Naughty Aunties!

Ever since my teenage years I have wanted to turn into the naughty old aunties who with a twinkle in their eyes pinched bottoms, made flirty remarks to the old and young alike, wore low necks with panache and generally had an infectious joie de vivre.

I figured the age to turn into one of these rather loud and border line obnoxious creatures was around 50, plus minus a couple of years. I am still decade and a half away from the ideal age but I find myself getting quite happily into the groove. And I tell you it is extremely liberating!

I have a theory about naughty aunties. One is supposed to live out one’s rebel side when in the young adulthood years but when one is an anal young person with very propah parents/upbringing or to quote my astrological hocus pocus, a kill joy placement of Saturn in Pisces, one does not go through all of that at the appropriate age.

As a young girl I was frought with what is proper and what is not proper issues, along with the usual self esteem, identity, peer pressure and place in society, friends, family, extended family, extended friends – the list is endless. I ended up being a cautious, sensitive, overly idealistic person.

And of course then life happened. Got kicked around in the teeth, picked myself up, got kicked again, picked myself up and kicked back, HARD. And this continues to this date.

All this kicking and kicking back has kick-started the rebel in me. It was after my first break-up about a decade and a half ago that I decided that I would not let one jerk colour my view of what love and life would be .….. that subsequently caused me to be kicked some more :) ..….. but since I had not lived out my rebel-cycle in teenage years like most normal kids do, I turned rebel at this point. I rebelliously stuck to my almost naïve beliefs because somewhere along the way I decided that I would not let others decide how cynical I would be – I would decide how cynical i would or would not be.

This causes me to be an optimist – an optimist who gets kicked around a lot – but a twinkle in the eye optimist, who really believes that things do turn out for the best and that the good truimph's over evil and that if you do good things and good things will do you... and quoting from the immortal line from Seinfeld 'Yada yada yada'.....

Alongside this rebellious sticking to impossible ideals I gathered years (not to mention pounds). The years liberated me from trying to conform to someone else’s stereotype. The pounds liberated me from having to travel economy :)

So the deal is that I am turning into a naughty aunty and loving it. This bit of age has given me a freedom which was not there when I was 22. Take the humour part of it - I had issues on how to react when guys told jokes about how to cheat on women, dumb blonde jokes and sex jokes. Now I just throw back my head and laugh – sometimes at the guys and sometimes at the jokes. I could not tell dirty jokes to my male colleagues. I can now and i laugh heartily at them even though it seems that my poor colleagues are embarrassed. In my younger years I did not use swear words. I *(&#^@ do that quite *#^(&@ easily. And my views – Oh dear! I had mild political, social, religious views in my younger years and now it seems they are getting stronger and stronger and I do not stand on ceremony if I get into a discussion regarding these. And discussion, thankfully I don’t get into too many of those anymore – specially with people who make controversial statements just to get noticed or to get a rize out of you. Also i seem to suffer fools much less gladly now. Seems I had a particular quota of fools and now it full and there is no room to listen to anybodies idiosyncrasies any more. Things that incensed me in my twenties, don’t turn me nuts now. Most importantly priorities have crystallized. Have somewhat figured out that life is going happen and all depends how I deal with it.

Je suis digressez from ze issue…..

Coming back to my theory – Naughty aunties and wanna-be naughty aunties like me are living out their teenage in their middle age. This gives them an unique advantage of having all the benefits of middle age as well as teen-age years without the disadvantages of either. It gives them a youthful outlook, with the ability to look at the brighter side of life andlaugh more easily. It gives them a sharp tongue along the wisdom of when to hold it and when to let it go. It gives them the ability to look and accept the grey along with the earlier black and white vision of idealistic youth. It give them wrinkles which add to the twinkle in their older wiser eyes.

Ah yes naughty aunties, I am going to join your ranks!

Disney Land of Self

Warning: This entry may test the stomach of most strong philosophical gush-mush resistant people!


Are’nt insecurities supposed to fade with age? Are’nt we supposed to resolve our ego issues and personality issues at some point or the other and reach a stage of Personal Nirvana?

