who am i?

hara peela hara peela hara peela

2011-04-05T09:44:00.003+05:00

You know,
Everyone else has said it so well and I don’t think I could so a better job of saying it myself. However, I cannot remember a time since 9/11 I have seen my country unite under one flag, the way I did in this Cricket World Cup. I have read and followed blogs and newspapers and all sorts of post match analysis by well known and lesser known writers- even the most cynical ones (the ones who write all sorts of trash about how Pakistan is a failed state, listing off their carefully written check list of reasons) as well as the eternal optimists (the ones who write nauseatingly sweet stuff praising Pakistan for the minutest of achievements saying how its just a misunderstood country) have all come to the same conclusions; Afridi brought our nation together and made Pakistan grow up and mature in last 6 weeks more than it has in over 60 years.
Some have said, “don’t get carried away- Pakistan still has serious problems.”
No shit Sherlocks. We really do not need to be reminded of that- trust me, we know.
But for now let’s revel in the moment of finally becoming one united nation.
☺
Congratulations Pakistan. This is our time.

some stuff i loved:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sKMrVlPf78

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbP3D78-e2A&feature=player_embedded

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/04/cricket_passion.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n0jplMu3UU

My gal Sam.

2011-01-18T14:42:00.002+05:00

Sam

Last year Al announced her decision to marry F. Since then, a LOT has happened in the lives of us best friends. So while Al rode off into the Middle Eastern sunset with her prince charming, Sai raised a little boy, Ash dedicated herself to her two little girls, M focused on a joint career and business with her mr right, it left us four single girls to continue to battle with our curses. How we battled only we know. I have to admit I battled the least, not having chosen anyone from the pool of “wrong” recently I was fairly safe. For me, I suppose the worst that could be said was that I suffered the curse of being single. Some would say that alone is a cruel joke. But I was single in New York, having the time of my life. But for my other three girls, the curse was brutal to them- is brutal to them in a bittersweet kind of way.
So now I’ll tell you about my gal Sam. She gave her heart to a boy when we were just 16 or 17. Nine years later and after many many ups and downs, she still felt the same way about him and he seemed to feel the same way about her too. The curse was playing a cruel game with them. It was never going to let them end up together.
The curse won.
It was a bitter and sad end to what I will declare was true love for however long it lasted and however terribly it ended. But if the curse really did win, how would one explain her ecstasy a year later, one month ago, when she told me she finally met the man she wanted to be with forever. A man. Not a boy.

To be honest I was not completely on board. I thought the curse was just playing evil tricks with her. I asked her time and again if she was sure. I could not help thinking that the curse had disguised itself and was coming around to tease her and go for a double blow - the ultimate thing to do because it was so pissed at Al, Sai, M and Ash for beating it down. It was coming after Sam with turbo power.
It was not until I believed Sam was truly and completely happy with her decision that I realized what had happened. The curse indeed had won the first time around in the game with Sam but she is a force to be reckoned with. She cannot be crushed. She got right back up looked the curse in the eye and first said, “screw you” and then, “take that”. I can almost hear the curse whimpering away, injured and insulted that it failed yet another friend after it came so close to nearly destroying one of us.
What the curse does not realize is that while it is individually trying to bring down each of us, all 8 of us, together, as a packaged deal are working to protect one another from it. Even though out of the three left now, two are not in the most practically ideal relationships but each of us know that, together, we have the strength to take this curse and shove it.
So in the spirit of Sam giving you the boot, we have just one thing left to say to you ‘B Curse’;

BRING IT ON, BITCH!

Between me and Karachi- thankyouverymuch-

2010-11-09T03:19:00.000+05:00

It’s been a while. I know. But I finally have the guts to talk about what I have been working on in Grad school since last term. So let me start from the beginning. It was Jan 2010 and I had a terrible experience at the airport, which I briefly spoke about in one of my “return to new york” posts. 30 hours at Abu Dhabi airport is enough to drive anyone insane. I was ready to quit the States and Fulbright to be quite honest. Even School was going terribly in the sense that my work was just not getting through to the advisors and I did not know what more I could do.
For my last ditch effort I decided to take a class called Exploring Narrative in video. I figured getting back in touch with my filmmaking passions might kick start something inside me. When my prof. told us we had to have a final video project, either we make a film or something equivalent I knew at once I wanted to make something about Karachi.
Since I had always loved Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography and always wondered why nobody in Pakistan ever made a film out of it (Mehreen Jabbar? Hasan Zaidi?) I decided to do it myself. Not the whole book of course. There is only so much I could do on my own. So I wrote a screenplay around the part when Raheen has moved to New York and Karim is desperate to make her feel some remorse about the political tensions in Pakistan.
Long story short I never made the film. Something more original came from the whole experience though. Through several talks with my prof. (who actually kind of liked my script but felt I didn’t need Karim in it) I somehow ended up writing a video letter to Khizzy.
What the heck is a video letter?
It’s quite simple really. I would just write khizzy having a normal conversation the way I do about everything under the sun be it politics, opinions, my nephew, my issues in life, living in new york and comparing it to Karachi and just generally talking about Pakistan (etc.). I would record myself reading that letter and throw in some visuals that I wont get into details about right now.
Honestly, I had no idea what people would think of it. So when I showed it to my class of 20 and my prof. I was not expecting it to be liked and resonated with as much as it was!
I admit the first one was not too great though but since then and now with letter number 5 I feel I have come a long long way. The letters are about 15 minutes long each and I talk a lot!
Since then, I have shown the letters in all my critiques to several peers and one of them was even a Pakistani. Honestly, it was his opinion I most feared. This guy was one of us, he would tell me if he thought I was wrong in by the way I spoke of where we come from. I do not know why I fear that- especially because its my personal experience I’m talking about when I speak of Karachi. Why do I expect to be understood universally? Don’t artist step on toes all the time? Is my stream of consciousness and the way I speak in the video a valid thing?
But my Pakistani class fellow claims to love it. He really loved it. He said it really showed “us” and what “we” were like. “Our” kind. The kind that barely existed in the larger frame of Pakistan.
Still, I don’t have the guts to show it to you guys. The rest of the Pakistani’s.

Recently, I met an artist from Denmark. She saw two of the letters and told me I needed to turn it into a feature film; to put the 12 letters I intended to complete by the end of my program into one long film type of format. Another filmmaker who I met at a party made the same suggestion to me. They really seem to believe in my work. So why am I so afraid? This is not to say I do not believe in my own work…but I guess I am afraid of being wrongly judged.
Then something wonderful happened this Saturday. I went and saw Slackistan. Talk about everything coming together and resonating with a person. Okay, given that the film was about Islamabadi’s and we are nothing like them, I felt very close to the director artistically because in a different way he did with Islamabad what I was doing with Karachi. In a very very different way, we were similar. The difference was he had the guts to put it out there in a festival.

On a different note what I really liked about the movie was that he was not trying hard at all to show our kind of society. He could have totally overdone it by trying to show how liberal we are with the drinking and partying scenes in the movie, or how Islamic we are by not showing any of that at all or how modern we are by making girls wear clothes we’d never see people wear on the streets or how conservative we are by making the girls wear only shalwar kameez. But he did it all so tastefully that it was nothing short of charming.
The boy shares a glass of whiskey with his dad. It’s done.
The girl dramatically claims she would rather be a lesbian. It’s done.
Wannabe cool guy buys a condom. It’s done.
These things are done and he didn’t try and hide it.

He could have casted super models in the film but he went for the average joes and the non skinny girls instead, making them more likeable and relatable.
The dialogue was a good mix of English and Urdu (perhaps heavier on the English side which is exactly the case with us) but above all, it was sharp, witty and not overdone. I really looked for something to dislike about the film, some hole in it but nothing. Okay so there IS one hole. The font used in the film for some desi terms and some thoughts was terrible, but it can be ignored. Plus, only art students would pick up on that.
What I really really liked about the experience was the Q and A with the director.
Since the moview premiered in New York, aside from the desi crowd, some goras came as well. Their questions were obviously of a particular kind because they did not get a lot of what need not be explained to us desi’s.

“Why was there not much more discussion about the bombs and the bad political situation amongst the people in the movie?” was one question. Now the director’s answer could have veered towards pretentiousness but he was so savvy. It’s a part of life over there, he said. We are so used to it that we don’t feel the need to discuss it more than in passing over coffee.
Perfecto. This was it. He said it like it was.

“Why is there a distinct lack of parents in your film? It almost seems like the young people in the film have none.”
Parents and the relationship they have with the youth would have meant taking the film completely elsewhere, he said. Establishing the relationships between them would have meant explaining some of their behavior and the why they were the way they were.
Good answer. If you think about it, parents are sort of in the background when you freshly graduate and life is all about you and your friends and the nothingness you are up to. But I guess this is one of those things that would be obvious to just us.
“Do you feel like young people want to leave Pakistan these days?” another asked. Now the director could have ranted on about how patriotic he was and this and that but he simply said “yes.”
Sentiments and morale was low, people want to escape, and the situation is bad. Some choose to stay and some decide to leave. That is the reality, he said.
Respect.
Last but not least, someone asked; “Are young people like this all over Pakistan?”
Now I really wanted to see what he would say about that.
Not at all, he said. This is just a pin pointed part of Islamabadi society. If he were to make a film about Lahore or Karachi it would have to be completely different just because of the sheer difference of pace in the other places. Islamabad is a city that always sleeps.
Good answer yet again.
I left the theatre feeling great. Finally someone had done what I had wanted someone to do. Make a film about us. No matter how non-existent we are in the larger frame of Pakistani’s, he made a film about people I could point to and say ‘see them, whatever you think or feel about them is not important, they are us’ (even if they were Islamabadi’s and I am a Karachiite).
I have more confidence in my own work now and I am more open to the idea of putting my video letters in a feature film format and just doing it.

Wish me luck people. This thesis just became larger than life.
Cheers ☺

Of failing and failure.

2010-09-06T00:06:00.002+05:00

Everyone tells me I am quite crazy to go back home whenever a long holiday approaches. They ask me why I don’t travel to other exotic places like the Caribbean or Mexico or hey even the west coast. I really want to. I do. But honestly, when your country is 1/5th under water and both your sisters in their last leg of hard pregnancies and when you have grandparents aged 92 and 86 waiting to see you, not knowing if they will ever see you again, the heart isn’t wanting a cruise or craving an authentic taco. Not to mention not seeing your parents for 7 months. Or your nephew who you practically raised, the one who asks everyday if you are coming home “tomorrow”. I sound incredibly dramatic don’t i? That aside, nothing I have said is untrue. And so despite disapproving head shakes and “tsks” of apparent lost opportunities, I went home in August for three weeks.
A friend of mine asked me upon my return how I felt having been back home.
Sad. Happy. Disheartened. Proud. Broken. United. Hopeless. Faithful.
That is Karachi for you.
You watch the older apparently wiser politicians destroy it only to watch the younger passionate average kids try and fix it. You watch a natural disaster swallow your neighboring cities and you buck up and invade the streets and go yourself to provide relief because not trusting the government doesn’t mean you sit back and do nothing. You don’t listen when they officially ban you from celebrating your country’s independence day, instead you go celebrate the way it should be celebrated; by making a human chain around Schon circle proclaiming unity in hard times. You watch your president stroll in the country after 2 weeks into the nations drowning and instead of wasting time hating him, you make fun of him and move on to actually taking care of the bigger problem at hand. You get upset that while the country is dealing with such a tragedy some people just wont stop fighting and killing over differences like sect and different political ideas- but you sit tight and wait for the fire outside to put out before letting the fire inside you take over and continue to help the people in distress.
That is Karachi for you.
You ignore the people who write smart columns about how Pakistan is a failed state because you look around you and see how many people are working so hard to prove that wrong; because you know like in school, to fail overall you have to fail everything. If you pass one test, you still have a chance. And you see people passing that test all the time, be it the kids of IVS or the kids of Szabist or any other place. But where you should not deny the failures you produce like certain cricketers, we should acknowledge the winners we produce; like certain tiny frail and incredibly kind men who we have been rooting for years to get the Nobel prize. Failed states do not produce men like that. Nor do they sustain men like that. But Pakistan did.
You also realize, no matter how many years pass you will always have people you can call your own back home. That when you return they will flock your house to see you, spend time with you, throw parties for you, organize meetups for you, because you belong with them. You realize how good it feels to fill up a diner with friends on a spontaneous night out for coffee or get turned away from them because they cannot fit all of you in. You realize how much they mean to you and you mean to them when they come over to your house for your birthday uninvited, all 30 of them, even when they do not like or have spoken to certain other people in that room for months. But they are there because they want to be with you and the other stupid stuff doesn’t matter.
So you tell me, would I have been happier in Mexico eating food I don’t even really like, alone, backpacking with some stranger or on a cruise with some other random nobody? I had a plan when I came to New York. To travel like crazy at any chance a got. Alone, with a random stranger, I didn’t care. I thought time was running out for me and I had to do all that. Since then I’ve realized, what’s the hurry? I rather see those places one day with someone special instead. Who is to say I wont? Right now, I rather listen to my heart and go home. Be with the people who are waiting to be with me because yes, time is running out, and who knows whether or not they will be around when I go back next year.
Mexico, however, aint going no where.

☺
ps: my sister just told me she doesn't get the trip-tyc. :/ i hope someone does. :/

cheers.
k

She came. She Rocked. She left.

2010-07-26T05:21:00.002+05:00

They say the third time is a charm. Watching her perform live for the third time, I actually had the chance to finally meet the legend herself. She hugged me like we had known each other forever.

This week has been phenomenal for me. I’ve never been prouder to be Pakistani and be a part of an effort to show America who we really are and what our soul is really made up of. As embarrassing as it is to admit this I was so overwhelmed at certain points, I actually felt my chest constrict with sheer happiness as I stood on Union Square on the 20th of July and watch some of the most talented musicians perform their hearts out for New York.

