Lets step aside for a moment and take a look at our city Karachi.

I think of sharing my views with you guys, actually I have just been on a trip to Islamabad and Muree, although I went there primarily for some personal business and not on a vacation to enjoy. I did try take that opportunity and visited the well-known tourist points in Islamabad and Muree. Undoubtedly the places in Muree such as Neelam Point, Bhurband - Pearl Continental, Kashmir Point, the chair lifts and cable cars in Patriata are superbly beautiful. The cleanliness and strict laws of Islamabad and a few worth visiting places are simply awesome. Most importantly the road-trip from Islamabad to Muree is the most enjoyable because of the stunning natural beauty and the curvy dangerous narrow two-way roads cut between the green mountains. Multiple routes connecting Islamabad and Muree are simply unexplainable. Some of you might have been there, but for those who haven’t, let me tell you - I enjoyed the places in the off season, you can imagine what it would be like in the “on” seasons. You have got to be there, take a break from our busy and fast lives and give yourself some good time.

You can see the photos here. I tried to write about the trip while I was there and I did make some posts on my blog, but I lost track in all the traveling and stuff. I was seriously thinking of extending my visit and and spending some more time in Muree, but I had to cut short my tour and get back, my leave was expiring and I didn’t have much cash in hand.

The point in making this post is not to just share my trip details with you, but to actually share what I learned / realized from the trip besides everything. It was a four-day trip from Wednesday till Sunday, on Saturday night I was in the hotel room in Islamabad, I was on the flight to Karachi the next morning.

On Saturday night something came up and I thought I should go out and buy what I need. My hotel was near Aabpara Market (its a busy market). Its 10:30 in the night and what I see amazed me. Every shop was closed, there were just a few people on the street, SATURDAY NIGHT and no cars! I found only a bakery, a medical store and few other shops left open. It was like a day of strike in Karachi! Anyway, I kept walking until I reached the medical store, I just had my dinner so I thought of trying out a meetha pan of Islamabad, and guess what! They don’t have khokas! On the whole road, I walked about 20 minutes, there was no sign of a khoka or any shop from where I could find a pan. May be there was such a shop but got closed as it was “too late”. I don’t mean to portray Islamabad as the “city that always sleeps”, but for me (being a karachitte) it was unusual.

As for the food, the well-known food-street (a.k.a food-court) in Islamabad, for crying out loud! I can’t find a single place where I could get Chicken Biryani. I ate every thing from Pulao to stuff like yellow rice with boiled chicken in the name of my dear Chicken Biryani! The spicy chicken ginger! oh so sweet! and the mini buns by the names zinger burger. I couldn’t find KFC, McDonals, Pizza Huts so common as they are in Karachi, in fact, I never saw one in my whole trip! I realized it when I reached Karachi Airport and saw a big yellow ‘M’ just in front of it along the parking area! :)

All night I was just thinking and comparing the three cities. Besides the natural beauty in Muree and it being an official tourist place, I was just left comparing Islamabad with Karachi.

I came to realize that Islamabad is as good as nothing in terms of Implementation of Law and cleanliness in Pakistan, the underpasses seems to be just a regular natural inclining and declining road due to the mountainous area -unlike Karachi’s underpasses when you bounce off 3 feet in the air while entering one and the drainage cover moves and sounds like its broken into 5 pieces and you just made the 5 pieces 8 with your car, they sometimes also fills up with water too :) .

There is no signal violation, no car on or ahead the zebra crossing on the signal, even the police or government cars being fined for breaking the signal or any road law. There are no coaches or mini buses, “khaan-taiyaara” or “sarko ki malka” -type vehicles on the roads, only 14-seater vans for public transportation. Very few bikes, very very wide roads, proper road signs, minimum chaos on the roads. In short everything is so damn perfect as compared to Karachi and its core and most talked-about problems.

I took my expensive phone with me and I was literally roaming around and showing off :) in the streets in ISB and muree taking pictures and messaging never fearing that a 125 bike will be coming from behind and I’ll be greeted with a shining metal of a gun as a reward to my showoff. Its a lot better in terms of street crimes.

But there is nothing like the life in Karachi! I always thought of myself as a boring person, but I realized that I’m much more fun being in Karachi than anywhere around the country (as far as I have been). You can never have a life that you have in Karachi anywhere else.

Keeping aside the crimes, traffic problems, political uncertainty and every small and major issue, I can bet that once you get a break from Karachi you will realize that we curse the city way too much and how much we are dependent on the life of Karachi. Its not like “aankh aujhal Pahar Aujghal” its like once you get on a “pahar” you will have a much better, clear and true realization of what you have been into and what you have been missing all the way.

I hope that every Karachitte feels and realize what the city Karachi really is and how we are connected to it in every aspect of our lives. Being bloggers, writers readers or any one from Karachi who thinks about Karachi, needs to get a different perspective every once in a while to change our thoughts and views, and probably alter our attitude towards our City.

Its us that is Karachi and its Karachi that is us, a codependent association that needs a little tough outside the box.

