Sehri Histrionics

Sehri is a kaleidoscope of moods in our house. I sit close to Abba on the dining table and with half closed eyes it is very difficult to manage hand to mouth coordination leave alone taking the early morning small talk to a higher level. I admit here I am a very sound sleeper; to substantiate that I have under my belt an achievement where as a child my folks had to break open the main door as I refused to wake up amidst countless door thumping, bell ringing. My Abba struggles to wake me up every morning and just when he thinks I have regained consciousness. Ha little does he know I am still drunk on sleep and within minutes pass out. What follows is a duet where my mom and dad shout from the dining table to dig the pathway into my auditory tubes and reach my brain. The only recollection I have when I wake up is the threatening call from me mom when she says ‘ Theek hai naheen uth rahey hu naa, bhunkey piyaasey roza rakhna’ ; just want to detract a little here. For time immemorial our parents use negative stimuli to coax children; naheen? ‘yeh naa keru bhudda baba aa jayee gaaa’ or ‘yeh naa khaao pait mein dard hu jayee gaa’. But you have to give it to my folks, it does work. The first thing I lookup is the time and put in some dirty math to see if I am not being woken up early, considering I take 10 minutes to gobble down food and five minutes for brushing and wazu.
My parents are sweet; with both me and my younger bro working we get less time as a family to sit together and chit chat. But you’d empathize with me, early morning one can not be too cheery and indulge in the ramblings of work. I can hardly hear my dad and the text most often than not is reproduced by my mom if it is addressed to me. Three sentences which always make me smile every year and have always been part of Abba’s sehri regime since ever is ‘juldee juldee khaaao, time kum hai’; ‘khooob saaraa paaanee piyu’ and ‘haddi chour du aur chicken lai lu’ :D

PAF Museum - Elevated Spirits

"My existence, with all that I have revealed and hidden concerning it, appears to me like an atom in the sigh of a small child, a moment that trembles in a void stretching from Creation to Eternity." (Kahlil Jibran)
Unkempt, bearded, smelly, weird are the first impressions I picked of a certain Sohail; one of the main volunteers’ spearheading earth quake relief work at the PAF museum. Little did I know that over the course of next few days he will leave an indelible mark on my personality. I have always been a great fan of the human spirit especially the resilience aspect of it. The initial few days at the PAF museum witnessed fanaticism and blind faith to just assist people in putting relief goods aboard planes and trucks. We were the same people who lined up cars in long queues waiting for their turn to park cars without any audible traces of honks in the air. Men, women, children being shoved and jostled; all in good spirit and the amazing temperament people showed at times made me feel like a foreigner amongst them. I tell you forget about whining about missing out on the lunar eclipse that occurred once a century if you are the sardonic sort and if there was ever a chance of feeling good about being a Pakistani this was it!
Back to Mr. Sohail. Entrepreneurs I have noticed live a life of whims and generally are decisively opinioned about what they feel about issues surrounding them. There less self-conscious and bring a certain child like exuberance to their every day work. Mr. Sohail is a small furniture manufacturer in Liaqatabad, in his mid thirties and has put all his business at a standstill owing to his participation in the relief efforts. What makes his effort grander is this is the peak time where he procures his wood from abroad before the wedding season kicks in and he chose to put in this time here at the PAF museum 24/7. Eyes are windows to the soul and Sohail’s eyes were deep pensive ones that could draw holes through you when he spoke passionately about living for today. I could not help think about a training session I attended few weeks ago where the trainer spoke of radiating positive energy and here there was this guy who did not know any other way.
It is always good to meet such people who can elevate you to a greater level of understanding of existence and break shackles of the ordinary lives we live where one day is no different from the other.
"It was but yesterday I thought myself a fragment quivering without rhythm in the sphere of life.
Now I know that I am the sphere, and all life in rhythmic fragments moves within me." (Kahlil Jibran)

Multan - Travelogue

Scene 1, Act 1, 7:40PM: With two of my colleagues i just obtained my boarding pass for Multan and find ourselves comfortably seated in the lounge waiting for our flight which still has an hour to it. The lounge seems fairly crowded and infront of us a middle aged well dressed man is fast asleep on three seats with his small bag nestling close to his feet. Announcement " Passengers to Lahore boarding PIA flight PK319 are requested to board the aircraft from gate number 14". The annoucment brought about little vigour in the stationary lounge residents as i figured most boarding the 8:00PM flight must have made their way to the plane.
Steps in a middle aged lady dressed in PIA uniform trying to wake the sleeping beauty from his slumber. Her concern was that he might be oblivious to the fact that he would be missing his flight. The poor lady fighting her inhibitions to the hilt was trying to poke the guy with a roll of paper fearful of touching him. I thought of helping her, went to the guy and nudged at him; no movement. I am not kidding i jolted him, shook him yet he was sound asleep. A casual inquiry behind me made me realise i had a sizeable crowd behind me now. In walks an important PIA official who fiddles with the sleeping man's upper pocket and reads his name. To his dismay his name matches the name of the one passenger yet to board the flight and has withheld the flight so far. Suddenly i realise the sleeping man's breathing was shallow i ask the PIA officials to get a doctor around, maybe he is unconscious, maybe he suffered a heart attack etc. Casually they called for a doctor; i grabbed a nearby cup to get some water and returned to find no doctor around as yet and splashed drops of water on his face. Slowly the guy opened his blood shot eyes and took his bag and moved towards the departing gate cutting through layers of onlookers.
I felt terrible after the episode. Have we in general become so callous and cold? Does a human life constitute nothing for the citizens of Karachi who find regular killings, deaths etc every day to not fancy their interest any more? To westerners in their reality shows saving animals from high rises etc..are they mocking us? I guess the way God created us our values, things that surprise us etc have a tendency to dilute when exposed to the same things too often. People die once but their values erode over a life time.

Lahore - Travelogue

How many amongst us can have it in them to break all inhibitions and initiate a 'no threads attached' conversation with a total stranger? Many of us look forward to sitting opposite a cute stranger on a flight and talking to him/her is synonymous to a all conquering feeling. Its only half as fun for somebody who likes to believe their an extrovert and picking a random conversation does not mean you get to rehearse the first few lines. I do not give the aforementioned folks an ounce of credit because courage is not the absence of fear, rather courage is having fear yet doing it.
A work colleague and another close friend were sititng with me at a lunch table in my hotel in Lahore. We were discussing modalities pertaining to how Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) can be big in the public service sector companies such as KESC, local townships etc. The call centres here could provide job opportunities to thousands and customer complainst could be tracked and monitored at a federal level in Islamabad. Suddenly this guy sitting alone at a distant table shouts 'you guys from the call center industry as well?'...Our first reaction was silence and second close was who is he asking. I explained to him we're just having our random morbid conversations. It turned out he was an American born Indian consultant and two minutes of distant shouting we exchanged our interests, if we were single, where the economy was going etc. As he left there weren't any afterthoughts regarding the BPO discussion but what lingered within us was do we have it in us to tie a stranger in a thread of conversation without any motives. Maybe its an individual personality trait, a function of our upbringing etc or maybe it is a cultural thing for us where we delve alot in privacy infringement thoughts.