Quakeflections: A year has passed

Cheezy? That's just too bad. Read on below

Moving on to the subject matter at hand...The earthquake in Pakistan/India (October 8th, 2005) is nearing its first anniversary.

The irony of an anniversary strikes me. People celebrate, people mourn...people think about things from all sorts of angles, yet what is it that they really think about?

Do you remember the feeling we all had when the ground started shaking? I can because it woke me up. I remember I was sleeping and as I got up to go towards the bathroom arch, I could barely walk 3 feet without falling down.

No balance. No stability. No traction.

My friend Sahir (also affectionately known as Seri), was in town from Isb yesterday and crashed at my place. We chatted about the quake relief days as though it was an episode in our past of more than 10 years. In the heat of the moment, I thought of my boy Sunny, working his hide off in the US, and gave him a buzz. We all chatted with im for a few and the conversation inadvertently ended up discussing the earthquake.

As it happens, Seri and I were together the night we drove to Balakot (the first night after the quake) and remembered how we spoke of this being his 1st and last trip up because of the toll relief work can take on you and me saying how I could keep doing this my whole life.

Today he is a successful logistics guru, while I work for a non-profit investment fund that puts money in to socially sustainable and scalable development projects (for those of you who are clueless...we (www.acumenfund.org) provide rich peoples services and products etc that are exlusively for the wealthy, to the poorest of the poor. I guess one can say that we were right and we were wrong.

So, what have we learned in this past year? That natural disasters occur only to shake people's faith and get them on the right track? At what cost? the lives of hundreds of thousands? I'd recommend not including religion in the whole realm and just taking it for what it is...a terrible act of nature causing the displacement of millions in a place where land is abundantly scarce.

The Earthquake of October 8th, 2005 was a terrible happening and we should continue to strive for ways to help. Giving money may not be the answer. Laying a brick for a house is, however, a step in the right direction.

I also heard about some book on FM 89 (our partners in kind who helped us gain support from the public during our days of gallantry in the mountains) written by a US returnee (a girl with a very soft voice) titled, "8:50 A.M" - Go check it out...apparently it's a job well done. Proceeds go to The Edhi Foundation and The Citizens Foundation.

Her sister ran but she stuck around for a quick shoot
jujipic

Kids at play in the rain, stopped for a quick hello
jujipic

The beautiful and colorful women of the desert
jujipic

Old Pundit Jee at a 100 yr old Mandar
jujipic

Movin around

So a time comes in everyones life when they must pack their bags and head out, challenge the world and live independently.

I took a job with the Acumen Fund as a Portfolio analyst/consultant, working on projects that have a social impact, develop a sustainable business that is scalable, ultimately helping reduce poverty levels in Pakistan. My project is based in Tharparkar - the desert that no one knows about, talks about or even cares about. This is not a generalization, but more a realization and it reflects on the time that Pakistan and India seperated in 1947, during which time the people of Thar had no clue about the events happening because they were always so cut off.

Unilever, Pakistan, has done significant work in Thar - providing water accessibility to communities and other such facilities that help provide basic needs.

Anyway - so I have had an awesome time so far, although the hassle of moving in to a new place, setting it up and dealing with the bullshit of people you need to get very essential things done from and the amount of money involved from bribes to "added service costs" etc.

But lo and behold, finally I have moved in and am slowly settling down. I have had friends coming over a few times to help break in the place and so far it seems to be going well. The only real issue is that the building comprises of families and I am one of two bachelors living there. Decent as we may be (who the hell am I kidding), it is still difficult because you have to be conscious of noise levels etc. Your friends may not give a shit, and frankly they don't have to, but it all comes down to the resident.

Apparently there was talk that I had the "wrong kind of women" coming over...they are quite hilarious because the people complaining about this, i found out through a reliable source, are actually engaging in those lude acts and want a piece of what they believe I am getting. Unfortunately, sad as it may be, I am not interested in that because I have the best thing in the world with this chick (you know who you are you georgeous print maker you) and ain't nothin changing that.

I wonder now if anyone is actually even reading my blog. It is mostly my fault cause I never took the time to update for the longest period, but I'm trying to post every once in a while. You guys should check out the older posts like Dying Diety and such to get an idea of how philosophical I really tend to be.

Some pictures of my trip to Thar follow, along with the view from my apartment balcony.