This was us. This was what I had been trying to tell New Yorkers for the last year about Pakistan. The Sufi Festival did it. People have been looking at the photographs I took which have been floating around on the Internet since then and have felt it too.
It is remarkable how life works. Perhaps this is one of those unforeseen reasons God made me come to New York instead of San Francisco where I desperately wanted to go. Was this event alone worth going to my second option school? Totally. I would be in serious tears and major major depression if I were sitting in SF while North America’s first Sufi Festival was happening in New York. Never ever doubt what happens to you, God always always has a bigger plan in mind.

This festival couldn’t have come at a better or worse time for me. Worse, because out of all the days in the year this was one week I was essentially homeless. The best, because I needed reinforcement of faith and happiness in my beliefs and hope. I needed this because I felt trapped and suffocated due to some serious uninformed discussions happening in class concerning politics and general matters concerning my country and my religion. I wrote a blog about it. A long one. But I chickened out of posting it mainly out of fear of being judged by some of the readers. Here is a bit of it and you will understand why I couldn’t put it down here:

The more the days pass the more I feel like I am done with having to be open minded and accepting of things like Atheism, and the general misunderstanding of people when it comes to Islam. I am tired of forgiving their ignorance. During one session in class a person I respected a lot shrugged, held his hands up and said, “well the Taliban are the face of Islam, they have appointed themselves as the representatives of the religion to the world soooo….”
Sooo clearly since Al-Qaeda is so true and authentic and reliable, then the west really ARE the infidel dogs they keep trying to convince us of. And here WE were exercising our brains and putting to use our limited evaluating skills, understanding that its just a mad bunch of people saying horrible things but hey, if you goras believe them so much, maybe we should too!

Now you understand why it was so wonderful to be surrounded by people like myself, from where I am from, even if it was just for 3 days. 3 wonderful days of dancing to pure mystical music and hanging out with devoted, charming people.
It is perhaps pushing it to think God sent them to calm me down but I shall believe that in any case because it makes me happy ☺
I cannot promise to be more regular with my posts, mainly because I think these days I don’t have the patience to bear with what I say being taken out of context and I had nothing positive to post about as such till now.
However, since life is so much better now, I shall be posting more until my trip to Karachi in two weeks (after 6 months!), which I am insanely excited about.
☺
Cheers.

k

!

2010-06-07T14:51:00.001+05:00

NOT DEAD.

It will NEVER die.

I'm being a good girl and have been playing host all month to friends and family.

Yes, that's what we do in Nyc.

:)

Be back in a week!

stay safe and preferably away from cyclones.

Artist Vs Representative

2010-04-22T06:27:00.002+05:00

Recently a lot of my art work in grad school is revolving around identity. Forced to look within rather than outside the way I usually do, my professors asked me a most dreaded question, who was I? I’ve always hated that question (even though that does happen to be the name of my blog.) I just found the whole concept of self-discovery very indulgent and selfish to be honest. This is not to say I did not appreciate it when others did it but for me personally, I always thought it to be too weird. I do it on my blog and I like you guys to come to it and give me your input and that’s cool with me-
why force it into an “art project”?.
I was trained to be a Graphic Designer and deal with clients and briefs on a commercial level- this whole fine art concept about “the self” is new to me.
After 6 months of pushing me constantly to answer this question, I finally caved in. I said to myself, hey, I have two years to experiment so lets just self indulge for a few months and give these professors an answer.
So who was i?
Pakistani female. Educated. Modern. Liberal. Progressive.
These were obvious traits. One look at me and everyone in Pakistan knows this.
This got me thinking. The fact that back home, one look at you and people think they know you. This made me think of all the things I’ve heard/overheard/told by friends/people/distant relatives/random acquaintances/complete strangers about myself. Gossipy stuff. Stuff I look back and laugh at. Stuff I look back and think why the heck would someone say that. Assumptions. Preconceived notions. Judgments.
I decided let this project have a message: don’t judge a book by it’s cover.

So I started writing down all the snippets I remembered. You’d be surprised how, regardless of the fact that you ignore mean words, they stay with you, swimming somewhere in your mind, bothering you on some subconscious level, irritating you but not controlling you and a lot of times you don’t even remember that they were said till something happens to remind you.
I started placing the snippets with photographs of myself in New York. I even wrote down who said what and showed it in a critique in front of 15 class fellows and 2 professors. Some of the snippets have featured on my blog as well. In fact, most of them have. The response was interesting and successful in the sense that I was on the right track for questioning identity.
Over the next few weeks and with more and more critiques with peers and professors, I began to realize that the fact that I was using just the gossipy some what mean stuff I had heard about myself made my ‘audience’ think I was some what oppressed in Pakistan; That I couldn’t be myself without being judged. To some extent that may be true, it was also not true- and us Karachites can vouch for the fact that it is hardly bothersome and I’ve never had a problem with it in Karachi. Maybe in Peshawar I would have- but not Karachi. I realized that my project was bigger than I thought. It was representing Pakistan to these people who essentially do not know anything about it and the last thing I wanted to convey was my non-existent oppressed life in Karachi and make them think how coming to America has been so liberating. How to explain that yes, in some ways it has been liberating but then again, not really? How to explain my place in Karachi when I really can’t even explain it to myself? How to tell them that Karachi is very accepting of differences as long as you stay in your part of the curb?

So I started watching a lot of documentaries about Karachi made by BBC, CNN, National Geographic. However, that left me only a little more confused and a little more displaced. These documentaries, some of which were very interesting and very educational, showed two worlds. Two worlds both extreme in nature; the boozy party goers side and the urban slum poverty stricken side- neither of which I belonged to. I am neither super conservative nor am I super liberal. The conservative will probably look at me and say “taubah!” and the liberal will probably look at me and give me a smile if they know me or just ignore me if they don’t. I neither wear a scarf on my head nor do I drink. I wear jeans and shirts all the time but I always have sleeves, my neckline is never low and nor is anything skin tight. I have friends of all sorts which is why some of them call me a fundo and some of them think I’m too out there. So I have no documentary to show people and say, “look, that’s me!”.
So then, how do I explain to people here who I am when apparently I really do not represent either side of what the rest of the world knows of Karachi? I keep saying Karachi and not Pakistan because Pakistan is a whole different ball game…just fitting in Karachi (strictly theoretically speaking) is turning out to be very difficult. And you know, you just don’t think of these things when you are in Karachi, because honestly we have bigger issues in life to think about- which is why this whole self journey seems ridiculous at times and I just give it up saying how the heck is this stuff important when there are worse things happening in my country? This argument/problem or identity is an issue of luxury.

But isn’t it all interconnected in some way?

So yesterday I went into class and I told a professor who I have come to really look up to and respect, of all these issues and questions I have been battling with. He listened very patiently and then asked;

“Who died and made you the representative of Karachi? You are nothing but a speck of dust.”

:/
Now that’s a good question…sort of. I mean, doesn’t one automatically become a representative of their country once they start living abroad? Especially, if you are from a country that is in the news eye 24/7 these days? People who look at you and find out you are from Pakistan immediately start looking at you more closely and every word that comes out of your mouth will be judged as that coming out of a Pakistani and not as an individual.

No? Is it just me who feels this enormous responsibility?

“It is only a responsibility if you choose to make it one. But choose whether you want to be a representative or if you want to be an artist. Artists views are formed by how they perceive things- a representative stays objective.”

I am 0.001% of Pakistan. One of 18 million in Karachi. If I put the work I am doing out there right now, people may throw rocks at me saying “That is not what Karachi is about”.

“But, is the work that you are doing comprise of your experiences in Karachi?”
“Yes.”
“Is it your perception?”
“One part of it- yes.”
“How can someone argue with someone else’s perception? You aren’t making any unfounded claims about the city- you are sharing your experiences- you are being an artist and nobody will have the right to throw rocks at you.”

You know, in theory he makes sense…but you Karachiites out there know what I mean na? You know how illogically pissed off we get if someone out there shows our city not in the way we see it na? Sounds so stupid…but we do it- because we are madly in love with it. And for the first time in my life I’m making work that doesn’t sing praises of where I come from. For the first time I’m actually showing that despite my crazy love for the city and it’s people, it has made me feel crappy sometimes because of the very judgmental nature you witness in the attitudes of people around you sometimes.

So right now i'm at this point where I feel that if i can't separate the artist in me from the representator(word?) in me, i'll quit this project and start working on something less personally controversial. I'm hoping something someone out here says something that forces me to make sense of things...

This post has no conclusion and it has no moral message. It has no claim and it has no judgment. It’s just an ordinary girls discovery in its embryonic stage.
It does have a question though which I want to put out there and feel free to respond privately and have a conversation about it at lifemeansdrama@gmail.com or here in the comment box-
I just want to know how you Karachiites out there define your existence being Karachiites? Where do you feel you belong, if one must belong in some sort of classified category? And even if you think we shouldn’t be categorized, please say so. I just want different takes on being from Karachi- especially from those who like me have just moved abroad.
And for the non-Pakistani people out there-
any similar feelings?

Cheers,
kAy

Becoming Kay

2010-04-09T10:17:00.001+05:00

Okay so it’s been a while since I have blogged. But all of you out there will be proud of the fact that it has not been out of laziness. You will be happy to know that I have been busy in the best ways possible. Okay so maybe a little bit of the delay was due to laziness.

One of the busy ways included spending the “quality-est” of quality times with my dad as he and I went for a little trip around some of the States. After waiting over a year for his US visa to come through my dad finally made it here in order to have the trip of his dreams. Naturally, the opportunist that I am, I decided to tag along. Though I am quite sure I never was a part of that dream of his, I’m almost certain he enjoyed the company (for most of the time).
After successfully managing to tour the West coast sans me, I finished up with school and on the first day of my Spring break, met dad in Chicago where he was due to start his East Coast tour. I was curious to see how this exclusive time of 6 days that I was going to spend with my father would pan out. Never before had the two of us had this alone time and I was very unsure about how we would behave. Would he treat me like a baby and hold my hand when we cross roads? Would he acknowledge I was an adult and let me handle parts of the trip that required decisions and planning? These questions swam around in my head a week prior to his arrival and the start of the trip I will remember for the rest of my life.

From the first day in Chicago, when he jumped out of a moving car to get pictures taken with a newly wedded couple who it would seem came straight from the church to have a wedding shoot at Lake Michigan, to spontaneously dancing in the middle of the downtown ice skating rink with a bunch of kids half his age…from grabbing, hugging and posing for pictures with the cute boys who smiled at me on the road to getting me to take photographs of him in front of every nook and corner of every city we went to…my dad could teach the funnest person on earth how to have some fun. This isn’t to say I didn’t lose my patience with him or he with me. In fact, being overwhelmed with his energy and sense of adventure, I unknowingly pushed my dad’s energies a little too far when we hit Memphis. If he had not actually told me that he needs to sit and rest, I would have never realized that the man who I was forcing to walk all over town without a stop was my 60 year old dad. After that, though the friendship status did not take a backseat, my daughter role certainly came into play. I then on made sure he was always hydrated and that we sat down after every half n hour of walking. No way was my dad falling ill on my watch.
Which brings us to Houston- a place where I barely saw my father because he stayed with his relatives and I stayed with a friend/cousin and her family. I was glad because I knew these relatives would let him rest plenty and keep him well…which meant he would have revived his strength for New York. And New York promised to be verryy tiring.

It was possibly the best and the worst time of the trip. My dad reads a lot of general knowledge stuff. He reads a lot about places and people etc. Believe it or not but I have grown a little possessive about New York. I occasionally call it “my turf”. So I was in the zone, wanting to show my dad where I lived and how I lived and all the places that there were to see…what I was afraid of was that he would say “I know” every time I would point something out and kill it for me. And he did. But not all the time. ☺ He had an excruciatingly hard time following my lead except when it came to actually choosing what we would do that day. He hated the hotel I picked for him…grudgingly stayed at it for 2 days…got another hotel and then told me he preferred the one I got him and that he wanted to go back even though what I got him was a budget hotel in an awesome area and what he got himself was a 4 star in a snoozy area.

Getting in the cab on his last day here after we just watched Alice in Wonderland in Imax 3D (which I am sure he hated but still stayed awake through) I realized just how much I would miss this intense time I spent with my dad; The sharing of breakfast every morning, dinner, lunch, movies, Graceland, dancing and talking about absolutely nothing serious and at the same time…it made me realize how happy I was being where I am, in New York, living by myself. Suddenly, I’m not ready to go back…and I’m not sure when I will be…

It sounds terrible really because I love my family…but I just love my life right now and for the first time, I actually admitted to myself that packing up and going back home next October is not going to be fun.

Not at all.

Where art thou kay?

2010-03-25T10:24:00.002+05:00

Hey all,
This blog is NOT dead.
March was spent travelling! Woohoo!
Chicago, Memphis, Houston and tomorrow Rhode Island!
I get back to the city in 5 days.
I'm itching to blog and will be talking about
all kinds of nonsense here next week.
Don't forget to tune in.

be safe.
cheers
:)

kAy

The Promised Ones.

2010-03-02T10:43:00.005+05:00

So, a funny thing happened the other day. I got an email from one of my best girlfriends. We always keep in touch through occasional phone calls that last up to two hours at a time and instant short emails everytime something interesting happens. I received an instant short email telling me that one of the guys we went to grade school with had gotten married to his girlfriend. The mail ended with a sentence that I have not been able to shake off;
“so much for being the “promised” ones.
Love
-S”
The promised ones. Let’s back track a little. So this guy who she was informing me about was never a ladies man. He was sweet but he never hung out with girls, girls never hung out with him because at that point he…well…did strange things. For example; when we were 15 he once filled my family’s answer machine tape, which ran when we weren’t home, with him singing a romantic bollywood song :/ Now imagine coming home from a family dinner and listening to that with your parents and sisters staring at you.
So you can understand how, back then, a guy like that (who undoubtedly grew out of his strange boy phase and somewhere along the road became a man) was not exactly considered as one of the “promised” ones-atleast where matters of the heart were concerned. In the years that followed we actually became friends and I really am happy for him and the new life he has started.
Now coming back to me being one of the “promised” ones. Yes, it was because I was popular and boys liked me. But then again, back then 16 year old boys would fall for any girl who would smile at them and since I was one of the few girls who never saw anything wrong with being friends with boys, I had my fair share of admirers.
Over the years, things changed, naturally. Girls no longer shyed away from talking to boys and subsequently I never got over just regarding them as friends. So one by one, everyone is now married or engaged and I am doing exactly what I want to be doing at this point- but clearly am seen as some sort of weird failure in the eyes of those who deemed me as a “promised” one back then.

