George Fulton



During the week we got to meet lots of famous People including George fulton of George ka Pakistan fame.He was a speaker in the conference and his topic was :An Outsider's perspective on Pakistan.His lecture was one of the most enjoyable ones.He is very good with words and it is pleasing to see him talking as a Pakistani.Starting the lecture he said" Four years back i fell in love with Pakistan ,three years back i came to Pakistan ,two years back i became a pakistani ,one year back i married a pakistani girl."He suggested that pakistanis should adopt chinese in their languages too as then we will be knowing Urdu,english and chinese,the languages spokes by world's most promising nations (china ,india and us/uk).He posed with me before the lecture.




George Fulton and me

Dr farooq Sattar

He is a senior leader of MQM .We saw him at the airport and a friend suggested that we get photographed with him.So we went upto him and talked about us the conference and Pakistani politics.We were impressed by his modesty and objective talk although i must say that i am not into Pakistani politics and don't support his party or any other party for that matter.





A friend ,Dr farooq and me.

You network,we party ...Part 2

Supervisors

Both of our supervisors during the event were a diappointment.The first one should have been the last person to be considered for a supervisory post.He was afraid of getting information from top for us.He was too lazy to do anything preperly and it seemed like he had slept for the last thirty years of his life.
The second one was much active ,aggressive person but he was too stubborn to be taken easily by anyone.Everyone working around him wanted to bury him alive.he just did what he felt like ,talked about managment as it in textbooks and read musharraf's memoirs which he had managed to get a free copy of from liberty books stall.Everyday he used to leave after exactly 12 hours of his duty ,an act which is preposterous in the field he was freelancing in.

Food

My friends idea of a goood working environment starts with food.Being true Lahorites,they will be ready to work for free even if they are offered food from posh eateries.But food for them as well as me was not upto mark at all.In the airport there are no healthy eating options available and in the hotel ,the rates were unaffordable ,and we couldn't spare time to go anywhere.On first day (or night) we had breakfast from AFC, a fast food restaurent ,in the airport.as their rice deal was a bit expensive and we were paying for the breakfast from our pockets so had to fill our stomachs with cokes and burgers.later we also joined the whole team for a nsahta of siri pai's at a restaurent in ghazi road but i wasn't available as i was panicked and making phone calls from nearest PCO's for averting an uncalled for problem.

One the second day we also got to eat the AFC's only which were our only meal of the day.

On third day our duties stated in the morning so we had the luxury to have breakfast at home.For the lunch i had club sandwiches and cookies which were offered to us and the delegates when they had gone for a visit to atchison college.

The last day was the hardest one in this respect. We were in the hotel from wee hours and as we couldnt go out to so we atrved until noon when we had some cookies and coffee which arere available as part of the refreshment between lecture sessions.

Girls

Two encounters stand out from the rest.

One was with a brtish girl whose father was sindhi indian and her mother was brought up in Lahore.I was the guide in the bus which took delegates including her to aitchison and anarkali's tomb. I had a fabulous time with her during the her the whole trip .
The other was with our international supervisor who had come from southern france.Although i didnt meet her during the whole week and i only met her when i was asked to porter her luggage trolley in the airport,i liked the way she communicated her thoughts.

I am waiting...

My times can be divided into two parts
when i am waiting for others or when others are waiting for me .Right now i am in the former one.

You network,we party ...Part 1

Rich businesmen need to constantly remind themselves that they are rich and not overworked cogs of a company by throwing parties and spending money on lavish networking sessions.One of the biggest winners in this process is us ,the people, organizing their parties.We get to drink their wines ,dance with their girlfriends and then laugh back on the bus back to our middle class homes. Our city as they said won the bid to host their conference-the conference of an organization of high ranking individuals round the world.
Their arrivals brought home to us the point that thier ticket money was being put to use. With police escorts provided to them ,i loved the idea that i was playing with in mind.That police escorts is such a bitchy commodity which can turn any one into a top brass offiical.i am happy that i got to see through the acred image of police escorts i had in mind.
Here were few encounters i had.

• 
  On one of the trips to the hotel from airport in the middle of the night i met an indian exectutive whol told me that he had come from india while actually he had come from uae.I dunno why he lied .He said that he worked in banking sector of India.he also asked me about a local golf club and i introduced him to a new golf club in city to which he replied that he already knew about it.
  
• On another trip i assisted a famous pakistani scholar who was in a sullen state and thought of me as a nalaik assistant and ignored me. i stayed silent during the whole journey.I do acknowledge that we pakistanis are bad at talking to strangers.Or maybe we have many biases buried within.

• 
  On another trip to hotel from airpost i encountered two ladies ,one from poland and another from belgium.We talked about halloween,weather in lahore,the altitude of lahore,me and what they were expecting from lahore.

