In the morning, to be exact at 5:29 AM, a rickshaw took exactly 18 minutes from Abdullah Dewan Bus Adda at Band Road to actually pass through all of Lahore to drop me at the other end at Hurbanspura! That thunderbolt had me holding my breath for life; only if I survived through extravagant jolting to actually hit my head against iron-mesh in front!
Bryan Adams is performaing live in Karachi right now. I can’t believe not a single tv channel is showing it!!! Not even ARY Digital. I just can’t understand why?? Not kool at all (how do you make a very very angry face here?)
Child protection and Welfare Bureau (CPWB) with the help of City District Government arrested around 80 beggars including 33 children. Those arrested have been locked up in the police stations of Gulberg, Qilla Gujjar Singh and Race Course.
Advisor to Chief Minister Punjab and Chairperson CPWB Dr Faiza Asghar said Child protection and Welfare Bureau and City District Government would defeat the mafia behind the child and adult beggary. She vowed to conduct such operations until the streets are cleared from the menace. Dr Faiza said that more than 1600 child beggars have been removed from the streets in the past ten months.
Source: Daily Times
Ok, all this sounds very nice and like wow great but I didn’t notice any change whatsoever when I was coming back home from work today. I saw same beggars at signals as usual. I hope govt has a well thought plan for the children they are putting in lockups. What will happen to them in lockups and afterwards? And why not going after those bloody gangs who put these children on streets in first place? We never hear any of these gangs being arrested or anything.
Everybody deserves a chance to live a decent life. Unless we address the root cause of this social issue, just putting people in lockers and vowing in front of press is not going to change anything. I just hope they know what they are doing.
I am sure many of us has noticed this, but they did foul up with the underpasses over at the canal. If you, say start from Dharampura underpass and are heading for say, Thokar Niaz Baig, you would notice this basic mistake. One underpass is next to the canal, with the off-ramp to its left and the situation is reverse when you approach the next one, making you change lanes alternatively for every underpass. This happens almost on all the underpasses.
And here is a funny question: how many underpasses are there on the canal? I have asked a few people, and although many pass through at least one of them daily, I had quite a varying answer anywhere between four to seven. Here’s my count, what’s yours?
Dharampura
Mall
Jail Rd
ShahJamal
Ferozepur Rd
Doctors Hospital
That’s six, no? Hmmm…
Life is weird. We don’t even realize how many and how quickly things change around us. We pass through a road, a street everyday and everything seems to be intact and at its usual place. We don’t feel anything different for years until one day something just happens and wakes us up. We begin to look at things carefully and realize that hey wait a minute, a lot of things that we loved and knew well, they are not there anymore.
Like do you remember how many old book shops used to be there at mall road 7-8 or may be 10 years ago? Atleast 10 that I can still recall (correct me if I am wrong) but most of them don’t exist anymore. While driving around yesterday, I noticed that there are very few book shops left at mall road now. Actually the only shop I could see was Maqbool Academy in Diyal Singh Mansion and I have some wonderful memories associated with that particular book store. I can’t believe most of them have been closed down in last few years and I didn’t even notice.
There used to be a small book shop at Regal, just on the left of Shireen Mehal. I can’t remember its name but they used to have the best ever collection of children’s edition of very famous novels, not to mention The Hardy Boys and every other comic book. I still remember my father got me a pocket sized version of Charles Dickens ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ from there long long time ago. This shop not only sold old books at low, affordable prices but they had a special taste in Urdu literature. The owner of that shop introduced me to some of the finest writers of Urdu literature and I can’t thank him enough for doing that (if only I can find him now). Yes, Feroz Sons were there too but they were never in my good book atleast. First I never had so much money to spend when I was a kid and Feroz Sons were very expansive, still are I think. Second, I don’t know why but I loved old books. I guess old books smell different :). So I always ended up at my favorite shop at Regal or Maqbool Academy or hey Bible Society had a lot to offer (still rock btw).
(more…)
Spring is a bit far away as basant is supposed to signal its start. But if you drive/walk/hop/run/crawl by the fountain on the chowk where the Canal road crosses the Mall road, you can still see a flower bed in full bloom. Nice of the LDA people to give as some fleeting moments to enjoy and appreciate some eye candy. If any one of them is reading this, Thankyou.
When Oscar Wilde said, “Life is not complex” , he had’nt read this sign board.
What’s up with ban on kite-flying? I see kites all around.
Sometimes, a slow internet connection can be a real hindrance in posting during gloomy Sundays like this. Before I had a phone line – a faulty one – dedicated only to the dialup, it showed up more-than-a-thousand-bill every month without the quality of the service. One thing is for sure; no more Cybernet. Now that I’ve got a cable connection (not the proper cable mind you, but a LAN) things are only slightly better. And I heard people in Islamabad are soon going to enjoy cable net over (optic?) fiber cable. Now, I’m jealous!
Got this in an orkut message from one of 89’s rjs :) –
CITY FM 89 Presents College Rhythms 2006
Akash
Lagan
Inteha
Zoak
V3
Axed
3.0
Hasnain And Anjum
Live @ Ze Grill [ 7pm, Thursday, 26 Jan 2006 ]
Tickets: RS200 /- Each
Tickets Available at the venue, CITYFM89 Office, JukeBox, Masoom’s & CTC.
For More Infomation
Contact: (042) 5789465-68
www.cityfm89.com
Sounds like fun, but I don’t know if everyone’s gonna want to pay 200 rupees to go see college bands that aren’t even well known.
