of MMM and prayers

While growing up I had a firm belief that there was an MMM, Muttahida Muhaz against Me (United front against me) with Pop at its helms and his sons all eager office bearers. Mom and sis were honorary members, with teachers being called on invite. So, the whole world, as I knew it, ganged up against me. Of course at that time my world was limited too. Cut to present when I know that the world is a huge place and has many many people in it (yes, that’s a ten year old’s speak) and it still feels the same way. Look at this one for instance. Pop’s bro, my CJ is taking his whole family for Umrah, his sister, my PJ is going with him. And I give her a list of special duas for me: As follows:
That I get a job at the UN Secretariat in NY and work my way up towards being the first woman, Muslim and youngest Secretary General who arm twists all these stupid world leaders into straightening up their act.
Or I get head hunted to a top slot by some TN NGO that does actual work and I am part of something big and meaningful.
Or I get selected as a UN Special Rappoteur on Media Affairs and go about the world talking some sense into the otherwise money minded myopic media moguls.
Or I find a sponsor for my dream project which, expanding internationally, leads to the above.
Oh, did I mention I wanted to have a Nobel Peace Laureate suffixed to my name?
Or I land an enviable job at the BBC and move to London, preferably as a travel correspondent so that I get to see the world. Extended paid vacation.
Or I win a jackpot and can retire somewhere in Northern Pakistan and churn out one profound work of words after the other, leading to a Nobel Prize or at least a Booker.
Or that I get a real scholarship and actually pursue it for higher studies at an institute known for its program. That of course paves way for all of the above but the last, which can be a stand alone. And this would be the most urgent, most needed prayer.
And the list continues.
But, what does my PJ threaten me with? That she would pray for me. And I know what that would be. So, now, it’s my prayers against hers. And my Mom and Pop’s and Grandma and Grandpa’s and uncles’ and aunts’ and cousins’ and friends’ and colleagues’ and well wishers’. If all these people wish one thing for me and the course I have charted for my life is entirely different from it, what does it mean? I was right all along. There is an MMM. The whole bloody world is conspiring against me.

The Colonisation of Pakistan

One would expect the Beeb to get their facts right.
Dubai firm in Pakistan phone sale
Etisalat is not a Dubai firm. It is a telecom monopoly, state owned and operated, in UAE. And now it has stakes in 26% of the only Pakistani concern that actually posted profits. Welcome O Sheikhs. Following on numerous other direct and indirect nosings in the Pakistani state of affairs, you can now snoop on our telcons too. What am I kvetching about anyways? Me, who waited and got a Warid connection. Warid, another one boasting a UAE base. Following on attempts to prove my credit worthiness to yet another UAE based bank, Bank AlFalah. Their rotten services are another story (read: they did not even have to courtesy to tell me my application's been rejected, yeah, don't trust me with your money).
And that is just royal money, let's not even talk about the other powerful groups that have stakes in numerous other mega projects...some days back I saw an ad in the papers about a residential project in Islamabad with a mention of the AlGhurair name.
And I read yet another news item in a newspaper about a new project, a whole new city, by the name of New Dubai

Spadework has started to bring up a new city, to be named as ‘New Dubai’ along the Northern Bypass, to make one of the world’s most modern cities. In order to achieve best results, foreign consultants will be employed in all aspects of housing and infrastructure for the new planned city.

So, you missed out on colonisation back in the 18/19th century. Worry not, our rulers sure are steering us towards another bout of it. That is enlightened moderation. Enlighten the nation in moderate steps. One piece of the pie at a time.
We can't get anything right on our own. It has to have some overseas element to it. Take that you low lives!
Urghhh!!! Excuse the exclamations, I am throroughly riled up.

This city will have all the present modern day facilities - from an international airport to tax-free industrial zone for non-toxic industries.
Brig Nasir giving an outline of the new city said that it will have four towns - China Town, Maktoum Town, Mahatir Town and Faisal Town besides 5-star hotel, filtration, desalination and recycling plants, diplomatic enclave, bus terminals, olympic stadium, middle income group apartments, international trade banking, expo complex, education complex, jurist enclave, graveyard, government officers’ residences - to name a few.