Eleven Minutes

So i stopped posting on the blog yielding to 12 hour work days in addition the onus of university studies thrown in .Ofcourse its worth it.But then it passed by and i wokeup.watnext? I am still mulling the answer .

junk hai ya fun hai ya dunk hai ya drunk hoon ya crank hoon....................

fedacooo,keedloswa,jiberilreee/zimmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,dulkaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaj,coooooe,cooooooe,zaaaaaa.chinti,hefjuck,don
suhfyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy,jubggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg.jitttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttlimdddddddd
seeeeeeeeeeelghghgkdfghdfjkvndfvbv24ofnod2p[4dnmd3nf3nnc3nfmeleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
fedacooo,keedloswa,jiberilreee/zimmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,dulkaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaj,coooooe,cooooooe,zaaaaaa.chinti,hefjuck,don
suhfyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy,jubggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg.jitttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttlimdddddddd
seeeeeeeeeeelghghgkdfghdfjkvndfvbv24ofnod2p[4dnmd3nf3nnc3nfmeleeeeeeeeeeeee
ps: this is a post.

The vicious circle of hatred…

All our actions, oozing hatred, generate more resonant ripples than we think. Jyllands Posten ,Denmark’s biggest newspaper and the political affiliate of country’s current government, published twelve cartoons depicting Hazrat Muhammad(SAW) in bad light. Later other European newspapers joined it. This offended Muslims all over the world and they started protesting against Denmark in particular and Europe in general .The hate generated by these protests in deepening the cultural divide between these two civilizations .On Tuesday, protests turned violent in Lahore and protesters torched private property generating further hatred against themselves .in the wake of this violence the hatred against religious parties is also growing. But in a parallel development , hatred against government is also growing .In a country which is already witnessing the spate of terrorizing activities by Baloach separatists and the enormous controversy of kalabagh dam ,people are discovering new reasons to hate each other.
On Tuesday the protesters most of whom are a regular sighting in the protests and various functions organized by religious parties set on fire a travel agency at Davis Road, where more than three hundred copies of Holy Quran were kept. Now who did more damage to the cause of Islam, Jyllands Posten and other European news papers or the violent protesters ?

Alos read my post on Lahore Metblogs about it. In the post i talk about one reason the protesters so indifferently reduced the hard earned private property worth millions to ashes.
http://lahore.metblogs.com/archives/2006/02/the_theory_of_w.phtml

The world is my oyster

I wish i always stay a Dervish:Lost but Content


I want lot of spice in life ,i will work hard for it even surviving on bare necessities of life only
I will sip the wine of exploration and freedom and dance till sunset

By never stopping to learn and exploring perpetually , i will ascend deep inside my self and discover my truth.....

WTO Conference in Hong Kong

The on going Hong Kong round of WTO conference has attracted the same kind of protest and anguish that is the fate of most of WTO conferences. The reason being that these WTO conferences are the forums in which the rich countries play moves to maximize their interests at the expenses of the poor countries. In Hong Kong , where the recent WTO conference is being held, hundreds of activists and south Korean farmers have gathered from round the world .These activists and farmers like are putting up protest shows to grab the attention of media to the issues which WTO can’t. The rich countries even having zeroed on trade barriers are continuing to give heavy agricultural subsidies to their farmers. These subsidies give an unfair advantage to these farmers as compared to the farmers in the developing world .It should be noted that most of countries had earlier promised to cut down on subsidies but took no action or instead did the opposite as in case of US. US has increased its subsidies to the farmers over the past few periods.


Another issue which I see as a very important issue is that of barriers on flow of labour . The developing countries have lot of cheaper, competitive labour to export but there are too many barriers for them. If the flow of capital should be free of barriers, then so should be flow of labour .Countries like US and UK have legislations to block the entry of immigrants with skills which are very common .These legislations have been meant to protect the jobs of their citizens and protect their own manpower against the manpower from developing countries which is can be recruited at relatively lower wages making these countries own work force less competitive. But isn’t this the same reason developing countries are afraid of free trade. The free trade facilitates the entry of better quality products from developed nations into developing nations making the products produced in developing countries less competitive. So the developed countries are getting the countries are enjoying the benefits of free trade of goods and denying the benefit of free flow of labour to developing countries.

Sa Re Ga ma Pa Dha Ni

I have been sticking to the adage, work hard and play harder, all this time. After a grueling session of studies for midterm examinations, I have been spending the time winding up at the World performing arts festival. Today was particularly an interesting day. For three hours I was there in the chilly atmosphere of the Alhamra open air listening to hard core classical music i.e rags by people like Hamid Ali khan, Ustad Shaggan and Shafqat Ali khan .Its Monday now time to switch back to work hard part of the adage. No I am not an artiste .I might never become one. I’ll discover my world in corporations or cartels but I will always continue to be open to all beautiful things life besides money ofcourse.