At Six

‘I am Hamza and I am six’, he chirped.

‘Beta auntie ko salam karo’, he was instructed.

Auntie?! I already feel old, dont rub it in please, I joke with the coach.
It is his second week at the club, I am told. I look at the scrawny little kid holding a racket several sizes big for his height. We shake hands and begin our game of squash.

I am unable to return his first serve and then the next one and the one after that and many others later on. He is intelligent, he is witty… and he is sprinting off in all possible directions. Before I know we have a crowd behind us, watching me getting battered, so shamelessly. I lose quite magnificently by 4-15. It seems like we have a champion in the making.

I retreat back to the bleachers, thinking about the sign outside the court which says Jansher vs. Jehangir khan. Signs… I am thinking. Atleast, some years down the line I can claim that I played with the prodigy when he was only six.
Pray, if his last name is Khan? That should bring him some good luck!

First Step

Came across this interesting
blog post today via India Uncut which lead to this huge discussion at work, regarding harassment of women in this country and the lack of rules thereof. It was heartening to hear that there is an act in the Indian constitution (passed 1998) which can go a long way in helping women seeking justice against daily dose of eve teasing many women go through in this part of the world.

Unfortunately, this country hasn’t taken that first step yet.

Excerpt from the post here… I took the night train to Chennai Saturday night for a friend's wedding. I was travelling alone, and happy to have the Upper Berth of the three tier compartment. My mum came to see me off and worried, as she usually does, about the occupants: "That guy looks shady", she said, pointing to the occupant of the other Upper Berth but I brushed it aside as paranoia, reminded her I'd been travelling alone on three tier since college and then, once the train left, went up and straight to sleep.

It was hard to sleep, despite the sheet covering me. I was restless and tossing from side to side. The guy in the Upper Berth next to me appeared to be jerking off, but I ignored him. Finally I drifted into a light sleep till about one a.m. when I felt something brush my foot. I moved my foot well under my sheet, thinking 'Funny, I didn't think I was tall enough to be extending out of my berth'…


Update: 7th July’05
I managed to get parking off Zabunisa street. Elated, I eased my car into the parking lane some how managing well in my parallel parking attempt. I got out of the car and started walking towards the rug shop, thinking meanwhile what can be the best possible color combination for a Kilm rug and then it happened.
This seemingly innocent looking kid, barely in his teens coming from the opposite direction touched my butt. For a second, I didn’t realize what had happened and then the irony of it struck me. The overwhelming urge to hit him welled up inside me. I didn’t think twice and I just ran towards him and smashed him hard with my bag. Anger and helplessness took over me. Perhaps, not the best way to deal with a situation like that, but it was a response more out of impuissance than anything else.

Call centers

2nd July 2005

Regarding the undersea cable issue. Its sad to see Pakistan’s call center sector, which is still in its infancy being hit badly by it. Why we don’t have a backup. Why everything depends on that one undersea cable. I have always been intrigued by this whole out- sourcing and call center phenomenon, which is not much of a profession if you come to think of it in a traditional way. Also, when it comes to skills but just because some people are good with a certain language, they can earn them millions of dollars. Here’s the link on this issue:
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,15815164%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html

Update: Read recently, that the call centers were provided a backup immediately on satellite. However, there are some minor bandwidth issues there. Apparently, it’s the banks, airlines and MNC’s, not to forget the regular consumers who have been badly hit. The banks are in worse possible scenario. I don’t know if ATMs have anything to do with the internet, probably they do, cuz I tried four different ATMs before I could finally take out money last night.

28th June 2005

Thanks to PTCL, I feel an un-nerving urge to post something on my blog. Not because the PTCL’s employee protests and the privatization exercise has moved me to write this one, but the fact that its server being down for last two days has left me with nothing to do at work. Yes, I spend my time at work quite constructively - taking breaks to work on projects between intense browsing sessions.

I don’t know whether routine is a good or a bad thing. I know for sure though my internet routine is not healthy. I come into the office at nine thirty in the morning, meet a prospective client, ask for coffee, switch on the radio and then hit internet explorer). I am addicted to an extensive morning browsing session and equally lengthy afternoon session, I end up staying late at work most times just to enjoy a broadband connection, which is not available otherwise.

I guess its quite weird to have internet addiction, I believe a lot of people round the world must be facing this dilemma - their lives completely over run by the world wide web, but it doesn’t make me feel any better that I am lagging on my projects sometimes because I am more online than needed. Sometimes, when I step outside in bright sunlight, it almost looks surreal… and yet there is no PTCL server today to router me to all these amazingly wonderful things… they call web pages.

Update: PTCL’s cable will be down for another few days, it is an international undersea cable issue. Apparently couple of other countries are also affected. My news source is a little sketchy. There was no internet after all.

Deep down

I don’t know what defines my life. Sometimes I feel it’s work, which is the nucleus of energy for me. I have been called a workaholic through out my school years. I enjoy multitasking, doing a lot of things in little or no time, I feel i perform better under tight situations, but why did I feel so liberated today when I had my first Saturday off after all these days with absolutely nothing to do.

I roamed around Zebunisa street, taking in the noise and clamor of this city - neon lights reflecting on people’s faces, the drizzle and the fuzzy old architecture, the bhuttay walas at every corner. The mad honking and city noise.

We stopped for coffee at Shezan and it was all mute at once. The air smelled of smoke and coffee. The checkered table cloth and the calm inside the sixty’s interior summed up the evening for me. May be things have settled deep down.