Electricity woes...

Karachi gives you the benefit of being able to fit in any society at all, with or without electricity.

Aaj kal both my generator and UPS is dead. I’ve been dropped to ‘normal’ non- elitist, non burger level. Now it's my house in perpetual darkness while the entire street is aglow. And being a burger and an 'elite', I can't take that.

I have no qualms with the KESC. We use up more electricity then we produce, half the city steals, the other half fix the meters, and the few that pay the bill curse them so much they probably have booked seats in hell. What I can't stand is myself being so dependent on electricity that 5 minutes without a fan drives me insane. And nothing pisses me off more than seeing the barabar wala house radiating more light than uranium. It's all I can do to keep from putting sugar in their generator's engine. In my defense, they have their meter 'fixed' as well.

I miss the days before generators and UPS’s where everyone became equal whenever the KESCwale or WAPDA (let’s not limit this to Karachi) felt like giving society a sermon.

Trucker Tales

I've decided to start a new series on my blog. I'tll be called "Trucker tales", consisting on stuff that I see during the day on the back of rickshaws, trucks and buses. so, the maiden trucker Tale is:

"Sajan koi koi. Dushman har koi"

Enjoy.

Power crisis??What power crises???

Taken at 8 A.M.

As the Holy Prophets (pbuh) birthday gets closer, Karachi is lit up in an array of overpowering green and white. The colors of choice for the various religious organizations making plans which last upto 12 days during this holy month.
Chief among them is the “DI” or Dawate Islami which seems to have decided on its own that there is no power crises in this country and that people want to hear naats and cries of “Sarkar ki amad, marhaba” at all hours of the night.
Noise pollution aside, even though they claim to pay for all the lighting they use, i think it is quite safe to say that their over zealous celebrations are turning from a pageant to a nuisance every year.
Perhaps it is their war with the shiates who paint the city black with equal fervor to their green that has gained precendence over true spirit and effort? The emphasis is now more towards outdoing each other then on bettering oneself. In either case its been a total of 72 hours and the naats are not stopping, the lights are not turned off during the day even upto 10am sometimes and it feels like I am being kept in some of sort of concentration camp. Naats and duas are beautiful to listen to when one has the choice to listen to them when they want not whether they want to or not!!!

Park where you please in New York- Reflective of corruption

What makes officials corrupt?

Disentangling law and culture is a tricky business, but a pair of economists have come up with an ingenious way to do it: studying the frequency of parking violations committed by diplomats in New York City. Since, as their study reports, there is "essentially zero legal enforcement of diplomatic parking violations," the authors hypothesized that any cross-national variation in parking-violation rates should flow from culture alone. And sure enough, diplomats from countries with high levels of corruption were significantly more likely to incur parking tickets, suggesting that cultural factors rather than legal norms drive a great deal of official misconduct.

More interestingly, the number of parking tickets of diplomats from corrupt countries increased with their stay in New York, implying that the diplomats took some time to make sure they weren't going to get caught, then went all out. So, a deterrent would lower corruption, even if it can't stop it.

Funny stuff #6

In keeping with the age-old Pakistani tradition of poking fun at our (corrupt and incompetent) rulers, I decided to post up some picture I found on the 'Net. When I say "government of Pakistan", I actually mean the current circus that's in town. Most of the pictures have to do with Asif Ali Zardari, the only head of state in the world who has served time for corruption and is also referred to as "the ultimate oppurtunist" due to fate handing him everything he wants, via the Supreme Court and sham elections.

"Why so serious??"

Puppet master!!

"The names Zardari, Asif Ali Zardari".

"Mmmmmm....yeah!!!..mmm...lemme at 'em!!"

I SO wanna go to Oxford. Well actually, no I don't. Disgraceful!

Malir River Bridge

Malir River bridge was inaugurated on 4th Feb,2009 by Governor Sindh. The 5km bridge is the longest in Pakistan. It links Korangi to Shah Faisal Colony via Malir River. Here are some pictures for the same. Well done CDGK. Around 43 houses were demolished on the site after payment of compensation to their owners.

Funny stuff #5

The world of sports has long been known for its' humorous side. Here are a few of these imortalized moments I got from the Web. Of course, most of them are from football, the funniest sport in the world!

"Oh YAH!!! Now that feels GOOD!!"

"I can't wait..I just gotta have it NOW!!"

"I thought you were doping that to the other guy."

"Mmm...mmm....I've been waiting my whole life for this.."

"Uhhh..Don't you think we should do this off the field?"

I soo wanna see the landing!!