And We're Back

I thought I had entered the-Twilight-Zone/Star-Trek-time-warp and was in a five-month dream where everyone in Pakistan had set their clocks ahead an hour, the dollar and petrol/liter were in the Rs. 80's, the stock markets of the world had crashed, I had stopped writing my blog, and Asif Ali Zardari was the President of Pakistan. Then I realized that midnight has come and gone to come again, it's still October, and we are back in normal time.

What time is it?

Welcome to June 2nd, or is it still yesterday?

It takes time, or rather the lack, or was it more, to see things through. Imagine the plight of a simpleton, who takes and eats for granted what "it is" that is given to him. Forget about him thinking about how long it's going to take him to even simply, for only the sake of finishing what you have started, in what possibly might be the wholly most ridiculous way of proving the point, which is neither a tomb nor en ambassy, be just exactly what I was trying to tell you in the first place, and yea, that it takes a while to get through all of this, and pfft... you wanna make him 'deliberately' set his watch/clock ahead an hour so that he ends up losing one hour (1 hour) of his life?

And then explain all of the above to yourselves.

Daylight saving is no big deal.

Yet, we, in Karachi, simply cannot fail to understand it. Give me my hour back! I want to watch "who want's to you be a millionaire at 9, not 10!"!

That was a few years ago.

Today, it's "who is smarter than a 5th grader?"

Your Ad Goes Here

I have a question for everybody: Which one hair of Iman Ali is telling her story? I really want to know. This question came to my mind after seeing the new Sunsilk campaign, which says that life can't wait and blatantly displays a quote by Iman Ali: 'My Hair Tells My Story.' If all her hair were telling her story then she would have said: 'My Hair Tell My Story.' But, since it’s 'tells,' I would really like to know exactly which one of her hair is telling it. Another thing that this ad has done is that it has strengthened by long-held belief that all the advertising agencies of Pakistan are full of people like my friend, the Alid. (For more information on who he is, please read my previous blog entry at http://habitsandpasttimes.blogspot.com/2008/01/life-and-non-murder-of-my-friend.html). And not just advertising agencies, but also these large and supposedly hip multinational FMCG corporations like Unilever. I know that the ad agency made the mistake but Unilever ultimately approved it so they are the ones who are actually at fault. I can't believe that they have all these rigorous recruitment processes: testing, interviewing, re-interviewing, re-re-interviewing, holding group discussions, psychologically profiling the applicants, so on and on and on, and they still ultimately end up hiring a monkey who can't spell.

I have displayed my distaste for advertisements many times and this seems to surprise many people because I am a graduate with a degree in marketing, and people cannot seem to fathom the fact that I of all the people would despise advertising so much. The truth is that I do; ads really irritate it me on some sort of a very human level. I find them to be irritants, ads invasion into my privacy. When I sit down in front of the television to watch a movie, that is all I want to watch: the movie. Not TVCs interrupting me every fifteen minutes and I certainly don't want to watch my movie enclosed in a broad outline of scrolls and logos. Ads are perhaps the main reason why I have actually stopped watching any kind of television at all. I would rather watch a 'watchable without subtitles' DVD than movies on Star Movies or HBO. But you can't hide from ads. They are everywhere. On billboards, blaring out of radios, painted on the side of bridges, on walls, buildings, trucks, vans (especially those new vans whose sole purpose is to waste gas and display those damn well lit backlit signs), buses, cars, poles, sidewalks, traffic lights, and lamppost. If they had their way, those damn advertisers would slap an ad on damn near anything with enough space on it. I know. I have worked in a media planning/buying agency and one of the most popular activities there would be for us to sit together and brainstorm on new and 'creative' ways of displaying ads to the target audience.

When I had first gotten that job, I was very excited and I told my father that I am going to work in a media planning and buying house. He asked me what that was. And when I explained it all, he said, 'Oh, so you will be working in advertising.' That really infuriated me, for I did not want to work in advertising. I went at great lengths and actually fought with my father and explained to him how media buying and planning is NOT advertising. After a heated discussion and argument that went on for a full hour, my father says to me, 'So, it's basically advertising, right?' From that day on, I made it a point to tell everyone that my line of work was NOT advertising, but placement of the ads. I was adamant and stubborn, and I would argue and fight and never admit that it was the same as advertising. It took me only a few weeks of working there when I realized that it pretty damn much WAS advertising. I hated to think that even though I did not make the ads, I was the one responsible for making people see them. I was the intruder here, doing unto others that which I sure hell did not want them do unto me. I quit my job, I realized what was wrong, still stick to my self-developed maxim: Creativity Should Never be a Nuisance.

This also has a connection with my Irony is Sometimes Perfect clause that I have drawn up. I know a guy who used to work for an online writing company. His job would be to select articles from the web and paraphrase them in his own words so as to avoid plagiarism. He was a very creative guy, perhaps too creative. He got fired for plagiarizing when he paraphrased an article that was already paraphrased and inadvertently changed it back into exactly its original form.

An End That is Not Beginning

It's funny (and perhaps sad too) that my life has become nothing more than just routine weekdays during which I long for my routine weekends. Ever since I take that first step into my car on a Monday morning, I start thinking about how many days are left till Friday when this week ends and the weekend begins. All through the week I have a subconscious countdown counting down the hours left until I make that final departure from my office building to end the week and begin the weekend. I think weekends are great. First of all, they are perhaps the only ends that actually have their own beginnings. And then I get two days off to sleep as late as I can, hang out late with my friends, and watch movies into the late nights until I fall asleep. I look forward to doing all these things throughout the week and never actually end up doing them over the weekend because something or the other other than something is happening. But that's ok because I still get those two days off of work, to which (have I mentioned it before?) I look forward to throughout the whole week.

