Switching Loyalties

I purchased my first sim around 5 years ago. It was a 0333 number. I flipped the sim pack and saw a bunch of teenagers pictures printed on it. One particular face caught my attention as he was the son of one of the most famous character of our tele history Kabacha. I joked with my cousin that “Hey look, Kabacha junior is a star now thanks to Mr. Kabacha.” We both laughed and went home.

The thing left my mind and life just moved on. All the telecom operators kept on bringing new services and kept on filling the air time. The slogans and chants just kept on buzzing in my head. Now what’s interesting is that the biggest cellular network provider of the country launched a new service of credit sharing. The ad they made was quite catchy. What surprised me is that Kabacha junior was in that ad. Endorsing the particular brand. This raised my eye brow a little but I was like “who cares”.

Days passed... the telecom market just kept on becoming more competitive day by day.
Now the third telecom giant launched a new campaign and guess what Kabacha junior is there again. Amazing isn’t it. One guy in his early 20’s with no experience of acting on the main stream or having any ramp experience endorsing 3 competitive firms one after an other.

The story doesn’t end here. Recently the first provider I mentioned launched a new package called the youth package and who’s the star of the campaign. No rewards for guessing but you have guessed it right. Its! Kabacha junior. Mind blowing isn’t it. One person just keep on switching companies at his free will. I wont be surprised if a year later he is seen endorsing the only remaining telecom provider.

I some where along my studies studied some thing called ethical behaviours. The whole world is crying about ethics and after looking at this particular example I have to say Ethics are for losers. Who needs ethics when your daddy has strong connections eh.

What’s more interesting is that no one is saying a word about it. It seems no one cares now as there are more examples. Ali Zafar and Waseem Akram also did the same thing but even they just switched once.

I am sick and tired of people coming on the tele and saying Pakistan has a lot of talent. What talent are those people talking about? One person is endorsing 3 companies changing loyalties at free will. If there was talent all the companies would have hired those talented people to be there brand ambassadors.

With great sorrow I have to agree to my model friend Mir Khan that talent doesn’t count in our industry. Just get some links and you’ll be a star in no time.

P.S
You can judge the popularity of that particular person that a big tv buff doesn’t even know his name.

big corporation man

PS
No Posts Till June. Mean While enjoy this awesome track by Haroon

Eradicating Polio

In the last week of April I got a 3 three day job offer to work at the polio control cell. I was more than happy as they were paying good and the work sounded really easy.
On the first two day I worked as the data entry operator and on the last day I used my call centre experience in to good use and attended the calls coming from all over the country.


All in all I can say that it was a fun job and it was a very easy way to earn some much needed quick cash but when I look back at those three days my heart fills up with sorrow and I feel guilty as I was a part of this campaign that was a total flop in my eyes.


The purpose of the campaign was to dispatch polio vaccination teams to the areas where the polio teams didn’t reach. Sounds really easy but thanks to I don’t know who the process has been made really complicated. They have made it a 3 step process over the years.
Step 1: receive the call from the effected areas.
Step 2: forward complain to the call forward team who call the DHO of the effected area, he/she dispatches the team.
Step 3: the data of the call is entered into an excel sheet.

Fair enough, but all of this didn’t work because the people were only in it for the easy cash and no one had the motive of social welfare.

Really innocent people from the rural areas kept on calling and only 10% of the complaints were properly answered.

I seriously don’t want to go into all the dirty details of the campaign but I’d like to highlight just one thing. Only 25 complaints were received via sms and the officials ran a ticker on the official television network that more than 15000 sms were received.

Now you people can guess what was going on at the polio control cell.

I'm Cracking

Mr. Rauf Kalasra is one of those journalists whose columns always create a buzz in the society. Most of the times the stories he break have the power to melt the stone hearted people. I agree to the fact that on some points I keep my differences with him but this place will not be used to discuss his political stance. This column is strictly related to his column published in TDJ on Friday 26th march 2010.

