Here’re some skyscapes I thought I should share with you from the last three days.

Daman-e-koh with little moon

Look closely at the magnificent brush strokes!

Where was Rawal Dam when this shot was being taken!

No photograph or words can express the magnificence of this sunset (FJ Park)

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I’m sure all of you must have had the chance to drive by the Marghazar Zoo on your way to either having sheesha at “Jungle Spot” or going for a nice meal up on Peer Sohawa. The other day, I along with my camera decided to pay visit to the once coveted Japanese Park and the Zoo. Now If you’ve grown up in Islamabad, you must have fond memories of school trips to the Japanese parks, the new portal of “weird” and “interesting” jhoolas, the canteens, the frost juices and what not. Everything changes, and it has too. In a good way or a bad way, that I’m not sure of.

Landscaped, more flowers, more shades, but that feeling just wasn’t there. I guess it comes with age. But as it stood, it was a very safe haven, for people expressing their wishful thinking and unprecedented love for one another. Hallelujah. Merry making has taken a whole new twist, but then again so has the whole city so it wasn’t a surprise. But a public children park? really? *shakes head*

On to the real intention of this post, I went to the zoo hoping to see animals having “fun” or maybe that’s what I thought happens in a zoo but the animals are trapped and caged but they can be taken care of. Which is one tenet that the administration does NOT follow. The animals looked half dead, there was no one around them, people were throwing stuff inside their cages, throwing water. This one trip from some out-station university even had the guts to throw ALL their garbage inside one of the cages because they thought it was funny. I mean how is that even remotely funny? Maybe the 30 odd girls with amazing “poise” and utmost “beauty” thought it was, but it was rather sad to see them doing it. I bet they wouldn’t be this happy if they were in the cage.

Look at this elegant work of nature. An elegant bird. It should be free, but then again so should the rest of the animals be but the point is, they’re not being taken care of. It’s sad that they can work on the “outlook” of the place but not feed these poor animals properly? Or perhaps stop stupid people coming and harassing the animals. You thought outstation universities were through with harassing local people, specially women. Well guess what their new mission in life is.

Very sad state of affairs and to top it, when I went to the man apparently in charge inquiring as to why there was “no” water in the pelican place he said “Pani jaisay he aiga dalaingay”. I was baffled, and well, speechless.

*shakes head again*..

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So how are things in Islamabad nowadays? Well, apart from the excruciating heat, the sweaty underarms and the dehydration, there are the really annoying security measures which have been taken up by the authorities in Islamabad, which require every walking/driving/flying citizen to prove his identity anywhere and everywhere. They are annoying, but they are probably the only way the police, and other forces can take control of the situation in the capital. Oftentimes, I am reminded of the enormity of the situation by the policemen themselves, telling me that if I don’t cooperate and go through the hassle of proving my identify and getting my backpack checked every morning three times by three different security officials, I might get blown up like an overstuffed chicken in a microwave by some happy-go-lucky virgin loving bearded buffoon, ready to get his one way ticket to paradise.

The high security areas are particularly the most problematic for the daily commuter. There are places like the Marriott hotel area where you can’t walk down the footpath without a dozen eyes watching you. There are those 360 degree Marriott security cameras, the guards spread out in front of the hotel, illegally occupying the road, there are the Frontier Constabulary guys mounted on their machine guns and blowing whistles every time someone gets too close to their enclosure, and there are the measly police men with their taped AK47’s, their dangling bullet proof vests and their sweat ridden brows. No matter how bothersome they can get at times, I do feel sorry for these people whenever I watch them guarding at their positions. What do they tell their families when they go out every morning to work? How do their children feel about their father who is out there on the road, risking his life to protect others? How do these security people perform their duties knowing very well that there is no guarantee that they might live to see another day? So, I don’t like to argue with them like other people usually do to get past a seemingly annoying security check. I let them do what they want to do.

