PakPositive.com Specials

Notes from Islamabad: Lok Virsa wakes the city

2005-04-11T21:07:00.000+05:00

Foot tapping music, great bargains and plenty of food...no Park Towers can rival the excitement you can find at the Lok Virsa Festival currently running at the Lok Virsa Museum in Islamabad.There is no great mystery to the layout of the festival.The shopping:Consumers first! Well first up, is a sea of food stalls offering desi handis and snacks [including the famous paneer palak]. Once you've

Karachi's Official Who's Who

2005-04-02T14:00:00.000+05:00

What's Karachi's official animal? Why isn't Biryani officially honored as Karachi's most favorite dish - its culinary identity - it's OFFICIAL DISH? After the massive chopping of eucalyptus the tree, what's Karachi's officially representative tree now?A string of biryani centers struck up the thought in my mind: Biryani is Karachi official food. And the animal...?Here's a well-pondered list.

First Cineplex's Website

2005-03-28T17:20:00.000+05:00

Just discovered the website of Pakistan's first Cineplex chain, Cinepax. Good line-up of movies there. Check it out, and tell them Pak Positive sent ya! :)---Comments (latest on top) Cinepax said: - Thank you very much for those very positive words of support and for your interest. The website was designed by Rotosoft in Lahore. We are looking forward to being

Mr and Mrs Elmo Khan!

2005-03-26T15:36:00.000+05:00

I had noticed this photograph on Void Zen (void) - by ZENtium a long time ago and couldn't help saving it on my PC. Brilliant!Shamelessly taken without permission from:http://zenubia.blogspot.com/2004/12/mr.htmlDo forgive!---Comments (latest on top) Naheed said: - *tuts* *rolls eyes* Extremists!!Naheed said: - Some one call The White

Newsbreak: KSE-100 crosses 10,000

2005-03-14T14:27:00.000+05:00

1430 hr PK timeMarch 14, 2005This just in: the KSE-100 index crossed the 10,000 mark continuing a long rally. Yasin Lakhani, chairman stock exchange, credits a liberal economic policy including privatisation for this phenomemon. He also assured that a 2001-like risk situation did not exist and that the growth, indeed, is real. The Karachi Stock Exchange website [click to follow!] reports that

We will, we will, ROCK you!

2005-03-09T23:31:00.000+05:00

I want to share an achievement with you. Here's the story:Harvard Business School's South Asian Business Association (SABA) was in for a surprise. At their Second Annual Conference on India and Its Neighbors (emphasis added), what they didn't realize was that Pakistan will present itself as not a marginalized "neighbor," but a country with potential for business, a country with its unique

Travel Pakistan - yay!

2005-03-05T11:12:00.000+05:00

The spunky Pakistan Travel Web is back up again! I mean I thought it had gone the way of the many neglected Pakistani websites... lost in Internet's never-ever-land!This site gives you a peek into the many kinds of adventures you can undertake in Pakistan - be that trekking, water sports, safaris, skiing, or even shopping!! It's got loads of articles & photos (thank God they aren't tired-looking

Two to Tango

2005-03-05T11:04:00.000+05:00

Yesterday, I noted a street sign displaying the sign --> to indicate a turn. Just below the sign, a longish statement read: "Insaniyat ki khidmat ke liye lagaya gaya." [Translation: Erected for the service of humanity].This simple line cried for credit - I thought it involved a certain exhibitionism. I smiled inwardly at the thought. This signboard, indeed, was a tragi-comic representation of our

Getting pictured (and loving it!)

2005-02-23T23:26:00.000+05:00

No shy Pakistanis, please. As a nation, we are extremely confident about facing the cameras.In groups, we allign properly [a straight line, no matter how long]. In a crowd, we might turn the cheek but our eyes can still drill a hole through the viewfinder [remarkable this one]. As individuals, we pose and might even request for a second shot if we think the cameraperson is incapable of capturing

the lost generations

2005-01-31T01:43:00.000+05:00

someone commented to pakpositive that they notice a lot of our young people spending time chatting on msn than doing anything worthwhile... this is a valid observation and points to a growing trend & disappointing habit in the younger generation... a long time ago, I read a poem about the best minds of a generation going stark raving mad... a lament perhaps about the loss of brilliant minds to

Speaking of rain.

