President Musharraf and PM Shaukat Aziz are both in Karachi today and they’ve blocked EVERY single road. Well that may be an exaggeration, but it sure feels like it. For concerned drivers, Shahrah-e-Faisal’s been blocked, and the roads leading to Zainab Market and Governor House are blocked as well. Saddar will be blocked in a few hours too, since Shaukat Aziz will be at IBA tonight. Fasten your seatbelts, bring along a book, and settle down for a long wait in traffic jams today.

Okay folks, the heat is absolutely unbearable - especially when the electricity fluctuates, which is a common occurence these days. I have reason to believe that my neighbours are partially responsible for it, thanks to their constantly running 6 A/Cs, and three TVs which continously blare the theme music to Kyunke Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, or on Saturday nights, Aqua’s Barbie Girl.

During such times of cursing KESC and drinking endless amounts of all cold drinks you can get your hands on, I was struck by this question: which restaurant serves the best namkeen lassi in Karachi? FYI, lassi is man’s greatest invention in the arena of chilled drinks, yes it even beats fizzy drinks. My vote goes to Chatkharay at Khadda Market, the lassi they serve will cool every burning cell in your system. Any suggestions?

I was standing at a busy intersection the other day and I noticed the driver next to me had seat belt on. I know, that’s not a big deal anymore in Karachi, but for some reason I looked around to see how many other drivers worry about their safety. During that process, I made several observations. I saw that usually people in expensive, latest model cars used seat belts, while small car drivers didn’t care a lot. There were some exceptions, of course. But I found this trend to be pretty consistent. To me, it seemed as if seat belts had become another fashion symbol, instead of a safety measure. Some people even deny the usefulness of seat belts, but that’s another discussion.

Before you ask, I don’t use seat belt. I did when I returned to Karachi in January but I stopped worrying about it after a while. But I do believe that seat belts should be used.

I want to know what the readers of this blog think about it. Do you use seat belt while driving? Do you think it’s useful at all? Do you use it as a safety measure or just to show off? Or if there is anything else you want to share, feel free to do so. Also, is there a law that enforces seat belts, yet?

I guess with the RX-8 becoming a common sight we need the 911 to differentiate the elite from the rest of the crowd.

Mangoes are finally in season here. Saw a fruit vendor selling them yesterday. Can’t wait to get my hands on them. Will have to get after my mom now. Just looking at this image is making me drool.

I visited Rainbow Centre, Karachi’s hub of pirated DVDs/VCDs/audio cds today, to discover racks full of outdated movies and the shopkeeper quoting a ridiculously high price, compared to Rainbow’s low standards. His reasoning? The recent raids on factories producing pirated merchandise, and their operations being sealed. While I believe that copyright laws have to be introduced and implemented for legitimate channels of business to prosper, but in the presence of a legal alternate. There is no foreign label selling original CDs or movies in Pakistan, and most of us will just end up downloading stuff off the Internet and burning it on CDs. Whats a ‘must-have-Scrubs-fix’ fan to do?

There comes a time in the life of every self respecting male human in his 20s when he has to spend a night in the company of friends and needs some serious food intake as soon as light breaks the eastern horizon. I experienced the same thing this very Saturday. The night was spent in playing cards.

It was an average Karachi night; breezy, sultry, alive and pensive. The calm of the night was shattered by a series of Fajr prayers in a hundred different tones, hues, accents and sounds. The voices amalgamated into one sound, one feeling, one emotion and one thought. Like a reminder in the middle of the night that light is about to arrive. The sound is a mixture of comfort and awe, maybe just a cultural tag, maybe something else.

Then the birds started to awaken, one by one. It all starts with sporadic outbreaks of chirping in a random tree here or there. Then the huge Mango tree in my friends courtyard alighted with the sounds of at least a million sparrows, if not less. We stood in his courtyard enjoying the sight of a sunrise, the sounds of the sparrows and the feeling of a cool morning breeze. A delight for the senses.

As is the case usually, we all went to Burns Road to catch some food this early on a Sunday morning. As is the case usually, we all got to eat Halwa Puris and Chana Parathas. As is the case usually, we all enjoyed the food immensely. As is the case usually, I fell in love with a house / building over there and made it one of the plans of my life to buy it, restore it, and set it up as a period museum, and make a period restaurant on the ground floor.

Lets see how that turns out.

The gorgeous Karachi skyline :)

Odd things happen on the bus. Maybe it’s the fact that you have to compose an intricate balance between letting your mind wander and yet remain involved enough in your surroundings to be able to respond to anything that comes up, from a conducter asking for the ticket price to some random oddball (yawn) staring/leering at your from his section of the bus. The truth is, the ordinary female in Pakistan gets stared at by men everywhere she goes and in any mode of transportation, so the reaction to being stared at by some random idiot is just to induce a big mental yawn.

Anyway, returning to the bus, this was the first time in a long while that I had travelled in the smaller buses, and I took a seat and studied my surroundings. Disappointingly enough, there was no bad poetry on the walls involving a tragic love affair and an ode to the sajan who has gone away forevermore. It was then that my eye strayed to the driver of this particular vehicle and I was shocked (in a good way) to discover that the driver was a woman wrapped in a chaddar.
(more…)

The first volume of Alhamra Literary Review is a successful attempt to break the silence of people who are inhibited or reluctant about expressing themselves and publishing their works. This unique collection of unpublished English writings by individuals both young and old is a refreshing blend of creative expressions in the form of poetry, fiction, non-fiction and photographs.
(more…)