Loud Thinking

Archive for the ‘My Views’ Category

Lucille Ball

Lucille was booted out of New York’s John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts for being too scared to perform. After that, she kept going back and forth New York as a fashion model and actress, getting fired from at least two stage productions.
She went to Hollywood, got a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but her best efforts got her only in B-movies.
Eventually, she found her way into radio then television, a new entertainment medium back in the 1940s and 1950s.
She and her husband Desi Arnaz launched the “I Love Lucy” show on CBS, which went on to become one of the longest-running TV shows in history, and making her a famous comedienne.

Steven Spielberg

As a dyslexic young man, Spielberg’s application to the University of Southern California’s School of Theater, Film, and Television was rejected thrice.
He went to California State University in Long Beach instead, but ended up dropping out of it anyway.
His directorial debut was “Sugarland Express”—praised by critics, but a box office failure.
Nevertheless, Spielberg forged ahead and was given the chance to film big-budgeted hits such as “Jaws,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “ET,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “Jurassic Park.”
But the Academy of Motion Picture Arts Sciences snubbed him for years, and avoided giving him the Best Director award until 1993, when he made “Schindler’s List.”
From then on, he was recognized as an A-list Hollywood director and a major artistic force in film history.

Walt Disney

Walt Disney was once a young artist whose editor fired him because he reportedly “lacked imagination” or “good ideas.” Disney wanted to start a company creating animated short films.
But his first few tries failed; at one point he even lost some of his employees and the rights to his own animated character (Oswald the Rabbit) to Universal Pictures.
But eventually, he built a gigantic entertainment empire that churned out classic characters (Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse) and ground-breaking animated films like “Snow White,” and “Sleeping Beauty.”

Oprah Winfrey

TV’s queen of talk grew up with poverty and child abuse.
She tried her hand at being a television reporter.
But she was fired from her TV job because she wasn’t considered fit for TV.
Emotional problems stemming from childhood had made her eat obsessively, creating her weight problem.
She also tried smoking crack cocaine, and had a number of disastrous romantic relationships.
But she reinvented herself as a talk show host, producing and starring in her own “Oprah Winfrey Show.”
She changed the way talk shows were conducted by focusing on geopolitics, health, spirituality, and charity.
Her show went on to become the most viewed talk show on the planet, turning Oprah into a billionaire.

Winston Churchill

Churchill was a rebellious boy who never did well in school, even failing sixth grade. He had a lisp and a stutter.
He tried his hand at building a military and political career, but he failed at nearly every election he ran in.
In later years, he was politically isolated from even the British Conservative party he worked with, his political reputation so in tatters that he exiled himself temporarily from Parliament and the House of Commons.
But Churchill was among the first to see the dangers of Nazi Germany, and managed to become Britain’s Prime Minister at age 62 during World War II.
His steadfastness helped inspire British resistance against Hitler, all the way to the defeat of the Nazis, securing him the title of “Greatest Briton of All Time.”

Albert Einstein

People thought Einstein was a “slow” young man.
He hated the regimented ways of school.
At the age of 16, he failed the entrance exams at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich, and had to a smaller school instead.
Though he managed to get a teaching diploma from the Swiss Polytechnic later on, it took him two long years to find any job at all.
And when he did, it was for the Swiss Patent Office as an assistant examiner for patents.
But he tried writing his own scientific papers and thesis from 1901 to 1905 (including one on the theory of special relativity), which were so groundbreaking that by 1909 he became recognized as a leading scientist and one of the most brilliant minds in human history.

J. K. Rowling

At one point, the famous author of the Harry Potter books was a broke, unemployed, and depressed divorced mother feeding her children through welfare.
She was cradling a baby even as she wrote her manuscript for “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” in a café, trying to write, eat, and get her child to sleep.
Her book proposal was rejected by no less than twelve publishing houses.
But after the Bloomsbury publishing house agreed to publish the book, it won so much acclaim and sold so many copies that Rowling could afford to write the rest of the Harry Potter series—becoming even richer than Britain’s Queen.

Steve Jobs

Jobs redefined the way the world used personal computers, through the company he founded, Apple, Inc.
He created Mac computers and the GUI (Graphical User Interface).
But he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way with his driven personality.
By age of 30, the board of directors of the very company he built “fired” him, leaving him humiliated and depressed.
But he started another company (NeXT Computer), which developed the next-generation personal computer technology, and bought Lucasfilm’s computer graphics division and renamed it Pixar.
When a failing Apple, Inc. asked Jobs to return to their helm, he again took over and eventually made Apple, Inc. one of the most innovative and profitable companies on the planet.

