Although its been quite a while since the pizza hut truck moved on the back of fortess stadium, but i never got a chance to pay a visit until last week. Shouldnt it be called pizza truck or pizza trailer instead ? Its a good spot with cheaper deals to offer than the normal eat-in pizza hut and if your tummy is growling for some slices of take-away pizza, its THE place. Another new thing (for me atleast) that i noticed was a couple of me-too KFC look alikes right under the mian mir bridge. Neat utilization of wasted space if you ask me. Kudos to whoever got the idea.

from the home of the corrs, u2, boyzone, insanely fun accents and moremuch - dublin, ireland, now on the metblogging network! :D

What has been happening in Lahore since Tuesday cannot be simply described as seemingly-innocuous Protests, against sacrilegious cartoons, going sour, but they have more factors attached to them then visible.
The violence might be an episode in War of Civilizations but a closer look at the life of the youth in the mob raises doubts about this.
It is safe to say that all of them have email accounts and perhaps Orkut accounts too.Their usage of internet is medium .They have seen all kinds of Hollywood stuff from Titanic to Matrix. They watch Indian movies regularly. And they gate crush all those concerts of Abrarul haq and Indian Bhangra singers.
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Last night I watching news channels and there was a constant message being shown from Telenor Pakistan, urging people not to target them. They have nothing to do with cartoon controversy and have always respected Muslims beliefs and values. Telenor head office in Lahore has put up a banner showing Kalima with similar kind of message.

Norwegian government has apologized to Muslims around the world. The editor of that news paper in Norway also apologized in a press conference with Muslim Council of Norway, who accepted it too. And yet, Telenor offices are still being targeted in Pakistan. Don’t forget that Telenor was one of the largest contributors in quake relief efforts. They contributed much more than even some of our so called brotherly Muslim countries with huge pockets. No more madness PLEASE!

On a side note, one of the motorcycles destroyed outside PIA office yesterday, belonged to one of my friend’s cook. The poor fellow was saving money for 5-6 years and just bought a used CD70 a week ago. Last Sunday he was so happy and all, showing it to everyone. I felt like he was a little kid who is so proud of getting his favorite toy. It is completely destroyed now and I am absolutely furious!

A good news on personal front, amidst all the happenings, at last. Lahore Chitrkar has has lowered their violin classes fee from 3000/month to 2000/month. Yaaaaayyyyyyyyy!

I saw that car at Main Market signal with the number plate bearing LHR 1. To my disappointment, it was not-very-well-maintained metallic-blue honda civic. But anyway, that guy has got the best number in the whole city, I really envy him. But then again, I might have a better mobile number, who knows!

denver’s now live! welcome! :D
and this is lame and random, but while we were growing up, all the word ‘denver’ triggered was “denver the last dinosaaurrrr, he’s my friend and a whole lot more…”

This is pretty much a regular day in your routine life. You wake up early in the day thinking of two business meetings you have during the day, thinking, planning and putting every inevitable piece in its place. You come to know that there’s no electricity. Great, you think. God damn this LESCO (once again). Being a totally eat-out humanoid, you head towards the market to get some food, and you come to know that every shop, resturant and for that matter everything else is closed. Shit, this is a strike. Okay, adrenaline back to normal. But merely after a few hours, a (more of a joyous rather than angry) mob appears out of nowhere - mainly consisting teenage kids - and barging towards every shopkeeper who’s been brave enough to not close his shop.

Hit every other person who’s on car, motorcycle or even cycle. Burn cars (especially), throw stones at motorcycles and beat the owner, and puncture cycles. What these poor innocent people have done against you? Did that internet cafe walla who’s invested his two years into this business published those caricatures? No? Did that guy who might have got this car on loan have done anything wrong to provoke your anger? No? Then why the hell do you hurt these people, huh? Why set your own home on fire hoping that someone else, in a far far away land might notice and stop thinking what he does. No he won’t. If this is your way of protest, a logic so ill, then I’m better without one.