Why China Town? They could not figure out a politically correct Chinese leader's name to honor Pak Cheen Dosti? And they can, in the name of Tameer e Pakistan, go on digging the c**p out of Karachi, truck off all the earth to this new pet project where the powers that be may reside in peace ever after. That an Ivory Tower. Actually I don't mind this idea much, as long as they don't siphon off my tax money for this indecent project. My skeletal frame gets comprehensively jostled on the nightmare that is roads in Karachi. The contents of my cranium are in a state of frequent disturbance from all this, by the tiem the grey matter (and there is plenty of it to go around) gets settled to get work done, it is time to pack up and brave another road journey home. Why can't they work out some decent Mass Transport System. The Urban Transport System sucks, I mean literally sucks money. You pay for an aircon that does not work in the maddening Karachi heat. You pay road taxes for potholes and ditches to wear the life off your car, if you are credit worthy enough to get one leased that is.
Something about a desalination plant too? What next, would then a whole sea be marked out as the Exclusive Economic Zone of this New Dubai? never mind its proximity, or lack of it thereof, to teh sea. With all the perks why should it be land locked city? Perhaps they can ration water supplies to the poor Karachi city and create a huge artificial lake by the city?
Guess my brain content is settling down. Only it is capable of flinging such ideas.

عادت ہی بنا لی ہے، تم نے تو منیر اپنی
جس شہر میں بھی رہنا، اکتاۓ ہوۓ رہنا

Time check

There should be 30 hours in a day and weekends should be three days.
I have some three people waiting to kill me and if I have irked you in any way, feel free to join the line.
I hope your week has been and weekend will be better than mine.

On the road

OK. So it is not on the road. At least not technically. I mean I am flying to all destinations flying with those great people to fly with that man and woman the national carrier. And now I see my father's decision to not fly it. I mean you end up paying through your nose for courtesy and services never extended. Just take this one I am taking to ISB, the capital from LHR, the ultra thand city. They call you at the airport a good two hours before departure time and even an hour before the actual take off time (the one mentioned on the ticket at least) there is no one on any of the baggage counters. And once a passenger or two has gone to the shift in charge and given him a piece of his(her) mind, two people traipse in. Then there is no one at the belt counter. After three reminders and fooling aorund with the machine ourselves, my colleague finally figures out how to work it. So he belts up the luggage for two passengers before getting round to doing ours. In the meanwhile I have gone ahead and given a telling to the national carrier people. The one good thing is these internet kiosks. have yet to test if it works and uploads this update.
And don't even get me started on how it fared at the city's largest five star hotel. Terrible. Of course I politely smiled and gave it to any that merited it. It was good exercise, that thandi maar, with a smile. Take that. Overall I guess Lhr is a thand city. More later. they have announced my flight. That's another battle to be braved. Sigh!

On the road

OK. So it is not on the road. At least not technically. I mean I am flying to all destinations flying with those great people to fly with that man and woman the national carrier. And now I see my father's decision to not fly it. I mean you end up paying through your nose for courtesy and services never extended. Just take this one I am taking to ISB, the capital from LHR, the ultra thand city. They call you at the airport a good two hours before departure time and even an hour before the actual take off time (the one mentioned on the ticket at least) there is no one on any of the baggage counters. And once a passenger or two has gone to the shift in charge and given him a piece of his(her) mind, two people traipse in. Then there is no one at the belt counter. After three reminders and fooling aorund with the machine ourselves, my colleague finally figures out how to work it. So he belts up the luggage for two passengers before getting round to doing ours. In the meanwhile I have gone ahead and given a telling to the national carrier people. The one good thing is these internet kiosks. have yet to test if it works and uploads this update.
And don't even get me started on how it fared at the city's largest five star hotel. Terrible. Of course I politely smiled and gave it to any that merited it. It was good exercise, that thandi maar, with a smile. Take that. Overall I guess Lhr is a thand city. More later. they have announced my flight. That's another battle to be braved. Sigh!

Mixed bag

Ok, so I was supposed to be on the road this weekend but Moiz beat me to it and went on a cross country trip Down Under. And posted pictures of all this amazing scenery that makes me green with envy. And I was supposed to be on the road. Never mind, my version of being on the road means packing a carry all and jetting to all capital cities of Pakistan’s provinces. It’s a work trip so there might or not be a travelogue. A tight itinerary it is what I have but I would love to take time out and sneak away to meet bloggers anywhere. Shoot off an email will you? And then I can return next week and plan and organize a Karachi bloggers meet. It is about time I put a face to all blog authors that I read.
On another note, it was interesting that fact that exactly five years after my all Pakistan trip in the final year of my Uni, I would be taking another all Pakistan trip. This time more so. And I have yet to organize and get together that crazy gang of 20 people who were on that memorable tour. And write down about that tour, as I have been promising myself and my tour mates for the past five years. Last night I took out pictures and went nostalgic all over again, ah those wonderful carefree days. I was on a budget and yet I managed to shop like crazy. And now I can shop like crazy but that layer of true/false sophistication and worldliness so essential to keeping up a professional façade means I can’t act crazy anymore. Perhaps I would get down to writing about the ‘tour’ as I said, it is long due anyways. And with summers, as with every summer from 2000, it reminds me of that magical trek trip to Lake Saif ul Mulook. I mean, we could bend down and cup our hands for fresh, ice cold, crystal clear water any time we wanted a drink…just walking along with that bubbly stream leading way to the lake. If I can shake off laziness I can post pictures of scenic vistas to rival any. But more on that later.
For now it is this meme I have been tagged with.
*goes looking for the urdu post on memes on last deleted blog*