Abraham Lincoln

The 16th President of the United States who was responsible for ending slavery in his country was the self-educated son of a country frontier family.
He tried starting his own businesses and a political career, but because of the lack of education, powerful connections, or money, he failed at two businesses and in eight elections.
When he got married to Mary Todd, they had four sons, but three of them died early on from illness—triggering clinical depression in Lincoln.
But by 1860, Lincoln got nominated to be the Democratic candidate to the presidency.
He won the elections, and as President of the United States oversaw the Civil War to its very end, with the emancipation of African-American slaves.

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

AoA.

Today, we all Pakistanis thank and bow our head before Allah, for His Blessings, in making this country a nuclear power, which came into being in the name of Allah.

The entire nation is also grateful to Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and all those who (then) advised him wisely, for nuclear detonations on 28 May, 1998, which was also an announcement to the world that Pakistan was a declared nuclear power.

Sir, leaving aside the fact that Pakistan is a nuclear power and that this fact did help in restraining our main adversary India, from its planned aggression against Pakistan, on many occasions in the past, the realty remains that the balance of power is gradually tilting towards India, due its unbridled spendings on defence, which currently has almost crossed the $40 billion. And very soon it may touch $60 billion, which amount is half of Chinese spendings on defence. Although, Indian economy is no match to the Chinese economy, which has exports of over $200 billion per month against the Indian exports of around $200 billion per annum.

The main thrust of Indian defence in future, looks like to be in gaining complete ascendancy over Pakistan, in the fields of anti-missile shield and nuclear submarines, notwithstanding, the fact that even if Pakistan can’t fire a single nuclear weapon towards India; and if they are able to make a first nuclear strike against Pakistan, the proximity of the two countries, will render India badly vulnerable, to the deadly nuclear radiation over its own population and land. At least between India and Pakistan, a nuclear war is a mutually assured destruction (MAD).

However, to stop any nuclear showdown, India along with the whole world, must know absolutely clearly, our threshold and red line, beyond which MAD will be the only naked reality and fate of this world.

Whether, its war or peace, Pakistan can’t remain oblivious of its responsibilities, in moving forward with the time, in the fields of nuclear science and technology. However, Pakistan must not make this fatal mistake of thinking that just being a nuclear power of some sort, this situation is going to be a deterrent of war and guarantee for peace in future.

Past was past and now its a changed world, 16 years after 28 May, 2014. As such, Pakistan must, repeat must, move towards developing thermonuclear (Hydrogen bombs) and Neutron bombs (which don’t destroy the structure of buildings but its radiation kills all the life). It is said that India already possesses the Hydrogen bomb, which is on an average 100 times more lethal than an atom bomb.

So to say that India and Pakistan have parity of nuclear weapons, is a very dangerous false sense of security, for the Pakistani strategic planners.

Pakistan must also have strategic planning for acquiring and developing the missile shield and the nuclear submarines, along with raising at least 2 more strike corps. In fact, we should also start conceptual planning and R&D, on Star Wars possibilities in the future.

Sir, the secret of the success is to remain a step ahead of our competitors. Moreover, the statecraft, preparation for war and readiness is ordained to Muslims by Allah in the Holy Quran, where Muslims are required that they must keep their horses READY and FIGHTING FIT, and to the enemies of Muslims, their 20 horses will look 200.

Mr. Prime Minister, during your recent sojourn to India, you must be knowing very well the reasons for the importance and focus given to you over the other SAARC leaders, As they say, weakness invites contempt and aggression. Whereas, strength and power, breeds respect and peace.

As such, please don’t take my above suggestions as war mongering. Pakistan needs peace not war, for its development and growth. But alas..! a Pakistan weaker than the strongest of its neighbour, will never be in peace, which is the biggest ground reality.

Sir, I also take this opportunity to bring to your kind notice that within 24 hours of the BJP government taking over the reigns of the government in Delhi, one of its minister has spoken about abolition of the article 370 from the constitution, which stipulates a special status for Kashmir. Moreover, the extremist Hindus have also started a campaign to stop Muslims from the FAJR AAZAN.

Last but not the least, a great statesman is not the person who wages the war and wins it. The greatest statesman is he, who achieves his objectives, without waging a war. But then there is always a limit to the extent a weak party can go. Here, I will again quote the famous words of the Shaheed Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, when he told Henry Kissinger that “If you spit and ask me to clean it I will clean it. However, if you spit and and ask me to lick it, I will never do that”.

With Best Wishes and Highest Regards,

Syed Nayyar Uddin Ahmad