Today was world dance day and the significance of classical dance, in our culture, heritage and through the history was brought under the spotlight by Sheema Kermani, in a small café “The Second Floor” in Karachi.

The event kicked off with a brief history of classical dance which dates back to fifth millennium B.C. since then different forms of dance flourished and evolved in the region into what we see as classical dance today. The movements and body gestures one sees in different schools of classical dances can be recognized sculpted into the ruins found through out the Indian sub-continental region including the Indus civilization and at several other places in Pakistan which links  classical dance closely and undoubtedly to our own history and heritage. 

Classical dance unlike other pop-dances of today requires a proper training, it is a meticulously defined form of dance witch can only be performed after years of hard work and total dedication to this art, through which an artists can express stories, feelings, cultural values and so much more to it’s audience with great sophistication and grace.

At the end of the event a small demonstration of the art to further highlight the points included in the lecture by Sheema Kermani held the audience completely spell bound and one could easily trace joy, happiness, wonder, heartbreak and all in her meaningful facial expression, hand and body gestures and foot steps each of them in complete harmony with the music.

Classical dance is a refined form of art, which is an undeniable part of our heritage and culture. In a classical dance performance one could easily find stories, beauty, love, sadness and even terror but the only things which are untraceable in this refined art form is the chaos, vulgarity and a clash of our cultural values which we see today in almost every popular dance performance extravagantly fed to the general public by our media and pop artists. 

Today on the world dance day so lets not disown what’s our.

Dear Readers of Karachi Metblogs,

It is with a sorry heart that we at the Metroblogging headquarters in Los Angeles have to announce that Karachi Metblogs will be shutting down for a while while we decide what is the best future for it. While I could certainly try to sugar coat this and blame corporate restructuring, the truth is we are just sick of the constand bitter rivalry within the ranks of the authors which has lead to absolute chaos on the site. Honestly, not a day goes by that one author isn’t e-mail me complaining about this or whining about that, and quite frankly I just don’t care enough to keep putting up with all of it. It’s become a nightmare and it has to end. To solve this issue we are forced to start afresh close the site entirely, step back, and decide what is the best future for this site. As the loyal readers of the site, we feel that your input in valuable and we’d like to get your thoughts on some of the options we are considering. Please take a moment to vote in the poll below and let us know what you think would be the best option for the site at this point. Please know that this wasn’t an easy decision for us, but for our own sanity we had to do something. I’ll be disabling comments because I’ve seen how long comment threads get here and really don’t have the patience to sort through something like that.

Karachi Metroblogs has been a great experience for us at Metblogs and we hope that it shall return to the forefront very soon, please bear with us. Until then KMB Rests in Peace.

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Thanks again. Best,

Sean Bonner
Metblogs HQ, Los Angeles

So, a day full of panic, rumours, and chaos marked the end of the year 2007. I can only recall sad events that happened this year because they clearly overshadowed anything good that happened.

May 12, 2007
October 18, 2007
December 27, 2007
December 31, 2007

These are not just dates. These are marks on the pages of history that will forever haunt the citizens of Karachi.

Let’s hope and pray that next year we see a better Karachi in all aspects.

Good thing I can have a look of SF from my office window. There is massive congestion on Tipu Sultan road intersection. If you are indoors don’t go out because you will be stuck in traffic. The best strategy is to stay in for a couple of hours until the roads clear up.

On a side note, I have a feeling things will be normal in the evening. So stay put and don’t panic. You will only be adding to the chaos. And as mentioned in the previous posts, don’t react to rumours (or spread them) before confirming them on a news channel or website.

Update: I just looked out and traffic seems to be flowing normally at the moment. Hope it stays that way.

There has been a rumour flying around about the MQM, but Farooq Sattar is alive and well - He was just seen on Ary OneWorld, giving a phone interview that there are a lot of rumors running around but he is well - Yes, shops and banks have shut down and many continue to - Please let’s not flood the streets with unecessary chaos, adding to an already fragile situation. Thanks for the foresight, Tee Emm.

Finally I manged to see my husband after two days being stuck at my mothers place. We were shopping @ Dolmen mall, Tariq road when my cousin came rushing and asked us to leave immediately.
Since we left early we managed to reach till Civic Centre’s flyover safely. But then, there’s where the chaos started.As I saw people panic, I noted these lines down on my PDA

“Fire and bullets (the sound) and smoke is what I see all around. We are stuck fires on our back and fire in our front. This is the view from gulshan iqbals flyover.”
“mobile phone networks are jammed and I’m in car with a two year old kid who’s allergic to smoke and my mother and bhabi. When firing started I could sense the panic in the ceased cars.one of the pessangers in the bus stopped adjacent to our car recited Quranic verses.
Petrol pumps, eatouts and medical stores(time medico and murad) are closed.”
My niece by then was coughing badly as the smoke cloud was engulfing the cars that were at cease. The driver had turned off the cars engine to save fuel. We thought of walking on foot to the Hassan Square Appartments, which were just across the road, but then sounds of bullets firing in the vicinity were clear and we ought not to take the risk.

Leaving the car was also not a good idea as we could witness what was going on with the left ones.
There’s no u-turn on that road. The bike riders picked up the bikes and crossed the island whereas the Bus drivers asked the passangers to walk on foot.