“Kay, you are still unmarried?”

This is what that bollywood song singing boy asked me in front of several of my friends when we randomly bumped into each other…after say 6 years!

Now I had several pairs of eyes staring at me and this is what i WANTED to say:

"After all these years, after all the education we receive, after allllll we accomplish- if we are single at 26 and god forbid were popular when we were 16, there is something drastically wrong with us?
I refuse to conform to the expectations of the average educated Pakistani society. What I see happening with this un-required pressure are my friends, smart beautiful girls, willing to settle for average, uninspired men to spend their life with, because they are done being labeled single. And you know what, pressure swings both ways. Recently I had the unpleasant opportunity to witness a guy friend prepared to meet several girls hand picked by his mother because he too felt society’s disapproving eye weigh him down. No body wants to wait for the “one” anymore. And yes I know, I know, for many "the one" had broken your hearts but that clearly means he was NOT "the one"!
Call me idealistic and whatever I might say may come back to bite me in the you-know-what perhaps but at this point I’ll say it. I’ll say I hate hearing of perfectly sweet marriages ending in divorce (the ones that were rushed into that is), hate the lack of true commitment in people as far as relationships are concerned (the ones who married anyway despite having those lingering feelings for ex-lovers), I despise the ego clashes I hear of , sick of he-did she-did nonsense.
I am depressed with the lack of sincerity the constitution of marriage holds for people now. How it’s become disposable (excuse the sweeping generalization). Because yes it is disheartening and yes it makes a person like me weary."

But then I suppose this reply would have been inappropriate under the circumstances.

So I just mumbled;
"Kya karien? Perfection is hard to come by"

*insert false laughter*

Or something stupid like that.

Moral of the story; With so many things in life that are mediocre, Love shouldn’t be one of them (Dreams for an Insomniac)

The Great Winter Return

2010-02-05T12:18:00.003+05:00

Karachi.

Every time I return to you, you never disappoint me.

You are always waiting for me to come back for the drama to unveil just so that I don’t miss a thing while I am away. I appreciate your efforts to with hold the excitement…but this time… you really did over do it;

From witnessing 9 year long romantic relationships between common friends wither into dust to watching another friend hop skip jump her way into marriage in just 4 days after meeting a complete stranger. From watching strange arranged marriages actually work out to watching the love marriage of someone who is like a sister to me result in divorce. From hearing about who cheated on whom to who actually decided to commit. From the final revelation of an old practical joke on a friend to being there to celebrate her commencing into 27 years of existence. From watching my grandparents turn 92 and 85 to my grandfather telling me how no one thought his marriage would last even 6 months and how he laughs as 66 years went by in a blink. Crabbing and beaching, coffee scenes and dinner scenes, Three Idiots scenes. Get togethers where I am surrounded by married and pregnant women and realizing they were not “aunties” but my school and college friends- my working friends..my stressed over worked friends. From me selling some of my work to having actually finally seen the inside of khizzys house for the first time in the 7 years we have been friends. Nemo and Lightening McQueen and McDonald overdoses to constantly being asked by my nephew if I had a “surprise” in my bag for him. From hearing some extra special news from a sister to striking a deal with my mother where she will pay me a handsome sum if I eloped within 2 years…with whom? That is of no consequence. From hearing of a cousin couple adopting a baby girl from Eidhee to hearing of my baby cousin getting engaged when I am so so so utterly far from anything like that myself. From flight cancellations, to falling ill, to getting eye infections and finally the night spend on the night I leave…From 30 hour layovers, getting offloaded to randomly getting selected for extra screening…

Karachi, you have completely exhausted me.

And yet, I cannot wait till I return to you.

I't been a while

2010-01-24T17:06:00.001+05:00

Hey all,
I have been in Karachi for a month and living off checking email from my iphone since my MAC migrated to New York with me last year.
This also explains the lack of posts!

Will be back in NY inshallah on the 29th of Jan and have lots of new stuff up.

till then take care and Happy new year (belated)
:)

cheers,
kAy

An ode to writing.

2009-11-18T11:25:00.003+05:00

For as long as i can remember i have always written. Yes i've done the whole romantic teen novel thing back in the day too... and i kept diaries- i hear now they call them "journals" so as to not sound geeky. So yes, i still keep a journal. I blog too. Also, every time i start working on a project and need to vent, i keep a separate "journal" for that too.
Why? asked a friend, Why do i need to write?
Sometimes your dreams can seem so impossible, your targets seems so unreachable, your life seem so impractical that you just can't sit there and explain it to someone else. I did once. I told someone who i thought understood me years ago about how i dreamed of moving to New York and doing my Masters and living on my own. He called me silly, told me i did not have the finances and by the time i would earn enough to go, i would be too old for masters and it would be pointless. Another friend told me, "you aren't that smart but hey, you *are* a hardworker so mayyybbee you'll make something of yourself."
Sometimes you start believing such people and their comments- sometimes you ignore. You learn to keep your mouth shut after that and share your dreams with yourself.
You become you own best friend first when it comes to impossible dreams and unachievable targets and other friends follow, because only YOU can assess you. Face it, family loves you too much, they will be biased :). Utter losers that walk this earth have been the apple of their mothers eyes and hero's in their fathers.

I have about ten diaries. I started back in 1991. I am so glad i did. Ofcourse i look back and see how i made a big deal of everything back then. Things i cannot even remember now- and that is the amazing part- you see the change in yourself- you witness internal evolution- you see who you were and who you have become in just over a decade. You might hate yourself or laugh at yourself ( i know i'm in fits when i read mine)...but you just might be damn proud too, and you won't need anyone else to tell you that because it will be evident.

And so i continue to write.
I continue to promise myself things and Allah Mian continues to make them happen
even if others have a hard time believing.
:)

The right reasons

2009-10-29T12:52:00.004+06:00

After me feeling the way I was feeling when I wrote my last post i pretty much gave up photographing "significantly" and as my advisor suggested, i half heartedly clicked around for clicking sake. And then Khizzy and I went to an exhibition. It was a desi guy's exhibition and anything desi happening in NY tends to catch my interest and attention. The photographer was said to have travelled throughout the United States for over a period of seven years photographing Muslim communities and people praying inside mosques. We all know what a no go that is and that permission to photograph inside mosques is close to impossible to get.
Impressed by him before even seeing the work i went excitedly to the exhibition prepared to be blown away.
Unfortunately, in all honesty, although I did really really like some of his photographs, the whole hype of 'seven years of photographing Muslim communities' fell short of what I was hoping to see. I wanted to see juxtaposition of cultures, of races, of something shocking happening...something that showed me the different ways Muslims managed to be Muslims in various parts of the US. I didn't get what I wanted from the show. In fact, I got motivated. I could photograph what I wanted to see myself. And why shouldn't I? Was that not the whole point of being a photographer? :)

And so I went begging mosques to let me in. researching their websites convincing them they could use a little upgrade on the web and were welcome to use my photographs once I took them ( what a way to sell eh?). Finally, one sufi mosque let me in.
They let me in after I made sure they understood I would not be said "no" to. I went and attended their Zaikr. I made sure the manager saw me. I made sure he knew i was not going anywhere till he let me photograph. Persistence pays off.

I have never really been in a mosque to simply pray. That is just not done in Karachi. I have never been inclined to try since Maulvi's back home, the ones i cross on the streets wearing perfectly decent shalwar kameez, tend to give me bad ass looks
( is it the hair i ask?) Over here, i walked up to about 5 or 6 uber religious ankle high shalwar wearing maulvi's in jeans, boots, a shirt and a scarf ( what my sister calls my rocker look) and have never been treated with more respect in my life. They smiled. Warmly. They listened to me and didn't yell "Astaghfirullah taubah taubah Jahunnum mein jao" to me. They refused politely and when i asked them to reconsider, heard me patiently and then actually gave me permission.
Is it odd that i feel closer to Islam away from home, apparently an Islamic Republic, in a land like the US?
I saw men and women praying in the same mosques on separate sides and chatting later after the congregation pleasantly. I wanted to be a part of that pure and decent community where if i man looked at you in a mosque he smiled and walked away or said hello...not glare at you like you were willing him to think impure thoughts and drive him to hell.

Everyday, every single day, i think how lucky i am to have had this chance to come to New York to discover this new side of faith and to finally get on the right track researching and photographing something i actually care about.

stay safe people,
especially my comrades in Pakistan.

k

The new me?

2009-10-08T10:00:00.002+06:00

I'll admit it-
I'm having a photographers block.
Sort of.
I mean I don't know what to call it.
What do you say when you don't feel like photographing?

I just feel like reading Santayana and Gilson (Gilson not so much) pondering about Beauty and the sense of it ( no pun intended)- bicker with fellow philosophy classmates about whether there is such a thing as expressive beauty or whether the quality lies in the object and other such matters that will never affect us in directly or kill us if we don't find the correct answer, but nevertheless MEAN something to us eventhough we cannot explain right at this moment why.

I'm going through a phase perhaps where experiencing is mattering more than documenting.
Documenting.
That is a wholllee other issue.
Apparently documentary photogaphy is a no go in a Fine Art grad school program.
Sigh.
Where to go what to do?
I've found solace and energy and life in philosophy since nothing else in the program is driving me to produce work.
Perhaps it was too soon for me to come to grad school or perhaps i am just not interested in being institutionalized in the area of photography where i feel most of the education is geared towards producing for New York Art galleries and the race for who is in with which curator and what out of this world concept will someone come up with that will get them in MoMa.
Concept.
That again is a whole other issue.
My advisor told me I don't seem like the person who sets out photographing with a concept or an agenda in mind, that the idea comes to me when i look at my results. I agreed. Its like this blog. I don't plan it. I do it when i want to.. the images happen to come together, sometimes i put the words before sometimes i put them after i have laid out the three images...the point is..it comes to ME. My advisor says I'm a watcher and being in a new place is driving me crazy because there is so much to see. And untill i'm done seeing everything thats on the surface i cannot start to see whats beneath it. So true.
"Click the obvious and then throw it away and move on"
Thing is, i have lost the will to click even the obvious and i am being sucked into the wonderful worth of contemplation and pondering and philosophy and education.

so I'll end it just as randomly as i have written this post.
I have signed up to teach local New York public high school kids about Pakistan and hold workshops with them.
I have also signed up to Career counsel them.
I have also signed up to do the same with elementary and middle school kids.

I am seriously considering going to Nepal for one month as a volunteer and teach English to under 18 kids.

and that is what is making me feel alive and liberated these days!

cheers.
:)

New York, I love you.

2009-09-30T10:28:00.004+06:00

New York-
i finally am in love with you.
i must admit, it was not at first sight.
or second.
or third.
but like most things... and most people...you grew on me.
i asked around about you when i came to you.
people had mixed feelings about your character.
some said you were rude and crude and mean and dirty...
others couldn't stop with the nauseating praises- willing me to love you like they did.
but i was never one to be influenced by what they thought.
i had to decide how i felt about you rationally-
see the good and the bad for myself-
live you-
feel you.

and i did.

i'll say it once again,

New York, i'm in love with you.

The Self

2009-09-23T09:09:00.005+06:00

The self.
Most of us have a pretty good idea of who we are... especially if we are in our mid twenties. I mean okay, you may not have figured yourself out completely (i doubt one ever does) but you pretty much know what kind of a person you are...what category you would fall into if categorization were ever required. I have always been very sure of myself...more than others...confident in knowing who i am and what i am like and to a great degree i have been able to express that in the work that i do enough so that if someone sees my work in a group show they can say "oh yes, thats very kay-like".

So when i got to graduate school I have been told over and over again by peers and teachers that there is not enough "me" in my work. I'm stumped.
"You seem to keep the viewer at a distance by not allowing us to see what YOU are really thinking"
"It's TOO relative"
"Where are YOU in this project?"

Stumped.
I kept telling myself the teachers just didn't know me and therefore did not "see" *me* in my work and perhaps over time, they would. But they did not. Then i thought perhaps they were just disinterested teachers not willing to see me in my work. That turned out to be true to some extent till a new teacher i met last week saw my work.
"I see you in your work."

Finally.
"I see you, but you keep me at a distance. There is a wall around you and you are not letting me in."

I should have seen that one coming.
Okay, it was time for me to accept i keep the viewer at a distance. I put up walls around my photography.
Does this reflect the kind of person i am? Perhaps.
A Forever Friend told me a couple of months ago that the one thing she hated about me was that I never let her in. According to her, apparently, I never let anyone in and I have these spikes around me that say "okay this is close enough don't try to get closer". The words hurt at that time but since I've come to New York and my personality is obviously showing in my work, how can I deny it anymore?

Yes. Okay. I do have walls around me. I am surrounded by spikes. I subconsciously do keep everyone at a distance. And yes, all these traits may qualify me to be some form of an arrogant person but on the brighter side it's kept me safe and kept me focused and saved me a lot of unnecessary hurting and pining for people who aren't worth it in the first place. It's kept me level headed and strong and given me a good sense of judgement before i start depending on the wrong people.

I am not sorry I am this way...however, I think it may be time for a little bit of a change.
As they say, the first step to change is admitting to something that needs to alter.

cheers,
k

ps: Valkyrie, the little bit of posterization in these photographs are for you. :P

The Land of Opportunities

2009-09-22T01:46:00.002+06:00

Where had i vanished?
In New York ofcourse.
Its been a tough 3 months of settling down but i am officially off living off the floor of my apartment and have actual furniture.
Its all set up and i am ready to blog.

