Tamasha

The Google Zeitgeist now shows popular queries from Pakistan. In January 2007, the most popular query made by Pakistanis is Pakistan itself. Yes, the country we live in is just as mysterious and unknown to us as it is for any European or African.

We don’t really have any stars and celebrities of our own in Pakistan. The only Pakistani who made it to top 15 search queries, is Atif Aslam defeated by Sania Mirza the Indian tennis star.

Karina Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Aishwarya Rai, Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan and bollywood itself is one of the most popular queries made by Pakistanis. No matter how much Pakistanis love Bollywood and Indian Stardust, the search term Urdu is the eighth most popular query.

Karachi is the eleventh most popular search term, warid at 12 and Jang got the 13th position.

The Google Zeitgeist now shows popular queries from Pakistan. In January 2007, the most popular query made by Pakistanis is Pakistan itself. Yes, the country we live in is just as mysterious and unknown to us as it is for any European or African.
We don’t really have any stars and celebrities of our own […]

When Lahore is celebrating Basant, there is a man, Shaukat who entered the city with the dead bodies of his five children, injured and exhausted wife, and his now only child a baby girl.

The Supereme Court of Pakistan ordered a ban over kite flying in Punjab to combat the side effects of Basant. Government of Punjab, removed the ban for two days to celebrate Basant in Lahore. Strict measures are taken to protect innocent lives and infrastructure, and to maintain law and order during Basant. But how could you expect the wild masses to abide the law when the wild government itself has teared it up into pieces.

This, the country of contrasts is full of conflicting stories. In another city, Peshawar, schools were threatened to be attacked by suicide bombers if they do not end up their co eduction school system.

A provincial minister gets killed by a lunatic, who is crazy about saving the Islamic identity of Pakistani women. This is the country where one province is moving fast towards Talebanization and another province trying hard to depict liberalization and freedom by breaking the law.

A woman mourning over the dead body of her relative who died during the terrorist attack on Samjhota Express.

Women in Lahore wearing smiles and buying kites to celebrate Basant.

School girls in Islamabad running during the inter school competitions.

Principle of Girl’s school in Mardan, a city in Pakistani province NWFP. Wearing Burqa and telling media about the threat letters she has recieved from Taleban to follow the strict Islamic burqa guidelines.

When Lahore is celebrating Basant, there is a man, Shaukat who entered the city with the dead bodies of his five children, injured and exhausted wife, and his now only child a baby girl.
The Supereme Court of Pakistan ordered a ban over kite flying in Punjab to combat the side effects of Basant. […]

Pakistan is entering into a new era of prosperity. The country has internet access in almost all cities. There are computer labs in schools and colleges, every other day you would see some government officer inaugrating a new computer lab in some school or college. Musharraf’s government is proud that they have made so many TV channels available to Pakistanis. All medium to large size companies, institutions and organizations have some www address printed on their business cards, posters and advertisements.

But I feel that we as a nation are absolutely clueless about what information is and how important role it plays in the development of nations. We know that our organizations, businesses or institutes need a www.myorganization.com.pk website. But we have no idea how to use the world wide web. We have fruits in our hands but we don’t know that in order to enjoy their juices we need to bite them. In 2006 Pakistanis can not download your utility bills. Even after yeas of hard work to bring these small but significant changes to lives of Pakistanis, we failed.

Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC), is a Pakistani company with a www.kesc.com.pk domain name. KESC supplies electricity to more than 14 Million residents, businesses and industries in the Megapolis and surrounding areas. This giant corporation’s website has only three links on their main page. Rest of the page is an screenshot of a website and is displayed in Gif image format. I remember KESC had a functional website sometime ago and I have downloaded my electricity bill from their website. I remember they had detailed information available. Now every thing is gone.

The Website has a picture telling visitors that KESC has 92 customer services centers, but no addresses, telephone numbers or email addresses available. A picture titled “Latest News” tells you about Federal Minister Mr. Liaquat Jatoi’s visit to KESC headquarters on 29 September 2006, nothing more on that is available.

I don’t know how many Bills KESC issues each month, but this URL is printed on the back of each KESC bill. I don’t know how many people make an attempt to look at the KESC website each day or month. But I find it quite suprising that they are so careless about all this.

The website (a poster actually) doesn’t disclose any contact information so I was unable to contact people who are responsible for this job at KESC. It has a link at the bottom telling that the website designed and maintained by e-Creatorz. I filled out the contact form on the e-creatorz website on January 19 and asked them about the situation. They didn’t disclose or clarify anything, simple told me to wait till the website is relaunched hopefully in a few days. Now after a month, www.KESC.com.pk still displays the flyer that you can get created by the graphic designers at Burns Road for RS.100. I don’t blame e-Creatorz for getting more money than they deserved. I blame KESC for being so cruel, barbaric and ignorant.

KESC and all Pakistanis who can not understand the importance of information, the broken websites, useless and contentless macromedia flashy websites, and the 30 minutes per week per student computer labs. These are the signs that Pakistan is not entering into any new era of prosperity. We are actually going back in the reverse gear. Yes we are making progress and working hard but in the wrong and totally opposite direction than the one that leads to knowledge, power and freedom.

Pakistan is entering into a new era of prosperity. The country has internet access in almost all cities. There are computer labs in schools and colleges, every other day you would see some government officer inaugrating a new computer lab in some school or college. Musharraf’s government is proud that they have made so many […]

I love reading stories to my neice Minahil. She visits us nearly every weekend with her mother and wants me to tell him some new story eachtime. I love to see the way her eyes shine with fascination, curiosity and imagination that takes her to wonderful world of fairies, magicians, witches and brave heroes. To see her eyes shine like that I need to come up with something great each week. I am very good at narrating the story but only if I know the story. I can not make up stories quickly.

While surfing I found Rumi’s blog where he mentioned HamAsar, a Denmark based Urdu literary journal. They have a very nice collection of Danish stories translated into Urdu, specially Hans Christian Andersen’s children’s stories. However, their claim that these stories are translated for the first time in Urdu is not correct. These stories are available in Urdu at local bookshops published by various publishers.

While browsing HamAsar, I decided to look around for children’s folk tales from different countries. I found a few websites:

Web Japan, has a collection of Japenese folk legends with really cute illustrations. Read the stories from “once upon a time in Japan” that every Japanese kid grows up listening to. FOLK LEGENDS OF JAPAN takes you on a journey to a fairy-tale world of boy heroes, terrible ogres, animal antics, and more

Chinese Tea Stories. Chinese folktales, retold by Colette Chooey.

African Folktales. Three African stories retold by Timothy Bush, including ‘The Salt Trader’s Justice’, ‘Lions Wings and Lion’s Bones’ and ‘The Curious Monkey’.

Mayan Folktales, These ancient folktales were told to Fernando Peñalosa by don Pedro Miguel Say, a famous Q’anjob’al storyteller from San Miguel Acátan, Huehuetenango, Guatemala.

I also found some Pakistani folktales for children, but I suppose you have Google, don’t you?

I love reading stories to my neice Minahil. She visits us nearly every weekend with her mother and wants me to tell him some new story eachtime. I love to see the way her eyes shine with fascination, curiosity and imagination that takes her to wonderful world of fairies, magicians, witches and brave heroes. To […]