Personal Nirvana seems to me the Disney Land of Self. Where all ego’s, insecurities, inferiorities, superiorities, meanness, jealousies, pettiness would dissipate in a parade of self-awareness, contentment, peace, calm, tranquility and the best thing of all, mundane almost boringly consistent happiness.

Rather foolishly I always thought that this was supposed to happen when one matures quite naturally - that the immature jerks would grow up, that the mean cats would realize how silly they were, that the goof’s and goons, and idiots would reform and become decent human beings……..And that similarly the jerk, the cat and idiot in me would also just disappear.

Hmmmmm…… Time seems to be telling me that this is not quite what happens so easily in reality. And worse of all is when you realize that you are one of the scores of people who have not reached their Personal Nirvana even though you have officially entered the Age of Maturity – which of course is different for different people but which for me was somewhere in my early thirties.

I had always assumed that I would reach Personal Nirvana quite naturally. Didn’t you? Self-evolvement is supposed to be natural and that is what we are supposed to achieve in this shitty life. Maybe I have read too many romantic novels. Maybe because my Moon is Aquarius and my Saturn is in Pisces that I have these illusions of grandeur. Anyway, bottom-line, have not reached the Disney Land of Self as yet.

My friends and family also seem to be on the same boat. Earlier on I thought that marriage was the big toll plaza one had to cross, and once one had paid the dues at the toll plaza, one was guaranteed entry. Unfortunately not so. My dearest friend has married a perennially immature man, whose anthem is Bryan Adam’s 18 till I die. Now even after kids, he is as idiotic as he was fifteen years ago. Another friend who got married very young to someone who at that stage seemed to be quite advanced on the Personal Nirvana scale, has seen a shocking slide down for the worst. Another friend has completely gone off the charts. The list goes on and on.

So what prevents us from achieving this Personal Nirvana? Is it Ego or Is it Insecurities? Methinks both are one and the same thing – ‘coz the only reason to think that one is great is the fear that others don’t think one is great enough 

One also has a quota of petty grievances, jealousies, idiosyncrasies and stupidities which don’t seem to lessen, just seem to be replaced by new and improved grievances, jealousies and idiosyncrasies......


Keeping all of this in mind, does one give up on reaching the Disney Land of Self? Is it just too idealistic and self-congratulatory to think that one could reach there at all? Don’t know that answers to these.

However have decided that for me, in these circumstances in which it is clear that one is clearly stupid/immature/silly/petty/insecure, the best one can do is to try and keep a grip on how stupid/immature/silly/petty/insecure one is going to be, with whom, for how long and for what purpose.

Wish me luck!

Ridiculously Good-Looking Pakistani's!!!!

I recently joined a social group called ‘Facebook’ and it has been fun for the last week. I was browsing through the group contents and went to see which Pakistani Groups were online and then I found it - a group called Ridiculously Good Looking Pakistani’s.

The hugely self-appreciative title tickled my funny bone no end. However the funniness came to an abrupt end when I went to the Group Page. I honestly was expecting a self-depreciating kind of humour because, well really, just look at the title - 'Ridiculously Good-looking Pakistani's'. In my world people with any sense of reality or for that matter, dignity do not confess to thinking that they are ridiculously good looking!. Well good looking is fine but ridiculously good-looking..... Just the word makes it funny...Right???!!!

Nope... Wrong!

The opening paragraph said that ‘Lahore was the centre of beauty’ and then gave access to a vast collection of pictures of foreign based Pakistani girls and boys – all in teens or twenties. There’s one of a shirtless guy flexing his muscles and another of a young girl in a boob tube. Some are indeed very good-looking, while in the studio shots one suspects that it is the camera man’s skill rather than nature which is to praise here. The only eligibility seemed to be good looks, with no necessity of any other aspect. Even the Miss World/Universe contests require the candidates to show some talent and answer questions in full sentences!

So what is my opinion of it – it’s pretty I suppose. Also kind of brainless. Instead of coming back with impression that Pakistani’s are good-looking, I felt that the group was saying, yeah we’re good-looking but in a dumb way.

Thinking about it i feel that’s not half bad. Give me a good looking guy who was dumb any day of the week. It’s the smart ones who seem to have more issues in life. Blissfully it seems none of the guys and girls on the ‘Ridiculously Good Looking Pakistani’s” Network seem to have any issues outside themselves!