In a situation like this, how should an ordinary citizen react? Here are a few important points that one should consider while outside:

• Always carry your ID with you, be it your workplace ID or your Government ID. Keep photocopies of your ID in your purse/wallet for submission where ever required by security officials.
• Keep your driving license and vehicle documents with you while driving. Always keep an attested photocopy of your vehicles documents to show to security officials on demand. Give the photocopied document first, only show them the real thing if they insist or the situation permits.
• Do not carry large bags around which might make you look suspicious.
• Try not to walk around high security areas for too long. Remember that there are quite a number of places in the capital where 360 degree cameras have been installed, and your image repeatedly sent on the security screens doesn’t sound like a very good thing.
• Do not argue with security officials. Try not to waste time arguing with them particularly at dangerous places like security check posts and road blocks. It is always safe to show them your ID before they even ask for it. Oftentimes they would even let you pass without asking too much details if you show your ID earlier.
• Stay away from crowds. Even walking in large groups with friends can prompt the security officials to stop you all and question you about your purpose on coming to the area.
• Although it’s a noble thing to report any suspicious behavior to the authorities whenever you see one, it is wise not to get involved with the authorities at all! However, you should not hesitate to report a suspicious inanimate object to the authorities so that quick investigation can take place.
• Try not to carry metallic objects or other items that would slow your progress down a security check. Keep minimal items and a handy bag which can be quickly opened and closed when a security official needs to check.
• Always make sure that your cellphone has credit and that it is fully charged whenever you go out.

These few points and others can increase your safety index, decrease your chances of getting stuck in a security problem, and even more important, protect you from potential dangers like explosions and other acts of terrorism.

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I am in Kuala Lumpur for a while with my family on vacations. I went over to Putrajaya for a visit and there performed the maghrib prayers in a spectacular mosque that is the next building to the Prime minister’s secretriate (Yeah, they shifted capital some days ago).

No one stopped us. Some months back in time, we used to have the same level of comfort in my lovely Islamabad. Then and there I prayed both for my spectacular Islamabad and Putrajaya!

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But the crowd is super-excited? or ain’t they?

Pakistanis can be like that.

Do listen to comments of people regarding terrorists defeat too.

Pakistan wins T20.

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Moments of joy .. and why shan’t there be any? Afterall, its after WC 92 that we got a multi-national cup getting in Pakistan :)

Congrats to All Pakistanis :D And Pakistani Team Rocks.

Image Courtesy: CricInfo

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These bowl-like pots, adorned with growing Zenia flowers, are the latest addition to the already existing array of pots on the Jinnah Avenue bridge passing over 7th Avenue.

Pot of Zenia

These might be placed at other places as well but this is where i spotted them. The Zenia clad pots are looking really lovely. Wish to get a bit closer to them to get mug shots of the flowers. :-)

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Can anybody tell me why has the Chaghi Hill monument been looking so squeaky clean lately?

Chaghi Hill Monument

Nope it’s not anyone’s bad eyesight. Nope it’s not the rain either. It is because it was scrubbed clean on May 28, 2009 on Yaum e Takbeer. I forgot to report it but i saw a full water tanker showering water on the monument and few people rubbing & scrubbing it to make it look all pretty. I am glad that they did so. Who knows when will the monument get a chance to take a bath next. :-D

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Many kinds of histories would have been made this Saturday on June 13, 2009. But the most significant one of them all, that I can think of, was that the budget of Pakistan was delivered for the first time by a woman in the history of Pakistan. The lady who delivered the budget speech was Hina Rabbani Khar, who is the Minister of State for Finance and Economic Affairs of Pakistan. She did it for the first time and did a fine job with the presentation. It was an honor for the women of Pakistan. It was indeed another major milestone, representative of the women empowerment (in a good sense).

May the women of Pakistan play their role to the fullest in the progress and prosperity of the motherland. Ameen.

For more details on the budget presentation and the budget text itself, please see the following links:

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/business/12-hina-khar-first-woman-to-present-pakistan-budget–bi-11

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Business/14-Jun-2009/Text-of-budget-speech

PS: What actually “was” in the budget is a story for several new posts. ;-)

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Some quotes from my heart uttered various of my journeys to Islamabad from Rawalpindi (especially today’s):

• Setting foot into the territory of the capital city, Islamabad, is getting more and more tiresome, difficult, annoying, hectic, frustrating, exasperating and much more, with each bomb blast (including attempts) that is caused in the country or the city itself.
• Reaching Islamabad with ease is inversely proportional to the number of blasts taking place in the city.
• To come to the city of serenity, Islamabad, painlessly is now not more than a sweet & serene dream.
• Ways to reach Islamabad easily and quickly and are only fragments of imagination.
• Anyone who boasts of getting inside Islamabad from somewhere out of the city can only be deemed a “Sheikhi Khora”.