If I could be an athlete, and that would be a big if, I would have been a squash player and a swimmer par excellence. I just love the quick fire game of squash and of course the grace of body movements while gliding under water. Beach trips would have been so much fun then and no worries of adipose tissue excess just where it should not be.
If I could be a doctor, I would have been a surgeon. A general surgeon, perhaps even a trauma one. And to think all my teachers at high school so wanted me to become a surgeon. I was always called up for demonstrations, I had the most deft and light of dissecting hands, my biology teachers said. Yeah, never bothered asking what the frog(s) thought about my skill with the scalpel. Anyways, looking at my sister, I am ever so glad I did not jump on the medicine bandwagon and took (at that time) a road seldom taken.
If I could be a chef, now that would have been something and caused no less joy to my mother who insists on domesticating me and I try to wiggle out of culinary responsibilities as best as can be managed. And what I do manage to cook is barely fit for human consumption, I marvel at my own ability to survive after eating anything I have convinced myself into making. And my being a chef would have been such a delight to my family, at present when I want to be real mean to my brothers, I cook up something and watch them eat it. Revenge is a dish best served hot ;) If I could be a chef, I would have served absolutely amazing, all-halal, unforgettable eating experience cuisine. And it would have been a Michelin four star affair, my restaurant, where people would never have had to worry about ingredients. I mean I love good food but minding what goes into it does take out all the fun off an eating out experience. !

If I could be a lawyer I would have been with the UN, a special rappoteur on Media Affairs, civil rights or something similar. Failing that I would have been a high flying consultant with a international NGO registered with the ECOSOC of UN. Oh yes, UN is the culmination of all my career dreams.
If I could be a marine biologist…can’t think of anything better than what Moiz, the person who tagged me with this meme in the first place, has already said. For that swimming skills would have been a must, so two with one go. And I would have been snorkeling and diving and scouting all those exotic beach locales. Oh yes, I am a water creature through and through…and amphibian that can’t swim if you want. That can be changed though…I mean I am signing up for swimming classes one of these days.
And Moiz, you naughty child, you have tagged most people I know, who do I pass on the stick to?
Here:
Abez & Aniraz (Owl) they are a package deal
Baji
Devil’s Advocate
H
NJ

Added on June 7, 05: Road show starts today. Watch out for pics.
best.

Six days and counting

No, it's not been nearly a week since I took off k-log. It's been that long that I have been playing host to an ungracious fever. And it just can’t make up its mind; its comings and goings have left me woozy. Thermometer, that stupid glass contraption refuses to behave itself in my presence too. It steadfastly denies stop to the mercury at a normal human body temperature level. It either gets stuck at 96/97 F or goes all the way up to 102/103 F. Add a kaput BP apparatus to the scene, employed to identify and measure my blood pressure level, and I am all set for preservation in a museum of medical sciences. That bad is sub-normal that is normal for this mortal. 120/80 for me is high blood pressure; at 98.4 F I run a fever. Obviously ice cold press has to be slapped onto my forehead each time the thermometer reads 103 as technically it means 104. Five clammy presses later I reach for the thermometer and have it plunked thrice in my mouth. Each time mercury refuses to budge past the neat 98.4 F mark. Each time my one woman hospital of a sister eyes me suspiciously and orders me to put it back. It’s so neatly normal my temp., OWHS thinks I have rigged it up. Imagine that! And I am force fed medicine. Which tastes terrible as medicine should. I am loathe to coughing for fear of downing more of that stupid syrup that does not seem to do its job at all. I sneak to work one day and return home with fever shot up and a BP level nose diving in search of some elusive plankton down the Mariana Trench.
This is not to say deleting k-log was an act carried out in a delirious, medicinally justifiable bout of insanity. There was some nearly one year’s worth of blogging accumulated on it. A delete action was long past due.
A restart does mean a new phase in life. A new phase in life does not equate with a change in the marital status. Next thing you know, I would mention some 3-4 mentionable phases of my life and jaws follow my BP level assuming I have been married as many times. Or not. I may have a gun pressed to my head when I send off emails to friends telling them how I finally capitulated into saying yes but announcing it here would be too, erm... -let's not get into that-
*cough cough*
In case you are still wondering, keep wondering, keep those grey cells at work.
I would be on the road this weekend again. Around Pakistan this time. If you have your ears sensitized to a dry, raking, wheezing, whopping, sneaking cough, that would be me, if not fully cured by the time I land in your city.