So, you can well imagine my state of mind now that I have been working for 11 days straight without a single day off. Yes, all my dreams of enjoying my weekend last week were mangled, pulverized, rent, riven, ruptured, shredded, shattered, and smashed when I found out that I would have to work on Saturday and Sunday. Today is my 11th day at work without a break and it has been the longest week of my life.

Anyhow, my woes aside, have you all seen the new Rs. 20 banknote? I was under the impression that a new note was needed because many people were giving out Rs. 5000 notes to buy Rs. 5 worth of mint. This was because the new Rs. 5000 note looked very much like the now-old-but-the-then-new Rs. 20 note. I happened to perchance (yes, perchance) upon the new Rs. 20 today, and mazharfakhar (yes, mazharfakhar), it looks even more like the Rs. 5000 note than it did before! It's actually the same note, only they have changed the colors and added some fluorescent green here and a little 'peekish' red here. It now looks like a Rs. 5000 note that just came out of a bag of cotton candy.

My 'Free' Gift to Myself (Only for Customers in Pakistan)

I am out of cash so I go to the ATM machine. I put my card in, punch in my secret code, and then the amount. The machine processes my request, spits out my card, and I hear that whirring sound that precludes the arrival of bank notes. I am expecting the cash to come out at any second, but, as KESC would have it, the electricity gets cut off, and the ATM machine shuts down. It goes completely dead.

So, there I am, standing with no cash, and an ATM machine with no power. I go into the bank, and find out that it is not a bank at all, just a convenient ATM nook in the busy market. A peon finally shows up and then disappears for another ten minutes to go turn on the generator. I wait for a while for the ATM machine to boot up, which it finally does after 15 minutes, and still no cash. I call up my bank and they tell me that the cash amount has been charged to my account. I assure them that I have not been paid, and they tell me to go sign a contest form at my bank's branch.

I go to my bank and sign that contest form. My bank tells me that since I was using an ATM of another bank, I would probably have to wait another 15-20 days for the cash to be reversed into my account.

I go home and order some books for myself from Amazon.com for the same amount that I just lost in the ATM machine. Amazon.com tells me that my books will be delivered within the next 15-20 days.

So, in the next 15-20 days, I will get my books, and also the money back that I used to pay for them, completing the illusion that I got the books for 'free.'

Note to all: This 'scam' can only work in Pakistan and is a product of our prestigious award system also known as load shedding.

Video Kills the Radio Star

Have you seen the big screen super LCD television screen that they have put up on Shahra-e-Faisal right in front of the Regent Plaza? Man it's bright! I would love to tell you what it was showing but I can't. I saw it last night only for a millisecond but then I had to look away because the brightness burnt my retinas, rendering me completely blind for the next few seconds. I am going to take a better look at it tonight, as I am going to be prepared wearing my extra-dark sunglasses.

The thing that I find extremely funny is that there is a strict ban being especially enforced on Shahra-e-Faisal, where cops give you a ticket for talking on your cell phones while driving your car. But apparently watching big screen television while driving poses no real threat and its a-okay.

I think the RJs have finally found their match.

Radio Ga Ga

A lot has changed in Karachi over the past ten or eleven years, but the two things that have really changed a lot are cell phones and FM radio. I remember that a up until a few years ago there was only 1 FM channel, FM100, bidding Asalamwalikum to Pakistan (Karachi, Lahore, Izzlamabad), and cell phones were big and rare. Cell phones used to be a status symbol rather than a necessity that they have become today. Only the rich (because the phones and their services were so expensive) and the muscular (because the cell phones were so big that they required their own carrying cases) could afford (and carry) cell phones. This was the time when people would pretend to talk on fake cell phones in their cars to show off that they were rich (and strong) enough to own a cell phone. Things have changed now because there are way too many people with way too many cell phones and also mostly because people now avoid talking on the phone while in their cars because it is very much likely that if you are seen using your cell phone in public, someone is going to come up to your car, tap his gun on your window, and make with your cell phone.

There are also way too many FM radio channels broadcasting way too many advertisements being played by way too many idiotic radio jockeys, many of whom sound not only like they have just flown into the radio station straight from Toronto but also that they spent all their lives there fraternizing with gangster rappers. They have these weird accents, a weirder lingo, and can absolutely talk some real trash. For instance, have you noticed how these RJs suddenly become experts at giving relationship, political, environmental, health etc advice as soon as they start blabbering in front of their microphones? Of course, I am not talking about ALL the RJs on the many FM radio stations; I actually happen to even like some of them when they are not actually talking and are more concerned with just playing songs. The worse of these creatures are those full of bubbly excitement and high-pitched crackling voices who think that the radio airwave is their own private teenage high school pajama party. These are the ones who have given me such ‘expert’ advice on how to live a happier life by waking up at 6:00am on a Sunday morning and opening up my curtains to ‘embrace’ the rising sun; how to get into the ‘weekend party mood’ by listening to trance songs during lunch time on Thursday afternoons; how to make my girlfriend love me by giving her flowers, cakes, chocolates, balloons, and teddy bears, all ordered through the TCS Sentimental Express; and of course, how to win back my girlfriend who already loved me but is now leaving me because I sent a pink courier truck to her house.

Having a cell phone handy has also affected my life in many ways. I remember when I was in my A-Level’s and our class had to arrange a picnic on a Sunday, all the plans had to be finalized by Friday afternoon. Everyone had to know exactly where to be at exactly the right time and exactly who all was to bring the food, chips, beach ball, etc a day before the actual event because no one had cell phones and last minute plans were unheard of. Boys and girls had a very hard time talking on the phone because many of the girls had strictly forbidden the boys to call them at their home numbers and most of the talking took place at night when the parents were asleep. People used to spend a lot of stressful times in restaurants thinking up until the second that their significant others showed up whether they were going to show up at all or if they had come to the wrong restaurant at the wrong time. Some of the most embarrassing of times were when you returned home late to find that your mom has been calling ALL your friends’ moms in trying to find out where you have been all night. Things were very different and analogue then. The kids of today would probably wonder how anything ever got done without cell phones, but they did; everything did get done. We were all still able to find each other in this same big city, and we were all able to pull off all kinds of plans.

