"Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0"

The colour of the sky today took me years back, to a monastery on a small hill on the western coast of France called Mont Saint Michel.
It is amazing how something as insignificant as a flicker of colour or the brief whiff of some fragrance can trigger such strong memories.

Election 2013

My son went out to cast his vote for the first time this morning.
As he was walking back towards his car a guy stopped him and asked him who he had voted for. And my son answered.
For “PAKISTAN.”
Bravo!
He is only Nineteen years old and yet he understands the basic concept of election that has escaped many senior Pakistanis.
11 May is neither about victory of any political party nor about one’s political affiliations. The choice has always been and always should be PAKISTAN.
That is why I love the youth of today. They have no confusions about what should be at the top of their list of priorities.

I have finally unraveled the mystery of my weekend headaches.
I have been subject to those headaches for quite a while now but could never understand why they occurred punctually over the weekends.
It came down to the most important question in the end:
What makes my weekend different from every other day? Or to be more precise, what do I do on the weekends that I normally don’t do on the weekdays to trigger these headaches.
The answer was simple; I usually sleep in on weekends.
Weekday mornings are like whirlwind: me getting ready for work, rushing after the kids, urging them to hurry. Sometimes the morning goes by so fast that it is no more than a blur in my memory.
But weekends are different.
I relax on weekends.
It is one of the things that I enjoy, knowing that I don’t have to rush to be anywhere so I sleep in. But as a result I end up with a throbbing that lasts half to full day.
So the solution is that if I want a painless weekend, I have to treat it exactly the same as all other days and be a good little early bird.
Sometimes I just love God’s sense of humour, for making the cure even more distasteful than the ailment.

I do SO miss wasting my time, now that I have no time to waste.

Roman Holiday

"Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0"

For some reason I have been missing Rome a lot lately.
I suppose it might be because Rome provided me with one of those moments that simply take your breath away.
I am not easily awed by the things that I see. The tragedy of living in today’s world is that nothing surprises us anymore. We are a generation that has grown up believing that anything and everything is possible. Sometimes I miss the element of surprise and disbelief our forefathers experienced when some thing extraordinary was introduced to them.
So under the circumstances when some thing spectacular comes along, I for one cherish it. Coming back to Rome; my captivating moment came as I stood at the center of St. Peter's square in the middle of the night.
There can be no describing the feelings that I experienced standing in the heart of that magnificent centuries old square. There was complete silence and emptiness all around us, both things, a rarity in today’s world. I don’t know how long I remained there but every second of it was mesmerizing.
The enchantment did not end there. After leaving St. Peter's my husband and I wandered around for a while drinking in the beauty of the grand Roman architecture spread all around us before finally sitting down on some stairs near Castle de Angelo. In front of the steps a group of performers were practicing some traditional form of dance (the kind in which the dancers all moved around in a circle). There were a few people already seated there watching the performance so we sat and watched with them. Suddenly it did not matter anymore that it was close to one in the morning. It did not even matter that we had had a looooong (why so long? That is an even longer story) and tiring day. Infect sleep was the last thing on our minds.
Why should we sleep when we can sit on ancient Roman steps and watch people dancing in front of us?
As bizarre as the above question may sound now, somehow at that time, it made perfect sense.
There was music, there was dancing, there was joy: it was the perfect Roman holiday.
Since our hotel (hotel sole) was at walking distance from the Vatican City, we went back there again in the morning. St. Peter's square was still there but the magic was gone. It was now full of tourists, cameras and even occasional cars that sped right through the square as if it was some common road (I had not expected that). In the morning it was just a tourist site like thousand others scattered all over the world.
But even thought the enchantment of the night had disappeared in the light of the day, the beautiful memory of it, thank God, will always remain.

Happy Independence Day

Another year has passed and it is 14 August once again and each year I think that I should have done something more than just tying up a green and white flag on my balcony. I used to put in ten times more effort into celebrating our independence day only up till a few years ago when the kids were young and probably a hundred times more when I was young myself.
Back then Independence Day was all about celebrating and most people (including myself) celebrated by decorating their houses with “ jhandian” which were little green and white paper flags tied together with a string.
As cheap and as common as those little flags were, they were the typical Independence Day decorations and were surprisingly not at all unbecoming. I hardly see them now; I guess they have gone out of fashion, at least in the area that I live. This is a great pity because the way I see it there is nothing childish about Independence Day decorations and to me they are not just decorations. They are a symbol of hope; a strong belief in a better future; a belief that has somehow still managed to remain intact despite the long and arduous load shedding schedules, despite the over abundance of corrupt politicians and despite the sorry state of affairs that we seem to be witnessing these days. Why do I still believe? I believe in it because it is still my country and I own it. I am not going to walk away from it just because of a few ups and downs that it happens to be facing at the time.
So my enthusiasm is still there but I guess the energy has drained over the years.
I just realized what I have been doing wrong. Instead of promising my self that I would be more actively prepared for this special day next year, I should be passing on the torch to the younger generation. Instead of trying to keep up with my childhood traditions alone I should guide my kids to carry them on from here on. After all this day is not about just me it is about us.
It does not have to be about decorations or even hoisting up of a flag on the balcony, but rather any gesture that reaffirms our own faith in our solidarity and shows everyone else that we still believe in our country and that there is still hope as long as we are together.
Pakistan Zindabad

Back to work again

It has been a while since I have written and uploaded anything. Over the past six months or so there were several things that I could have written but didn’t simply because I did not have the time to do so.
After several years of a self imposed “break” I have once again gone back to work.
The problem is that I had not realized how lazy I had become over the years or how hectic I would find my new routine. On the positive side it keeps me busy.Very busy. The down side of it is that I no longer have the free time to do as I please, when I please or indulge in any of my favorite, if even meaningless, activities any more. All this I have traded for a five day a week’s vigorous work routine that provides me with a paycheck at the end of a month. But the question I keep asking my self is that is it all worth it?  And am I being paid enough?
Considering all the things I have given up I don’t think any amount anyone can ever pay me will ever be enough.
Doing nothing is priceless. Not many people can afford it.