Have a look at http://www.rglp.mysite.com/index_1.html

No Gene Kelly in Karachi!

Finally realized the implications of Global Warming which Nat Geo was going on for the past decade. Destructive Rain and wind hit Karachi and all but annihilated the meagre infrastructure. It was 44 degree on saturday (23rd June, 07) and after the rain it cooled off only by a few degrees. Then on Sunday, again the city was pelted by with merciless rain. The death toll was 250 due to falling roof's, bill boards and electricution. Electicution deaths in Karachi seems ruthlessly ironic to me - people dying because of excess electricity and while they live, there is no electricity..... Let me explain......

When we talk of electricity in Karachi, the word that comes to mind is Load-shedding - a term which all my foreign friends are blissfully unaware of - means shedding the excess electricity load by simply switching off the electricity! Ingenius! Well we've been having 'loads' of that. This may seem harmless enough but in a city where the average temperature is about 2.3 degrees higher than last summer (just made that up!) this year the consequences, apart from a loss of productivity is the form of Power Riots.

Power Riots - a fancy name for a riot which is cauzed by lack of power (Trust the presswala's to create a sensational brand name!). I got caught in such a riot a couple of weeks ago. Around 10 p.m. on the evening of 13th June, I was driving through Garden East going to a friend's house. The streets after Anklesaria Hospital started to become congested with traffic and by the time I reached the Garden signal, traffic was not moving at all and had spilt over into the electricity devoid narrow lanes. Apparently the residents around Garden East had been rioting to protest the constant load-shedding. There were burning tires and broken glass from car windows on the streets. The buses, rickshaws, cars and motorcycles were trying each and every way to get out of the paralyzed traffic jam and were turning into small passages and pathways. Like them I also turned into one of the alleys, which had houses on both sides. The alley was pitch dark, with the only light coming from the headlights of my car. There was no electricity and residents - men, women, elders, toddlers - everyone was sitting out on the road. Their sweat-drenched faces were exhausted with the day’s toil, ruthlessly aggravated with the continuous load-shedding. It was a harrowing sight

Finally about an hour and half later, the traffic broke and I reached my destination, not before I had twisted and turned around in myriad dark alleys, all with no electricity and all with tired people sitting outside on the roads..

Driving back home later that night, I passed a well-lit Shahra-e-Faisal with all street lights on the four lane main artery well lit, along with all the advertising bill boards with strong flood lights, The final straw seemed to be Bagh-Ibn-e-Qasim - the recently inaugurated huge park near the sea-side in the middle of Clifton. I was aghast to note that each and every single light of that gigantic park was fully lit. And as if to rub salt in the wounds, there was not a single soul in the park. Upon reaching home, I found that there was no electricity there either.

It is still understandable that the KESC can not immediately produce enough electricity to cope with the growing demands of this sprawling metropolis. But it is simply not acceptable to have such a blatant and obvious lack of management of such a precious resource. Seems to me that indeed there is a dearth of electricity, but the far bigger problem is management. Public places such as parks should be shut or operate on minimal lights after 8 p.m. The lights on the advertising bill boards should be off at 8 p.m. and for conservation’s sake each third light on major roads should be on instead of all. Taking these measures should give the population some relief at night.

This is no rocket science. Just plain common sense - and it seems it is too much to ask of KESC or the Government of who-ever-the-hell-runs things around Karachi. The rioting is still continuing and now with the rains, seems that it will get worse.

Gene Kelly danced to 'Singin' in the Rain' a half century ago. Cant see any one doing that in Karachi any time soon.

The Girl, ET and Cabbages

When I left college over a decade ago it was my dream to become a journalist. To write pieces of great intellectual merit, to call to the attention of the masses the truth and expose the hoaxes and frauds of the world, to be a voice for the underdog and other such lofty aims. To achieve my ambition I joined an English daily eveninger. They gave me a rickety chair and a desk which had a pigeon’s nest in it. I sat in a dingy little room with a ceiling fan which did about one revolution every other minute with sounds of much protest.

