know is an expert in Urdu poetry from very young age, has added some other incidents related to the above context:

The house next to a mosque belonged to Kale saheb, a gentleman who was into sufiism and was respected greatly by bahadur shah zafar. In fact the House was given Ghalib on the recommendation of Zafar, Ghalib has refered to the mosque and his house in two other shers

Bhaun paas aankh qibla-e-haajaat Chahiye
Maajid ke zer-e-saayaa kharaabaat chahiye

Dil Khush hua hai Masjid-e-veeraan dekh kar
Meri tarah Khuda ka bhi Khaanaa Kharaab hai

Once during the month of Ramzan, a maulana who was a friend of Ghalib and also a poet went to meet ghalib, ghalib had a a plate of kabaabs in front of him and a glass of Wine besides him.
The maulana said, “Tumhaara roza nahin hai.”
Ghalib said “Hai”
The Maulana asked “Phir yeh sab kya hai”
Ghalib response was, “Roze ko behlaane ka saamaan hai.”

[P.S. His humour on his first love deserves a complete blog in itself, which shall follow later. No his first love wasn’t either ‘women’ or ‘wine’.]

“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

But I, being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.”
~William Butler Yeats quotes (Irish Poet. Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. )

Cherish whatever makes you unique, ‘cuz you’re really a yawn if it goes. ~Better Midler

Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are?

We should say to each of them: “Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything.”

~ Henry David Thoreau

Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke

The favourites:

“I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough
to make every moment holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action;
and in those quiet, sometimes hardly moving times,
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.
I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your heavy and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
and I want my grasp of things to be
true before you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that carried me
through the wildest storm of all.”

“I can’t make every minute holy.
I don’t want to stand before you
like a thing, shrewd, secretive.
I want my own will, and I want
simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action.
And in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times,
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know
secret things or else alone.
I want to unfold.
I don’t want to be folded anywhere,
because where I am folded,
there I am a lie.”

“Extinguish my eyes, I’ll go on seeing you.
Seal my ears, I’ll go on hearing you.
And without feet I can make my way to you,
without a mouth I can swear your name.
Break off my arms, I’ll take hold of you
with my heart as with a hand.
Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat.
And if you consume my brain with fire,
I’ll feel you burn in every drop of my blood.”

Author: Rainer Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), was a Bohemian–Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language. His haunting images focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable: themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets.

Lal Peeli Ankhiyan~Rajasthani song

Jad jad dekhoon banari lal peeli ankhiyaan
Main ko ni dara sa , bhala hi kado ankhiyaan.
(Whenever I see you, your eyes are red with anger
I am least scared of you, no matter even if you pop out your eyes).

Jaipur sheher se dhola mharo chunri ni lyave
Main ko ni orha sa, bhala hi kado ankhiyan
(You donot get me the dyed dress from Jaipur
I am not going to wear the old one, no matter even if you pop out your eyes).

Amir Khusrau, the maestro of Tarana.

This blog is just an attempt to familiarise the lovers of Amir Khurau to a form of singing, called Tarana, the fascinating  fast paced rendition often intended  to attain trance ( haal),   is attributed to be invented by him. Needless to say his other inventions being Qawwali, seventeen taals, tabla and sitar.

All I get is that Tarana  uses sargams and vocables like na, ta, re, da, ni, odani, tanom, yalali, yalalom shuffled in a fast pace coordinated  by rhythmic percussion from Dhol or Tabla.

A legend says that Amir Khusrau discovered this genre of music by default when   Khusrau at a performance of raga Kadambak by Gopal Naik,  allegedly,  remembered the music but not text. So he created the tarana through a merging of bols from the tabla, the sitar or the mridang.

Since I am absolutely bankrupt in classical music so I would just quote what Ustad Amir Khan Sahib,  a master of Tarana says:

“It is generally believed that Tarana is a composition of meaningless syllables followed sometimes by the bols (words coined to denote the various sounds of instruments) of the tabla and sometimes by Persian poetry. This view is not true. As a matter of fact at the time of the Amir, the texts of the songs used to be in the languages of South India, which were not easily understood by the people of the North. The court language was Persian, which was evidently the language of the contemporary intelligentsia. The Amir naturally thought of composing the texts of songs in the language understood by the intelligentsia. Thus the Tarana was born. The various words used are Dartanaa, Dar Tan Aa, Yala an abbreviation for Ya Allah. Yali for Ya Ali, Dar Aa etc., which when translated would mean:

Yala – Ya Allah

Yali – Ya Ali

O Dani : He knows

Tu Dani : You know.

Tom : I am yours, I belong to you
or   Main Tum Hun (I am you).

Na Dir Dani : You are the complete wisdom.

Dar – Bheetar, Aandar (inside)

Dara – Andar Aa (get in or come inside)

Dartan – Tanke Aandar (inside the body)

Tanan Dar Aa : Enter my body.