Note: I know time of travel is a significant variable but I had to take out my frustration somehow and somewhere. ;-)

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There was another suicide attack in Islamabad.

On a rescue 15 office.

It’s actually pretty insane, because personally I love 15 guys. They do an amazig job!

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Looking at the ’summer’ fire on the Margallas yesterday made me wonder how long it will be before the earth decides to flush us out and have a fresh start. We are eating up our resources very fast, and wasting others (CDA murdabad!), and it won’t be long before there are too many humans and too little food. But that would also mean tremendous global warming, leading to an ice-age and hence massive and much-needed cleansing of our mother planet. We should learn a lesson from the dinosaurs.

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Well, here I am again in the Super market, wandering around aimlessly and filling my lungs with fresh Islamabadi air (mixed with popular brands of perfume, the stench of garbage cans, the smell of sweaty under arms, and the hormonal discharge of emotionally charged adolescents). Having brisk walked around the area for over an hour, I was beginning to feel hungry, and so I decided to go to the KFC outlet for my favorite snack of a chicken nuggets combo meal with an Arabian rice add-on. I hadn’t eaten something unhealthy in quite sometime, so I thought it would be nice if I could treat my taste buds to something Finger Lickin’ Good.

Since I’m a regular KFC customer and keep ordering those nuggets at my place whenever I feel like getting my arteries blocked with cholesterol, the delivery guy wandering around the counter recognized me and made sure that I got my order in time. And soon my hot star shaped nuggets came sliding down their delivery cabinet and were served in a disposable paper plate along with the unusually salty fries by their side. Since the lower floor was being renovated, I had to go to the first floor to have my meal.

What I have felt during my three year stay in Islamabad (my personal observation) is that people here like going to the KFC outlet more than McDonalds, whereas in Lahore McDonalds is far more popular than KFC as you’ll usually see every McDonalds outlet in Lahore spilling with people who are dying to sink their teeth in a juicy slab of chicken or beef meat (stop drooling, you’ll short circuit your keyboard). Accessibility maybe? With McDonalds far away in F-10 near that park thingy (Fatima Jinnah probably?), people would rather prefer going to the more accessible KFC in the Super, a market place where people are found anyway at any time (except for later in the night after 11, which I think is quite sad). I would personally rate the McDonalds Big Mac more chunkier and juicier than the KFC’s Zinger, the latter having tarnished my image of the much likened burger after I received it in a messy condition at my place. And for some reason I have this feeling that food served at the KFC is more unhealthier than that served at McDonalds.

No comparing McDonalds fries with KFC’s though! Nicely served, crisp and hot and appropriately salted, the McDonalds’ fry is the perfect sidekick to an equally good Big Mac burger, unlike the KFC fry which is a bit more oilier and inappropriately salted. The taste of the fry should be uniform; it should penetrate the flesh of the potato and be homogenous throughout the fry. Because if you chew on a piece of fry with a non-uniform taste, you would see that it is saltier on the outside, but not as salty on the inside, giving you an incomplete taste in the mouth. When you bite a fry, your brain expects the same lovely salty potato taste on the inside too, and when your tongue does not find it, the brain is disappointed. And that’s why McDonald’s fries are better than KFC’s… they just have a nice uniform taste in addition to the crispiness and freshness.

I guess we’ve dissected the fry a bit too much than was necessary.

The first floor of the KFC outlet seemed like a children’s area with balloons everywhere and lovely greeting cards self-made by children pasted to every window of the outlet. I found some of the cards very very touching. Here’s a window covered with cards the children made for their mothers, probably for mothers day:

There’s all sorts of lovely things written on them. The kids have been very creative about expressing their love for their mother in these cards. There was stuff like: There is nothing more comfortable in this world than a mother’s lap.

But I find this quite strange. Not that the kids are expressing their love for their mothers, but that a multi-national fast food outlet that serves fried chicken with potato fries and a soft drink in a disposable glass has children’s emotions splattered all over their walls. Why is a fast food outlet stressing so much on a child’s love for this mother? Is it because they want to improve their sales by attracting more children? Is it because they are using the cover of Mother’s Day to get more customers? Is it because this outlet is in a way educating these children to respect KFC more, and by doing so are preparing them to be KFC addicts in the future? Or does KFC truly and honestly respects a child’s love for his or her mother and is proudly displaying it on their windows with these cards that the children made? Quite strange if you think of it.