The editor sat in her air conditioned room with the door closed, didn’t know my name and called me ‘the girl”. And the first assignment she gave “the girl’ was that I was asked to put together the horoscope column for the paper. I had visions of research into the zodiac signs and reading up on Linda Goodman and what not. The matter turned out to be much simpler. I had to do this task together with Chacha, who was this lively old peon who had been there since the dawn of time. Chacha told me not to worry that he had it under control. He showed me an old tin jar which contained horoscopes predictions pre-written and pre-cut into exact squares to fit in the space under each zodiac heading in the space allotted. All I had to do is take out any old square and paste under any old zodiac sign and presto – horoscopes for the day.

Needless to say that ‘the girl’ lasted all of five days in that office. I applied to a small foreign bank and they took me on. And from ‘the girl’ I immediately got promoted to “ET” – Executive Trainee. Small step for (wo)man but a great leap for the ego!

There were a bunch of us ET’s. The job title acronym brought a smile to everyone and was the cause of many jokes. We were supposed to be weird and clueless, much like the character ET itself. But there were a bunch of us young lively ET’s and my god did we think we were important. And we did important tasks like…er… like filing. And this was no ordinary filing. It was an ET’s filing - filing in alphabetical order, colour coded and all. And we learnt how to do spread sheets the painful way the bank wanted them and we did industry analysis and we did all kinds of other work which now that I look back was very dull and boring and frankly very insignificant. But the atmosphere around us was so encouraging that it did not feel insignificant. My research on the auto industry, compiled by combing through mind numbing data from the chamber of commerce, stock exchange and auto companies was important, or atleast that was how it was conveyed to me. It carried my name and my designation. I don’t really know if Higher Management ever read every detail I agonized over in my reports, probably not, but it was important to me because after all I was an ET – not just “the girl” any more.

That was a while ago and now I am the head of my own department. My sojourn included being Officer In Charge, Assistant Manager, Deputy Manager, Manager, Assistant Vice President, Resident Vice President and now finally Head of Department. With each designation the job expanded and the title itself gave importance to the job. So when Sumera from Dawn called and asked if I would like to write a piece on job descriptions and how they effect they job itself, I hesitated all of three seconds, the time which it took to gulp the cup of tea which the peon brought for The Head Of Marketing and Media Relations.

As it happens the title of a job and the value an organization attaches to it has a tremendous effect on the performance of the job holder. In the corporate world, organizations compete with each other on the basis of salary and then on the basis of job titling. It is an organization’s way of showing the job holder the value they attach to the job. There is no arguing about the fact that the amount an organization pays to a job holder is the direct equivalent of that job holders worth to the organization. It is also equally true that the title of the job determines the importance the organization places on that particular job.

Job titling is a matter of importance also because it determines the scope of the job and how much can be covered under that particular job title. It describes the job and marks out a playing field for the job holder. For example if one is Assistant Manager Liabilities, it means one is restricted to the deposit mobilization side. However if one is Assistant Manager Consumer Banking, it means one can be looking after the assets as well as liabilities side of banking, product development as well as operations. The title change in itself expands or restricts the job.

Job titling is also a very sensitive matter. It involves personalities and ego’s. Countless job holders get de-motivated if they feel that title change does not commensurate with the actual job itself. In a recent job title change at an organization, the Assistant Manager’s title was changed to Senior Officer. Caused an uproar in the ranks of the Assistant Managers. No matter how much the HR department tried to explain that the Senior Officer was every bit as important as the Assistant Manager, grumbling continued. The HR department, which by the way had recently changed its name from Personnel to HR, thought that since this was a change on a country wide level, that the dissatisfaction would die down soon. Six resignations later, HR still hasn’t figured this one out.

Although the mercenary person a friend of mine is, she said they could call her a Toilet Cleaner as long as they paid her a hefty amount. I asked her what if they called her Manager Janitorial Services. She said that sounded good. And then I asked what about CE , Cleanliness Engineer. And she smiled and said she could live with that too but along with the hefty salary. The point of that comes from this rather silly bantering was that whatever we call a job, if it has connotations of importance and respect, it will be viewed and therefore undertaken as such. Simple.