Cell phones have come and changed everything. I seriously think that cell phones have worked to make us even more stupid as a human race than we were before. Now, no one is quite sure of what ‘the scene’ is until the last minute. We leave our homes to go to a party without even knowing where we are headed, thinking that we will call on the way and figure out where we have to go. We hardly ever know anyone else’s phone number as we are so used to dialing ‘names’ instead of ‘numbers.’ Many people have become so stupid that they don’t even know their own cell phone numbers and they have to refer to their saved number on their phones to tell you what their number is. Radio jockeys can now read every little thought that comes into their audiences’ minds through the SMS’ that they receive in between all the advertisements, promos, and time checks, and I find it a miracle that they are still able to squeeze in half a song every hour (which of course is interrupted midway by a time-check). I think that time-checks are the worst. They very rudely interrupt songs (especially if it’s a song that you love and have been waiting to hear on the radio for the past hour that you have been stuck in traffic talking to your girlfriend on the speakerphone trying to explain to her why there is a pink truck with flowers on it standing in front of her house) to tell you what time it is (even though you know perfectly well what time it is) and they never continue or replay the song after the stupid time-check is over. We ALL have watches on our wrists, clocks in our cars or in our cell phones. We DON’T need the radio stations telling us every fifteen minutes what time it is. And we definitely don’t need idiotic RJs telling us what to do and how to live our lives. In the same vein as cell phones making us stupid, I think the longer that you are an RJ, the more stupid you become as well. Why do I say that? Consider the words that I heard come out the radio while driving home last night:

‘Oh my god! My peeps! Holla and welcome back to ‘The Drive Back Home Show,’ the deliciously dandy show that is especially designed for all you exec-type-peepals driving back home after a hard day’s work at the office! What’s up my dawgs?! Yo, yo, yo, so keep tuned in da house for some latest tips on how to score buttons by trading in your beetens (whatever the hell that meant). For all our fabulous listeners out there listening to our fabulous show and driving their fabulous bums back home, today’s topic is about driver safety while driving your car. First things first my hommies: do not use your cell phones while driving your cars. It is extremely distracting and dangerous and many accidents have been caused because of distracted drivers who were too busy talking on their cell phones while driving their cars. So, all of you driving home back from work right now, do let us know what your thoughts are on this topic. Use those cell phones and call us at blah blah blah, or SMS us at blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah.’

I rest my case.

From YouTube Till Telecom

So, that didn’t last long, this ban on YouTube. The funniest thing about this was how the Pakistani software engineers were able to mess up YouTube globally without even knowing what they were doing or what their actions might have beget. You might well imagine the surprise those people up there at YouTube must have got when they saw that some Telecom guy from Pakistan had ended up bringing the site down without even knowing what he was actually doing. What that one Pakistani was able to pull off was something that no other hacker had even thought about doing. It was by sheer stupidity and dumb luck of the blonde (who in this case turns out to be a Pakistani brunette, a man, and not just dumb but completely deaf, blind, armless, legless, and bald as well) that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority was able to bring YouTube down globally for a few hours. I am not sure of the technical details of how he were able to do that but some of my developer friends have told me that this kind of a cyber attack is unheard of simply because it is unthinkable that someone would even try this kind of a hijack. You ever hear of that saying about grabbing your nose in different ways, where you can either grab the nose simply by pinching it with your right arm in front of your face or you can pinch it by taking your right arm, twisting it around from the back of your head and holding your nose from the left side of your face? Basically, this means that there is a simple way of doing things and a roundabout way, which no one really does because it is just too awkward. In this case, Pakistan Telecom did the awkward part, holding the nose from the wrong side, only this time, instead of the nose they got the kidney.

What Not to Wear While Having a Heart Attack

I recently received an email about what to do if you think you are having a heart attack. According to this email, if someone is alone and starts feeling a tightness in the chest area, a sharp pain in the left arm that radiates into the jaw, and a general numbness of the whole left body, one should immediately start coughing vigorously, taking deep breaths amidst the long, deep coughs. This, supposedly, allows the blood vessels and the arteries in the heart to swell up while coughing and decreases the chances of an actual heart attack from taking place. The email advises that the patient keep coughing patiently until an ambulance arrives or he/she is taken to a hospital.

A quick search on Google quickly confirmed that this was nothing but a hoax. However, this did not stop my friend* from making a perfect fool out of himself yet again. He was on his way home after a hectic day at work and he suddenly started feeling a sharp pain in his chest that traveled up his left arm into his left jaw. He panicked, thought he was having a heart attack and started coughing like a madman. Surprisingly enough, his heart did get better, but, unfortunately, he coughed himself to death. It turned out that the pain was not even heart related and that his 'banyan**' was just too damned tight.


*When I say friend I actually mean a random fictional character that I have just created on the spur of this moment.

**And when I say 'banyan' I can also mean a T-shirt.

From Dust Till YouTube

I wonder if the two-day dust cloud that hung over Karachi had anything to do with YouTube being banned in Pakistan. I really don't see any connection, but you never know. It's funny how the late Abdullah Shah Ghazi have been able to thwart other potential disasters but he didn't see this one coming. Not the dust cloud, the banning of YouTube. What's next, I wonder. Google?

I just wanted to make this post to tell my readers from Pakiland that they can still view YouTube through an online proxy. Simply go to http://vtunnel.com/ ignore the ad banner on your left, enter http://youtube.com/ where it says http://www.Gmail.com/ in the address bar above the button marked 'Begin browsing,' and begin browsing YouTube.