After reading this column I felt like a sick dog whose body is filled with blood sucker fleas and he’s inching away to death. The pain in the column is so strong that it can dumb struck anyone. As I am typing this my fingers are shaking with sorrow and grief. I can’t even think straight. I feel on an all time low. Why do incidents like this keep on happening on such a regular basis? I’m sure many of us hear these kinds of stories every day. I remember my ammi telling a some what same story on 10 October 2005.


The column is about an 11 year old girl from swat whose life was turned around by the GOD forsaken Taliban’s- the real enemies of Islam. The story is very short. The father of the girl joined Taliban’s because he received a ticket of heaven from them. He quitted on his family and started a quest against his own country men. He died when the forces started the operation. Her mother died a medical death soon after. At that point the girl left the house and ended up in the red light area. Just imagine a girl who is just 11, who has seen nothing in her life, who doesn’t even know the meaning of life properly ended up in the SIN HEAVEN and would have lived or died there had it not been for the merciful taxi driver in pindi who instead of dropping her to an alien place took her to his home and kept her with his family. Later on he took her to the Edhi centre.


Have we become so morally corrupt that for our own pleasure we don’t even resist from playing with young girls lives. The girls who have already lost every thing they have and the only thing they have with them is there pride. Yet we take that. How low can we get? How many girls have suffered through the hands of such morally corrupt people? How many stories are buried under the ashes? Who will look after these girls even if they are rescued? Who will marry these girls? Will the society ever accept them? Will they ever get justice?


Questions like these are just popping into my mind. I have started to loose it. I have come to a conclusion that it’s because of incidents like these our prayers don’t get answered and our nation is not making any progress. Unless and until we become morally pure we won’t be able to make any progress and will keep on lurking in the dark shadows.

P.S
I always try not to preach in my posts but some how I end up doing the same thing

My National Hero

I for one am a strong believer of the fact that Pakistan is the greatest country on mother earth. The potential that we hold is way beyond the limits of our imaginations and now As 23rd march is approaching fast, our media channels have started to broadcast special patriotic program’s. I’d like to ride the band wagon and write some words for a very special person who apparently is neglected by the material media these days.

That individual is my hero, our hero, pride of our nation, the founder of Khan Research Laboratory and the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program Dr. Abdul Qadir Khan.

Words are not enough to praise the services of this certain individual. If you ask me Pakistan till the Judgment day will not be able to repay the debt that we owe to Dr. Khan.

Dr. Khan left a very prosperous career for the security of Pakistan. In 1976 started he uranium enrichment program in Kahota. Since that point onwards there was no looking back. Pakistan came under severe pressure for its nuclear program by the western world but luckily this was one issue on which our leaders showed consensus.

From what I have heard Dr. Khan conducted 2 soft tests in early 80’s and that was the time Pakistan had unofficially become a nuclear power.

Dr. Khan is not just a scientist but he is a multi talented person. He writes a column in Daily Jang and it gets published every Wednesday. His column on the first mosque of sub continent was indeed an eye opener for a huge amount of the readers including me. Then his knowledge about the current developments in technology is also applauding. He single handedly sabotaged the American plan of locating our nuclear assets in 96 via the Permissive Action Links is also something amazing.

In the end I’d like to say that words are just not enough to praise the greats like Dr. Khan. The single shake hand with him when I was on class 7th was one of the most memorable moments of my life.

Long live Dr. Khan! You are and will always remain my Hero.

PAKISTAN ZINDABAD

C.P.E elections

Back in high school, a very good friend of mine contested in the school body elections. Unfortunately she lost by a huge margin. It was a good experience though.

Now after some years I found that C.P.E is organizing student body elections. At first thought of contesting but immediately dropped the idea because the election is for only two posts- President and Vice-President.

Two posts! just two posts. What on earth are they thinking? It seems that they don’t even know the whole concept behind elections. As this is not a place to give lectures or preach I’ll just highlight some of the funny things that I have noticed till now. The voting will be on Wednesday so actual winners can’t be predicted.

First thing that amused I was the sms alert by the management which said that Rs. 150 should be deposited to obtain a student card. As students without the card will not be allowed to vote. Excellent idea to mint money out of this whole plan. Kudos to the guy who came up with such ingenious idea.

