Am I back??? and other things

No, I know it’s not Winter and infact it’s not even in the air anymore….if anything, Winter has passed away with a chill and a wave….Even so I am hibernating….no! No! I haven’t shifted to Australia either …btw does Australia has bears????….I know the cute, cuddlyKoalas are there, though I’m not sure about their being cuddlesome…I’ve only seen Koalas on NatGeo and animal sticker sheets.

 So anyway I have totally digressed from what I originally wanted to say…I wanted to say that I have been and may even continue to be ‘hibernating‘ for a while….You know how they say if there is a problem then ’sleep on it!’ I’m literally trying to do that ….. and Ya besides lethargy being my lifelong friend I have , like other people, stuck the same bumper sticker on me: “Sorry I am very busy now a days”….(Whatever!!*!$)…

This last Saturday our company arranged for us to attend a Time Management session by one Dr. Hanif Mohammad….despite it being a Saturday a working day, the session went quite well, thanks to Samra, Preeyaa, Basit and Nida….and even myself for our continual quips and remarks throughout….However Dr. Hanfi said that if you are unable to complete your tasks within a given time frame then you must be slacking somewhere and that you should take each task as an ugly frog which you have to eat.

He said: “Suppose you have to eat a very big, extremely Ugly frog everyday….When would you eat it?”

Almost all of us agreed that it would be early in the morning…Bingo!! that was his point anyway….Our tasks are our toads and we must try to do away with them as soon as first ray of sun manages to fight itself into your eye…Oh man! wouldn’t Fear Factor guys would have simply loved this? One thing…infact two things which rung a bell somewhere in the remote depths of my mind (where there is certainly not a vacuum…or else I wouldn’t have heard the chiming) Two things were:

1. 
    Brainstorm hard and think, what is that one thing that is most important in your life and that you want to achieve……Squeeze out atleast 30 mins each day to work on towards that goal!!
2. Take out five to fifteen minutes each day in the morning and ‘prioritize‘ your tasks…needless to say start with the tasks that would fall in the category of ‘Urgent&Important’, synonymous with ‘Critical’…this way tasks that are left wouldn’t be that important anyway…..

Dr. Hanif also told us and we calculated on that, that each of us atleast waste an hour of our office working hour which when divided by out monthly salary and then multiplied by number of weeks in a year…gave the company a loss of atleast xxxmillion Rupees, God! that’s huge….which reminds me I should get on with the web setup of Iris (our company’s internet banking and much more ,utility)…I dropped by here while the Oracle10g Client is installing itself with me occasionaly clicking an option here and there..besides with me having the advantage of coming in early today

So anyways, what I really wanted to say was that, that I might be hibernating for some time and then again maybe not but even so, if this DayBreak seems to be taking a little longer than usual kindly do not think that I got lost in the dark somewhere…I’m BUSY

 …..

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in trying to find the land of the rising sun (metaphorically speaking ) 

Real, rebel and realization

 So I was asked:

“When you say you try to do things differently, you mean that you are a rebel or what?”

I replied:

“Well being a rebel is not all about being a crazy revolutionary…it’s about not conforming to the generals set standards of doing everything…and I don’t mean breaking the rules to be different”

We are living in an age with a warped sense of admiration…we look up to people who have an attitude the size of  Everest, we are impressed by people who dare to bare and can walk about in the latest of the fashions. We come under the awe of people who readily say ‘no’ to anything if they don’t want to do it just so the others may know they are not to be taken for granted….. to face we all just might hate the guts of all these people but somewhere deep inside we rave about them and more often than not we go after them like pathetic poodles on a leash!

It’s all about making a statement. We all want to be a part of the hip crowd…we all want to be what they call ‘cool’. A friend of mine used to say that she just couldn’t respect this word ‘cool’ since it lacked the depth of any real meaning….Been a long time since I was in contact with her but now I can understand what she meant…..It’s about a  mad race to being accepted and admired, sometimes forgetting where we are coming from. As humans we all need appreciation and continual reminders that we are worth something and to that end we often end up smudging the outlines of our own characters to architect for ourselves a personality that is easy to be consumed by others…or the one that people do not find easy to question.