One of the things people are constantly asking me is "what i think of living in America?"
They ask this with a tinge of wistfulness in their voices. I mean come on...who doesn't want to live in New York in the east village of manhattan on scholarship? God has been extremely kind to me. And yet when i say it's been great i am given the impression i do not sound sincere enough. I mean hello..this is New York, partyclubbingwondefulanythingcanhappeninthiscity New York.
I am sincere.. really... i do love it here...but you can't ignore the unhappiness of the people you see around you. Yes, it's true, where one drummer drums randomly on the sidewalk and you stop to enjoy it, you understand that this poor guy is trying to feed himself through the pennies we throw his way... or the funny guy on the subway cracking jokes, holds his hat out at the end of his ride for a reason...so the spontaneous art happening on the streets is awesome... but its sometimes a result of something not so awesome.

on a happier note,
eid mubarak people!
they first eid away from home they say is always the hardest-
i hope those of you who got to be with family enjoyed it thoroughly!

cheers

k

Forever Friends

2009-08-21T03:30:00.003+06:00

Forever Friends. The ones you made years ago while growing up. The ones you know who will always stick up for you no matter how many rumours they hear about you. The ones who come to your house uninvited because there is no such thing as being "invited" when it comes to them. These Forever Friends change during the growing up years but don't change enough not to last forever when it comes to their friendship with you. I would never want to screw up my relationship with any of these Forever Friends of mine. So when two Forever Friends fall in love, i freak out for them and the foreverness of their friendship. What if it fails? So many people in the world to risk it with- why risk it with a Forever Friend?
These days all around me, my Forever Friends are falling in love with eachother and risking it, while i stand firm with my rules- firm in my stance of never screwing it up with a Forever Friend and wondering if i am missing out on something huge.

Al was a resister like me as well. But she finally married F on Sunday. Her Forever Friend is now hers truly... forever. Where as a part of me is thrilled she finally took that leap of faith, another part of is in awe of her for her bravery...her boldness. She looked beyond. She took the friendship to a new level, she gave it a chance. Chance. The word itself is so eerily risky.

I'm a bundle of emotions after this wedding...or perhaps its the great Karachi return...or perhaps both and more...

whatever it is, it made me blog again...finally.

:)

cheers,
kay

Mac-less and thus post-less!

2009-06-29T02:08:00.002+06:00

Hey guys,
Thanks for all the luck and wishes.

It seems like getting a mac here is taking longer and longer. Very sorry for zero blogs. i have soooo much to write about but no way to put it out there. But but but...
for a class project i have started a new blog...check it out at:

www.i-spy-ny.blogspot.com

Would love to hear what you have to say.
This blog will be up and running in another week inshallah.
stay safe,

cheers
k

Watch out NY- here i come!

2009-06-14T15:00:00.002+06:00

Hey all,

its been ten days since i got back from DXB and been going crazy with preps to leave for NYC. Finally leaving in a couple of hours.

May be missing from the blogging scene for a week or two till i get my laptop there but not to worry, i shall be back with a bang ;) promise.
I have lots to blog about, esp the funny things that happened during travel to dubai and the launch OFCOURSE. :)

See you guys on the other side!

stay safe and pray i do too :P

cheers!
kAy
ps: all you NYC bloggers- email me tips and tricks of surviving in the city!

The Great Return: Destination DXB

2009-05-28T01:21:00.002+06:00

So I am leaving for Dubai tomorrow!
RAW LIFE book launch is on Saturday in Dubai! (woohoo!)
:)
Even though i am excited about the launch I am even more excited about the fact that my entire family has decided to make a little family vacation out of my trip and are joining me! So kAy and jam fam have booked 5 days in dxb to chill and bond before i am shipped off to NYC for good!

Incase you guys are wondering why i am so nauseatingly excited about this is because jam fam have NOT taken any family vacation since 1991 together. Sure all of us have been on our own here and there, but a family vacation is a family vacation. And the new little addition we have in our lives (Nadi) will make this vacation even more awesome.

It feels funny going back to UAE after 18 years. I have amazing memories of spending the first 8 years of my life there. 8 amazing years which i remember vividly in great detail. 18 years. Not even a single visit since i came to Pakistan. And now i return...for my book launch. How odd is that?

wish me luck people and pray I do not forget my speech this time ;)

stay safe,
cheers

kAy

the raw journalism

2009-05-05T14:20:00.004+06:00

Okay first off, yes the third panel pic really does say "lunched"! "Raw Life lunched"!!
I imagine myself sitting a a table, knife and fork in hand, eating the cactus that is on my cover page! lol
Can't believe that newspaper forgot to spell check!!!

And now my post:
I think anyone who has ever followed my blog closely knows how hard i have tried to remain "anonymous". i know i have not succeeded and a lot of you have emailed me or messaged me on facebook, so yes i realise i have not been that successful but on my blog you guys still called me "kAy" and kept things personally impersonal ( yes i made that term up) and for that i am truly grateful.
I have only been anal about staying unnamed for one reason; so that i can continue to be very candid and very honest in my opinions without unnecessarily worrying about being wrongly judged/quoted in moments when i rant or rave about how i feel about certain things.
Kher, post-book launch, two articles published in the newspapers have given out my blog address in their reviews and i feel a little...(for the lack of a better word)...naked.

I have been told...or actually 'consoled' by blogger friends who say "this had to happen one day kAy"- "your blog could not have remained anonymous forever-not with journalists pouring over your book." I suppose what they say is true. I suppose that is also the reason why my blog followers list has significantly doubled since the articles were published. I suppose i can be glad that more people will get to read what i have to say. I suppose....

i shall still however remain "kAy"... i shall still cover my face with text and i shall still be vague about my identity- for that is all what i know how to do- and i shall appreciate if you guys continue to be the same on your part. :)

Now lets come to post-launch events in life!

You know i have highly misjudged myself as a person! Remember the post i made pre-launch fearing one critical word my destroy me? Oh My God- how wrong was i? i completely underestimated myself. For here i stand having faced criticism and not having felt even a PINCH! (bring out the bubbly! :))

Lets be fair though, perhaps i would have been shattered had something utterly negative and uncalled for had been said about the book. There was not. Everyone, Allah Ka Shukar hai, has so far *loved* it. Loved the effort. Loved the content. Loved the Design. Loved the photography. Loved the book. The stuff that was my personal effort. I have 5 terrific reviews from 5 of the highly regarded personalities in the creative/media industry.

Criticism has been about:
1. Who was there at the launch. (omg this person came! heavens!)
2. Who was NOT there at the launch. (omg he DID NOT? he must haattte her!)
3. Who wore what to the launch. (is that a LAST SEASON Sonya Batla outfit! sacrilege!)

One journalist in DAWN IMAGES section criticized a supplement that went with the book. It was a 7 minute docu to show what the Creatives in the book were like so that you could put a voice to the words once you started reading the book (since the book is in first person). The docu was roughly made, yes, but that was deliberate. It was the whole point. Catching the people in a completely non set up environment. Keeping it utterly casual. Imagine having to set up 50 tungsten lights, shining it in their faces and then asking the creatives to please be natural and act like they do this everyday. If you look at the calm relaxed way they are behaving and talking in the docu you would realise they really were just kicking it in and enjoying me asking them "strange questions". In the journalists defense though, she does claim the video "grows on people". I suppose if people think about what i have said above, they wont be too quick to judge the some what erratic frames, the jerks in the camera and the some what fluctuating tones of lighting. That is a compromise i would make over and over again if it meant getting honest comments from my Creatives where they are not at all conscious about being filmed or photographed. Most of the time, because i maintained constant eye contact with them when they spoke to me WHILE filming, they barely noticed i was capturing them on tape.

Secondly, in the same article the journalist mentions that i, kAy, say "it is very difficult to be inspired in a city like Karachi."
This is either a vast misinterpretation or a misquote because i certainly would never have even THOUGHT such a thing, moreover SAY it out loud.
I think my blog, my book and my existence are proof enough of the fact that i find Karachi MOST inspiring. Why else would i make a book about people from Karachi? or have this blog which if you have followed speaks continuously about Karachi?
No no no NO.
Wrong and utterly wrong.
Karachi is a wonderfully inspirational place and anyone who does NOT think so needs to go through my book or just have a little conversation with me. I sometimes wish i had a little camera built in my eye and i could through infra red rays or sth pass those images to my computer to take printouts of the images. Everywhere i turn in the city, i see an image that speaks volumes to me.
Again, in the journalist's defense, i suppose she got confused because i said "it is CHALLENGING BEING creative in Karachi because of all its TRAPPINGS." And in my book i celebrate people who have managed to do just that.
But Karachi is inspiring and so SO so much more and i would never say otherwise.
:)

THE NEWS, INSTEP had a fantastic review about the book. That journalist really got the point of the book. She understood my reasons for doing this project and put it all down very well. SUNDAY TIMES (DAILY TIMES) also did a great job!

Thank you all all three journalists, though, for reviewing the book! And i hope i have cleared all the confusions with this post! :)

Ive been going for Tv interviews too, oh boy, that is a whole different post but lets my leave you with a lil teaser;
host: Why do all you "affluent artists" always talk about "creativity"?
me: Why are you such a presumptuous fool?

Okay lets be honest.. i did not ACTUALLY say fool. I will write about that in my next post though but feel free to leave a reply telling me what you THINK i should have said to that and i will tell what i DID say :)

Stay safe people.
Cheers!
:)

Magical moments

2009-04-28T03:35:00.001+06:00

I thought I would put off blogging about the incredible event that took place in my life for a few days once I have figured out how I want to describe the event. But if there is anything I have learnt from the entire process of planning the event, it is that what you plan does not always happen, no matter how sure you are that it will work out. Following are some small examples about what I’m trying to say; Example 1. I had wanted to wear RED to my book launch for the last month or so. Searched high and low for the “perfect” red outfit. I ended up wearing blue. Example 2; the event was supposed to take place in a cozy confined area of my college as decided months before. Eventually, the event was spread all over the grounds. Last (but not least) example 3; I wrote a wonderful minute long speech. Went on stage and forgot all of it. I ended up saying something completely different.
All these carefully planned out things went completely awry! The funny thing is, all of it worked. My blue outfit complimented my RED surroundings. The vast spaciousness gave people room to breathe on a particularly hot evening and my extempore speech (no matter how terrible I thought it was) was received wonderfully by those who heard it.
Hence, this blog is not planned. I’ll just ramble on like I did in my speech and describe last night to you to the best of my abilities.
Many people do not know this but the highlight of my evening was a very crucial thing said by a very ordinary reporter. He, while interviewing me for his channel, asked me how it felt being a “trend setter”. He asked how I felt knowing that in the future people will follow the example I have set and that I have managed to create a completely new form of innovative books, an area previously unchartered by any Pakistani creative…how did I feel about that. My answer ofcourse is irrelevant in this story. It took me a good minute to snap out of the wonderful daze his words had put me in. He called me a ‘trend setter’. How wonderful was that?
But all this interview talk happened much later. There was a Book Talk that kicked the evening off. My publisher spoke first. What I loved about her speech was that she barely looked at the audience. She spoke directly to me as I sat in the front row. She smiled, genuinely happy for what we had accomplished together while she praised my concept and me. I honestly felt like I was the only person she spoke to while the 400 people behind me simply did not exist. Why did this act move me? I do not know. Maybe because with so many people doing things just for show and tell, here was a woman who genuinely believed in the spirit of my work.
One of the Creative Professionals in my book spoke next. Four things he said I shall never forget. 1. He told 400 people how when I was ten years old I stole a tye and dye shirt of his, which at that point came up to my knees and wore it for MONTHS. :P (the elegance I tried to achieve by wearing fancy clothes and heels just went out the window with that lil anecdote lol). 2. He said that I was different than most students who approached him to help them with their thesis projects. He said he had never enjoyed being asked questions more than he did with me because my questions were “so utterly strange”. At that point I think I had burst out laughing (god help how I looked on TV :P). and 3. He openly admitted how he hated being called a “creative” and that it made him feel like a tetra pack (mik carton) lol. From then on everytime he wanted to use the term “creative’s” he said tetra pack instead. :P and finally 4. He said when he first saw the cover image…which was a hand holding a cactus, he had never before seen such an apt cover for a book. That all ‘tetra packs’ were cacti indeed because they can grow anywhere and live under the harshest conditions…and continue to survive.
Finally, my turn came. Dazed by H.Z’s speech I forgot everything I meant to say. I even forgot to look at my sheet of paper that had my entire speech nicely typed out on it. Not to mention I stood tip toe just so I could reach the mike. (there goes the remaining elegance out that window). Whatever I said though, like I mentioned earlier, seemed to work and I had several (both biased and unbiased) people come to me and tell me it was great ☺
Now that you know how the evening went, I’ll move on to the reactions I have been dying to write about. This is getting to be a long post, but hey, this needs to be documented. To appreciate what I am about to tell you I need to dive a lil into history. I never talk so much about my professional life with my friends from grade school. Mainly because they are all either bankers or doctors. Nobody chose the creative field so whenever we meet up (which is very often) and they ask “so what are you working on these days” both of us are satisfied with my standard answer which is always, “oh…stuff.” It’s been this way for a while. God forbid if I elaborate, usually they start making fun of me. ( yes yes laugh at the artist) ;) So when I invited all of them to the book launch I didn’t quite know how to explain what kind of a book was being launched. I just said “come and see”. They came and saw… and I think… were stumped :P
So kAy did not lead such a chill and “faarigh” life afterall ;) it was a great feeling knowing that never again (possibly) will what I do be looked down upon (even as a joke!) ☺
Which brings me to my college friends. The ones who saw this book in it thesis state last, most of whom I have possibly seen only once or twice since we graduated nearly 3 years ago. To my utter surprise, nearly all of the ones I had invited showed up (3 couldn’t come but 10 did ☺). I was incredibly touched that despite not being in the best of touch with them, they came to support me. It made me ecstatic.
Aside from being a nearly perfect night, the thing that left it incomplete was the fact that my grandparents missed the event. I will not wallow over the situation here. I have sufficiently expressed my anger in other places. My grandfather however told me not to be upset about it. He told me today that he had skipped his nap just because he was hooked on reading my book from cover to cover, and that he was so proud of having another ‘author’ in the family (even though I did not really write the book since its in first person entirely).