The Importance of Voting and Wearing a 'Banyan'

February 2008 saw two important things come to an end in Karachi. One has been the end of a lot of tension and quandary surrounding the 'down-went' Elections 2008 (mostly because the elections have now ended amidst minimal incidences of violence and a countenance of fairness), and the other has been the end of an unexpected wave of prolonged winter.

The elections are finally over and everyone has relieved a sigh that we had all breathed in after December 27, 2007. The last couple of weeks were the worse with bombs going off in many parts of the country and an expectation that something horrible was brewing to go off in Karachi at any time. There were rumors of every thing going wrong on and before election day with people at home watching the renewed Geo News for some sensationalized excitement (or an excitable sensation depending upon which way you swing) or Dawn News for those wanting to see the English language screaming 'naheen! naheen!' running with arms stretched, 'dupatta'* fluttering in the air behind her as heavily accented male anchors on female horses run in full pursuit (thank you, Khaver, for the imagery); people at work checking and rechecking geo.tv or dawn.com every 15 minutes so that they can run home at the slightest inclination of any thing gone wrong; people on the streets anticipating this car, that motorcycle, this bicycle, that rickshaw, this bus, that truck, this tanker, that van, this eighteen-wheeler, that twenty-two-wheeler, this donkey cart, that cow, or those pedestrians to blow up; people who reached home after work and being on the street watching Geo News or Dawn News, etc, etc; you get the point. But nothing happened in Karachi (and thank god for that) and the elections got over as peacefully as unexpected.

Another thing that is over is the unexpectedly long wave of cold weather that hit Karachi this winter. This is perhaps the first time in my life that I felt so cold in Karachi. Karachi is in the temperate zone and we usually don't get sweater-or-jacket-worthy winters and people are usually fine just wearing a 'banyan'** but this year was an exception. Many people were seen wearing sweaters, coats, jackets, overcoats, gloves, scarves (the ones that go one your neck not on women's heads), and of course 'banyans' underneath their shirts. Many people were also seen sweaters, coats, jackets, overcoats, gloves, and scarves without the 'banyans' and we all know that that is not going to do anything, for the 'banyan' is a very important article of clothing in winters and it is absolutely necessary to wear under your shirt if you are to trap the heat in and keep yourself warm. Anyhow, summer is at our doorstep and winter is out the door, leaving behind the house with no electricity, UPSs whose batteries are dead, and generators with cables that are without plugs and tanks that are without fuel. Yes, people of Karachi, you have all witnessed excessive loadshedding even through the coldest of times this year and truth be told it gives me the most inconvenient of heebie jeebies just thinking of what will happen in summer-time. If Al Gore is right (and it's most inconveniently likely that he be telling the truth), it's going to be very hot in the summers simply because it was very cold in the winters. I am guessing that we will be getting the privilege of receiving electricity for not more than a few minutes every twenty-four hours, and it's going to be time soon to get rid of the 'banyans' and to bring out the 'chaddees.'***


*a 'dupatta' is a long, flowing, and usually a colorful piece of cloth used by the women of Pakistan to cover their bosoms and heads. This is not to be confused with the 'abaya' or the 'hijab,' which are headscarves, nor with the 'burqa,' which is a full-bodied ninja suit.

** a 'banyan' is a white cotton vest worn beneath shirts and usually made by Mercury, a Pakistani brand that specializes in male undergarments.

*** a 'chaddee' can be many things (including a long drive in someone else's car), but it mostly refers to a variety of shorts, knickers, briefs, Bermudas, or Spandex, all depending upon which way you swing.

Of Red Not Love

Valentine's Day is the most meaningless of all non-holidays.

First of all, it has nothing to do with us, the people of Karachi, Pakistan, or even Asia. It's a Roman holiday named after some Roman saints called Valentine, and if we are so keen on celebrating this particular holiday, we might as well go ahead and celebrate other Roman holidays like Quinquatrus Day, or Agonia Day (which was observed by sacrificing victims on the seven hills of Rome), or Parilia Day (which honors the pastoral goddess Pales, and is observed by driving sheep through burning straw), or Fordicidia Day (which honors Tellus, Goddess of Earth, and is observed by slaughtering pregnant cows, taking the unborn calves from the womb, and burning them in order to insure fertility for the growing corn).

Secondly, and most importantly, Valentine's Day has got nothing to do with love either. Truth be told, all the red that you see on Valentine's Day shows more of an association with the blood of the martyr saints rather than being the color of love and passion. Yes, that's right, blood. The 'Valentine' in Valentine's Day refers to at least three Roman saints of ancient Rome, all of whom were painfully tortured before they were brutally slain for their 'heretic' behavior and for holding ambitious religious beliefs. Their deaths had nothing to do with 'love' or any other idea remotely related with 'love.' They never preached the lesson of 'love,' never told anyone about 'love,' did not have any idea what 'love' was, and they sure in hell did not die for 'love.' It is just funny to think that many years later people would end up celebrating a feast of love in their name when I am willing to bet my pot on the fact that these Valentine fellows had never even heard of the word 'love' in all of their lives. They gave up their lives and spilled their blood for their convictions and we use it to paint our towns red every year for ours.

There was a lot of uncalled for 'redness' last night in Karachi, so much so that I actually ended up getting sick. Couples and transvestites wearing matching red clothes, restaurants all laden up in their red themes of red hearts and red balloons, I even saw one of those 'hari-topi-walay mullahs' (the-green-hat-wearing-holy-men) wearing a red-topi this time! I went to Nandos last night with my cousins and it felt like I had entered the set of a cheap, slasher, teenage horror flick that takes place in an underground butchery. It was so red in there that I actually started hallucinating that red spiders were crawling down my red back. The lights were wrapped in red cellophane, there were red balloons inside, and the glass was painted with red hearts. The waiters, the chicken, the pita bread, even the peri-peri sauce were all red. A guy named 'Laal' also came to my house to collect a bill that I had forgotten to pay to him earlier. It was insane, I tell you. And to think all this happened in the name of love.

