So Ive been away for a while. Changing cities calls for a change in mindset, timings and overall personality in my view. The recent week has been pretty hectic with me joining telenor Pakistan on the Djuice brand...and God do I love it!
Having said that, that isnt the subject of this post.
My last days in Karachi turned out to be some of the greatest moments of my life and I had really cool friends give me a totally new perspective on life. You know how we all talk about firsts in life? Ive figured out a better perspective...
My last days were spent saying goodbyes. Goodbyes may be emotional although us "men" dont like showing emotion even if we do get emotional at times. There was Saadis last match with IBA United, My last dinner with her and then my farewell lunch with a bunch of friends.
What was my major learning? It was how to make your last moments...last. Make your last moments lasting enough to be remembered as fond memories. So to everyone at the hostel, in college, at the match, at the dinner and at the lunch...thank you.
You made my last moments in K-town, Everlasting!
So i turned 27 and as always there were hundreds of midnight birthday calls, hundreds of celebretory text messages and ofcourse as always my facebook wall was flooded with happy birthdays and party all night type of messages...
Growing up can have a big impact on your life, some positive and some negative. Certain friends of mine see it as a confirmation of their manhood and thus by indulging in their own securities see another year of life as a go ahead to add yet another feather (sin) to their cap...meaning if they were on dope before with their birthday they would graduate to coke and pill popping.
I tend to do stuff differently. I like spending the day/week alone and taking stock of my life. I realized something this time around.
As we grow older, we tend to move farther away from our parents. I guess that is the way of the world. Thanks to the capitalist mindset that we live in and have been brought up on, the old eventually shrivel up and die, and somehow that is seen as a given in the human race as well.
Think about it. Who were the people who gave you your first birthday cake and invited all your friends to enjoy it with you? Who were the people who have been buying your presents all these years? Your parents. And as soon as you grow up, you start prefering your friends over them. When on the job in Islamabad, on the job, I made it a point to take my mom to plays and movies with me, just to show the world, i dint care if anyone judged me, i loved my mom. And it just hit me, I havent spent my birthday with my folks for the longest time.
I need to. You need to. We ALL need to. They made us what we are today, and they deserve this much and MUCH MUCH MORE
Sir,
After reading the article that I just sent to you, I got down to thinking. How will IBA in an increasingly unstable world be able to differentiate itself?
I believe that values and ethics and creativity of business solutions is the way to go. IBA has previously been known for supplying the market with cut throat executives that will do just about anything to succeed. However in view of the financial crisis, its evident that such a strategy will not work.
Since Islam has always taught tolerance, values and ethics, I personally believe that IBA can become a shining beacon of such a system and this is something that I have realized after having been taught by Dr. Mahnaz Fatima this semester. The approach that she has taken with corporate strategy is one that cannot be found in any other business school in Pakistan, and I believe that she is a real asset to our institution. However one thing that is fundamentally wrong with the MBA right now is that we had her in the last semester, rather than in the first.
When the new crop of MBAs/BBAs come to IBA, they come here hungry for success in the corporate world. That is exactly why the race for grades has become the order of the day amongst our students. If they were to be given lessons in values by Dr. Mahnaz in the first semester, I am sure that this mindset can change. The way she has taught my class, and myself included, has really changed our perception. Every class is like a call to arms, which includes a drive for excellence in education, success in the corporate world, but at the same time, never forgetting what our true value system is and how we should maintain it in our daily lives. We come out of every class completely inspired, and this has never been the case in any class that I have taken here since 2002 (I worked for 3 years in between) save a few other illustrious examples which include Ms. Lalarukh Ejaz and Mr. Samir Amir.
Another thing that needs to be instilled within our graduates is the love of our country and finding creative solutions to the problems that we see around us. It should be our graduates that are making and implementing new BOP marketing and microfinance models rather than people sitting in harvard, because these problems are in Pakistan and not in the US. Our graduates should be consulting with NGOs or even governmental departments on how to improve their functioning and helping them effeciently achieve their objectives.
Our new positioning should not only be that we produce leadership within the ranks of the corporate world, but the world overall.
So anyway I recently asked a girl how her exam went. And she replied "Yaaaaaaaaaaaaar, rape hogaya yaar, teacher ne to completely layleee- phat ke haath mein aagayee yaar". Now I dont know how such words have found their way into common lady lingo but let me shed a little light on it....
rape hogaya - probably one of the most humiliating and painful any woman or man can go through - for further details please refer to mukhtaran mai or american history x
laylee - means uve been sodomized
phat gayee - means uve been buggered from behind...yes ure backdoor so to speak...
I didnt really want to write this blog post, but for current and future readers beware...u have absolutely no idea what ure saying!!!!!
I want to change things. I want to make movies and sing songs with a purpose. I want to use mass media to change perceptions, re arrange mindsets, change power mongers and throw them out of government. My latest idea comes from sitting at my college library with songs of Jiye Altaf - a song dedicated to the leader of a fascist organization MQM that promises to bring certain death to our country.
The people of my city Karachi are so God Damn scared of this man that they will never stand up in an open crowd and speak about him. Even the most powerful news source in Pakistan, the GEO network, who call themselves the champions of Pakistani democracy, does not dare publish and run a negative news clip about, out of fear of reprisal.
But I still want to. I want to sing,write, and bring a revolution. Why havent I done it? Im scared. Is it wussy to be scared? Not really. Ive never been one to think too much about my safety. I think the ultimate issue is how my death in a target killing with affect those around me. I have parents who would probably die thinking about how unfair it was to outlive their own kid. I have a girl who im crazy about and i cant dare think about leaving.
But then doesnt everybody? The question that comes to mind is this - how many people are there out there that are as scared as i am? And if we, the educated elite are so scared to do something about our conditions and keep thinking about those around us, who will it be that will stand up and change things?
When i initially came to the hostel, I was quite the "burger" kid. For those of you who dont know what it means (Untill my Alevels i thought that burger meant fat...) its a person who comes from an elite family, talks only in English - essentially people still stuck in the slave mentality that the English colonialists left behind in our part of the region. Essentially a person that does not appreciate ones own culture and would throw it away if he or she was offered a burger from burger king...
Getting back to topic, I needed to adapt and life here helped me out in doing so. New people, new surroundings, and an overall new culture helped me define a completely new mindset and approach to life. Did I leave my values behind? Some I did, but my new approach to life is a fusion of the good and bad - more realistic then ever before.
The reason for this post is that it came into question after an event yesterday. During a match, a person said something that truly hurt me. Now the average person around here would not have thought twice before burying the person in the ground within seconds of the words coming out of his mouth. But I didn't.
I told him NEVER to say it again - OR - I would bury him where he stood, and he understood. Through out the match, and until I slept at night I kept wondering and questioning whether my approach was correct. Was I a wuss for not raising my fists and beating him to a pulp?(and God knows I wanted to). It even bugged me till I wrote about it today.
I was right. If I had fought, it would be a bad lesson for the 150 strong hostelites that I currently manage. If words could warn, it was better than doing anything else. If I had fought him, what would be the difference between us humans and animals? Where would all the diplomacy I had learnt over these years go?
Im better now...as long as you dont talk to me about it again.