I have so much more to write about… but in another post on another day.
Right now, all I can say is thank you Allah Mian, I never forget for a moment that You are behind all these blessings.

Cheers all!

2009-04-21T00:38:00.002+06:00

Creative people need feedback. That concept cannot be argued at all. We need criticism. Constructive criticism. But sometimes, there is born a creative like myself who needs something else.
I've always been the sort of person who needed approval in life. Whether it was a job well done or a drawing painted, i needed that pat on the back. Unfortunately, despite glowing praises and accolades of attention one harsh word from any one remotely significant person had the ability to destroy me. I used to dwell on the negative comments more than on the positive ones. It was a flaw. It is a flaw. Thankfully, it is one of those things people normally cannot tell about me. I come forth as super confident, super positive super human to most people. Throughout college my work was always bold and my presentations extremely well delivered. I actually admit that myself. Arrogant as it may sound, it is the truth that my work was great. Not flawless, but great. I got rave reviews when my i presented my final college thesis. It was an ambitious project for an undergrad thesis but i did it. I pulled it off. One juror, though, remained unimpressed. He gave me an 80% as opposed to my other two jurors who gave me 92% each. I knew it was just bad luck, i knew not everyone can love a specific piece of work... but it bothered the hell out of me. My mother calls it a "Virgo" trait.
In six days i launch that undergrad thesis as a proper re-vamped coffee-table book. Again, i am putting myself out there to be judged, criticized, appreciated and...judged again by a bigger, meaner crowd. The entire creative industry of Pakistan. Life would be so much simpler if people were nicer. If their harsh comments were spoken in softer tones, if the world wasn't so eager to put other people down so that they can seem cooler. Where as one part of me is ridiculously excited that this book is about to be launched another side of me is bracing myself for the hideous and ugly comments i may have to hear. I never built that wall around me. I tried very hard to but i couldn't. I can pretend very well, that mean things don't affect me. But they do. A lot. More than they should. But where lies one weakness, lies one strength to pull one through it. And my strength is that i am great at moving on. No matter how profusely i hurt over broken hearts and broken promises, over lies and betrayal...eventually i move on and stop hurting. After sometime, i can actually smile at the offender and truly feel good about smiling at them.
Anyway,
this post has turned into more of a heart pour rather than my usual morally constructive posts. There is one moral here though; trying to please everyone may not always be a bad thing...not building a wall around you can be good too...at least you know you tried and at least you know you lived.

Will post after the launch now.
Wish me luck ppl! :)

This Shanakht has taken its toll

2009-04-09T01:22:00.005+05:00

Those aren't my words up there.
They were said to me by my mentor.
I told her i was leaving for two years.
She asked if i would ever come back (given the situation of the country n all).

Why would she ask me that? i asked.
Ofcourse i would come back. Not because i had to...but because i wanted to.

I told her it's pretty clear cut;
I am going away to learn photography. I am going to come back and be the first woman who actually did not give the practice up in Pakistan. I am going to teach and travel within Pakistan and spread the knowledge i received.
Inshallah Inshallah I am I am I am i told her.

Then she said that above stated sentence to me.
My heart hurt a little once the gravity of what she was trying to tell me sunk in.
Will "they" let me?
For those who don't understand what I'm talking about, take a peek at Kamal Siddiqi's article in NewsWeek (or was it THE NEWS) about Talibanization in Khi- no myths...hard and fast facts about the happenings in Karachi.

Then this happened today;
http://adpdiaries.blogspot.com/2009/04/ppp-attacks-shanaakht-festival-destroys.html

And my hurting heart broke a little.
Our identity, so to speak, was attacked by none other than ourselves.
Honestly, does it get any sadder than this?
For more details on the Shanakht Festival and what it is, please read Khizzy's Blog

http://cloudkhizzy.blogspot.com/2009/04/my-sad-500th-post-its-my-party-and-ill.html

Ps: I just got news the Festival has NOT been cancelled.
All Karachi-ites be there on Sunday! We must show the jahil bullies that the intelligent masses are united. let's flock the festival and support it. I will be there too since my grandfather is the last speaker of the event. He will talk about what Pakistan was like when he chose to migrate and how his generation laid the foundation of this country.
ADP will close the event with what i am sure will be a rocking performance.

stay safe people.

edit: Shanakht got cancelled. I really hope it changes it's mind. :(

Clarity!

2009-03-28T02:26:00.002+05:00

It’s funny how it was only eight days ago when I was high on brownie hash drowning in miseries of multiple rejections and now eight days later, Allah mian has turned my world around 180 degrees.
For the last 8 days, after receiving those rejections I drowned myself in work. Admission or no admission, my book was due to go into print on the 24th of March and that is the way it was! I had to work and weeping over my sorry fate was not going to make the book get complete. So I got to work. I worked day and night. No jokes. I was up for four days in a row. Seriously no jokes. It’s a remarkable feeling, not sleeping for four days….watching the sun come up only to see it go down again in a matter of moments…or so it seemed, since I barely looked up from my computer screen.
Long story short. I finished the book in time. I even managed to apply to a new university in Sanfransisco. The book was handed in for printing complete by the 25th of March ( half was handed in the previous day)- dummy made on the 26th and I officially go into print Inshallah tomorrow afternoon once I hand in the cover page.
So on the 24th, leaving my house for the printers, I was zombied out and miserable still from my rejections. I received a letter from a place I had half heartedly applied to in Chicago on my own.
Yet another rejection. Damn I felt like a loser.
After 5 stressful hours at the printers in the far away lands of Korangi (at least from my house) I returned home to finish the other half of the book. The electricity vanished. Sigh.

When it rains…it pours.

And hour later, during which I mostly sat on my prayer mat and prayed for happier times, God worked his magic.
I switched on my computer and checked my email- which is strange because I was planning on working right away. I didn’t have time for emails. But I checked anyway.

To: Ms.kAy
From: Fulbright
Subject: oops (not really but it should have been oops!)
Dear kAy,
As it turns out, it has come to our attention you were NOT rejected from XYZ university. You were actually accepted! Blahblahblahblah we made a mistake blah blah blah blah contact us please blah blah blah
Signed,
kAy’s coordinator.

THEY MADE A MISTAKE? Gasp.
They threw my acceptance letter accidently in a rejection pile!!! I would have gotten super pissed except I was supppeerrr happy :P this university is in NEWYORK people and it is a realllyy good one!

What followed was a series of amazing events. I got into the uni in San fransisco too. My book got complete miraculously in time, I managed to get proofs too and even the bad grainy pics that I feared would turn out ugly turned out beautiful!

When it rains…it pours! ☺

So now the time came to decide where to go.
NY, my dream to live in city? Or SF? The one with the course better suited for me. Both universities equally highly credited. The votes were in. Where should kAy go? Mom said SF, dad said NY, sisno#1 said SF, sis 2 I think leaned twds NY, granddad said SF, grandmom said NY, uncle said SF, aunty said NY.
After three days of intense debating in my home- last night my mother came to my room to continue rooting for SF.

mom: “beta the weather is warm…you will freeze in Ny….people are nicer…its so clean!...its quieter than NY…..crime rate kitni kumm hai SF mein….beta…the weatheerrr- beta if you go to NY, I will freeze!!!”

me: “Why will YOU freeze amma?"

mom: “ buss, knowing you are there…I will!”

This went on for 3 whoolllee days.
Then finally last night I said ,

Me: “mom, SF is a 6 hour plane ride from NY.”

Mom: “so?”

Me: “So if I go to SF, I wont be coming home very often in the two years I’m there.”
(note: I get terrible ear thing in the plane…lethal almost- plane travel is torture)

mom: Why?

Me: there is no direct flight.

Pause

Mom: we’ll buy you lots of sweaters for NY.

lol.
And that is how, ladies and gentlemen, kAy decided on NewYork NewYork!

Cheers!

God sent me brownies.

2009-03-20T02:46:00.002+05:00

I never get headaches. I never even really feel sick unless its sneezing or sinus. But for the last two days I have been feeling sick in the pit of my stomach. Like when you sense something bad is about to happen. It’s true I’m under tremendous stress since my book goes into printing on the 23rd of March and I work all night trying to finish it. But this sickness was more than the “I have not been getting much sleep” sickness. Something bad was going to happen.
This morning something bad DID happen.
I woke up feeling sick again and first thing I did was check my email. Which by the way is NOT the first thing I do in the mornings! I received an email telling me I got rejected from two of the universities I applied to.

So that was it. My sickness explained.

What happened after that was me going into some serious depression. Heavy duty freaking out, but you couldn’t tell from my face. No one could.
As I sat on my prayer mat praying for the sick feeling to please go away, the stress to please lessen, for me to please have some peace of mind, God’s answer to my prayers came in the form of brownies.

Here is how it happened:
Despite all the stress and tension of my publishing deadline and the new added stress and tension of multiple rejections, I still had a drama workshop to attend in order to learn what I will have to teach to a bunch of students on Saturday as part of a foundation year course I teach in college.
There was no way I could miss it. Right before I entered college where I was due to practice with some of the other teachers, I met T-man and Mayun outside in their car. My two best boys from college days. And after a rough day, it was great seeing them, all smiles and waves….with brownies in hand.

Hash brownies.

Yup. kAy got high for the first time and she didn’t even know it till it realllyyyy hit her. In the middle of jumping up and yelling my name as a part of the drama workshop, my world started spinning. The stress vanished and laughter took it’s place. Uncontrollable laughter.
Suspicious that something must have been up with those brownies I checked my cellphone. One missed call from Mayun and one message from T-man.

T-Man: Hey k, hope you didn’t get too woozy…just drink water and call me if you feel weird.

I think I laughed a little hysterically at that after I realized what had happened.
By now, the other members of the workshop have discovered that something is up with me. Duh, I have red eyes :P
everyone is very amused. I am the LAST person they expected to see like this.
T-man calls then. Worried. How was I feeling? Was I getting paranoid? Did I pass out? Did I get hysterical? I think I cracked up at that and he mumbled to Mayun, “Dude she is so stoneddd.”
Haha. I guess I was, because I never felt like THIS before. Everything was damn funny. :P
After assuring him he did not need to come to hold me or sit with me I hung up.

T-man messages again: Take a creative journey, write something, you’re never going to be more original.

I laugh some more at this but the numbness was setting in by now so I decided to take his advice and just let it set in.
My colourful thoughts and dreams were interrupted by another sms.

Aldos: hahahahaha Please can I hug you?

It was the third stooge. The word had spread. :P
I pictured Mayun, Aldos and T-man cracking up, sitting around making fun of me. I cracked up some more. Soon I was laughing so much I had to leave the room of the workshop where I had been made to sit down in a corner and watch instead of participating after my world had spun. Out on the balcony I called Aldos up. I don’t even remember what we spoke about. All I remember is Aldos laughing asking me what the heck I was saying. I remember him saying though,
“Don’t move we’re all coming to hug you.”
Lol.
And they did. All of them.
I think what followed must have been some more laughter as khizzy deposited me home, refusing to let go of my arm till I passed out on my bed for the next four hours. :P and you know the crazy thing? Khizzy had the hash brownies too and NOTHING happened to her.
Her logic? That I was the one who was extremely out of sorts which is why I reacted as severely as I did.
The crazy thing is, I’m glad this happened. I don’t think I had laughed like that in days under all the pressure I have been. It felt good too loosen up and I think God knew He had to do something drastic to make me truly lighten up like that. He knew I would never ever consciously take hash for any sort of momentary relief.
Which is why He sent me those brownies. ☺:)

It almost 3am and now I’m back to normal. I re-read my rejection letters, but it doesn’t pinch that bad anymore. Seven work emails also from my publishers sit in my account. All need to be dealt with tonight.

Sigh…welcome back to the real world kAy.

enough is enough

2009-03-16T20:20:00.002+05:00

We have had enough.

Enough of Kurd jumping like a monkey,

Enough of Nawaz sulking like a puppy,

Enough of Zardari throwing tantrums like a baby,

Enough of Chaudhry acting like a donkey,

Enough of Khan being a nobody,

Enough of Musharraf being oh so saintly.

We need fresh blood instantly!

We have really had enough.

The rise of a new dawn

2009-03-07T23:34:00.003+05:00

All of us have one thing in common,
we want peace.
We just have different ways of saying the same thing.
One way i found beautiful and extremely moving was this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjaNQFChkCY

Some very talented people from LUMS really gave Faiz's words wings.

pray for better times people and enjoy the video. We have ALL thought about doing this in our heads...i would love for this kind of unity to become a real thing soon.

selfish me

2009-03-01T18:46:00.001+05:00

So Al got engaged day before yesterday. It was weird watching her put the ring on F’s finger. Really weird. I still remember sitting on the school bench in class 3 sharing chips with Al… and now whenever we share chips, there will be another hand dipping into that bag…FOREVER.
I hate to admit it and am certainly not proud of the fact that I have a difficult time sharing friends. I mean, it’s cool if we all know each other since forever and hang out but when you’ve been friends with someone for close to 20 years, its just weird seeing them be close to someone else.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not creepy possessive friend person. I just feel a pang and then either the pang goes away or the newbie who made me feel like that does. Either way, things work out…but while I’m feeling that pang, I’m real moody. I guess I feel threatened about where I stand in that person’s life.
Yes, it is a weakness.
It is a carnal fear that my friends will choose life partners who I don’t get along with. I know friendships will change- they always do… and I fear that. Do I doubt that they will not withstand the test of time? No. That’s not it. We will always be friends. But the intensity of our friendship, the rules, the routine will all change. It already has started happening, and as much as I want to move on with life, I don’t want the good things to alter.
How selfish of me.
Clearly I’m being a drama. Life means drama. There is always an upside. The new people we choose to include and love in life just expand the already good stuff we had going on for us as friends. More chairs on the table at restraunts…even some high chairs now ☺ and that is all amazing. But how can I not feel nostalgic, and a pinch of that pang, when we all sit around that table and only half of us really know who the other REALLY is because we have been together forever.
Enough drama now.
I’m working on creating a new forever.

trust? oh THAT old thing...