It didn’t take me much time to finish what I had in my plates, but what I usually look forward to eating at KFC is the Arabian Rice. I often find myself ordering two plates of Arabian Rice, one as an add-on which costs Rs. 40, and one separate, which costs me Rs. 75 I believe. It’s that combination of the rich chicken flavor with the capsicum, the peppercorn and the green chilli that makes this rice so irresistible. I tried making it at home but wasn’t very successful with it. The only difference was the absence of chicken; I had put chicken stock in it instead. But it did come near to the real thing.

With plenty of time to waste I thought I should send up a few tweets through my cellphone. But then I wondered if there was a WiFi internet connection in the outlet. Quite a ridiculous thought, but when I scanned for wireless internet I found a LOT of them! And everytime I ran the scan I found new ones. The first one in the picture on the left gave me 100% signal strength, so that probably was the KFC’s connection. There was another one for the Chopsticks restaurant right next to the KFC outlet, and this too was an unsecured open connection. The others had either WPA or WEP encryption, so I couldn’t get through them. But I spent my time there comfortably tweeting through the KFC and the Chopsticks WiFi connection. So if anyone of you is on the move and is looking out for a good internet connection to post a blog, check e-mails or work, then just sit around the KFC area and you’ll get a good signal.

And after having my meal, I walked back home, made two glasses of nice salted lassi with a kulcha, and went to bed with the thought that by the time I wake up in the morning, my body would have had absorbed the proteins from the nuggets and patched up my muscle tissue with it, the fries would have provided the much needed carbohydrate, and the rice a truckload of calories to burn on another walk on a Saturday afternoon.

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I can still go down the memory lane and collect small strands from that day when it actually happened. It was a pretty regular evening for me. I was doing my BSc at that time and was roaming around in my hostel corridor, probably trying to study for a test. Being in the hostel and not very interested in current affairs I did not have much idea of the situation outside my little world. All I knew was that India had done atomic blasts some time ago and was bullying us like anything.

That time there was a lot of praise in my mind for the then government and the armed forces who were standing tall in front of the tyrant as a strong protective wall. I knew there were pressures from the bigger intimidating bully (the USA) as well which required dealing with and that filled my heart with even more gratitude for the government and the forces.

I was thinking like a little kid that why can’t we “fight” back and “punch” the bullies. I kept asking this question from myself and always came up with the answer that maybe it is not the appropriate time to retaliate. I did not dare to think even for a second that God forbid we were incapable of replying back. That thought would have been a serious nightmare.

And then in the corridors a little noise was raised. It seemed to be coming from the TV lounge. Everybody in sight or in earshot moved towards the sound. I did too with my lazy steps, thinking that maybe it was some “girly” girl who saw a lizard and was frightened [no offense to the girly girls :-) ]. But when I reached there the scene was quite different.

I heard the news that Pakistan has finally done atomic blasts. And doing so had brought the motherland to the pedestal where 6 other nuclear power nations already stood. I didn’t think of anything else any more after that. I just glided back to my room, feeling extremely light in heart and mind. I could feel the warmth of that feeling all over me. I actually felt proud at a national achievement.

I usually never show much zeal and fervor when the anniversary of this day, known as Yaum e Takbeer, is celebrated. I never go out to any events or chant out patriotic slogans. All I do is remember the day and recall that warm feeling. It lights a little light and makes my heart glow.

That was a day that made us all proud, really proud indeed. May Allah bestow more of such achievements on us, the Pakistani nation.

Pakistan Zindabad! :-)

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Anyone up for some barf ;)

the picture suggests that heat is scorching at the moment in beautiful Islamabad.  And the girl is not so happy about having her ice lolly being shared ;)

Stay cool everyone.

As for me .. this journey at IMB was absolute fun … but I guess its bye-bye time now that I lingered on for some time ;) Will see you when hit Isloo again Inshah Allah .. and the occasional hello hi’s ^_^   2.5 years here were helluva good …  IMB will stay close to my heart  .. yup the drama queen thingy. And IMB gals and guys .. when I come back .. we’ll have a grand meet up :)

Until then ….

ps: hoping people are as active to help IDPsof swat, malakand divison and buner as they were during earthquake days.

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