Tanandara – Tanke Aandar Aa (Come inside the body)

Nadirdani – Tu Sabse Adhik Janata Hai (You know more than anyone else)

Tandardani – Tanke Aandarka Jannewala (One who knows what is inside the body)

Another feature of Tarana as sung by many in India is the repetition of certain words at a great speed. The justification for this type is also not to be sought., It is not merely an exhibition of speed or virtuosity at pronouncing words, but the idea is that while in prayer a person goes into a trance, and that in that state of mind he just continues to repeat one word or one set of words.”

( source: http://caferisko.ca/ak/tarana.html)
Yar-e-man bia bia Tarana sung by Konkana Bannerjee.

Main melody:
Yar-e-man bia bia.
Dar Tan tadim,
Ta-nan Ta na dim, Tom Ta Na Na Na
Antara:
Ba labam raseeda jaanum
Fu bia ke zinda maanum
Pas azari ki man na maanum,
Ba cheh kar khahi amud.

which means:

O love, come soon, come at once.
Come and enter my body,
for I am yours, come
Antara:
My life hangs on my lips,
Come thou that I may live again
for if thou shall come when I am no more,
to what avail shall it be.

Also see:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarana
http://www.indiaheritage.org/perform/music/h-v-t.htm

Poems by Attiya Dawood

Picture by Abro Khuda Bux

Here’s a translation of some poems by a Sindhi feminist poet Attiya Dawood

A strange woman in the mirror

The strange woman in the mirror, what is she thinking?
I ask her: what is it? She avoids me.
I paint my lips red, she begins to sob.
When I look her in the eyes, she asks me questions
which are even more strange.
Home, husband, children….. I have all that makes up happiness
But I don’t know what she wants.

If Only I knew Nothing

The experienced mind understands everything.
If I keep all my thoughts with me
And put them under lock and key,
Clever eyes come to know everything.
I should put the glasses of ignorance on them.
My sensitive heart
I should refuse ever to consider
All the observations and experiences of the past
Inscribed on my mind
I should wipe it away.
My intelligence becomes a curse for me…
If only I knew nothing.
Holding your hand
I would have continued walking in a dream.
Whatever stories you told me
I would have listened on like a child.
Taking my mind as your kite
You could have given me any direction, any wind
And I would have obeyed.
My intelligence becomes a curse for me…
If only I knew nothing.

A bone-weary truth

Truth is the basis of my creation.
No matter how many times in the name of truth
My being was chopped and cut,
Each time like the amoebae,
Every piece of the portioned-off being
Has become a being by itself.
Whenever I was put on the scaffold in the name of truth
Each time I have taken a new birth,
But this dying and being born every minute
Has made me bone-weary.
I want you, my friend
To take away my being from the cross.
Come in front of me,
Whisper sweet nothings in my ears,
Turn the shackles of hypocrisy
into bangles for my hands,
Love me with such a crushing deceit
That my soul not be able to bear it
And free itself
From my tired being.

About the author:
Attiya Dawood is a voice from the goths and villages of rural Sindh. It is a voice of pain and harrowing anguish. As a rural Sindhi woman she finds deprivation everywhere: she faces oppression piled on oppression. As a woman, oppression of women by men, as a Third World woman, oppression and exploitation by the advanced capitalist countries. As a rural woman she is marginalised in favour of the voice of the first person singular – I, but they are not autobiographical the events written about are not necessarilly drawn from her own life. The poems may be considered a form of dramatic monologue in which she assumes the voice and persona of a suffering woman and articulates the anguish arising out of some concrete situation.
English translations are by Asif Aslam

Source: Courtesy Abro Khuda Bux
http://attiyadawood.com/

The Paradox of Our Time ~Dr Bob Moorehead

A beautiful piece of  ‘food for thought’  which has served for years as a constant reminder to me to introspect my life and values. Whenever I feel I begin to digress from my purpose of life, I look back at this writing. Not sure if I have really found myself steadfast on it.

Finally, I decided to post it in my blog and share with others.

“The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy less.

We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, yet more problems; more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve done larger things, but not better things.

We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; big men and small character; steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce; fancier houses but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete.

Remember,
*spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

*to say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

*to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn’t cost a cent.

*to say “I love you” to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

*to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak, and give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”

Author:  Dr. Bob Moorehead is former pastor of Seattle’s Overlake Christian Church. He retired in 1998 after 29 years in that post. The essay appeared in ‘Words Aptly Spoken,’  Dr. Moorehead’s 1995 collection of prayers, homilies, and monologues used in his sermons and radio broadcasts.
However, it has many a times attributed in e-rumours to be written by George Carlin, a stand up comedian known for his foul mouth and four-lettered words. He himeslf denied having written this.