2009-02-20T18:35:00.002+05:00

Poor unsuspecting me walked into my grandmothers house a few days ago to be greeted by grandmother, dad's brother-who-just-flew-in-from-islamabad and dad's sister who-lives-upstairs and ofcourse, my mother. I just came to say a friendly hello, but when uncle-from-isloo is around, it's always more than "hello". its "hello-where-is-your-life-going-when-are-you-getting-married-who-is-the-boy-hellooo".
So i knew immediately where the conversation was going to head the minute i was made to sit down facing him with my mom on one side, grandma on the other and aunt next to uncle. it was all very semi circlish with me at the base.

uncle: so beta, you are leaving for the states soon, correct?
me: jee, inshallah...i mean... i hope so...woh admission abhi nahi-
uncle: so is there a boy in the picture?
me: erm...not.. at the moment...
uncle: so you plan to meet someone there?
me: well... i dont PLAN on it...but maybe... i mean ...i guess...?
aunt: OFCOURSE she WILL. and beta whoever you choose is fine with us.
uncle: but OFCOURSE. kAy is smart and intelligent. we trust you completely beta. you character is actually very strong. your parents have brought you up very well mashallah.

*awkward pause*

grandmother: YAHOODI SAY SHAADI NAHI HO SAKTI. (translation: you cant marry a jew!)
uncle: beta, Hindu nahi ho sakta. (he can't be Hindu)
grandmother: ESSAYEE SAY SHAADI HAR GIZ NAHI HO GEE. (there is no way you will marry a christian)
aunt: beta, behtar hai tum nikkah kar kay amreeka jao. (it's best you get married and then go to america)

uncle: BUT, needless to say, we trust you completely.

But ofcourse they do. :P

Valnetine 2009 (that rhymes :P)

2009-02-14T17:34:00.003+05:00

I have heard some pretty funny Valentine day stories over the last several years...this one still takes the cake...
So this guy I know liked this girl and wanted to ask her out. He chose valentines to pop the question. He bought a box of Hershey’s Kisses and gave them to her.
She went home opened the box…..
it was empty. There was a note lying inside that read:
“No love…no kisses.”
Lol.
It makes me think of all my valentine day happenings....
I have zero recollection of the 14th of Feb being anything more than an ordinary day prior to 6th grade, 1995. In 7th grade however, this cute green eyed boy came up to me during recess in school and gave me an audio cassette that was titled “Be my Valentine” and it had these top ten English tracks I loved. I remember being very flattered and embarrassed at the same time. The following year in 8th grade (1997), due to my last experience, I was looking forward to what might happen this time. I was horrified when I was told by a friend that a boy in my class wanted to kiss me for Valentines day! In 9th grade we had a Valentine Festival/mela in school and my best friends boyfriend gave me a valentine card- the catch was that his friend went and gave my best friend a card. It was a cute play on “you give the card to my girl and I’ll give it to yours”. Needless to say only one of us was thrilled on getting that card and attention and that person was not me. A few hours later I was dedicated “quit playing games with my heart” by the same boy (yes yes it was new and a hit song back then :P). A few hours later, I found another card in my desk. This one was anonymous. One that clearly explained what this other boy was feeling…one that truly touched my heart. I found out who he was almost immediately and that someone, several years down the line, became a very good friend. 1999 rolled out and I was in 10th grade. This time anonymous boy gave me a very public valentine. A stuffed teddy bear and chocolates and a card declaring his feelings. The next year, he did it again. More chocolates, another card, more gifts. And then came the end of one lifetime. I started a new school. First year A’levels, I knew where I would be getting a valentine from. No… not previous valentine hatricker anonymous/public boy….although that would have been nice, it was coming from new guy from new school. I remained out of his line of vision all day at school so that I would not have to be in that awkward position of having to take his gift out of politeness. Later, I heard he dumped the chocolates in the dustbin at the end of the day when he couldn’t find me. I did feel a little bad then. Finally, 2002, A’levels second year, all of us girls were bombarded with flowers and cards by all our guy friends. If any poor dude felt anything more it was drowned in all the friendshippy love that was oozing out of us emotional people, as we knew that school would be over in just three months!
After that it all went downhill.
No more secret admirers, no more loving friends :P and its no fun twisting someone’s arm to give you something- trust me on that one!
So from the receiver of valentines I went to being the wrapper of valentines. I did it for friends and do it for my non-artist brother-in-law every single year since 2005. I love doing it, simply because I love to be a part of someone making an effort to show their love- to make them happy.
2009 valentines day: I just got back from brunching and shopping with two girlfriends and we had a blast whiling our afternoon away with some great girl fun. I received an sms from a friend who i thought considered me a forgotten memory and with that I consider my day complete. ☺
Happy V-day people. Even if you don’t agree with the day or what it stands for- you know you secretly enjoy the silliness it brings out in people- even if its just for the sake of entertainment!

Cheers,

kAy

The Good and the Bad

2009-02-10T13:55:00.002+05:00

Its seriously the only time i feel everything is the way it should be in my world at that point- when i see hundreds of people supporting the same good thing in life.
Every year i go to the The Citizens Foundation Walkathon called ILMATHON (ILM meaning knowledge in Urdu)
http://www.thecitizensfoundation.org/

Ive always been a team person. I love working with people. The togetherness, believing in similar things and working for it side by side makes me feel good. I like being alone at times too, but i'm not a loner. Far Far Far from it.

On a separate yet similar note, there was a white corolla with two men terrorizing the neighborhood recently. They would steal, attack, rape, kidnap anyone and everyone. They got away with incredibly brutal crimes in some very 'safe' localities. They got caught around ten days ago. I honestly wish the government hangs them and displays their heads on spears around the neighborhood so we can all dance around for joy. Whoever thought i had an evil gruesome side to me? well i do. i dont care which hi-fi dude's children they were ( yes they were two bored young men who did this for fun- not need-not poverty- just disgustingly cheap thrills). I hope they burn in hell.

stay safe everyone-
the world has some awesome people and then it has some real perverted ones too.
appreciate the good people.
i know i do.

The game called 'Cursed'

2009-02-01T00:11:00.002+05:00

Players: Eight best friends.

For as long as we have known each other, us eight girls have believed we were cursed. We named the curse after our school. It was the only thing we had in common, thus, the only thing we could blame the reason of our conditions of the curse on. The curse is not academic. We were all romantically cursed. The curse is not permanent, but while we’re cursed, its torturous. All the men we wanted were all those who belonged to a group called “wrong” ie: wrong religion, wrong country, wrong community, wrong timing etc etc.
So far, only three of us managed to escape the curse and that too in really weird ways. Literally “escape”. For example, Ash got married when we were 18. :S yes. You read that right. 18! To someone she did not know much less like. We thought the curse has taken its sacrificial lamb without us having to even put her up for the slaughter. It was only last year due to a horrible incident, did we realize what an incredible blessing this marriage had been. M, after having suffered the curse for nearly ten years, badly and brutally, met her mr.right online. Yes you read that correctly too. ONLINE! She married him two years ago. Sai also got married two years ago. She did the unthinkable by marrying the impossible. But it was in the name of true love.

Whereas Ash accepted what she thought was life-long curse, M shook it off with passion and Sai calculatingly defied it. The remaining 5 of us were still battling our curses though. Each inflicted with a different disaster.

Three days ago Al announced she is getting married in June. THIS june. She decided to marry F. After 6 years of knowing him, 1 month of dating him then leaving him, being best friends with him for the next 7 months, not speaking to him for that last four weeks- the curse I think got tangled in it’s own web of deceit and probably got exhausted! Al was always the boss and she made the curse give her up.
So, in the name of the game this curse has played with us best friends, I want to say congratulations to Al…it gives me great pleasure to declare that for you my friend it's
GAME OVER!

That leaves four of us now. Still battling our curses, still enduring the disasters :P but i have faith, we shall find our unique ways to fight this off in the coming months. ( im being optimistic and not saying years :P)

cheers! [that's for you khizzy ;)]

the first class citizen syndrome

2009-01-28T23:47:00.002+05:00

So a friend just called to ask if i knew/could get a hold of the band "Strings" for him. For those who do not know what "Strings" is and who they are, they are only one of the top music bands in the sub-continent. They even did the OST for Spiderman a few years ago. An old feeling of utter joy.
Khizzy and i always discuss how cool and awesome it is that we have been blessed with such easy access to the creative community in Pakistan. not everyone in the world has the ability to pick up the phone and call such a hi-fi celebrity and know them first hand...a privilege i may add khizzy and i have had since our college days and at the risk of sounding totally arrogant, even before college days.
at this point i don't care if i sound floosy or superficial because i feel great about the fact that i am able to be a part of this creative network... this community of talented people, some on first hand basis and others if not first but at least on the basis that if i reach out, i can get a hold of them.
where else? where else i ask can someone be as lucky?
you may argue that our nation is so tiny, and i am from a privileged background, that is why these people are so accessible. yes. perhaps that is so. but what i'm saying, its wonderful to be that person in this country. we may be a small country, but our talent is not measured by that. not by a long shot.
if i was someone else somewhere else, i would have never been able to witness creativity as closely as i have had in Pakistan, being a Pakistani.

With this post all i really want to say is that i am honored to know you, all you creative people who have represented Pakistan in your own creative ways and created waves globally.
Hats off to you!

ps: what is it that they always say on tv these days? better to be a first class citizen in your own country than a third class citizen in someone else's.... we can sort of in a weird way apply that line here too.

Straight from the heart

2009-01-26T19:01:00.002+05:00

Life used to be very clear, some 3 or 4 years ago. I knew exactly what i wanted and i was working my way to get it. i was happy, satisfied and focused. so...damn...focused.
and then i grew up.
confusions set in.
i started distrusting my heart, distrusting my gut.
confidence...to put it eloquently.. 'confidence ki band baj gayee'.
a horribly feeling i hadn't felt since grade school set in...
SELF DOUBT.
is that not supposed to GO AWAY with age?? am i a story in reverse??

My little man N knows exactly what he wants and when he wants it.
it literally takes him a split second to decide exactly what he wants, be it wanting to eat a particular kind of food, or listening to a specific song or having to playy a certain game. upon my offers he shall take a milli second to either shake his head vigorously or give me a heart melting smile and eating that chip i am wagging in front of his face.
Yesterday, as most days go, he was dancing to his favorite song in my room ( did i mention he's a pro dancer?) so my sister and i decided to try out an experiment and introduce him to new music ( since we were sick and tired of 'desi girl'). N seemed to be up for it. ONE single beat was all the little man needed to know if he wanted to shake it on that song or not. Here are the results of some 80's tracks i tried on him:
1. Karma Chameleon : vigourous shaking of head...thus rejected.
2. Love in the first degree: a loud yelp and vigorous head shake.
3. Let's twist again: vigorous head shake and a smack to my right hand.
4. Funky town: sparkling eyes and an 'o' formed at his mouth- instant jiggying. :)
5. Jingle bells: smack on hand and a small cute frown.
6. sugar sugar: sparkling eyes...more jiggying.
7. Twist and shout: smack
8. you are mu sunshine: jiggy
amongst his fave indian songs:
1. desi girl: he goes absolutley nuts on this.
2. maa da ladla
3. jee karda
4. it's rocking
5. mauja hi mauja
6. dhamaal
7. pappu can't dance
8.jane kyoun dil janta hai
he hates:
1. move your body (kismet konnection)
2. woh lamhe
3. sadde gali
4. tu sala ( golmal)
5. mast qalandar ( hey baby)

There is no explanation for his tastes- he JUST knows.
We can all really learn a thing or two about how to live life from this lil bugger :)

cheers all.

This post is dedicated to N.
The current love of my life- who in his almost two years of existence has given me so much to laugh about and be thankful for.

Khamsa

2009-01-22T17:45:00.000+05:00

Over time, you tend to become the sort of person who had everything figured out in most, if not every, aspect of life. you have formed all this theories about how stuff should happen and how it shouldn't and you support what you say with all these logic you have come up. logic that possibly only makes sense to you and one other equally crazy friend of yours who is on the same wavelength as you are. you become rigid in your ideals and expectations of people. you judge when you shouldn't. you judge when you couldn't...because life had never put you in that situation- because you don't KNOW how you would feel if you did something....you just assume your reactions because you know the sort of person you are...how you think...how you WOULD feel.
most of the time, your assumptions are correct because yes...you DO know yourself that well.... but sometimes...when life does put you in a situation you've only previously assumed about and you react shockingly differently from how you would have imagined yourself do you realize that you do NOT always have the answers about yourself.
That you CAN be wrong.
That you need to live life with an open mind.

Egypt kind of smacked me in my face. It threw me for the loop-
who was i really? why was i enjoying THIS? why was i NOT enjoying that?

I think when you are on your own, you have the choice to groom your character and habits according to how YOU fit correct. Here, in the shelter of your parents homes surrounded by older siblings and family, you tend to get moulded into what is expected of you. It's a fine line between what you want... and what you REALLY want. It gets you thinking, would i be this person i am today if i had it my OWN way? And yes, mostly yes... because you weren't beaten up to be like this...you are from a liberal family...BUT...thanks to the trip...you know some things would be different...how different they would be is the golden question.

A question that a journey to find the answer to, would surely be worth your while.

Six Degrees of Seperation

2009-01-18T01:06:00.001+05:00

This is a pretty straight forward post-
but i'm interested in how you guys interpret it and how it applies personally in your individual lives...

Tales of an Ugly Duckling....

2009-01-12T14:55:00.003+05:00

Okay so bear with me this post.......

So this really happened.
I bumped into an old school friend and she runs to me

Friend: "kAyyyy is that really you???? you've turned out gorgeousss!"
Me: "umm...."
Friend: "It's like a complete transformation!"
Me: "uhhhuh..hmm *smile* thank you?"
Friend: "Noooonooooo you were alwayyss....CUTE you know..."

(i think she got flustered after that because she realized she'd kinda lost her groove)

This isn't the only incident though.
Yesterday a friend on msn messages me..he says:

Friend: "Dude, your looks have really changed havent they?"
Me: "umm...."
Friend: "Is it the makeup?? because a few years ago you didn't look like you do now."
Me: " uh huh.. :) yes..could be the makeup?"

