Better late than never

Dear Chintan,

First of all, let me tell you how apologetic I am about disappearing from the blog for so long. I think I became lazy, or I think I felt I didn’t have enough to write about. But now, I think I had had enough and started feeling majorly guilty about not contributing because I didn’t participate in the project to remain idle and not do anything. A lot of people in the group are so active on the Facebook page and that added to my guilt. But anyway, I’m back!!

I’ll just briefly take you through whatever significant I remember happened in the last few months, starting with my very very exciting trip to Karachi. You know, the last time I went to Karachi was around 17 years ago and naturally don’t remember anything. Even that trip was a touch-and-go one since I went straight to a wedding as soon as I landed there, attended functions over the next few days and returned. Basically, I had never actually ‘seen’ seen Karachi. Until now. 

This time also I had gone for not one but two weddings, but since they spanned over around eight days I managed to take out enough time to visit the places there that I had heard a lot about or really wanted to go to: popular cafes/restaurants, malls, the beach and landmarks. And I’m SO glad I got to do everything and go to all the places I wanted to in the little time I had there. 

Port Grand -- the Karachi port at night. 

I went to the much talked about Sattar Bukhsh cafe, Boat Basin – the port there, Seaview  -- the beach (from a distance though as it’s closed these days), Kolachi -- a seaside restaurant, the huge Dolmen Mall, Zainab Market, Atrium Cinema (where I watched Dukhtar) and a few other places.

The closed beach

You must be wondering why I had to go to a mall or a cinema, but the fact is in Lahore we don’t really have anything that qualifies as a mall and the cinema was also bigger as compared to those we have here. And I had some amazing seafood (my favourite kind of food) there and would definitely have it the next time I visit Karachi. 

And as for the weddings, one was my second cousin’s and the other my very good friend’s. At the cousin’s wedding I met SO many people that I probably never had at one place ever. These were my mom’s relatives that I had been instructed to meet: her cousins and their families, her aunts and uncles and other important people. I was meeting most of them for the first or maximum the second time in my life, so it was extra special. I like meeting family because I consider them the most important people in your life even if they don’t think so.

So my very eventful and extremely tiring and adventurous trip to Karachi came to an end with lots of memories with cousins to cherish, until next time, Inshallah.

Then came Eidul Azha or the ‘bari Eid’ as we call it. This Eid is always boring as it is all about the slaughtering and distribution of meat so you don’t get a lot of time to meet anyone. The other Eid – Eidul Fitr or ‘choti Eid’ – is relatively fun since one gets to meet people and go to lunches and dinners and hang out with friends. On the bari Eid, we usually have a family dinner at one of our relative’s place that is either a one-dish affair. Since most of my cousins and close relatives in Lahore have moved abroad, we’re not left with a lot of people at Eids, which makes it even more boring. The second day friends usually take time out for each other; and we did too. The sad part is I only get two days off on both Eids since I work for a newspaper, while everyone enjoys three or more holidays.

In between the above two events, how can I forget that you visited Lahore. It was nice meeting you once again, and finding out about that cultural centre you were at. Also, meeting you benefited me in another way: you told me Samreen was working with an NGO that is working for LGBT rights. That gave an awesome idea for a feature, and currently I’m pursuing Samreen for it. Thank you for making that possible J

Jab we met, again

Shortly after, came the news of escalating clashes at the Line of Control and Kashmir in which quite a lot of innocent people on both sides of the border had been killed. And the ‘clashes’ kept increasing by the day. The worst part was and still is that media on both sides tries to pin the blame on the other side only adding fuel to the fire and giving an opportunity to hawks and jingoists on both sides to undo the little progress, if any, made towards peace between India and Pakistan. On our side, at least, the media shows what it’s fed by the army and obviously not abiding by the ‘orders’ will result in grave repercussions. I don’t know when and how will the media be disciplined about such sensitive issues, but in such circumstances it’s the people on both sides who need to act a little intelligently and not blindly believe what they’re being shown. But then again, we don’t have enough educated people around to understand that, and that’s what the media cashes in on. But we can all contribute to dispelling impressions created by the media by educating our people in our own little way – anyone we have a discussion with. It just might slowly and gradually help.

And as I write this, I know the situation at the border hasn’t cooled down. But we can all make some effort, as little as possible, on our own. So many people are doing amazing work for Indo-Pak peace, including you, Beena Sarwar and the Aghaz-e-Dosti team, to name a few. More power to all of you and I hope more people come up with such initiatives on both sides, only then can we expect some sense to prevail.

On this note, I conclude the blog with the hope that I’d be as regular as possible. I’m sure I must have missed something here that i should have written about. But I’ll leave that for the next blog or I’ll be blank for the next few months again. Waiting to hear from you, now.

Cheers.