A few days ago a friend was saying that the city looks different if you have a bike. Today, I, without a bike, would like to rephrase it to ‘the city looks different if you don’t have a bike’. I had so much to do and that too without my bike. I asked nearest shop-keeper about the routes and buses, and here I go. Now, I was supposed to take Daewoo #16 to center point, gulberg. I had to wait for 27 minutes for the bus to arrive. It’s almost half an hour just waiting, doing nothing.
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Just like Hasan, I also received this email from a friend of mine today. Very funny indeed. Bijli (Electricity) situation was quite miserable during the months of July and August and poor Lahoris were made to suffer and sweat. Like Naeem Bukhari would have described in Punjabi (and he recently ended his interview of MQM leader Altaf Hussain by this line), Paseene Paseeni Karke Maar Dita.. hehe.

This is one very good explanation why we have so much load shedding and power fluctuations in Lahore :D.

Source: An evil friend of mine :)

I just got this picture as an email message.. It simply is breath-taking…

I love it when it rains in Lahore. The city turns even more greener and one can feel the freshness everywhere…

I know, I end up writing less about local body elections and putting up gorgeous cityscapes but this is an itch I have to scratch. Wearing LiveStrong bands has become a trend all over the place! Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad, and not just LiveStrong yellow but similar ones only different colours, for Nike or Chinese good luck randomness; even cell phone promo. A flyer stuck on the wall at my university advertised LiveStrong bands for sale at 300 rupees apiece, all you had to do was call the cell number on it.

Everyone who can see where Willy is, raise a hand.

The LiveStrong band is a symbol of a person’s support for prostrate cancer victims, survivors and patients. Wearing one means you spend a dollar that goes towards the cause, and that you support it. So where does reselling a LiveStrong band -for a pretty profit, I and anyone who knows the dollar-rupee exchange rate may add- fit in? Sure, our entrepreneur bought the band from wherever but aren’t you defeating the purpose of a charitable venture by turning it into a fashion statement? I hear someone saying ‘well, at least its spreading the word’ but I bet you half of the people who wear them don’t even know what they hell they’re for, or coud care less. Wearing LiveStrong bands because its cool these days is something that’s just really getting my goat. Cancer is not as casual as a stripe of colour around your wrist. Cancer is not something as superfluous as a bracelet you wear because everyone is. It’s a scary, serious disease and I think the carelessness with which we live our lives is amply demonstrated by a LiveStrong band being fashionable. Are we really so shallow? I’m very afraid that a lot of us really are….and I’m not even going to go into the phenomenon of Che Guevara, Retail Capitalism Superstar. Poor man must be turning in his grave….t-shirts, keychains, a movie! What next? A theme park?!

Strangest/weird thing has happened today. First of all, those of you who didn’t vote in last week’s local bodies elections, shame on you :P, and those of you who voted know how confusing and complicated ballet papers were this time. They just had symbols of candidates and NO NAMES at all. So not only one had to remember the symbol for each candidate, 6 in total, but also the seat s/he was contesting. Even the same symbol was given to two different candidates at times. Election Commission of Pakistan is known for its mis-management and blunders but they have set new standards this time around.

Source: www.warnerbros.com
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Lahore Arts Council has recently initiated a new effort to bring forth the unsung and amateurish talent in performing arts .Every Saturday at 7 pm, a function is held in Alhamra (The Mall) outside the Hall 2 in which artists and wanna be artists get an opportunity to perform in front of an appreciative crowd .Since the beginning of the program the opportunity has been well utilized by the classical and folk musicians especially the ones who are schooling in Alhamra Performing Arts Academy and other art academies. This time someone even performed with a dance troupe.
Although everyone is invited but the audience consists mainly of people from middle and lower middle class crowd . The opportunity has been missed by rockers since they are not comfortable performing in front of masses .It is hoped that Lahore Arts Council will take more of intelligent and far reaching initiatives to promote culture and arts.

You can view the pictures that we took this sunday – mine are here, and here and maleeha’s are here, here, here, maybe here, here, here and here too. :)
Hopefully we’re gonna have a second, bigger photo meetup soon!

There are three primary reasons:

First; I hail from the city where we don’t have local body elections. Hence, no right to vote.
Second; I still can’t decipher all these acronyms NAZIM, COUNSELLER (don’t even know if this is how they spell it!) et al. Plus, what purpose they serve (if any).
Third; What’s the use of casting my vote when we have a tyrant in charge. Yes, I said that.

Earlier in the day, I felt an urge to go out and shoot some election velection photos, but then my perpetual laziness took over and I settled to reading a book instead. Sorry, but I suspect others would have done something. Care to share?

Aaaaaaaaaaand, we had 19 deaths. 10 in Lahore only. Now, how’s that? Anarchy at the grass-root level, must I say?

Actually, this particular pedestrian does deserve applause because he barely missed being hit by the car pictured above. Or, perhaps next time he’ll use better judgement before crossing busy roads. Traffic in Lahore is the ‘survival-of-the-fittest’ to say the least,and as a fellow pedestrian I would plead everyone to look both ways before hurtling yourself on to the street.