And why on earth the political parties like JUI always have these bartardly plans every now and then? If my memory serves me right, they never got more than 5 seats in the whole country. Then how do they manage to create such mobs in every city? School kids, is the answer. Spoil young minds and herd them like sheeps. Serves your purpose best, no? Majority of such mobs all over the city was composed of school and college students under 18 years of age. Now, if that’s your claim of sanity, better try again. Use every other occasion to create agitation in the society, against govt. mostly, is beaten agenda now. But what is more surprising is, how they succeed to fool all of us again and again. I, for one, prefer bad govt. over anarchy.

I’ve seen those horrific scenes myself that you watch on TV; that Travel Agency near Shimla, burnt cars at Egerton Road and all those along my way to Samanabad in the evening. One of my good foreign business prospects in recent time, cancelled a fixed meeting today just because he was afraid of coming out.

I wonder at people who try to justify all this by saying ‘we have to do something in protest’. My dear, to hell with you and your protest. I may hold our Prophet PBUH dear more than you do, but does it mean that I burn/loot innocent public’s property and beat them to point that they are on the verge of death? My logic fails again, if there’s any. If you’re angry at someone, go hurt them, don’t hurt me. I ain’t your culprit. khasyani billi khamba nochay! No, I’m not with you in this destruction. Kindly excuse me, if you will.

Another show of madness ended today claiming two lives and we don’t know what’s next. This was supposed to be an organized protest, peaceful and to show our solidarity against those cartoons. How all those protestors, mostly religious school students and members of right wing parties, turned into a violent mob? Nobody knows how it started but let me tell you that people who were setting cars, motorcycles and buildings on fire later on, were young kids and people in their early 20’s. Our own people. There might be criminals who started this but what we saw later on, is sadly, the ugly side of Pakistani society in general. If we see someone freely throwing stones at a bus or setting a car on fire - instead of stopping them - we join them - laughing and cheering.

Who is responsible for all this? The government of Punjab, who didn’t bother to deploy police (and that’s really amazing) on mall and surrounding areas? I tell you there was no security presence even though everyone knew there is going to be a protest at mall and that to me, gave them license to do whatever. And why did they allow them to protest at mall anyways? Or the organizers are responsible? The so called religious leaders, ‘naik log or Islam ke theekedaar’, who I saw only yesterday on TV, making a commitment with CM that everything will be peaceful. I was watching clips of protests in Islamabad and the amazing thing was that most of the participants were school children. What kind of sick mind would use children, who don’t even know what it is all about, for their own political/religious agenda? And this has been the case for years. Some bloody foreign leader comes from abroad and children have to wait in lines to greet them. Somebody has to protest, children are taken from classes and to streets. And these are the ordinary, lower middle class or poor children who need education the most.

No matter how much we blame west and their blah blah against Muslims. The problem is somewhere within our societies. What happened to our own self-correction process, the real Jihad?

So what’s next, more protests, more violence, govt. putting brain-washed jaahils in jails? As Muslims, we are offended by those cartoons. There is a fine line between freedom of speech and responsibility and sensitivity towards other people beliefs and that cartoonist certainly crossed that line. So go on, hit them economically, politically, socially, if you can. Yes, that’s one way of showing your anger in a positive manner. But getting 2 people killed, burning our own 70+ motorcycles, 14 cars and setting 12 buildings on fire (including the historical Diyal Singh Mansion) is going to help us achieve what? You tell me.

The situation is STILL out of hand, I’m in defence, and can only hear news of it: apparently they’re stoning every ‘big’ car - civics and such - and my friend’s cousin apparently just got beaten up and had his car wrecked. We’ve been trying to get every car heading out of LUMS aware of the situation, as most people here still don’t know what’s going on in the city. You can read more about it here on geo - http://www.geo.tv/geonews/details.asp?id=106416&newscategory=pakistan