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!

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. :-)

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

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.

This is the kind of thing that makes me want to cry. And kill! Does God have to come down in person and inform CDA that this is not the zamzam spring that sprouted up on Margalla road three weeks ago, and someone will be heavily accountable for the wastage of this precious resource?

The families who were forced out of thier homes in minutes took nothing with them, crops were left standing and doors left open. They paid 10 times the normal fare to travel without food or water to a maladministered refugee camp. This Army operation has been started at the behest of the American govt – not the Pakistani people or the people of Swat. Barely ten days had passed since the parliament passed the Nizam-e-Adl agreement and since the very beginning statements of ill-intent starting pouring out of Washington. Peace was not given a chance and now the summer campaign to crush insurgency has been started – at what cost? We have created 1.3million refugees just to hunt down a few criminals? thats comparable to a carload of criminals coming into F10 and the govt reacting by clearing out the whole sector and bombing it with F16’s. This is nonsense. We should all stand up and say to our “brave” troops “Stop fighting America’s War“.

Tough i am in love with the Green (Trust) Tower but i these days i am feeling a shift of feelings to a different side. The new gleaming Blue (Islamabad Stock Exchange) Tower keeps looking at me with those shiny eyes (glass) and asks me to stay when i am rushing ahead passing by it. It does make my head turn and make my heart flutter. I wonder where would my affections lie in due course of time. There is a tough competition between the “Green” and the “Blue”. :-)

Islamabad Stock Exchange Tower

PS: Maybe i will change the course of the “affection” and “adopt” them both. Yuppiee!

Had Wordsworth experienced the pleasure of driving on the roads of Islamabad at nights, he might have not have that level of association with the daffodils. :)

What a treat we had yesterday. Those of us that went out and looked towards the skies, at least. First, there were the beautiful variations of color and form in the skies. Next came an awesome sunset. And then came night, and along with it, bolts of lightning everywhere. Forgive the blasphemy (for that is not an intention here), but somebody up there celebrated earth day with us ;)