2005-01-28T02:17:00.000+05:00

WHAT? No one told me about the hail :(There we go; another disadvantage of being a musician to jot down onto my rapidly increasing list. I've been working nights for the past 3 weeks, trying to get my music application complete and sent on time. The normally accepted routine of musicians is that they stay up during the night, working /concerting/creating brilliant things. This behavioral pattern

when it rained, it poured

2005-01-27T21:53:00.001+05:00

i've been a rather bad contributer at pak positive specials.perhaps one of the reasons for that is simply the fact that i have yet to contribute.a single post.to date.so how about we chat ova a cuppa? *passes you some scones*.the weather was great today. and i mean amazing.lahore had it's first hailstorm. in years.and man it rocked.needless to say, i was in school when it rained, and im still in

The simple pleasures

2005-01-27T17:56:00.000+05:00

I've thought long and hard about what makes Pakistan so inimitable for me.God they say, is in the details and I realized that it was precisely in these details that we bare our soul, and its here that our endearing quirks and idiosyncrasies shine forth.Hopefully, over the course of a specials I'll talk about some of these nuanced traits, that make us who we are-for the worse, but mostly for

siddharta

2005-01-11T21:02:00.000+05:00

these days every street corner in karachi has 4 or 5 year old kids standing on the corner begging for food or money...breaks my heart every time i see them barefoot begging in this unkind weather.... i guess that the recent onslaught is due to eid being round the corner...you want to look the other way but as a parent it is hard to say no to their innocent faces......i remember that about 10

Treasure waiting to be unearthed

2005-01-10T17:03:00.000+05:00

cable tv is fantastic...especially if you have grown old watching ptv programs from its golden years...while it is sad that ptv does not relive/replay its archives for the benefit of viewers, some private channels have been playing them...i am watching this new punjabi channel called channel "g" and they are playing a ghulam farid kafi by pathanay khan (pk) which seems to have been recorded just

Notes from Islamabad: Walkees are out?

2005-01-08T22:34:00.000+05:00

Here is an excerpt I sent out in an email to a friend.I used to visit Islamabad on vacation 10 years ago [until 86] regularly--almost every summer. Me and my cousins used to walk around, a lot. From parks to tea spots to Super Market. Cars were rare on the road but the smell of freshly washed leaves and grass hung in the air and it was always a delightful surprise to see snails finding their way

Greetings from somewhere

2005-01-05T16:29:00.000+05:00

I think my very first post on this blog should be about the blog itself. No, not because I don't have any other ideas at the moment (which might be partly true), but because I feel this blog deserves a lot of kudos.Most of the entries on here make me go "What? Pakistan has [insert name of some real cool thing]?!?" For people like me, who are too lazy to search for "real news" about our homeland,

Notes from Islamabad: Bargainer's Paradise

2005-01-04T23:12:00.000+05:00

Be it Rs.15 for a short ride within the F sector in Islamabad or Rs.50 off a shawl, the Pakistani consumer has the comfort of haggling over price before nailing a deal. We’re not talking sophisticated boardroom negotiations but everyday off-the-counter [or over the rickshaw meter if you please] fuss one does to save 10s and 20s.The perpetual fear of being ripped off by a salesperson is relevant

Postively Mall Road

2005-01-04T20:14:00.000+05:00

Being far away from the homeland, memory accentuates both the positive and negative extremes of my experiences. I remember mangoes being more delicious than anything imaginable. I remember Lahore being hotter than hell. Both could be true but I doubt it.Here in the diaspora, most conversations begin with the latter and not the former. Seldomly, one will have a group of kids reminiscing about the

positives attract

2005-01-04T16:22:00.000+05:00

there is an anecdote someone shared on email that pretty much encapsulates the spirit of the welcome note by pak positive...the anecdote goes something like this....that there was this person who had a challenging job and he was a picture perfect example of a man satisfied with life...so they asked him the secret of his contentment given that his life was miserable in the office and he goes....

Welcome!

2005-01-02T20:19:00.000+05:00

I think an intro wouldn't hurt any one.Pak Positive Specials aims to live up to the Pak Postive blurb. In other words, we celebrate life, being simple Pakistani citizens.Religion and politics (which also equates military in our case) are all subjects which are already being dealt with almost everywhere, and by everyone - including ourselves. So we could attempt to be different here. After all, as