Mess

Cribbings

It is half past two in the morning and I am up at this ungodly hour to see to a task that just could not wait until morn. While online, here's an update:
I have a theory about myself. I am a first born, and I don’t blame my parents for all those experimentations I was subjected to while growing up. Here is what it was like. Picture a newly wed couple, all lovey dovey, and both absolute trouble makers in their respective families. Try to imagine the havoc their progeny were to wreck on the world. Knowing very well what they were in for, they prayed for a real good first child. A kid everyone could look up to and cite as an example of extraordinary achievements, behavior…the whole hog of parent’s boring expectations. Unfortunately for them, they were told the only specimen of mankind (tbdl) available fitting their timetable and a suitable hotch potch of their combined traits, physical and mental, was erm…slightly flawed, a wee bit dented in the brain, nothing discernible from the outside and if they took it, who knows what wonders their bringing up could do for it. And there was a huge amount of sawaab thrown in if they took in this particular model. And so they did. To this day I can’t make out if I was accepted because Mom and Pop believed in themselves enough and had hope that I could turn out right despite the dent or was it the sawaab factor that led them to my crib.
And so I was brought up and with each passing day Mom and Pop realized what a rotten deal they had gotten themselves into. Perhaps they should have waited for the next available model, which, it turned out, was not really any better than the first one. But forever optimists, they did not give up hope and did what they did best. Somewhere in between genes got mutated. And since all of us siblings had had a dip in the same pool, the effects manifested themselves. This theory of gene mutation is quite a consolation to my parents. How could all of their kids be the way they are? Oftentimes I find myself wondering how lucky Mom and Pop are to be blessed with us all, and look up to find them staring at each other in disbelief/horror/speechlessness at one of their kid’s recent antics. The thing is, we siblings believe we are just Mom and Pop short of perfection, and Mom and Pop refuse to partake in our idea of perfection, so that essentially means we are perfections personified each pending parent participation.
And did I say I had a theory, well, I thought I did, but see how my brilliantly brazen brain works? And did I say it was about myself? Well, one thing, erm… kid lead to another.
If I am lucky, which I am so far, no one from my family will ever get to this blog entry. Mom and Pop couldn’t be bothered and in any case none of the ideas expressed here would be new for them. My siblings have conveniently forgotten the existence of this blog and I want not them to waste their time reading all this. I am sure they would have better things to do, like run some errands for me, or listen to me talk about all this in person. Life is bliss, follow the loser, dear ones!
And for certain passive readers of this blog who fathomed not how Her Kvetchness could listen to Mahi Ve ad nauseum, here’s an update. I heard Atif Aslam’s Yaqeen on Indus Music and downloaded it from Sangeet Radio. It’s been playing on my laptop since, much to the musical annoyance of those who live with me…Hmmm hmmm, ho hooo, ho hooo, ho hoooooo…
There is something seriously wrong with Asian tastes in chocolate. It does not agree with me…or rather,I don’t agree with the brown slab they proudly call chocolate. I made a big mistake when I picked up these chocolate covered hazelnuts on a whim from the supermarket today. It was swiss chocolate and that more or less settles the matter for me, but when I came home and popped in a hazelnut in my mouth, I was devastated. Too much sugar. Just to be sure, I checked the package and it said, chocolate made in Singapore, packed in Malaysia for….Zurich. It is always the same back home too, any locally produced chocolate and it would be sweetened to massacre the very spirit of cocoa. There should be universal standards for chocolates. And I don’t care who wins the US Presidential Elections next week, as long as it is not Bush and as long as the new Pres. assures me personally that the strictest of AWK compliant standards would be maintained in chocolate manufacture around the world and violators would be assigned the task of writing speeches for George W. Bush.< Rab Rakha!