While traffic jams don’t bring Mayflowers, they DO bring opportunists! And opportunists of the stupid kind! Traffic jams, which are increasing around the city, have been perfect opportunities for petty thiefs to run around pointing guns and banging on people’s windows, demanding that they turn over the cell phones and anything else of value.

A close relative of mine went through this in the area just opposite The Forum, while another friend witnessed a chain-reaction of cellphone snatchers in the Gulshan-e-Iqbal jam, three days ago. Yes, there is phone insurance now available through certain banks and certain mobile phone companies even offer it free-of-cost as a promotional scheme, but who wants to go through being held up in traffic jam and the nightmare of looking down the barrel of a gun (or up the nose of an ugly moron - depends on your point of view).

I don’t mean to sound like MadEye Moody, but please exercise some CONSTANT VIGILANCE when driving around the city.

Did you know, 13 agencies control different areas of karachi?

I can only think of Clifton Cantonment, DHA, Faisal Cantonment, and CDGK. What other agencies do we have here anyway?

Back to the point, Mustafa Kamal has, very rightly if i might say so, finally clarified that not every problem in Karachi is because of the CDGK, when most of the city does not fall under its limits.

He clarified that the CDGK was not doing any work on M. A. Jinnah Road or Shahra-e-Faisal nor have any of these roads been dug up, but despite this they have regular traffic jams. Also, half of Gulistan-e-Jauhar does not fall in CDGK limits but despite this, it is held responsible for every problem in the area. The same goes for Saddar where storm or sewerage water pipes are not controlled by the city government.

And while we’re very strong on condemning how agencies work in our fair city, has anyone ever given thought to how ‘inter-agency cooperation’ works here?

Kamal said that the city government has to get permission to work in the jurisdiction of other stakeholders. “The residents of DHA complained that water had accumulated and although we wanted to help them, it took four days to get the permission to do so,” he said.

A few years back, paanwalas used to be just paanwalas. From that signature red paanwala kiosk that is omnipresent and survives the occasional local government encroachment drives as effectively as the cockroaches in your kitchen, one could only get a few things - paan, cigarettes and the locally made sweets and toffees. With the dispensable income in the middle class having grown appreciably over the past few years, the paan shops have started stocking more and more miscellaneous stuff that stand high chances of being bought by their regular customers. My list of such items and services includes: Cigarette lighters, calling card, wireless PCO and the imported and local killer gutkas. What else ‘new things’ do you spot at your paanwala?

Saw this billboard while going to Hawksbay and felt like this is how it would be if a turtle came asking for protection from a Karachiite.

Kachwa: Jan ki aman paoon tu arz keroon , hum ab bohat thoray sey reh gaye hain. humari hifazat ka intezam kiya jaye.
Karachiite: Humain bhi kam reh janay ka khatra lahak ho gaya hay…roz kitnay halak ho jatay hain. Ab deikho kis ko hifazat muhaya ki jaye humain ya tumhain.

Talk about your own home grown energy crisis!

Owners of petrol pumps have announced they will stage a strike for an indefinite period starting Friday in protest against reduction in their commission on sale of petrol.

Fill up people! You never know how long this may last!

Source:The News

On Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2002, I stood at the gate of my rented house in Karachi, watching my friend Danny Pearl juggle a notebook, cellphone and earpiece as he bounded over to a taxicab idling in the street. He was off to try to find the alleged al-Qaeda handler of “shoe bomber” Richard Reid in Pakistan. “Good luck, dude,” I called, waving cheerfully as he strode off, a lopsided grin on his face. His pregnant wife, Mariane, stood smiling and waving beside me as the taxi pulled away. A gaggle of parrots swooped through the trees above, squawking in the late afternoon sun.

Disregarding for a while, the subject matter of the movie, I decided to watch ‘A Mighty Heart’ for the simple reason that it was shot in Karachi. I was in for a disappointment. The movie, starring Angelina Jolie was majorly shot in Pune, India because the producers didn’t consider Karachi a safe location. While many a fan of the diva may have been greatly disappointed at this decision, it was the movie itself that disappointed me.

While I wholeheartedly condemn Daniel Pearl’s murder and console with his widow and the child, I see no point in sensationailsing such a sensitive issue. Thanks to the movie, Daniel Pearl has been eternetised, yet no one will remember Saud Memon nor the countless unidentified citizens who have been mysteriously missing for a long time. Not only that, Hollywood has successfully tarnished what little dignity we as the citizens of Karachi had.
(more…)

I am sure many of you read daily Boriat. Adnan, one of our active readers blogs that daily boriat has suspended its activities. The website says :-

This notice has further details.
Other links :- Daily Boriat , About Boriat

That gotta hurt!

Last night, I heard the voice of this show going on GEO (please correct me if the channel is wrong, since I was more interested in listening to it from kitchen rather than watching it) conducted by Dr.Aamir Liaquat in which he was asking questions about what Shub-e-Qadar, Shub-e-Mairaj and Shub-e-Barat is, from the people of Karachi at different places. It was amazing how almost everyone other than one lady answered wrong about Shub-e-Barat. Whereas, when questions like “Why do we celebrate 14th Feb?” from the same people the answer was “Valentine’s Day”!

One of the ladies replied saying “Hazoor (salalaho alaihi wa alihi wasalam) upper gaye thay.” And the other said “Woh moon (chand) per gaye thay”!!!!

Yesterday when I witnessed large crowd of people and cars parked out @ graveyards, and then listening to the above mentioned road show, I was wondering if they have educated their children about what “Shub-e-Barat” is, who so keenly were seen with the parents.

We need to educated people, young and old ones to know the importance of our religious events rather than providing them with money to buy crackers for “Patakhay wali raat”

Revelation Media is organizing a seminar titled Brand New (Explosive) Ideas that will focus on new ideas, concepts, approaches and technologies that will reshape the industry and will open up different paradigms for brainstorming and discussion. (Event Brochure)

The training seminar focuses on innovative ideas which are recently implemented and have given positive results and also on ideas which are applied globally but are still new to our market. The seminar will present a collage of case studies of brands and/or companies successfully using new strategies and concepts to their advantage. Other than that change in overall structures of advertising, marketing and media with respect to technological advancements, new tactical approaches and consumer insights will be presented in the workshop. From concepts like people meters to mobile marketing, from branded songs & reality shows to cinema advertising to new media realities, a wide horizon of topics will be covered to give the audience fascinating marketing insights.

This event is also a bit of a special interest to the Karachi Metroblogs team as it features Imtiaz Noor (Inspirex) as one of the speakers that will share his views on Mobile Marketing initiatives
(more…)