The second thing is the party slogans. Quoting some of them right now:1. vote for me if you think life is beautiful
2. Vote for the lukyz
3. I am the solution to all your problems (it should have been I am behind all your problems)
4. Vote for evolution and revolution
5. Vote for justice for all

I haven’t been to C.P.E for past 3 days so I don’t know how things are turning out to be with the slogans and the chants.

The third thing is the interesting photographs on there banners. I mean do you have to put up pictures in which you are not even recognizable. Most of the candidates have printed pictures in which the flash of the camera is more visible than there face.

The most interesting thing is the distribution of ribbons by the candidates to the potential voters. One great person is distributing red ribbons every where as he’s running HIV awareness campaign.

There are some more interesting things as well but I am censoring them. As I don’t want to start controversies over here.

In the end, all the best to all those who are competing. Thanks for providing us with some much needed amusement.

Savour Foods

Hailing from a family that is notoriously famous for its excellent home made cooking (I am sure my foreign friends will testify to that) I was, is the first person to drift away from the home made delicacies to experiment on the food at the fancy restaurants, cafes and the desi restaurants. In my journey I discovered some excellent places to eat and on occasions paid a jaw dropping amount of bills pursuing my endeavors.

However, today I’d like to write about a restaurant which offers a lot of quantity and qua… well let’s just stick to quantity at a very reasonable price. Savour Foods Pulao Kebab has literally just one thing on the menu as every other thing they introduce fails miserably.

What started out as a humble place on college road offering cheap pulao for students and working people turned out to be the biggest revenue generator in the food and beverages industry of the twin cities. Now operating through four branches Savour by par is the most famous place for a quick meal among students. I bet there is very little number of people who have never been there or have never eaten pulao of Savour.

So what makes the very simple dish like a pulao so successful on a commercial scale? Well it’s a sum of number of factors. One the price, two the quantity, three the provision to get extra rice and curd at no extra cost. What more does an empty belly want.

Yet there are cons to this establishment. The biggest of them is that you have to share tables with random people. Sometimes you end up sitting next to a tableghi dude who starts his lecture at the spot. Once I sat next to this old timmer who was telling everyone his love story.

Yet no matter what time you go to Savour the place is crowded. On occasions I have waited for as long as 15 minutes to get a table.

So if you’re short of cash and want to eat out. Savour is the place to be.

The damage is yet to follow

After ditching the dinner at home today, I went to a night out with a good friend. “1969”, Jinnah and KC proved to be the places that were blessed with royalty. After reaching home at about 2300 hrs I found out that the guests have left and my dad was waiting for a friend who works for some organization that I cannot disclose here. So as always I asked Ammi for some food. Fortunately she had saved some malai chicken for me.

While I was helping myself to a huge serving I heard the door bell ring. As expected it was my dad’s friend. I ushered him to the drawing room and left to finish my food. I was done in a couple of minutes and started to watch the highlights of the cricket match that we lost today. My ammi called me to take the coffee for the guest. I entered the room with the coffee mugs and the home made cookies which smelled great (I smuggled one into my mouth before entering the room).

Upon entering the room I heard the guest saying that at the unfortunate moharam incident in karachi the biggest illegal money market in Pakistan was robbed. My jaw dropped straight away. The Bolton money market was known for entertaining every customer. Once in a sting operation a fake customer exchanged $100,000 for Pakistani rupees. That’s a jaw dropping 8.3 million PKR. No wonder no claim has been filled by the owners of those shops for compensation as that would expose them to the tax authorities.

Since it is proved that the whole incident was well organized, does this mean that robbing the market was also part of there plan? A place which can generate 8 million rupees in 5 minutes must be holding at least 80 million worth cash in both local and foreign currencies. Just imagine the kind of destruction can be done from that money. People say that the total damage was 5 trillion rupees but I say the damage has yet to start because I am sure that this money will be used for funding the terrorist activities.

Beware my country mates the damage is yet to follow.

Islamabad

How’s Islamabad?
If you ask this question from a person who grew up or lived some years here the most obvious answers would be “Aaaallaaa”, “Awesome”, “Cool town”.

