Don't worry, I'm not going to attempt a long drawn out comparison of how each stooge resembles a close friend of mine simply coz that would be very tiring and boring. So why the title you ask, well simply because its 3 friends that I'm going to talk about......yes its as simple as that!
Stooge 1:
Initially thought of as the original man of steel, a gift to (wo)man kind, the original greek god, mainly because it was widely perceived that this man was emotionless, nothing could faze him and in terms of capability across a multitude of fields, he was par excellence. Be it playing cricket, being a marketeer, being a sales man, being a hit with the ladies you name it, this guy had it all. And his knowledge was unbelievably profound too, again on any subject, but movies and songs in particular from present day going back to your grandma's grandma days (wait a minute, did they have movies back then.....??) was exemplary. Anyways, stories of this guy's ego made Dubai's skyscrapers look like foot stools in comparison, and rightly so. A multi-talented and good looking individual, this guy was your modern day superman. Working at a multinational by day, writing movie reviews by night, teaching at a university in the weekends and hanging out with the boys every chance he gets....you don't get it better than this. By the way did I mention he's a father of 3 and quite happily married (though the last part might be contested by his wife but for sake of happy reading, let's leave it in there).
Seeds of him becoming bitter and emotion less had been sown long before. Being cheated out of becoming Pakistan's next wicket keeper by Kamran Akmal, carrying around a scorecard from a match he played for Nestle eons ago as proof of his once spoken of invincibility, these were the events that turned him sour. Once he started working, his well known impatience for mediocrity and incompetence on the part of his co-workers was a constant source of frustration for him and reduced him to a whinging old hag. Yet he somehow got through this phase of his life with his pride intact and then he met "The Group".
Seeds of him becoming bitter and emotion less had been sown long before. Being cheated out of becoming Pakistan's next wicket keeper by Kamran Akmal, carrying around a scorecard from a match he played for Nestle eons ago as proof of his once spoken of invincibility, these were the events that turned him sour. Once he started working, his well known impatience for mediocrity and incompetence on the part of his co-workers was a constant source of frustration for him and reduced him to a whinging old hag. Yet he somehow got through this phase of his life with his pride intact and then he met "The Group".
"The Group" consisted of 3 other guys and the impact of meeting them was, well akin to hitting the proverbial wall! They went at him so bad, so bad that today you see this guy rarely opening his mouth when in their company. He still retains the ability to multi task, but he's lost the zing, the edge, the ego has eroded and every now and then when he tries to get up again mustering up confidence from here and there, he's slammed back to reality by this group of 3. And so it goes on like this like a broken record for Stooge 1.
Stooge 2:
Oh my God!!!!!! is how you describe this one. No way can you categorize this guy coz he has so many faces. Again, initially thought of in a very revered manner due to his long and illustrious yet misleading CV. Don't believe me, well lets go through it together. The guy grows up in Hong Kong, so he gets international exposure and experience straight away. He goes to school at Lahore Grammar when he moves back to Pakistan, which may not be as prestigious as KGS but for a simple guy like me from Karachi, I was already impressed. He makes his way through uni at....wait for it....L......S......E, yes, my dream university, where I wanted to go and learn economics and become the best economist the world had ever seen and devote my life to bettering Pakistan's conditions, but ok wait a minute returning to Stooge 2, you would think that if someone had gone to the London School of Economics, he wouldn't keep ruing the fact that he didn't get into LUMS, I mean fine LUMS is great too, but LSE over LUMS any day man. It was then that we understood the misleading part about the CV because on further probing, you find out that it was actually the LAHORE School of Economics that the gentlemen attended and not the LONDON one. In any case, he then started attending classes in the real LUMS by sneaking in just so that he could one day say he's been inside those rooms. After uni, the guy went through a whole host of odd jobs like working for JAWs, (no not the movie, an event organizing company), his next job was as a tutor and then he found his true calling, he became an RJ at City FM 89, and his call sign was "Jelly Man" (don't ask, that's another long story). Despite all of that he somehow got a job offer from Unliever which he gleefully accepted and moved to Karachi.
Now they say better late than never, but by this time this guy was doing quite well. I mean he was brand manager at one of the biggest MNCs in the world by day, RJ by morning and running his own t-shirt designing business by night. Somewhere along the line he even met his better half and got lucky that she said yes to his proposal so he was even married now. So where's the hitch you say??? Well, one of the biggest qualities this guy had was not knowing when to shut up. This quality alone got him into the worst shit when he met "The Group" that Stooge 1 met. Even if he was not the target of abuse being dished out, he would say or do something that would attract the attention to himself and make him the butt of all jokes. The other 3 realized the importance of having such a guy around and so he became an integral part of the gang. The fall back guy........you can't think of anything, you pick on him and it'll be 100% guaranteed funny.
It is said that these days he's trying out other friends, guys like Y2Q and Hammy the drummer in order to spend less and less time with the original gang as he yearns for that day when he shall be revered again. He tries his hand at photography, FIFA on Xbox and whatever will get him new friends, yet his old habits haunt him. His propensity for food and halwa puri in particular along with the fact that he'll start dancing just about anywhere just about anytime still make him an easy target. And so he trudges through the days constantly asking for a break which up till now I thought was from working but it couldn't be because he never worked that much, but now I get it, its from being himself....
