“Eastern values” are not to treat people badly and make excuses for slip-shoddy behavior. Quite the contrary, one must say.

Speaking of polarity:
“Allah is of the East, and the West.”

We cannot take it upon our shoulders to lock up Allah in a Pakistani restaurant and call the rest of Hu’s created world inherently evil and not worthy of being followed in respects where THEY are more Islamic than Muslims. Secondly, there are Muslims in the West too! Would you separate the issues first, and then think logically?

And what’s the connection between being in a 60-year old country, and being unable to serve mayo with fries or preventing oneself from making shamelessly tall excuses for littering? It takes like 60 second. Like, do we expect that in the 100-th year, Pakistan will grow a hand and slap us for being idiots?

So keen to follow implement the Quran? Start with this: “And cooperate with each other in good deeds, and do not cooperate in wrong deeds.”

How about that!?

I have some homework for you.

1. What is the concept of “service” in Islam, and
2. What exactly is termed “half the faith?”
3. With your great love (and, one assumes, knowledge) of “religion” what lesson about “law” can you derive from this well-documented episode from the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him’s life:

A man came to the Prophet and admitted he broke his fast. The Prophet asked, “Can you free a slave?”
The man replied it was beyond his means.
“Can you feed 60 hungry people?”
“No,” he replied, “I cannot so afford.”
“Can you keep 60 consecutive fasts?” The Prophet inquired.
“I cannot bear that.”
“OK, sit here.” The Prophet commanded, and they both sat and waited. A man came shortly with dates (or some other food.)
The Prophet asked the fast-violater to take the dates and feed them to the hungry and the poor of the city Madina.
“Truly, O Prophet! There is none poorer and hungrier than I between the two corner of Madina!” The man replied.
At which the Prophet peace be upon him smiled, and asked him to take the food and feed it to himself and his family.

++++

Dude, know your “religion” before using it as an excuse to do the very thing it forbids: poor service, lack of trust and delegation, filth and garbage, not using one’s brain, and twisting the rules.

One wonders at the mental compartmentalization of the Cineplex manager who let the blogger in with a couple (knowing full well he wasn’t with them – and look at this: unleashing a possibly dangerous young man on an innocent couple), but not otherwise! Reminds me of a recent story in papers. Jewish women in Israel, following the command of G-d to the letter of covering and not revealing their hair, use Indian wigs on top of their “real hair!” The story was about the shortage of such wigs, which was troublesome to the law-abiding (who are you kidding!?) orthodox women.

Wow!

Khuda bhi mil gaya, visaal-e-sanam bhi ho gaya!

++++

Bonus questions for anyone who wants to try:

1. Is the purpose of a restaurant to entertain & give comfort, and satisfy the taste/food needs? Or is it to “enforce policy?”
2. What is the value of “small things?”

++++

Take the red pill, people, and get out of The Matrix of policy! Welcome to the real world! Where policies are made for humans, humans are not made for policies!

Noeka, Not that I disagree with you but this is a common practice every where from Bank of America to Radio Shack to Subway. If you ask/cry for some thing that is not there, they always forward you to their supervisors.

Cineplex policy is there for a very good reason, which you yourself explained. As for bending the policy when it seems ok to do so, well the guy did let you in, so i guess its ok.

As for the Area 51, I am sorry to say the waiters there can be a bit stupid at times. there are ways to get around them and I guess you see ppl like this in every society.

and yes, to be honest, such menial matters have not affected my stay, nor cast a bad light on my experience here. as the saying goes “when in rome do as romans do”

My point was simple, in the case of cineplex, yes a policy is a policy, however is their room to question the policy? What are the steps to impact change if there are loop holes/weaknesses in the policy?

Re: fries, why was it debated with management, why weren’t the staff equip to make decisions? Does that reflect a culture where the CEO calls all the shots and everyone else just obeys? Is the only way to make social and financial advancement to ‘know somebody’? or can hard work and determination get you ahead?

Good work buddy.

The things you are discussing here are too above from average mind (no pun intended). You are right in reaching this conclusion. Most of the progressive thinkers have left the country in despair. Some of them wanted to return but it’s too much for some to reason on every petty issue. Have you ever tried paying waiter extra cash to get your order straight, trust me that will do a wonder. Just think it as an advance tip ;).

To All (who are saying Neoka to leave Karachi),

So much for tolerance and welcoming a nice guy. If you can’t make it to the foreign land it’s not his fault. He is giving an outsider view to simple issues like throwing away a trash on PUBLIC street. BTW which is a crime in most civilized countries. But none of us want to improve we just want to whine. We want clean streets but do not want to be any part of it as long as our car or home stays clean we fine.