Islamabad was the brain child of General Ayub Khan who wanted to shift the capital of Pakistan from Karachi to a strategically safer place. So the work was started in 1960’s (the foundation stone can be found at shakerparian). The city is par excellence when compared to any other city in the region.

For me growing up in Islamabad a.k.a Isloo was a privilege. Back then the city was less populated. Sectors G-11 and F-11 were not developed. The roads used to be empty and by maximum 2100hrs it was rare to find traffic on the roads. It used to be so quiet. No noise of the traffic. On Eid’s Isloo was almost deserted as most of the population used to travel to there ancestral homes. Thus Isloo got titled as “the city of living dead” by the Karachi walla’s and the Lahori’s.

Now I just laugh at the people who say that Isloo is a dead city. They are just misinformed and living in an illusion that they have created. I mean calling a city dead where a 7 star hotel is under construction is just so lame. That’s not all, it’s the city which is the hub of the political activities of the nation and still they call it dead. Amazing! I ask these people to please come and visit this place for a change and then make up there minds.

Islamabad as I recall it has always been like a dream place to live in. Sometimes I imagine as if it’s a place described in a romantic novel and we are just mere characters of that epic saga. the stunning margalla hills and the lovely Faisal mosque on one side, the mist that overtakes in winters, the sunsets in summers, the blooming flowers across the town in spring, ground covered by fallen leaves due to autumn and finally the thunderous rains in monsoon. Which place on earth will have weather like this?

To conclude the article a sad note, the dove monument at zero point which was the original monument of Islamabad has been removed due to the on going flyover construction over there has been removed.P.S
As it was the symbol of peace I wonder if they’ll put it back when it peace will be restored in the country.

Style Icon

Over the past few days there has been a great debate going on in my friends circle that who’s the biggest style icon in the history of this region. Most of the people just acted orthodox and ended up naming the film actors from the bollywood or some models. The justifications they gave were also not just lame but were very pathetic as well.

I still stick to my first choice and that is the founder of our nation Mr. Muhammad Ali Jinnah a.k.a Quaid-e-Azam.

He was known for his exquisite taste of branded Italian suits and leather shoes at the time when Mr. Gandhi used to roam around semi naked. His portraits at the national library are a showman of style. The tree piece suit, leather hat and shinny black leather shoes would even fit perfect in the modern age.

One of the most successful lawyers in the history of the Indian sub continent didn’t restrict his taste to just clothes. His mansion in Mumbai which was constructed under his watchful eye has been declared a national heritage by the Indian government and these days is valued at an estimated value on $300 million housed a wardrobe that would give a run for the money to the biggest designer stores of this era. A very close source once revealed that Mr. Jinnah had about 500 stitched suits in his wardrobe and approx 300 leather suits.

In his last days he developed a liking for sherwani and a cap which became so famous that people actually started to call it a Jinnah cap.

So here’s a person who was respected in whole of sub continent and was influencing the british and at the same was maintaining an exquisite sense of style.

For me Mr. Muhammad Ali Jinnah a.k.a Quaid-e-Azam is and will always remain the biggest style icon of Indian sub continent. No Khan or Bachan can come close to him when it comes to style.

when it comes to sex

If nations were to be tagged with mental disorders, Pakistan would be within a second, diagnosed as a “split personality” when it comes to sex.

Lurking in the shadows are things like hudood laws, gruesome honour killings of people (almost always women) who were “allegedly involved in illicit behaviours” and students threatening to expose other students for holding hands or being a little chummy. We constantly want to be the upholders of modesty and chastity.

On the flipside, Pakistan tops the charts as the country that searches for the word “sex” and is always somewhere in the top ten nations that enjoys watching porn. Our favourite’s jokes are about sex. Our modesty flies out of the window, while a thousand eyes stare at a female that walks on the road.

The obsession with sex maybe worldwide but here the thought of sex for most people (read men) in Pakistan triggers dogmatic feelings of control, disgust, evil and degradation. The truth is that sexuality is just the opposite.

P.S
The above piece was printed in TNS on 3rd January 2010.i thought of sharing it with u people