These are just two incidents...amongst the several i have had- esp this december at friends weddings...bumping into people i had not met since school...what i dont get is that okayyy i wasn't the prettiest person back in school but i was not THAT bad (lol) for people to get *shocked* at the way i look now. :S

oh well...

moral of the story: long live make-up and evolution.

2009-01-10T00:10:00.001+05:00

Okay lets have a light hearted post for a change... i have been accused of being too flamboyant :P a term i'm not entirely uncomfortable being referred to as :)

So, its fairly straight forward, you are supposed to try things in life...making the effort ...doing your bit and THEN leaving it to God...once you are satisfied with the energy you put into something. I hate it when people say "Allah pay chorr do"...as in do nothing? that's not even tremendous faith! its tremendous stupidity! Even God will get pissed at you for being lazy!
My mom and i have several arguments about this theory. Her faith is immeasurable...to a point where miracles can happen overnight if God wishes. Dont get me wrong...Its true.. i believe that too but my personal life is in no need of any miracle really at the moment ( thank God). i'm just the regular aim for what she wants..try my best..and then pray to God to get it type...don't miracles happen in lost cases? or hopeless scenarios?
Anyway,
it's like that story of the guy who kept praying all his life to God wanting to win the lottery and when he died and met God he asked why God did not grant him the only thing he wanted in life, that is to win the lottery? and God said, "you never bought a ticket!!".
so there is a lesson somewhere in that somewhat obvious story! And how or why does it apply to me at this point in life? College application time ppl!
FB is applying to 4 places for me and i was telling me mom i want to apply to 2 more ( as a backup) just so that i don't have any regrets later.
I have no clue what i am up against as competition in the MFA program so i don't want to take any chances of rejection.

So in my madness of gathering recommendations, filling out apps and getting portfolio made my mother walks in one night in my room and catches me flustered and filling out various stuff online. She takes one look at me :

Mom: "Beta, just know, kay no matter how many places you apply to, if you are not MEANT to go... you WON'T go, so just relax and go to sleep."
:P blunt concern is always the sweetest.

Me: amma, These (pointing to the extra non FB apps) are my lottery tickets.

She understood then. We've discussed that story and both agree its a valid point.

Wish me luck ppl and pray for me because my end is done now..now it is all up to Allah Mian.
:)

cheers,
kAy

KNOW THY COUNTRY!!!

2009-01-08T16:00:00.002+05:00

Why are my blog so country oriented these days???
oh well- maybe its because of all the ridiculousness i have been observing!

So i went to watch this new and apparently happening improv comedy troop perform a few weeks ago at the Arts Council. Overall it was an okay show. It had its fantastic moments but then it had its "whatjusthappenedhere" moments too. So it evened out.
This show although performed primarily in English had around 85% cultural/local connotations ( i suppose we find humour within our surroundings) and it WAS funny..except if you were a foreigner attending the show...you would be pretty lost.

I had two Kenyan women and an American man sitting in the row behind me.
A joke about "Vaderas" came up and i heard them whisper, :
"What's a "Vadera"?"
I turned back and whispered: "It means Feudal Lord"

Their confusions and questions continued pretty much throughout the show- most of which i ignored because it was either answering them or watching the show myself.
I regret not turning around in time to answer one particular question though...a questioned answered by a fellow Karachi-ite girl sitting in the row behind them.
The skit was about a honeymoon couple, honeymooning in...waitforit...Nazimabad.

Foriegners: "What's Nazimabad?"
Girl two rows behind: "Ohhh Nazimabad," (her desi american twang apparent) "Naazzimaabad is like this reallyyyy remote and rural part of Karachi...like really backward and narrow minded people live there."

*gasp*cough*choke*

For those who wish to know what Nazimabad ACTUALLY is:

"Nazimabad boasts a comparatively high literacy rate amongst other towns in Karachi, and a relatively low crime rate. It is considered an upper middle class town of the city. In late 1950s, the northern extension of Nazimabad, the North Nazimabad, was developed as a residential area for federal government employees. But in the early 1960s the capital of Pakistan was transferred from Karachi to newly developed capital Islamabad. On account of these two factors it is ranked as the most-planned town of Karachi, with blocks located alphabetically."-WIKIPEDIA-

Moral of the story: Shut up and watch the show.

Identity

2009-01-07T14:37:00.003+05:00

Okay...momentary lapse of blogging jitters all gone.
I was being silly-
how can i not blog. Its my vent place, and all those people who will never admit they want to keep tabs on my life will suffer seriously if i quit! :)

Identity.

Incident 1 : I had a rocking new years eve this year. No i was not partying till dawn with fifty billion people or anything ultra exciting. i was on a double decker boat with some of my closest friends eating the best crab lollipops ever- having tea and just talking in the middle of the sea.
So there are six of us on the top deck sitting and enjoying the calmness when one friend "F" asks me:
" Would you give up your Pakistani passport for any other one- like American or British?"
Me: (without a thought) ofcourse not. I would go for Dual-nationality but never give up the green.
F: Dual is ideal situation. I would give the green up if i had to.
He then asked everyone.
J said " No way- green stays forever."
V said " Never- dual yes but Green it stays."
H said " Not even dual. Green it is."
A said " OFCOURSE i would give it up. I'll throw it in the sea RIGHT now!"
:S hmmm.
4 out of 6 isn't bad i suppose.

Incident 2:
I went alone to the get my Passport validity extended so that i could go study abroad and come back on a single visa.
i sat waiting with token in hand for my turn to come.
Behind me was a woman with her two children. One boy and One girl. Both looked about 15 years old. Perhaps a year apart.
They had a man scurrying about getting their stuff done so all the had to do was sit there, get their picture taken and leave.
The wait was killing the two kids (it was 9 am in the morning). And unfortunately i heard a bit of the conversation mainly because they were incredibly and annoyingly LOUD.

Boy (whining) : This 'suckkksss'.
Mother: While you are waiting, here read this book, it has the incident about Hazrat Ali when he approached the King of Egypt and the letter he sent to him-
Boy: UGH- i raathher sleeep.

His sister then tries to fix his hair for the picture.
boy: what are you Doiinngg? i look like a Freakiinn Gaaayyy.

His sister then pokes him.
boy: You BITCH! you nearly took my eye out! ooooww owwwww owwwww!

What followed for the next hour was the brother and sister poking and teasing and making fun of eachother in ways that should not have been allowed in public.. esp at a passport office where simpler people stared at these tall for their age immature kids.

I thought of identity again. We were sitting there getting the same passport but dear lord how different we were.

It is what you make it.

to blog or not to blog in 2009

2009-01-05T02:08:00.003+05:00

THAT is the question.

HAPPY 2009 everyone.

Cairo-A'arba

2008-12-15T23:12:00.002+05:00

My apologies for those who have been waiting for this post- those who messaged and emailed me.. many apologies!
okay so coming to the post- honestly, charming someone is an art- an attractive quality to possess but like i said, age doth make a man wiser. Through experience i have learnt this, and because 14 year old Bedouin boys need to learn that when the nice lady has said she doesnt want to marry you, you dont grab on to her arm and pull it till it hurts.
Other than that because i seemed to gel in and look Arabic/Egyption- i got treated with respect and in times of doubt or just to make conversation people would just yell out "where from ? where from? espaniol? italiana? mexican?" and when i would yell back "LA. Pakistani" they would be thrilleddd (not the reaction i expected) and yell back "Musalman?? mashallah!".
it was all very random but made me smile every time, which made them smile and we went on with life. no fear of this guy following me home, stalking me on my cell and making my life miserable. it was liberating to smile at someone on the road- get a smile back and LEAVE IT AT THAT. Over here, I actually know a girl who was blamed for "leading a guy on" by the dude coz she smiled at him :S yes..very random.

We are an intensely emotional qaum.

Cairo- Thalatha

2008-11-29T16:40:00.002+05:00

I'm going to be very random in this post because there are a lot of things eating me from inside so bear with the disconnected flow of thought please.

1. What is up with the world?
Bangkok..India...Pakistan.
We are on a roll.
It's sad...frustrating...deeply saddening.

2. Egypt has it's issues honestly, no person alive thinks their government is spot on-
but they don't harm their fellow men- they don't snatch what is not theirs- they don't become drastically violent.

3. Pakistan is in a league of it's own.
I met a guy from Yemen very randomly while exploring the Citadel.
We ended up spending the most of the afternoon together museum hopping inside.
By the end of our adventure he turns to me and says,
"Wow, you are so normal for a Pakistani- all the ones i studied with suffered from some big time superiority complex and major attitude problem."
:S

How i pray he met the "wrong bunch" while living there and not every Pakistani abroad loses his sense of humility after migrating to the world of so called "better and brighter" prospects.

4. Which brings me to the growing issues of "prahay likhay jahil" in our country.
They are on a serious rise. An unbelievably serious rise.
Let's all say this together, loudly and clearly,
"The world revolves around a point.
That point is NOT you."

5. Be tolerant.
Be safe.

cheers,
kAy

Cairo- Ithnain

2008-11-24T00:52:00.003+05:00

My second day in Egypt was spent in Khan-al-Khalili. It's a very touristy bazaar ( read trap) but my friend and i got lost and ended up in a local part of the bazaar on the other side of the bridge where there were no tourists at all.
I was mistaken for being Egyptian and i had people constantly trying to converse with me Arabic. That cat you see up there was one of the creepiest things i ever saw- and it just kept staring at me.
meanwhile a woman dressed in black kept chanting something to me ( i kid you not) she was chanting and calling out to me and i kept running.
any minute i thought, i was going to fall into some time portal and King Tut would be giving the command to have me beheaded.
yes...i am a dreamer and life does mean drama.

Cairo- Wahid

2008-11-19T22:44:00.002+05:00

Okay- firstly, i loved egypt. minus the pollution caused by insane traffic- the place is awesome- yes it has it's issues, which country doesn't?
so the first day i spent mostly at the museum and walking along the Nile.
More than the museum, i enjoyed the courtyard outside the museum where there were hundreds of tourists walking around, taking a break or taking pictures. since mine was a solo expedition, i took ample time in just watching them, observing the variety of cultures before me...how they enjoyed themselves, how the sat, they talked, they observed other people. it was fascinating seeing so many different races together in one place- hearing several different language spoken all at one in this excited chatter.
all in all- it was an ideal start to a trip that turned out to be very memorable.

Salaam Cairo!

2008-11-01T14:59:00.002+05:00

okaayy so it's all done- am booked to leave for Cairo early next week to visit my childhood bff for ten days! am terribly excited and am praying inshallah i have a great trip (both photography wise and otherwise).
no need to promise trip blogs when i come back because that goes without saying!
i don't think i have any Arab readers but hey if there is some silent Arab lurking around here send in suggestions of things to do and places to see in Cairo. you guys know the email address by now! lifemeansdrama@gmail.com !

i plan to take a weekend trip up to Alexandria for sure- and since i have working friends i'm looking to catch some tourist day tours with some hotel. suggestions in that department are seriously needed!

the right amount of faith

2008-10-27T14:51:00.002+06:00

So my nephew LOVES blowing candles.
He knows once he blows them out you have to physically relight them and always insist we do so. So here is him being introduced to Magic Candles :P they re-lit themselves 10 times over and Naadi was in total AWE! miracles do happen eh?

not just that-
it works for older people too.
last week my sister returned a hair fiber paste i had given to her to try out- claiming it was too sticky she left it accidentally on my mothers bedside. The other day i saw my mom putting that substance on my nephews hands and rubbing it!!
i told her that was fiber putty for hair!

mom: "oh no! ive been putting it on my hands and feet before going to sleep every night thinking it's cold cream!! and i was thinking it was too sticky but my feet reaaly did become more soft!!"

moral of story: believe in it and it shall not disappoint you :P

batchmates

2008-10-21T23:10:00.004+06:00

so an old O'level/grade school batch mate died in a hit and run accident on Monday morning. may he rest in peace.
and whoever that asshole was who left him there, may you rot in hell.

sorry if i offended anyone but a hit and run is just bloody well inexcusable.

THINK.CLICK.BLOG.

2008-10-19T02:50:00.003+06:00

okaayy we just hit 300 with this post!!
*clap*clap*clap*
this is a lil bit of a sneak preview for a poster i am working on for an exhibition i am taking part in next month.
very initial stages and might chuck it if it doesn't turn out nice but i loved the idea.
all my blog posts in one poster...kind of documenting everything important that happened in my life in the last couple of years. :)
jammies idea it was of course ! as was the idea of me blogging at all. push came to shove when i just wouldn't blog :P
thanks jammie for the shove!
cheers all!

Feeling the moment

2008-10-12T01:47:00.006+06:00

so i have great news.
something which i just couldn't make a proper blog about coz i just didn't know what to say! my dreams are coming true...slowly and surely...one by one.
i got the Fulbright scholarship (wooohoo!)-for those who dont know what that is, basically is a fully funded scholarship to study anywhere in the US complete with a living stipend. :)
so kAy was worth it after all eh? :P
i bet all of you have guessed what i will be specializing in...(one...two...three..) photography! :) ( who didn't see THAT one coming ;))
my dream/ideal/top priority city of choice to study in is NY.
if anyone ( silent spectator readers included) has anyy suggestions about where i should apply for a kickass photography post grad program send please either comment or send in your suggestions at lifemeansdrama@gmail.com

hard to believe days in khi are numbered- Inshallah things will go smoothly and next year you guys will be seeing a very very new blog documenting all my new experiences inshallah!

cheers all!
kAy

Ode to Irani

2008-09-30T14:40:00.002+06:00

Here is the story...
My sister married F, an Iranian classmate of hers who can't speak Urdu, understands a little though, couldn't speak English till he landed in Karachi 9 years ago- still struggles to understand when my sisters and i rapidly converse- he usually phases out when us sissies get together.
The poor guy tries really hard with this whole language problem and he is getting better at it! but sometimes, it just really IS too tough.
So the other day my sister calls him up while he is out doing groceries:
M: "on your way home get me season 2 UGLY BETTY"
F: "we don't need it..."
M: "listen i WANT it- please..it will make me feel better..."
F: "but I've already left the supermarket"
M: "so? just go back and get it"
F: "but we don't NEED it"
M: don't argue- just get it for me."