I don't think love even exists. And don't think I am just saying that in some deep, dark, philosophical, metaphysical, abstract, sagacious, oh-I-have-loved-and-lost-and-I-have-become-a-complete-cynic, deep, dark kind of a way. I have scientific and mathematical proof that love really does not exist.

Ok, so everyone knows that any number divided by infinity is zero, right? Keep that in mind. Now the population of our world is estimated to be 6,649,117,969 (six billion, six hundred and forty nine million, one hundred and seventeen thousand, nine hundred and sixty nine) people. There is 1 planet capable of sustaining life in our solar system (for my Martian readers, it is the Earth, of course), an estimated 100,000,000,000 (one hundred billion) solar systems in our galaxy alone, and an infinite number of galaxies in our universe, which means that there are an infinite number of planets as well (since anything multiplied by infinity is also infinity). Even if everyone on Earth projects 'love' to even 100 people in their lifetime (which is an extremely generous estimate), we will have 664,911,796,900 (six hundred and sixty four billion, nine hundred and eleven million, seven hundred and ninety six thousand, and nine hundred) 'packets' of love. Divide that by the infinite number of planets in this universe, gives us that magical number zero (since anything divided by infinity is zero). Hence, love does not exist, at least not in our universe; quod erat demonstrandum.

To Buy or Not to Buy, that is the DVD

Living in Karachi can be quite frustrating for various reasons. Most of these reasons were listed in an article published in the Economist a few months ago that branded Karachi as the '4th most unlivable cities in the world.' This was due to problems related to Karachi's shortfalls in healthcare, education, sanitation, infrastructure, traffic congestion, not being able to handle its own weather, crime, terrorism, overall bad city planning, and a near-perpetual energy crisis. I got very sad and depressed after reading this article not only because I found out that I was living in the 4th most unlivable cities in the world but also because I found out so many things that I always knew were wrong here but was too naive to realize.

Yet, there are these little things in life that give solace to living here. I can list thousands but one of the most enlivening things, one which most of us take for granted, is the price and availability of movies on DVDs. Here in Karachi you can find an almost complete collection of all the Indian and English movies in many stores throughout the city for as little as Rs. 49 for a DVD. And there are a few stores that also sell Pakistani movies. However, even a simple act of going and buying a DVD can become a very hard decision given the many different types of 'movie prints' that each film is released on.

Let me explain: The first type of print that is released is the 'Camera' print. This print is 'produced' when a person takes a camera into the theater and films what is happening on the screen. Many movie store owners here also define this as a 'Watchable' print, although there is nothing 'watchable' about it (unless you are keen on watching shadows of people's heads sitting in the rows ahead and hear an occasional cough, babies crying, and people laughing). I guess the only people who like to watch this print are those who want to experience going to the theater while sitting in their living room. This is the worst print that you can get of a movie, but its also the one that comes out within hours of the theatrical releases.

Another print is called the 'Screener.' This is a decent print but it is mostly accompanied by a counter placed in the middle of the screen that is continuously ticking away numbers that really don't make any sense. This 'Screener' is the print that is given out by the production companies for screening purposes to award giving academies or censorship boards and its usually out even days before the movie is actually released in theaters. The video quality can range from being excellent to very good, but there are usually very blatant sound problems, such as the background noise being the main sound and the important dialogues that become background noise.

There is another print, called 'A Very Good Demo,' which I have not been able to understand as of yet. I think that they get this print by recording the movie direct from A/V out of the projector in the theaters. This is also a good-enough print but I have serious problems with it because it has some formatting issues and can ruin the whole experience of watching movies. Some of my friends are really keen on getting this print and they even enjoy it a lot, but I prefer not to watch them and wait for the movie to come out in the 'Master' print.

A 'Master' print is a pirated copy of the movie from its original DVD release. This is the best print that you can get and includes all the features that you would find on an original DVD, including subtitles in English, French, Spanish, Chinese etc. It may or may not contain the 'special features' section, but that really does not matter. The only problem with watching movies on this print is that by the time the movie gets out in this format, most of your friends have already seen it on either the 'Camera,' 'Screener,' or 'Demo' print (which for me are all 'Unwatchables').

Each movie comes out in each of the above explained prints and add to that is the new technology driven world of torrents and what-not. Many of the store owners make a complete fool out of you by downloading the movies off the net and then burning them on a cheap DVD. The result is that you get to watch a 'Compressed' print that is very pixilated and looks more like a VCD than a DVD.

So, keeping in mind all of the above, a typical conversation that occurs at a movie store goes something like this:

'Is "There Will be Blood" out?'

'Yes sir, its a 'Very Good Demo.''

'No 'Master?''

'No, but this is a 'Very Good Demo.'

'Is it watchable?'

'No. It's better than a 'Watchable.' Its a 'Very Good Demo.'

'Ok. I don't understand what that means, but ok. How about 'No Country for Old Men?''

'Yes its out. 'Master' print. But without the subtitles.'

'Does it mean that it's a 'Screener?'

'No. It's a 'Master' print. But no subtitles.'

'So this is watchable, then?'

'No no. It's not a 'Watchable.' It's a 'Master Without Subtitles*.'

'So, it's a 'Master Without Subtitles' and its unwatchable?'

'I don't know what that means, but ok.'

That's when my friend buys the 'Very Good Demo' print of 'There Will be Blood' and I get the 'Master Without Subtitles' for 'No Country for Old Men.' My friend does not buy 'No Country...' because he has already seen it in a 'Screener' print that was, for him, watchable, but for the movie store owner was, of course, better than a 'Watchable.'



*I did not mention this in my descriptions of the various prints because I had no idea that such a print existed before having the conversation at the movie store.

The Asteroid That Came and is Still Here

So, my favorite asteroid 2007 TU24 has passed us by and nothing really happened. No firestorms erupted, no light show, no sudden shifts in the weather, no plasma power surges, and definitely no hard disks were wiped clean. But we all already knew that, didn't we?