Stooge 3:
The most confused individual you will ever meet. He's the baby of the group simply because he's the youngest, yet he looks like a 34 year old Saeed Ajmal and talks like Albert Einstein's grandson, so yeah he's old. A self proclaimed master of numbers and excel, the man with the photographic memory, a great footballer in the past, a supreme athlete once upon a time and his greatest claim to fame: the girls football team coach at LUMS. I left out self proclaimed human behavior psychologist as well, but I thought you wouldn't be able to digest such a magnificently varied spectrum of talents. On the face of it he's like an ordinary pathan who might be a laborer or taxi driver, but don't be deceived, underneath that boyish exterior, lies a mastermind.
This guy's entry to the group was about 6 months later than the other 2 and he gelled in fairly quickly. However his judgmental ways didn't go down well with the wives and so for a long time he kept oscillating between being part of the family or not. Also, up to this point for some strange reason (although his dad had not given him a car in college) he thought the world of himself and obviously this bloated sense of self worth didn't go down with the rest of the boys. He did have a achilles heel though and once discovered, was exploited to the fullest to cut him down to size as well.
The turning point came one fateful night on the festival of lights in Sharjah, where this poor unassuming chap accompanied "The Group" and that was that. That night is still celebrated in some of "The Group's" homes as that was when the facade fell and Stooge 3 was brought down. Up until then he basked in the glory of his quick wit and numerous victories over the other 3, but now they had their turn under the sun (or rather sun roof as we were in Stooge 2's car). This was the night when the achilles heel was discovered and one particular mannerism, most popularly represented by the words "waisay to" with an accompanied gesture of the hands, became almost like kryptonite for this stooge. Till today all it takes is one reference to the heel and this stooge realizes his place in the world and goes back in his shell with a smile.
As it stands today:
Somewhere in between the paragraphs lies the reality but I leave it for you to guess and ponder over. All I know is that even after having spent about 10 hours in office together, we still end up meeting at each others place the same night, and this happens more or less on a daily basis. I've forgotten the phone numbers and in some cases the faces of my other relatives in Dubai, because I've stopped meeting them, just don't feel the need as the 3 of these and their families have more than filled the void.
Here's to hoping that it stays like this for a long time to come yet....
Later,
Adil
Now they say better late than never, but by this time this guy was doing quite well. I mean he was brand manager at one of the biggest MNCs in the world by day, RJ by morning and running his own t-shirt designing business by night. Somewhere along the line he even met his better half and got lucky that she said yes to his proposal so he was even married now. So where's the hitch you say??? Well, one of the biggest qualities this guy had was not knowing when to shut up. This quality alone got him into the worst shit when he met "The Group" that Stooge 1 met. Even if he was not the target of abuse being dished out, he would say or do something that would attract the attention to himself and make him the butt of all jokes. The other 3 realized the importance of having such a guy around and so he became an integral part of the gang. The fall back guy........you can't think of anything, you pick on him and it'll be 100% guaranteed funny.
It is said that these days he's trying out other friends, guys like Y2Q and Hammy the drummer in order to spend less and less time with the original gang as he yearns for that day when he shall be revered again. He tries his hand at photography, FIFA on Xbox and whatever will get him new friends, yet his old habits haunt him. His propensity for food and halwa puri in particular along with the fact that he'll start dancing just about anywhere just about anytime still make him an easy target. And so he trudges through the days constantly asking for a break which up till now I thought was from working but it couldn't be because he never worked that much, but now I get it, its from being himself....
Stooge 3:
The most confused individual you will ever meet. He's the baby of the group simply because he's the youngest, yet he looks like a 34 year old Saeed Ajmal and talks like Albert Einstein's grandson, so yeah he's old. A self proclaimed master of numbers and excel, the man with the photographic memory, a great footballer in the past, a supreme athlete once upon a time and his greatest claim to fame: the girls football team coach at LUMS. I left out self proclaimed human behavior psychologist as well, but I thought you wouldn't be able to digest such a magnificently varied spectrum of talents. On the face of it he's like an ordinary pathan who might be a laborer or taxi driver, but don't be deceived, underneath that boyish exterior, lies a mastermind.
This guy's entry to the group was about 6 months later than the other 2 and he gelled in fairly quickly. However his judgmental ways didn't go down well with the wives and so for a long time he kept oscillating between being part of the family or not. Also, up to this point for some strange reason (although his dad had not given him a car in college) he thought the world of himself and obviously this bloated sense of self worth didn't go down with the rest of the boys. He did have a achilles heel though and once discovered, was exploited to the fullest to cut him down to size as well.
The turning point came one fateful night on the festival of lights in Sharjah, where this poor unassuming chap accompanied "The Group" and that was that. That night is still celebrated in some of "The Group's" homes as that was when the facade fell and Stooge 3 was brought down. Up until then he basked in the glory of his quick wit and numerous victories over the other 3, but now they had their turn under the sun (or rather sun roof as we were in Stooge 2's car). This was the night when the achilles heel was discovered and one particular mannerism, most popularly represented by the words "waisay to" with an accompanied gesture of the hands, became almost like kryptonite for this stooge. Till today all it takes is one reference to the heel and this stooge realizes his place in the world and goes back in his shell with a smile.
As it stands today:
Somewhere in between the paragraphs lies the reality but I leave it for you to guess and ponder over. All I know is that even after having spent about 10 hours in office together, we still end up meeting at each others place the same night, and this happens more or less on a daily basis. I've forgotten the phone numbers and in some cases the faces of my other relatives in Dubai, because I've stopped meeting them, just don't feel the need as the 3 of these and their families have more than filled the void.
Here's to hoping that it stays like this for a long time to come yet....
Later,
Adil
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