Blast Inside World Food Programme Office in Islamabad - Courtesy AP

I am shaken and traumatized after the yesterday’s blast which took place inside my office building ( UN-WFP) only a few paces away from my glass-cabin . The blast was so sudden and strong that it took me sometime to register what actually had happened there with all of us. It was so strong that I was thrown from my chair to a few feet away on the floor. Everything was shattered into pieces only in a matter of seconds. When I tried getting up from the floor, I had broken wooden pieces in my hair, my head and body were aching badly as something had hit me severely. I was not in my senses and my whole body was shaking badly, the sound of the deadly blast was resonating in my ears and I was so shocked that I could not move a step. There were injured colleagues lying on the floor. My room was on fire and pieces of paper, broken pieces of doors, broken pieces of my glass cabin, windows and tables were lying here and there. I was looking at my injured colleagues in a state of shock and horror. “Vacate the building immediately”, I heard one of my colleagues saying. But I could not move till the time one of my colleague dragged me outside the building. But that was not the end of it.

The real horror started when my colleagues started taking the dead and injured bodies outside the building. Yes, bodies drenched in blood of people I worked and used to spent a major part of my day on regular basis… It was such a heartbreaking scene……We had tears in ours eyes. We were horrified and traumatized …

None of us in the office had ever imagined that this Bloody Monday will change our lives for ever and we will be left with haunted memories of the incident. I have not recovered from the shock yet, the whole scene is playing back again and again in my brain, even the sedative pills failed to calm down my nerves. None of my other colleagues are out of trauma yet. Those innocent souls who died in the blast would never be there in our office again and our office would never be the same place again….. I pray for all the departed souls ( Gul, Farzana, Wahab, Abid Rehman and Udan ) and I am going to miss them forever …..My mother says that it is a miracle that I have only minor injuries and I survived despite the fact that the bomb blasted only a few paces away from where I sit But I am thinking why this miracle did not happen in case of Gul, Farzana, Wahab, Abid Rehman and Udan. Why these innocent people lost their lives?? What will become of their families now?? What was their fault or What was our fault that all of us became victims of a bomb blast and are left with haunted memories ??

• 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. ;-)

On a rescue 15 office.

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

Interestingly – Aitezaz and Arthur both start with A.

Anyhow – we shall see…

I read in the news some days ago that the Sharif brothers said that the decisions will now be taken on street in the long march on 16th of March. PPP officially said that they will not make alliance with PML-N against the governor rule. Zardari sahab appointed Mr. Qamar as the new Air Chief (bypassing three of his seniors). It almost sounds like a repetition of Musharraf’s case.

Anyhow – that’s not the point.

The point is that they say that cats are more loyal to places and dogs are more loyal to people. From that, I can safely conclude that most politicians of Pakistan are dogs.

I don’t know what will happen on the sixteenth of March and how much bloodshed will happen in my beloved Islamabad.

But there was this movie Payback which had the following sequence of dialogues.

Porter: Who makes the decisions?
Carter: Well, a committee would make the decision in this case…
Porter: One man… you go high enough you always come to one man… who?

The real matter of worry is not that who is the man who is at the top. Concern is that where does the loyalty of that man(read: person) lie.

And in case of Pakistan, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out where his loyalties lie, lie, lie…

God bless Pakistan!

The thing is that how much will the individual citizens of Pakistan and how much will the state suffer because of those who are playing the master of the puppet.

I know – no strings attached – it’s all wireless. Heh!

It’s actually quite a shame as well. I pray things turn out normal soon. Too much destruction in the country already.

Be there…

Time to go home is near once again and I am having jitters just by thinking about yesterday’s traffic jam. I don’t want to meet the same fate again and I don’t want that dreadful headache. I want the Expressway to be ‘free’ of such bottlenecks. Let’s see how the Expressway treats me on today’s journey home. I am keeping my fingers crossed. :-D

So Quaid’s on a Re. 1 coin and Ms. Bhutto will get a Re.10 one. Yup that’s the news.

BBC reports:

Pakistan is to issue a commemorative coin to mark the first anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

The State Bank of Pakistan will issue about 300,000 special 10-rupee (16 US cents) coins.

The coin will read in Urdu, “Daughter of the East, Benazir Bhutto“.

Ms Bhutto was killed in a suicide bomb and gun attack in Rawalpindi on 27 December last year after an election rally for her Pakistan People’s Party.

The coin will be issued on 27 December, the bank announced.

Ms Bhutto has already had Islamabad’s international airport named after her, along with a hospital in Rawalpindi and a key road.

Argh.

Argh.

Image Courtesy: Jang