Actually, the asteroid is still here. It can still be seen, not with a naked eye, of course, but you just might be able to see it if your eye was fully clothed*. It is pretty far away so it's following a languid arc through our sky and it's going to take it another couple of days to completely saunter out of our line of sight. So, if it were likely to cause the destruction and mayhem that many people had been so hyper about, we would have started seeing the effects a few days earlier.

But you got to admit: those of you who read my last post and did not know about the asteroid went ahead and googled it, right? I know for sure that at least one of you did. And it was scary, wasn't it? What if the asteroid had actually hit Earth? What if it did wipe out all the hard disks in the world? Can you imagine what that would do to our civilization? I think that maybe it won't be such a bad thing after all. Maybe an external threat common to the whole world might nudge us to drop our petty differences amongst each other and learn to live in peace and harmony. But the problem with us is that we get distracted too easily, and we tend to forget disasters too quickly. Our distraction comes from the trivialities of life, such as food, and we forget about what is more important in an instant. The riots following BB's assassination distracted us from Guljee's murder and crippled Karachi, but we have forgotten about both these events and are now carrying on with the same routine life that we had before. In this vein, one cannot help but wonder how we would take the news of such mind bogglingly large and impending doom lurking on our heads. Would the whole world unite for the first time in history to combat a common... hey my pizza is here! I haven't eaten all day. I am so hungry. So, what was I talking about?

*This is just a joke. Please don't force your eyes to wear a suit . Use a telescope instead. It's easier and you won't blind yourself trying to zip up a cornea.

No Peeking Please, We Are Pakistani

I made a post earlier about the internecion of the English language that happens in Karachi and other parts of Pakistan. Shiraz made some comments about how there are many words in Urdu that are gross approximations of some English words and how, say, 'knickers' becomes 'nayker' and 'pliers' becomes 'plaas.' I agree with him in that there are many words in Urdu that are 'borrowed' from English. Actually, the Urdu language is the bastard child of a rather bacchanalian copulation between Hindi, Persian, Arabic, many of the Turkic languages, and English. The English influence, of course, comes from the English who ruled over the sub-continent unofficially for 300+ years (officially 89 years). And since the English language itself is a mongrel product of various Germanic languages including Yiddish, Afrikaans, many of the Frisian languages, and Dutch, it also makes Kirna right when she says that many languages overlap.

This overlapping of languages became daftly apparent to me today when I saw a sign that said: 'no smoking, no eating paan, and please, no peeking.' For those of my readers who do not know what this means, the term 'peek maarna' is an expression in Urdu and it describes the act of chewing betel nuts, catechu, lime paste all wrapped in betel leaves and then spitting them all out in a long, red stream onto any wall or corner that you are closest to. For my readers who don't know English, the term 'peeking' denotes the act of looking or peering furtively as from a place of concealment. I am not trying to be condescending here, but kAy and Khaver would appreciate why I say that seeing the 'no peeking' sign I got thoroughly confused and its exact meaning is still lost upon me.

That's when the idea for this post came to me and I said to myself, 'why not? We, the Karachiites, are, after all, Masters of the Universe. Where else would you find people who wear 'Mercury' branded underwear, work in 'Venus' Distributors, who take their cars to 'Atlas' Honda, hire guards from 'Mars' Security Services, put 'Jupiter' CPEs near their windows, and buy their fish from 'Neptune' Fisheries. Only in Karachi can people buy gin from 'Moon,' take credit from 'Crescent' Commercial Bank, order garments from 'Star' Textiles, avail the UBL 'Orion' mobile phone banking, go for a picnic at 'Paradise' Point, exchange currency at the 'Glaxy' Money Exchange Company, and buy a laptop from 'Glaxy' Computers.

And this brings me to the real reason I wanted to make this post today because come tomorrow afternoon (Tuesday January 29, 2008), an asteroid called 2007 TU24 is going to rendezvous with Earth's magnetosphere. It's the first time that we are going to be able to witness and record such a phenomenon and no one is really sure what's going to happen. There are predictions of firestorms and light shows in the sky, unpredictable weather, and a power surge that can wipe out all the hard disks in the world. Most of these theories seem kind of crack potted and out there to me, and the only thing that everyone seems to be very sure of is that no one is sure what's going to happen. Asteroid 2007 TU24 is expected to be closest to earth at 1:33 pm Pakistan Standard Time.

The suspense is killing me!

The Life and Non-Murder of my Friend

I have a friend who used to live in Karachi, but has now shifted north to Islamabad. This friend has been a source of great entertainment for me and the rest of my friends. It's not because he is a comedian or a joke maker; he is an ignoramus simpleton who has kept us laughing our asses off for showing us some of the world's funniest moments. I don't want to divulge his name for the sake of protecting his identity, and let's just, for the sake of this conversation, call him Alid.

The first time I met Alid was when I was in class 7 or 8 and the first time I spoke to him was in class 10. We were in our O'Levels and it was traditional for the juniors to arrange a farewell party for their seniors. I had recently started playing the guitar and I thought it would be nice to play a song for our graduating class at our farewell party. I asked around to find out if anyone else knew anything about playing songs and I found that another guy (let's just arbitrarily call him Kumail) also knew how to strum a few chords. 'Perfect,' I remember thinking, 'now all we need is a singer and we are set.' That's when Alid stepped up and said, 'yes, I can sing.'

Now you have to remember that I was around 16 years old at the time. I was quite naive and took most of what was said to me at face value. I did not doubt it when Kumail told me that he knew how to play the guitar, and I did not doubt Alid when he said he could sing. At the time, I had no idea that to sing meant to actually throw your voice in tune and in time. Just as I had learnt to play the guitar, I simply assumed that Alid knew how to sing. That was a grave mistake because I soon found out that Alid did not really know how to sing at all. He just said he could sing because he had also simply assumed he could. You can imagine how bad he sounded when he sang by the fact that (and honest to god I am not joking) we were boo-ed off the stage five minutes before we had even started to play the song.