Our car was in the right most lane and the first car that I saw being ignited was infront of Civic Centre, the road that goes towards Askari Park, the old Sabzi mandi. It was a group of four to five young men. After liting the car one of the guys picked up the klashenkov. (Some of the guys witnessing the scene with me exclaimed klashenkov, and hence I came to know the gun’s name) It was a small car Mehran or Charade or maybe Khyber that had immunition. I don’t remember the colour.

I managed to take some pictures from my PDA which are not very clear.

Finally necessity is the mother if invention the men tried to break the island and when in vain, bricks (envicrete) were kept on both ends and cars were pushed over it by people’s help.
I met this guy helping the stuck cars, who used to be at my university and was an active APMSO worker.Who told me that the ”fellow members” were there to help people!
I felt good for them (not to Mention, this is the first time I’m heard of praising them but good deed is good done by whoever).

We made it to my my mom’s house safely in 15 minutes from there. However my brother got stuck in DHA and reached home @ 2:30 in the protocol of police mobile!
One of ex-servants walked from Gulstane-jauhar and reached our place late.
That was the worst I have seen in last 12 years in Karachi. 12th may was there and 18th October, but Karachi never seemed so haunted.

May the country and country men learn to control grief and anger and may we all be safe. Amen.

I write this as I got home after staying at my in-laws for 2 nights following the BB killing. My wife made a very sensible decision in directing us there as news arrived, as it was the nearest option from work.
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I’m wondering how many weddings got postponed yesterday. The thought is natural since my own wedding was. I was almost done getting dolled up at a place near Khadda Market when news of BB’s assassination was seen on television. A few minutes after that calls started coming in reporting of rioting at Gizri, the shutters were pulled down almost immediately as Labels next to Cafe Coffee Day was smashed up.

Around this time, my car came to pick me up and was waiting outside when the rioters reached our lane and people started shouting that they were shooting with silencer fitted guns. Everyone waiting for the people inside the salon were quickly taken in and people were told that they could stay for as long as they wanted till they considered it safe to venture out. Most chose to risk it.

We waited till the lane was quiet again and the servants and guards of neighboring houses ventured out to take a look around. By this time we were waiting just inside the side door after deciding to head out to our nearest relatives place. Once we were told it was clear for the moment we got into cars and drove through the back lanes to defense phase 6 with our headlights off as a precaution, keeping an eye out for any signs of trouble. Worry and tension was thrice what we would probably have felt otherwise because I was all dressed up in my wedding dress and being wrapped up in a shawl isn’t exactly protection. Luckily we were accompanied by another car so that was some reassurance though on hindsight I don’t know how that would have helped had we gotten into trouble.
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While Imtiaz very well described what he went through yesterday, many other KMB authors like Khurram, Farukh, Unaiza, and myself were stuck at various places due to riots and mobs and all that chaos.

I was in office when I heard the news. It was close to 630. That’s when everyone in the office decided to leave anticipating the violence that always erupts in Karachi under such circumstances. I live near Baloch Colony Bridge and work in Nursery area. it takes 10 minutes to get home normally. But yesterday I was still at the ramp of Baloch Colony bridge at 730. When I reached on top of the bridge wanting to make a right turn towards City School PAF Chapter, I found the road blocked and all the cars were making a U-turn back to Sharae Faisal. At the same time I saw people running from that side. I was barely one minute from home but it didn’t seem possible to get there. Next thing I saw was something black thrown on the road. I don’t know if it was a piece of tire or what but it landed pretty close to my car. That’s when I hit the gas and returned on Sharae Faisal. I decided to go back to my office and park my car in the basement of my office building. When I got there I found the service lane blocked. The driver of the car ahead of me got out and removed the obstacles to enter the service lane. So I entered the lane in which my office building is located but found the entrance to its parking closed. I turned my car towards the parking of the building next to my office building and after some honking they opened the gates and I was able to park my car in the basement. Later I found out that mobs were throwing stones at cars and shops that’s why they had closed all the gates and entrances to the building. In all the mean time, I found it next to impossible to contact my family members and inform them about my status. But nevertheless after several attempts I was able to contact them. That was around 8 PM. From then till 1130 I was in that building along with several other office workers and security guards. One man left on his bike but returned after a while on foot, because his bike was snatched from him and torched.

At 1130 I decided to head home on foot, as it was still too risky to drive. I safely made it to the bridge but when I reached the road that goes from under the bridge, I spotted few boys standing there. They were laughing and talking with each other as if they don’t have a care in the world. The bikers and motorists coming from that direction all turned around as soon they saw those boys. The boys burst into laughter looking at that reaction. I don’t know if they were real gangsters or neighborhood boys having fun, but it was certainly not funny.

Anyway, I was observing them from a distance as I myself was not sure about passing them by. That’s when a security guard from KESC office saw me and offered me to come inside the gate. I took refuge in the KESC office for few minutes until the boys were gone after which I resumed my walk towards home. On my way I saw several vehicles burnt and broken.

I was home at midnight.