It kills me to think that people always expect girls to be the more primping and preening type. They are required to paint their faces under layers of makeup, support tons of jewellery and (not to make you laugh) be bare of specs to look good and dressed up. Someone dressed up neatly with hair tied up properly and wearing glasses is very gravely made to understand by the ‘aunties’ and ‘mommies’ to be not so simple! Even though it should be up to the person in question to dress up the way that she thinks suits her persona better.

It’s pretty funny actually and it often makes me laugh for we are trying to trade ‘originality’ with the transitional ‘trends’ of the time What we forget in this sheep following sheep trend that being ‘cool’ is all about being yourself with an open mind that there is always room for improvement. People who stand out and remain standing are those whose confidence in themselves is not marred by what is ‘in’ or ‘out’ and for that they don’t have to bend the rules or be outrageous.

I may be a rebel for I stick to fairplay and believe me playing by the rules is way more difficult then tasking the easy way out. Sticking to the moral, ethical, cultural values is thought to be far too old fashioned and conservative in this world of compromised values…but to think if doing the right things is being conservative then well I may be guilty. We find our feet when we learn to stand on our own…and that is also all about taking a chance!

World hold on….

 I could say a score on the disturbed political system of my country and bad ethical conditions and how we are so dead and morbid as a nation but frankly I’m too tired of same old wives’ tale, of too much talk and too little action…also when I know that it is a well understood truth but not necessarily the entire one. Maybe I’ve entered the twilight zone where nothing registers anymore…but the half sun is always shining….that’s me…the strangest pessimistic optimist ever….

Well 10 years down the lane and with perfect periodicity we are on the route to the martial law again (I wish I could search the graph of the martial laws in Pakland but I’m too lazy to do that right now). Democracy, dictatorship, are simply words found in the D section of a dictionary. Right now all I care about is the peace within my land. I fear for the economy, the crash that may ensue. I’m afraid of strikes and rallies and suicide bombers and I most certainly detest the concept of our own brave young men fighting and killing our own brave, young men.

Too early to say anything…the doves are straining to fly south, the eagles have spread their wings and their sharp sight is looking for prey….but most satisfied of all, are the vultures smugly perched atop trees and waiting for the first drop of blood to ooze…

Not yet 1:00….in peace

 00:40 am,

“two bomb blasts near the BB’s truck…injured shifted to Jinnah Hospital”

What?#%^^%^%&

The whole day passes by peacefully as everyone worries about the peace situation after the 12^th May tragedy but it seems that this rally would be rather peaceful and not to mention painfully sluggish as well. I had gone out with my family to a family friends of ours and my dear city of lights looked oddly desolate and ghostly as if stripped off of it’s life…somewhat like after a curfew…..but atleast everyone was relieved that no disturbance had occurred throughout the day…..

And now….almost 60 people dead several are injured as one after the other explosion happens probably in two police mobiles parked just near the BB’s truck.

Everyone worried that something may go wrong….did we jinx it that way? Policemen and reporters as well as the young lads paid to dance and shout all day, die….I should be surprised…but I bet  NO ONE is, we expected this all along didn’t we….I wonder if this is an another of those political tactics engineered to put the blame on terrorism or opposition or some such….why is it that, as said the blasts are targeted towards one leader or another, they always end up hurting anyone BUT the target?

I’m not making much sense now but what do you expect….what is this war that we are fighting??!!

Human flesh and blood is splattered around the area under the Karsaz bridge, air is filled with the blaring horns of ambulances, the anguished cries of people in excruciating pain….

Ironic as it may sound, but this song is definitely for Karachi:

“….yeh shehar hai aman ka….

Yahan pay sub shanti shanty hai……!!”

Oh Dear Allah Almighty forgive us our sins, help us through the bad times and bless us such that we may know what true peace is…Aameen….

Ya hayyiooo Ya Qayyumoo!