Fast forward a couple of years and it’s the new era of the Internet and MIRC. Another friend of mine, lets call him Danial, and I are online from Tempe, AZ, sitting in #delusions, and we find that Alid has been killed, shot dead during a fight in Karachi. Now this was the time when cell phones were the size of cricket bats and you had to be either a drug lord, a respected businessman, or both, to be able to afford them. And Alid was no drug lord nor a respected businessman and the last time he had played cricket he had fallen asleep on the field during the match while wicket keeping because (swear to god I am not joking) he had mistakenly eaten a bunch of Valiums thinking they were Panadols. So we call his home phone (what is now called a landline), and Alid's mother picks up. We are unsure as to what to say, but are relieved when she tells us that Alid has just stepped out to buy a pack of Marlboro Mediums. Fast forward another few years and its the new era of electronic music and MSN. We are all sitting in Danial's room in Karachi and Alid is also there. That's when Danial remembers the Alid Murder Incident and we tell Alid that we had heard he got murdered a few years ago and we want to know why the rumor began and what actually happened. To this, the first thing Alid said was, 'nahi yaar, woh mera murder nahi hoowa tha.' ('No man, I was not the one who was murdered').

It was then that we realized that Alid had a tendency to say the most inappropriate things at the most inappropriate times. And it was not much later that we found that he once told his online girlfriend, 'my love for you is like the Titanic,' to which the girl replied, 'oh, but didn't the Titanic sink?' He is the same person who we once found carrying around a lit candle in the dark (the lights were out because of load 'shading') and searching for a lighter to light his cigarette, and the same person who once described an electronica song (and again I swear to god I am not joking) as being ‘deep, dark, progressive, house, trance, deep, dark, house...’

It’s quite sad that our friend Alid has moved from Karachi and is now living (and probably still entertaining people around him) in Islamabad. What does he do for a living, you might wonder? He is a Director Creative for an advertising agency and most of his work involves pressing the F5 button on his computer’s keyboard. And now you know why most of the ads we see on our television screens are like the way they are and why they mostly show people saying the most inappropriate things at the most inappropriate times.

The Left, Right, and Wrong Way

Anyone who has been a pedestrian at any point in life knows how careful he or she must be while walking on the road. I was in Amsterdam a few years ago and I remember their curious road system. There are various lanes that you have to watch out for if you want to cross the road. The first lane closest to the sidewalk is for bicyclists and skaters, then comes the actual road for the cars, then two tram tracks appear in the middle of the median (one going left and one right), then its cars going the other way, and then another bicyclist lane closest to the other sidewalk. You have to look left and right so many times while crossing their roads that by the time you get to the other side you not only have a terrible pain in your neck, you also tend to forget why you wanted to cross the road in the first place. The pedestrian situation in Karachi is very different and here you would find bicycles and motorcycles on the sidewalk, cars traveling both ways on the same road, some more motorcycles in the bus lanes, buses on the median, and pedestrian everywhere. Only thing similar about crossing a road here in Karachi is that you not only get a sprained neck from looking left and right so much, but you can very easily end up with a broken arm or leg if you are careless enough to forget why you were crossing the road.

Anyone who has ever driven a car at any point in life surely knows how careful he or she must be while driving a car on the road. You have various lanes on the road and the basic idea is to keep your car in the lane and avoid hitting any other vehicles or any pedestrians that are crossing the road. That's very easy to do, say in the USA, where you drive on the right side of the road, the lanes are well defined, and pedestrians only cross the streets if they are at the intersection. Driving in Karachi, the basic idea of driving has to be slightly modified in that you have to keep other cars, motorcycles, bicycles, rickshaws, buses, trucks, tankers, vans, eighteen-wheelers, twenty-two-wheelers, donkey carts, cows, and of course the pedestrians, from hitting your car. It becomes exceedingly difficult to achieve this since you have to drive on the left side of the road, the lanes are well-defined at many places but the people's concept of driving between them is not, and pedestrians, cows, donkey carts, twenty-two-wheelers, eighteen-wheelers, vans, tankers, trucks, buses, rickshaws, bicycles, motorcycles, and cars cross the street anywhere they feel like doing so.

So it is of no surprise that people (both pedestrians and drivers) here in Karachi pay very little or absolutely no attention to signs on the roads (unless of course they are big huge billboards with a very large picture of a girl next to a miniature washing machine). Perhaps it was because of this little detail that when my Karachiite friend came to visit me in New York a few years ago, he called me and told me he was waiting for me to pick him, and I asked him where he was, to which he answered, ‘I am standing next to a DON’T WALK sign,’ I told him, ‘hold on man, I will be right there!’ And you can probably imagine the anxiety and distress my friend went through when, after a few seconds, he saw the sign change to WALK.

A Monkey Named Ginger

I heard some very interesting 'muhawarays' the other day. For those who don't know Urdu: 'muhawarays' is plural for a 'muhawaraa.' And for those who know Urdu but don't know what a 'muhawaraa' is: its an aphophtegm or an aphorism. For those still baffled: I heard some very interesting 'sayings said in Urdu' the other day. One of them was: 'bandar kya jaanay adrak ka swaad?' which is roughly translated in English as: 'what does the monkey know about savoring ginger?' It didn't make too much sense to me. I mean I get it that it means something like that the monkey is too primitive to really savor the flavor of ginger enough to appreciate it. But why would you want to know how a monkey feels after eating ginger? And what kind of a monkey (or any human being for that matter) would want to savor the flavor of ginger?

