It is being reported from various parts of Karachi that there are wide spread riots in the city, as of last count Dawn has reported that there are eight people dead and over 77 injured.

Areas affected were Orangi Town, Banaras, Orangi Town, Quaidabad, North Karachi and Nazimabad. The resulting panic led to traffic jams in different parts of the city

In Nazimabad area, miscreants forced shopkeepers to close down markets whereas rumours led shopkeepers in Light House, Zainab Market and Jama Cloth Market to close up. While the Pakistan Rangers have dispatched 45 mobiles to different troubled areas, while the city police is operating on an emergency basis.

In a high level meeting with the ruling coalition running the province has issued strict shoot-to-kill orders to the police force. At the same time its ironic to note that with chaos in the city the electronic media has maintained a strange silence, except a few scarce reports, probably coaxed into submission ‘for the benefit of the country’ Karachi Stay Safe Follow twitter hashtag #Karachi for the latest updates

For 3 days at the Arts Council, Karachi was treated to the most riveting performances by Ajoka, a theater group headed by Madeeha Gauhar. The series of three plays, called ‘Theater in the times of Jihad’, was a theatrical experience that gripped its audience from beginning to end. I was unfortunate to have missed the first two performances- Burqavaganza and Bulla; but Hotel MoenjoDaro, the last play of the series, left no room for regrets.

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CDGK has done excellent job by continuing with the development work even with a political chaos. Jail Road leading towards Hassan Square is one such example. While one can definitely argue about the standard of the work (especially flyovers) one should appreciate the efforts put in by CDGK to give Karachi a green look.
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Two people have reportedly lost their lives and dozens severely injured in fierce clashes at the University of Karachi today. The confrontation started around half past noon earlier today at the Arts Faculty between rival political groups, The All Pakistan Muttaihada Students Association and The Jamiatut Talabai Pakistan. Eye witness accounts said the Arts lobby was transformed into a “blood bath” later in the evening as tensions rose. Read more

Karachi sports an empty, but clean look, as all transporters are on strike protesting against the fuel hike and demanding an increase in fare prices. The transporters are negotiating for a Rs. 2 increase in their fare structure….. which will in turn most definitely impact the poor. One then has to wonder how long can a minimum wage person can survive this economic crunch, is there truly an economic plan somewhere beyond this chaos or are we simple destined to ride this never ending curve? The only good thing I see from this strike today is less chaos and I suspect less pollution.

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.