.jpg)
A reminder that i was in Lahore on this weekend.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
This weekend was quite uncomfortable due to electricity shutdown, which, on Saturday evening, started at 7.10 pm and lasted for twenty-two hours, with only two phases on the meter alive that allowed me to keep only the ‘TV lounge’ meagerly illuminated by two dimly lit hundred watt bulbs – until on Sunday evening, our poor-in-resources wapda arranged a working transformer for replacement.
While I am jotting down these lines, I am continuously bothered by the flies, untiringly buzzing around me, trying to rest on my forearm and knee. And also bothering me is the noise of kids playing cricket in the street, in front of my house – the noise of bouncing the tennis ball off the ground, their bats - as they strike them repeatedly on the hard surface as a part of their habit, and their consistent yelling and shouting out over minor acts of unfair game play. And a next door neighbor, who shares a ‘common wall’ as a mark of separation of two houses, is also bugging me with his loud speech volume and irritating pitch – while he is involved in a ludicrous conversation with a girl of a ‘paindo’ accent younger to him, which, I judged from her voice.
To some amazement, it’s a sort of monologue - the girl is rather listening and not talking much. Imagine – she, twisting her fingers, rolling and unrolling her ‘dupatta’ on her thumb repeatedly, blinking her eyes more than normal without blushing so much - fully aware of her accent (and/or maybe due to her un-brushed teeth!), considers it wise to keep her mouth shut and remain environment friendly in all possible respects.
Meanwhile, my gate knocks. I know, it’ll be a kid on the door, claiming his tennis ball, which crosses our boundary several times in the evening. Sometimes I do respond, but most often I just turn a deaf ear to the ringing door bell. I inform the kid with a diabolic contentment that his ball is not here; it might have fallen through the fence into the basement where I have no access at all. I pick up today’s paper from the garage and return. It is 4.45 pm. Early morning showers had caused a delay in the delivery of newspaper – but it was too late to deliver it in the evening.
There aren’t any signs of electricity despite phone calls to SDO since yesterday, who, on my both calls assured me of his understanding of the problem and the readiness of his workers awaiting the availability of a spare transformer.
Well, electricity has just been restored. I send a sms to say thanks to SDO for bringing the whole area back to life –but he didn’t respond back. May be he had smelled the hidden hypocrisy in my message.
When I started this post I actually wanted to write how troublesome the previous night was. I had kept the doors open in the evening – attracting and inviting the mosquitoes to the lights inside. I only realized this terrible mistake when I hit the sack at 12 in the night.
‘5 balain, 3 runs’, the boys are still shouting. As the new transformer is fixed and set to working, kids in the neighborhood are celebrating and playing again. ‘Jaldi Aao, Jaldi Aao’, I can hear them through the widow and the opened door of side-gallery.
The night was worst, most of the time I kept scratching my face, arms, and feet. Around 2 am, I decided to drag the ‘char-pie’ into the garage. Had I hardly laid the ‘khais’ over it, it started to downpour all at once that I feared it would not be safe to sleep there. I pulled back - and do remember it rained continually till 6 am. A phone call woke me up at 10.30 am. Now it’s 5.30 pm, weekend is almost over. Nothing much to mention except that tomorrow is Monday. I have to calendar clothes, complete some paper work and type this post for publishing with some necessary editing.
--
Reading Now: Putli Peking Ki by Mustansar Hussain Tarar. Read it's review here.
While I am jotting down these lines, I am continuously bothered by the flies, untiringly buzzing around me, trying to rest on my forearm and knee. And also bothering me is the noise of kids playing cricket in the street, in front of my house – the noise of bouncing the tennis ball off the ground, their bats - as they strike them repeatedly on the hard surface as a part of their habit, and their consistent yelling and shouting out over minor acts of unfair game play. And a next door neighbor, who shares a ‘common wall’ as a mark of separation of two houses, is also bugging me with his loud speech volume and irritating pitch – while he is involved in a ludicrous conversation with a girl of a ‘paindo’ accent younger to him, which, I judged from her voice.
To some amazement, it’s a sort of monologue - the girl is rather listening and not talking much. Imagine – she, twisting her fingers, rolling and unrolling her ‘dupatta’ on her thumb repeatedly, blinking her eyes more than normal without blushing so much - fully aware of her accent (and/or maybe due to her un-brushed teeth!), considers it wise to keep her mouth shut and remain environment friendly in all possible respects.
Meanwhile, my gate knocks. I know, it’ll be a kid on the door, claiming his tennis ball, which crosses our boundary several times in the evening. Sometimes I do respond, but most often I just turn a deaf ear to the ringing door bell. I inform the kid with a diabolic contentment that his ball is not here; it might have fallen through the fence into the basement where I have no access at all. I pick up today’s paper from the garage and return. It is 4.45 pm. Early morning showers had caused a delay in the delivery of newspaper – but it was too late to deliver it in the evening.
There aren’t any signs of electricity despite phone calls to SDO since yesterday, who, on my both calls assured me of his understanding of the problem and the readiness of his workers awaiting the availability of a spare transformer.