--- when he reaches home he hands her two packets of AGARBATTI (incense sticks) and says "we already had 4 in the drawer."-----

I rest my case! :P
Love you F.

A girl's best friend...

2008-09-24T06:46:00.002+06:00

It's unconventional but why not get down on one knee and propose with a 580EX flash head instead of a ring? it certainly costs the same if not less- and i know i would surely say yes to THAT proposal.

For those of you wondering why my cynicism over the Marriot bomb blast did not flood this place- lets just say i lashed out somewhere else entirely and got it out of my system.

the idealists in me

2008-09-09T16:35:00.002+06:00

okay so i admit there were tiny glimmers of hope that Zardari would not be president right before i switched on the tv. But a cynical voice in me knew all along.
There is only one Bhutto who has her head in the right place; Fatima.

The rest are just enjoying the game with Pakistan as their playground.

Stand up for the champion

2008-09-06T16:56:00.001+06:00

He did it.
We have the honour of having one of the most corrupt men in the WORLD as the future president.
congratulations Pakistan.
we did it again!

Ramzan 08

2008-09-04T06:30:00.003+06:00

It is said that this month, the devil is chained.
Which means any evil we commit is the poison that has been fed in our souls in the previous 11 months since the previous Ramazan.
I've never been more conscious of my actions in my life...

Happy birthday to me 2008

2008-08-29T01:30:00.002+06:00

Above pics explained: Got home past midnight from celebrating pre birthday with friends to be given a heart attack when i enter my room- pitch dark at that point full of family (sisters/cousins etc)and gifts- my first surprise in exactly 17 years!
the 25 gifts...with 25 questions attached- could only be opened if i answered each family trivia question correctly :) ( i got 22 right )

you sisters outdid yourself this year-
You special ppl in my life who make life so special for me, nothing compares to you- nothing ever will.

Dedicated to Dada-Azadi 2008

2008-08-15T14:08:00.003+06:00

Happy 14th August everyone.
Somehow last year i was going through a really bad phase . I just saw my old 14th August post. Wow was i cynical. Rightfully so though. Not much has changed, except this year i thought about what it must have been like in 1947. How hard they worked to get us our own place- something we could call just ours.
Must thank my Grandfather for his eternal patriotism and his beautifully written songs that never fail to make me feel proud of where i am from.

"Jab hum nay Khuda ka naam liya
Uss nay humein Inaam diya
Mera Inaam Pakistan"

(When we took the name of God
He gave us a reward
My reward was Pakistan."

Dada- you have a way with words. :)
For those who want to hear his song here you go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YINWpbl1hs

Where is the line?

2008-08-13T03:19:00.002+06:00

There is this invisible line that separates "enjoying" from "leading on".
Lets not lie to ourselves and admit we all have enjoyed the attentions of someone we know we will never actually be seriously interested in...the sweet ones, the good looking ones, the friends and the foes. But no one ever wants to intentionally hurt someone...its that damn invisible line you just have to watch out for and not cross....or be anywhere near.
But makes me wonder, if even enjoying these attentions is wrong...

Mythical it is!

2008-08-01T02:24:00.002+06:00

Whether it is on the street or your own home, it seems it is the other persons business and legal right to know in detail about your business in life. Random acquaintances inquiring after your plans of when you intend to marry and whom you intend to marry to people you cross on the road who stare you down to see what you are wearing, where you are walking to and what you intend to buy. Having lived ONLY in Karachi, i truly wonder if this is a cultural trait or a universal one.

ps: my deep apologies to the man living in the building across my building. i had a point to prove through this blog...although why change in front of a full length window with all your lights on at night?

THIS (according to some)

2008-07-28T02:06:00.000+06:00

what say you?

dancing till dawn

2008-07-22T02:54:00.001+06:00

khizzy- i bet you can relate :P

me no ripple. me a splash.

2008-07-10T20:39:00.001+06:00

1y+1m

2008-06-29T21:44:00.002+06:00

He is one year and one month old.
How time flew by.
Every prayer and every amount of thanks falls short.
Sorry i'm late naadi, happy birthday,
love,
Mommy #2

Mumbai Part 12- Finale

2008-06-23T01:09:00.002+06:00

Credits for the pics go to khizzy in this blog!
Can't thank her enough for taking me to Mumbai- it was the most awesome trip of my life.
hope you guys could relate to what i went through ( most of you did ) :)
cheers.

Mumbai Part 11

2008-06-22T00:24:00.003+06:00

I'm alive! just a little caught up with some research.
One more to go. promise kal.

so there is a story here as well. other than the fact i was yet again told off by the train conductor that i couldn't photograph (much to khizzy embarrassment again)- i was limited. when we got off at CHURCHGATE (and not churchill) we ran into this guy who was protesting the raise of flour prices. had a good talk with him about peoples rights after which he told us to walk straight on and meet the 700 protesters outside the station :S
yes we did not go straight...we took a right.

Mumbai Part 10

2008-06-18T00:35:00.004+06:00

im remembering all the conversations that meant something.
About Islam and the Quran with Nats.
About Musharraf and Benazir with Nats Uncle.
About India and Pakistan with Nats friend.
About Nikon vs Canon with ravi.
About the media industry and clients with Prahlad.
About Astrology and Islam with V Aunty.
About how to always be passionate about the work you do with Sunil.

so many more...

Mumbai Part 9

2008-06-17T01:55:00.003+06:00

okay so we had a rocking time right when khizzys birthday was about to happen.
we went to Hard Rock cafe and right about 12am the waiters gathered around with some 10 of us hovering around her while the live band played "Jailhouse Rock".
After the boisterous singing and cutting of the cake as per Hard Rock tradition Khizzy had to eat the cherry off a plate of whipped cream which the waiter was holding. Naturally she had to do this without touching the plate or the cherry- that is with her mouth...you can only guess what happened.
best part is i have it on video tape :P
lots more happened that night.
Ill leave the description of the famous tree trunk cafe to khiz.

Mumbai Part 8

2008-06-14T00:06:00.000+06:00

So i decided i would end with part ten...two more to go. :)

Mumbai Part 7

2008-06-13T00:53:00.001+06:00

sorry part 7 is late-
i fell ill :(
made me remember just how relaxing Mumbai was for me.

Mumbai Part 6

2008-06-10T19:34:00.003+06:00

Yes people- it was a very entertaining trip full of discoveries and varied beliefs that made it so interesting to get to know "them" and make them know "us".
The last quote has a story to it :P ofcourse Swami Ji was refering to me and khizzy in private when talking to our hostess. I'll let khizzy do the honours and tell you this one since, once again, it was all my fault!

Mumbai Part 5

2008-06-10T00:37:00.000+06:00

here is the story:
customs at the airport stopped me and told me they needed to check all my bags. After much discussion they just couldn't understand why i was carrying so many cameras till one smart man looks curiously at me and exclaims he knows the reason- its because i am from National Geographic and did not want to pay the customs duty on my SLR :S
and check this- he totalled the cost of one SLR, on Semi SLR h9 and one minidv handy-cam at 20 thousand rupees.
It took all my strength not to burst out laughing right there but i stood there solemnly nodding saying yes...you are so right..very true...next time i would pay the customs duty on it.
what followed was immense amounts of flirting on khizzys part with them to get me out of the mess. :P
thanks khiz. :)

Mumbai Part 4

2008-06-08T17:31:00.001+06:00

Don't get me wrong- i love Karachi- but it was seriously refreshing having options.

Mumbai Part 3

2008-06-07T23:17:00.002+06:00

So this really happened. Apparently our Indian friends had heard just about every other excuse from Muslims for not drinking from having a headache that night to being pregnant but never what we said.
strange...very strange.

ps: this is an iMAC post! (woohoo)

Mumbai part 2

2008-06-06T21:04:00.000+06:00

The next post shall be from an iMAC!

Mumbai Part 1

2008-06-05T14:20:00.003+06:00

Its late but the memories are still fresh.
Computer still acting up- Mac Book pro here i come.

A blog per day from me till india series is over.

cheers.

crash and burn

2008-06-01T18:57:00.001+06:00

Okay so my computer has crashed horribly.
:( everything was on it- the nice computer ppl are trying to save stuff...it shall take some time.

blogging on hold till i get it back :(

finally

2008-05-11T22:24:00.002+05:00

Okay so initially a week after we got booked - we cancelled the trip-
ad-man and wifey dropped out due to ad-mans brothers sudden and tragic death
(read khizzy blog for details). A week later ad-man insisted we go without them and after much convincing khizzy and i gave in.
So unfortunatley delhi is out but mumbai is on.
Tomorrow morning we fly out to mumbai!

cheers for all the people who sent in advice about how we should spend our time there. If you come up with more stuff ( like any festival you know of) please let me know!

ive even got an email addy now for those who wish to email me

till later!

Mumbai aur Delhi-tayyar ho jao! hum aa rahe hain!

2008-04-26T16:19:00.000+05:00

Khizzy has her own way of cheering me up i must say.
How many friends do you have who just ask for your passport and the next thing you know you know you have one week of your life all planned out for you in another country?
so all you indian bloggers out there or anyone who has been to india- readers, non readers, regulars, non regulars, comment-type and non comment-type, silent and outspoken, let the suggestions of what we should do or could do or even what we should NOT do pour in.
We'll have 5 days and nights in Mumbai and 2 days and nights in Delhi.

cheers!

Honouring 'SB'

2008-04-19T20:26:00.000+05:00

There come people in your life at times who make you feel grateful for what you have. They make you feel grateful for the simplest things, like your eyes, your face, your ability to read or write- the fact that you are normal. We call them special and they call us special. We think we are lucky and we start thanking Allah for everything He has given us without us ever really having asked for it. And when such people leave, we come to realize it is them who were the lucky ones, them who got heaven-Allah’s greatest gift, without having even asked for it.
So here I am honoring one such person in my life, who even in his twenties used to feel happy when offered a Coke, who jumped for joy when treated to ice cream, who laughed and danced at weddings like there was no tomorrow, who’s dream was to go to Dubai, who boisterously joined in to have fun, who quietly slipped out when he was tired. Here is honoring “SB”, who quietly slipped out for the last time yesterday in his dream destination, Dubai, after having one of his dreams come true.
Thank you for being a part of my life. We seldom met- but you never went unnoticed.
May you rest in peace.

healthy changes

2008-04-18T13:24:00.000+05:00

so here it is the new look.
:)

ego bruise

2008-04-07T01:19:00.000+05:00

For those who have been wondering how a regular blogger like me isnt photographing her mind away and plastering it all over this page is because ive hit a rough spot.
A few losses and some bad experiences have taken its toll on my mood.
It has inspired me though, to bring about some change in the way this page looks. I helped khizzy out with hers so i figured lets help myslef too. Check back again in a day or two- this place should look a little different.

cheers.

going no where

2008-04-01T22:19:00.000+05:00

Falak Sufi [24th Dec. 1984~20th Mar. 2008]

2008-03-20T19:26:00.000+05:00

FRIDAY, MARCH 04, 2005
ode to friends
http://lifemeansdrama.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_archive.html

You never once forgot birthdays.
It didnt matter whose birthday it was.
you remembered and you emailed.
You emailed on eid. religiously.
You emailed when you heard something important had happened in our lives.
Always the first to wish well or to congratulate.
You were actually in all honesty one of the most perfect people i knew.
One of the best friends i ever had. So here is to our childhood, our youth and our adulthood.
Here is to 17 years of friendship Falak Sufi, and we will always be the eight girlfriends we were.
May you rest in peace.

I think too much.

2008-02-28T13:54:00.000+05:00

me myself and i

2008-02-22T01:07:00.000+05:00

“It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.”
-W.Shakespeare-

naam ki citizenship

2008-02-18T22:13:00.000+05:00

Okay so like many others, i was also "unregistered".
sigh.
Not that i was particularly dying to vote for any one person- but as my mom puts it so wisely; "Vote for the lesser Evil".
Next time...perhaps.

to vote or not to vote- that is the question.

2008-02-17T01:04:00.000+05:00

h-v-day-not so single ppl!

2008-02-14T00:31:00.000+05:00

Okay- even though i am all for the pampering yourself thing- its awesome whem guys go out of their way to make valentines day special. Check out what a newly-wed friend's hubby did for her.
http://uecho.deviantart.com/art/i-heart-u-77255845

So, im a hopeless romantic. Whoever visits, pls share a personal valentine day story!

h-V-day2008-single people of the world!

2008-02-14T00:23:00.000+05:00

So, i went shopping with jammie and kookie who wanted to buy things for their respective husbands. the general red-ness of the city was a bit overwhelming and a little overdone. honestly, there were hearts e v e r y w h e r e. i saw guys buying tons of candy and flowers by the dozen- it was strangely endearing.
so rather than fall into major depression i decided to be my own valentine- i didnt find anything good to buy myself today but there is always tomorrow :P and yes, i do intend to pamper myself! why wait for someone else to do it i say!

karachi ki lover

2008-02-06T00:33:00.000+05:00

why girls dont share

2008-02-04T01:02:00.000+05:00

i admire...

2008-01-22T17:26:00.001+05:00

default bliss

2008-01-22T17:19:00.000+05:00

longing

2008-01-16T00:25:00.000+05:00

moving on...

2008-01-16T00:22:00.000+05:00

Getting somewhere

2008-01-05T16:53:00.000+05:00

trapped!

2008-01-04T00:23:00.000+05:00

so i hit 251 with this post of mine
and according to my stat counter close to 50,000 hits since i installed it last year which is pretty cool :)
to all those who comment- i really appreciate the dialogue we have-
to all those who don't- i see your URL's on my counter so i know u are there.
The funniest is that you guys come from all over...sweden, dominican republic (spelling?), kenya, germany.
i appreciate the pit stops!

stay safe,
cheers.