Packing up

My trip to Pakistan is nearing its end. I’ll be flying back by the start of next week insha’Allah, as always with a lot of pleasant memories with me.

The trip was quite a busy one. Had some chores to do that were pending my arrival. Had to meet with friends, although havent been able to meet all of the them and some other stuff.

The most asked questions remain “Shadi kab ker rahe ho?” and the likes Recent wedding of my cousin has given an even stronger momentum to this question within the family. Some elders of the family quite seriously advised that I should plan for it now. And I agree with them Its just that sometimes its difficult to prioritize things and take decisions, particularly the kind of things and decisions that are supposed to be taken by people with around 50 years of experience in this world, normally your parents.

Sometimes, I really miss my father.

Khair … at all such times, my Lord has always been there for me, so will He be now. I am concerned but not worried

….

As of packing up, there is not much to pack actually. Just some clothes that I brought along and thats it.

I have to move home as well after I get back to London. I have almost 1 week for the room-hunt. Lets hope I find some reasonable place well in time.

See you later …

The pub experience

Last evening, I for the first time entered a pub.

A lets-have-a-drink party was offered by my manager. Infact it was our weekly team meeting, and as I have moved to a different project, I have been excused of the weekly meetings for a while now. So I was a bit surprised last evening when I got a message on internal IM, for a meeting in Meeting Room “P”. And I was wondering if they changed the meeting-room-names again ? as we dont have any meeting room named “P”, when my manager disclosed P is for Pub

As xmas holidays are almost there, it was a just a goodwill gesture to say good bye to 2008, as it was our 2nd last day in office before 2009.

Pub is more of a social place. Where you can sit, have a drink, and chat. Yup, thats it. This provide a good hangout for everybody, at reasonable prices.

It was a nice big cafe, serving only drinks. The place was quite cosy, keeping the outside temperature in view.  We sat there for 2-3 hours I guess, and chatted about almost everthing.

I was thinking about Pakistan. OK if we talk about Rawalpindi Saddar, how many decent places can you  name where you can get to with some friends in evening, and have a cup of tea, for a decent price. None, I am afraid. And its not just Saddar, its the same all over. And its not just pindi, its the same all over. Islamabad may have some good places to sit, but I repeat, decent price is also a concern.

Then there  are those chotay-ka-hotels, the small tea shops, where you can always get tea. Some of them also offer place to sit, but that is by no means decent. Its not clean, its not calm, and a lot of other concerns. So, not an option.

No wonder, we dont get anytime to sit with friends for a while, let alone socialize.

PS: Just to keep the records straight, I had an orange juice, and a coke-with-lemon. Yup, on rocks 

BUSIness or BLOODIness

I went to a computer-composing shop (at saddar) today evening to have a couple of pages, 3 to be precise, scanned. I just realized that I do not have my flash-drive with me. I told the guy at the shop and asked if he can do me a favor and email the scanned documents to my email? To which he said, “Sure”.

Once he was done, he emailed and closed the window. I asked him to delete the files from disk as well as from Sent folder in his mailbox. So he opened the browser again and deleted from mailbox as well, after deleting from disk.

All went well till I asked the guy how much to pay? The dialogue that followed went something like:

the guy: 50 rupees.

me: 50? At what rate?

the guy: 10 rupees per page.

me: And there are 3 pages. That  makes 30.

the guy: 20 for email.

me: (you can imagine how my face would have been looking) What ?

the guy: (very calmly) yup.

me: You are charging for an email? Courtesy bi koi cheeze hoti he yaar.

the guy: (braggingly) We are using a DSL connection.

me: So … ?

…

me: OK. And why 20 rupees for an email? If you have to charge me.

the guy: 10 rupees for an email.

me: (a bit of @#$%) and what is the other 10 for?

the guy: I had to open the mailbox again to delete the file. Bandwidth use hoti he.

me: <speechless @ this bloodiness>

I mean, gimme a break.

It makes sense to do business but our shopkeepers need to learn the norms. We should not be leaches to suck as much as possible. We should be humans. We, after all, are humans; the vicegerents of the Lord of the Lords.

The Departed: Benazir Bhutto

I have never been a fan of BB, rather I disagree with a lot of her policies, but the way she has been killed is very saddening. It was quite shocking.

I heard about the blast at a friend’s home, and that BB has also been taken to RGH. And believe me I was like this would just be a display that she has also been injured. As in all previous (so-called) suicide attacks at public meetings, none of the targets have been hit, rather it was always innocent people who died.

But by the time I reached home, the news was on air. She was dead. And reports say that she wasn’t killed by the blast, rather she was shot. And the killer then blew himself up. Another mystery in the political history of Pakistan that may never get resolved.

Liaquat Ali Khan, first PM of Pakistan, was also killed the same way on October 16, 1951, at the same place i.e. Liaquat Bagh Rawalpindi. The killer at that time was shot dead by a cop. And today on December 27, 2007, history repeated one part of the same incident.

Lets see what turn the politics in pakistan take, after this huge blow to one of the big political parties.

May her soul rest in heaven.

[ BBC | IMB ]