Happy Birthday zohare.blogspot.com

Yeah it's a little belated but who cares. Happy 1 year since Ii started this jibber jabber. hope you guys have enjoyed it. I have just recently started back up again so expect some sporadic ranting from me.

till soon...

Back with a Bang!

Where have you been and why have you not called me for so very long?

Has it really been so long since I made a significant contribution to the blogger community? apparently, but this time i really do have a good excuse. If you followed allowing with my shit earlier in the year, you might remember the Acumen Fund being mentioned?

Well I was offered an opportunity to work with them in Karachi on a fantastic project which I will be very directly involved in. It's a secret at the moment so I won't be disclosing any details, but I will say this - if it works out, it will help more people than we can fathom in a place where this type of help has been tried in other forms and the success rate is kinda 50/50.

I am pretty excited about this and the fact that I get to travel a ton just like I did in the relief days up north. This time my target destination is the desert - Tharparkar

This place is outstanding and unbelievably intoxicating in a way that is undescribable in words...so I'm attaching some snazzy shots to this post. Will be there again in a few days, this time for a longer and more detail oriented stay so if you wanna know about the next trip and how the Thari's are fairing with this nut lurking in their backyards like Mr. Green loves to do - with a more pathetic intention in mind, then stay tuned...

Pictures will follow in another post...for now, i must go shop!

New Review and Listing Search Engine for Islamabad

Again having disappeared for a long time, I decided I would pursue some personal projects that I have been working on in my head for far too long.

One such project is www.foona.net, a restaurant search engine, directory listing, review and rating website for the outgoing of Islamabad (Pakistan), one service where everything is offered under one roof and plans to take Islamabad by storm.

I will release more information sooner to launch, but until then...be teased!

www.foona.net

Public Press Release - Please Distribute Widely

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday 06 March 2006

Media Contact:

Dr. Awab Alvi

Cell: 92-333-2373493

Fax: 92-21-4313069

BlogspotBan@Help-Pakistan.com

DON’T BLOCK THE BLOGS

In a recent development, the PTA (Pakistan Telecommunication Authority) has blocked access to thousands of blogs and websites being hosted on Google Inc's blogging hosting service - www.blogspot.com. PTA issued a notice announcing the ban of 12 offending websites which were promoting the blasphemous cartoons on the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and one of the offending websites was being hosted on the domain www.blogspot.com which also hosts more than four million other blogs and websites.

In a very blatant misuse of the power entrusted with the PIE (Pakistan Internet Exchange), the network administrator there has placed a block on the entire domain blogspot.com, hence blocking accessibility to all internet users in Pakistan. It has been over a good week and no measures to correct this error have been implemented as yet, probably indicating some more deliberate attempts to censor the World Wide Web than an honest mistake.

Internet access is the key to the success of any business, and if the governing body of the Internet in Pakistan, the PIE, continue to create hurdles, this will ultimately discourage foreign investment. A prime example of such mismanagement can also be found in the not too distant past, where Pakistan was isolated from the World Wide Web last year for about 7-10 days and this resulted in catastrophic losses within the industry which ammounted to a few billion dollars. At the time, the root causes of these loses were attributed to the inadequacies of the PTA .

The Don't Block the Blog campaign ( help-pakistan.com/main/dont-block-the-blog/ ) and the Action Group Against Blogspot Ban in Pakistan ( groups.google.com/group/AGABBIP ) are protesting this outrageous ban on blogs and Internet censorship in Pakistan on the whole. We urge the print and electronic media to exert pressure upon the Government of Pakistan to first lift the ban on non-controversial blogspot.com websites and then push for the reform of the PTA before this incompetent authority wreaks havoc with a progressing Pakistan

About:

Action Group Against Blogspot Ban In Pakistan (AGABBIP) is a group of like minded individuals based around the globe who truly condemn the recent Internet censorship policy in Pakistan and are striving on having the ban on Google's blogspot blogging service lifted by the Government of Pakistan. Our main aim is to regain free and fair access to Internet content which is a right of every individual irrespective of their race, religion, age or gender. while we expect any censorship to be within the limits of decency and decorum of the Pakistani culture. This means that we stand against any blasphemous caricatures yet this in no way should imply denying access to information to any individual or party and pushing for the rectification of censor ideologies so that similar problems can be avoided in the future.