Well, electricity has just been restored. I send a sms to say thanks to SDO for bringing the whole area back to life –but he didn’t respond back. May be he had smelled the hidden hypocrisy in my message.
When I started this post I actually wanted to write how troublesome the previous night was. I had kept the doors open in the evening – attracting and inviting the mosquitoes to the lights inside. I only realized this terrible mistake when I hit the sack at 12 in the night.
‘5 balain, 3 runs’, the boys are still shouting. As the new transformer is fixed and set to working, kids in the neighborhood are celebrating and playing again. ‘Jaldi Aao, Jaldi Aao’, I can hear them through the widow and the opened door of side-gallery.
The night was worst, most of the time I kept scratching my face, arms, and feet. Around 2 am, I decided to drag the ‘char-pie’ into the garage. Had I hardly laid the ‘khais’ over it, it started to downpour all at once that I feared it would not be safe to sleep there. I pulled back - and do remember it rained continually till 6 am. A phone call woke me up at 10.30 am. Now it’s 5.30 pm, weekend is almost over. Nothing much to mention except that tomorrow is Monday. I have to calendar clothes, complete some paper work and type this post for publishing with some necessary editing.
--
Reading Now: Putli Peking Ki by Mustansar Hussain Tarar. Read it's review here.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Things i normally do these days:
1) Make plans and/or timetables
2) Then a few more plans to execute the already queued.
3) Read Light Within, Crazed and Bi-Conditional. The loyal Blogspot users like me.
4) Think that i should read Hunch Back of Notre Dame, but i can't - i worry about point 1.
5) Often forget to take tea when it's hot and then pour the remaining quarter cup, cold like water, in my stomach in a single go.
6) Procrastinate
7) Play NFS UG1 and Copter.
8) Regret on an old issue over and over.
9) Normally watch Dirty Jobs, Master Chef, Extreme Engineering and News (a recent interest) and abnormally watch Local Dramas.
10) Wait for a Rainy Day.
11) Forward cell phone messages which i normally don't.
12) Believe that my cell phone is far behind in the race of latest gadgets.
13) Know the importance of getting up early in the morning and reaching office in time.
1) Make plans and/or timetables
2) Then a few more plans to execute the already queued.
3) Read Light Within, Crazed and Bi-Conditional. The loyal Blogspot users like me.
4) Think that i should read Hunch Back of Notre Dame, but i can't - i worry about point 1.
5) Often forget to take tea when it's hot and then pour the remaining quarter cup, cold like water, in my stomach in a single go.
6) Procrastinate
7) Play NFS UG1 and Copter.
8) Regret on an old issue over and over.
9) Normally watch Dirty Jobs, Master Chef, Extreme Engineering and News (a recent interest) and abnormally watch Local Dramas.
10) Wait for a Rainy Day.
11) Forward cell phone messages which i normally don't.
12) Believe that my cell phone is far behind in the race of latest gadgets.
13) Know the importance of getting up early in the morning and reaching office in time.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Despite my all headache-triggering efforts it is not working out for me. In depth analysis is neither required nor would it yield any benefit in terms of getting an instant solution – In reality things are not always a pack of ‘Knoor kay Instant Noodles’ and ‘K&N kay Bun Kabab’ ads that are seldom aired on TV channels these days while most of the time slot is given to an intolerable ‘her cheez Mezan main achi lagti hai’ cooking oil add – you zap through the channels once again after watching a five-minutes-drama-episode between a series of ads and several sponsored time checks like Mobilink ka Time check, Kala Kola ka Time check, Tapal Danedar ka … blah - And you continue until electricity shutdowns for next one hour and sometimes for fifty-five minutes acutely just like 1699.00 Rupees tag on shoes.
Offices are not blue on Mondays only. Sometimes whole week is like that. Putting my full-hearted efforts which then underwent transition from a half-hearted to a head-smashing-into-wall feeling I almost gave up. A red tape as per tradition. Let us start with one of the many novels I have saved in my hard drive and GBs of songs I seldom listen to and a tin of chilled Cola. Lunch, post-lunch break, tea, biscuits - so many things. Let’s recall the old times, recall the mistakes and admit that these were mistakes indeed ...
Offices are not blue on Mondays only. Sometimes whole week is like that. Putting my full-hearted efforts which then underwent transition from a half-hearted to a head-smashing-into-wall feeling I almost gave up. A red tape as per tradition. Let us start with one of the many novels I have saved in my hard drive and GBs of songs I seldom listen to and a tin of chilled Cola. Lunch, post-lunch break, tea, biscuits - so many things. Let’s recall the old times, recall the mistakes and admit that these were mistakes indeed ...
Monday, July 07, 2008
Blog Chain
Have you ever met a blogger who rather than adding links in the sidebar due to his sluggishness follows a chain of links from one blog to another to reach to a certain blog by recalling his memory? If 'No' then you are on the right page! Ladies and Gentlemen meet the legend:Green Head! And a simple chain would be like:
www.asma.eomag.com --> UTP --> http://www.umarpirzada.com --> Ghazal.
www.asma.eomag.com --> UTP --> http://www.umarpirzada.com --> Ghazal.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)