Another very interesting thing that I have noticed is the names that people decide to name the buildings that they are building or have already built. For instance, the apartment complex that they have built by the sewerage/drainage is called Lakeview Paradise; there is not a single tower at Park Towers; and 'believe you me,' there is actually a Lahore Grammar School of Karachi. Also, there are so many businesses that have very similar names. Only in Karachi will you find bakeries called Ideal Bakers, Ideal Bakery, New Ideal Bakers, New Ideal Bakery, Bakery Ideal, New Bakery Ideal, New Bakers in Ideal Bakery, and so forth. None of them have any connection with each other except for the words that are common in their names. In Karachi, it is considered good business sense to add the word 'new' before the name of an old business so that people think that since its 'new' it must be better.

I have also noticed that people in Karachi don't take too kindly to humor and satire. Since I have started writing this blog, many people have come up to me to tell me that it's not right for me to write such derogatory things about our beloved city, and that I should stop making fun of Karachi. These same people also ask me, 'what the hell are you writing? Are you trying to be funny? Your blog is so lame.' My response to these people is: 'bandar kya jaanay adrak ka swaad.'

What's the Point?

There is a very old and firm structure built somewhat in the vicinity of but not nearly so close to the city-side seashore of Karachi (better known as Sea View). This structure that I am talking about has a semi dome, almost elliptical roof, and round pillars that are based out of a raised platform. Made out of Jodhpur stone, this structure shouts out Islamic architecture that was popularized by the Mughals and built mostly by the British. At first sight, it might appear as a mosque, but it’s actually a bandstand that was in regular use many, many years ago. There is an octagonal seat in the center of this structure and if you stand upon it, you can see the old pier, or parade, that leads out towards the ocean. This is the Jehangir Kothari Parade, most of which has been ‘renovated’ to make way for the new park, yet the structure still stands. But that’s beside the point.

There is another building in the same local region, and this was actually built by the British for their own personal use. Funnily enough, this building is located on a road called Shahra-e-Iran (meaning Iran Avenue). The building covers a huge area of prime land in the area of Clifton, and is reputed to have a fully functional pub and club inside. No Pakistani, of course, is allowed to enter unless it’s on official business and even if one of us green passport holders does somehow manage to squeeze inside, he or she won’t be able to use any of the facilities. This is the British High Commission’s office in Clifton, and that’s also beside the point.

The Point is a shopping mall that's besides the Jehangir Kothari Parade and the British High Commission’s office.

The Secret of my 'Healthy' Life

I used to be very thin until I turned 23. I remember that all the time in my late teens and early twenties, I used to weigh not more than a 120 lbs. And at a height of 5'11 3/4'', that's quite thin. My shoulder bones would stick out of the clothes that I would wear and I could almost wrap my hands around my waist, which used to be somewhere in the vicinity of 25-26 inches, but I would tell everyone that it was 28. I would wear two sometimes even three t-shirts inside my shirt so that I could look a little 'blown up'. People would come up to me and say things like, 'oh my god, you are so thin,' 'don't you eat?' 'are you sick?'

I am now 28, almost 29, and lets just say that I am not thin anymore. My height has remained the same but for some reasons unknown to me, the weighing machine always says 175 lbs whenever I stand on it. My face has become larger and rounder and it has been theorized that I have been attacked by a swarm of African killer bees, thereby the stings, and thus the swelling of the cheeks. My waist is now around 36 but I tell everyone that its actually 34. I end up looking like George on Gore-Tex even if I wear the flimsiest of 'banyans' under my shirt. People now come up to me and say things like, 'oh my god, you have gained weight,' 'what are you eating?' 'are you sick?'

The only upshot of this has been that many of my friends and cousins, who are still thin as a stick, come up to me and ask me the secret of how I have 'become so healthy' all of a sudden. To this, I tell them: 'this is Karachi, dude. Anyone can 'blow up' anywhere, anytime.'

Sorry for the Inconvenient

Even though English is the official language of my country, it is not the primary (nor secondary, not even tertiary) spoken/written language of choice. Most of us in Karachi speak in Urdu, Sindhi, Punjabi, and at times in Minglish. Minglish is not any one particular language, and it can only adequately be described as a mixture of English and any other language that you happen to be speaking at the time.

For some odd reason, people in Karachi seem to think that the better they are able to speak/write in English, the cooler they will become. At this rate, an average Karachiite can be described as being lukewarm at best. Don't get me wrong, there are many of us who are best served chilled and even frozen solid. But it's from the mildly refrigerated that you will hear such remarks beginning with 'anyways,' and 'sorry for the inconvenient.' Loadshedding is pronounced load 'shading,' you pay premium 'own' top of the basic price, and everyone calls the Native Jetty 'naitee jaitee.'

So, you can probably imagine my surprise, when I heard a phrase that I had instantly put in that part of my brain marked 'vocabulary of the hot and humid,' as being absolutely correct in all forms of English; 'believe you me.'

Why Blog and First Post

This has been purely instinctive, what instincts were involved that I can't verily say. Verily, you might wonder? Who uses verily in a sentence? And who questions his own sentence in a sentence immediately following the previous sentence? For now, its just me, Omer, trying very hard to find some thing to write on this first post.

What is this blog all about, you might think when you come here? Well, to tell you the truth (as opposed to making things up on the spur of the moment, which is what I usually do when I write), I really don't have much to tell you. This is just a place where I want to document and share my thoughts and experiences about and in the city I live in. Its called Karachi and it is the biggest city (both in terms of geometry and statistics) in Pakistan. What is so different about my blog? How does it compare to all the other blogs about Karachi that are out there, or not out there, or in here, somewhere? I have no idea and I don't know no god damned code. I just want to keep things simple and maybe probably humorous, by observing and strictly reporting the lighter sides of this city of lights, some of which are off right now due to loadshedding (which is a fancy word they give to our regular power outages).

So here is my first thought: It was quite bright and sunny yesterday. That was where most of the light came to Karachi's side, from the bright and sunny sun.

More later...