Master Shakespeare said something like, would a rose smell any sweeter if it were called something else. Surprising sentiment from a history’s most articulate word juggler. Very romantic though. Indeed a rose would not smell any sweeter. It would continue to smell as good as it does. But somehow words have a connotation deeper rooted in us than we think. Don’t know about you but I cannot imagine getting excited about two dozen red “cabbages”. They just have to be called Roses to do their job well!

Vex and the City

I was off to a naat khawani (A devotional songs get-together - bit like going to church) and was appropriatly dressed demurely in white, no makeup and a dupatta over my head. The road through Saddar was snail-paced as usual, with buses and donkey-carts congesting the precarious pot-holed roads.

At the Anklesaria Hospital traffic signal, my car was right next to a huge menacing bus which worryingly balanced a multitude of passengers from every possible angle. People were dangling from the windows, doors, on the grill on the back, on the roof. Though it was very unsafe, the vantage point of the bus gave the passengers an opportunity for entertainment. Loath be for me to deny good clean entertainment to any deserving audience and this certainly seemed like one, but for once I changed my opinion when I discovered that I was the entertainment – there were and I take artistic licence in exaggerating, about two million inquiring eyes directly upon me.

Now any one of the fairer sex in Pakistan will tell you that they are accustomed to be stared at from the general Pakistani male population. It doesn’t matter how demurely one is dressed, the starers will not let excessive clothing deter them. A large number of my friends still turn purple and foam at the mouth while speaking on this topic. However most women will shrug their shoulders and tell you that they are quite used to it. Myself, I would be quite blasé about it and tell you that it doesn’t bother me because that’s just the way it is and I have accepted it.

But for all my blasé-ism (there is surely no such word!) I can not deny how intrusive it feels. Here I was squirming under my dupatta, resolutely staring straight ahead, waiting fervently for the traffic to move. It seemed that the entire bus found me endlessly fascinating. I heard a couple of whistles, catcalls, ahems and little boy-men calling out to each other ‘Deekh, deekh’.(look, look!)

Many a thoughts rushed through my mind – like taking my imaginary klashinikov and wreaking havoc on the offending populance. I reminded myself that I was fasting and so the klashinikov thought fast changed to a hail-storm of birds which came and did their business all over the bus.

Alas no such thing happened. What did happen that years of being exposed to similar situation helped me totally ignore the bus and stare straight ahead. I started the usual Denial Mantra which has been indoctrined into all Pakistani Women’s head. “This is a segregated society, Women are treated as objects, This is a feudal country blah blah blah’.

Just as I got my indignation under control, it seemed that my apparent indifference became unbearable to the heckling youth and the not-so-youth perched on top of the bus. As if the stares weren’t intrusive enough, a pointer-light was duly procured and aimed and shined inside my car. The little red dot of light danced inside the car at every which angle the holder could maneavoure. For a couple of moments, even the occupants of the bus were stunned into quiet. Not to last long this quiet was, followed soon by the ususal whistles and hisses.

Just then the traffic moved and it seemed that a large wave of taxi’s, rickshaws, animal carts, bicycles and mini-vans propelled my little car forward, creating a distance between me and the bus. I finally let vent to my feelings. I gave a murderous stare to the bus through my rear-view mirror, which nearly cracked the mirror.

As I inched forward I realized that it was a good thing that the traffic moved. There was sadly nothing I could do about any of it. I looked forward and there was another traffic signal coming up. To prevent my blood-pressure from rizing and the exploding through my ears like fountains, I started saying the Denial Mantra in advance.

Later at home, I began thinking about the thought of the large number women standing on roadsides everyday, waiting for buses to come take them home from their colleges or work. My heart said a little prayer for them to continue in their courage. And then it occurred to me that the last thing I should do is deny that fact that the ogling bothers me. Oppression loves a pacifist, said a smart person whose name escapes me in my fervour of writing this piece. So I am dropping the façade. Intrusive stares vex the hell out of me. They do, and like how. It is, very simply, not right. Sadly I am not the picketing kind, and anyway where would one picket against this in any case. But one still must do ones little bit. For me, it will be driving through Saddar on my own, with thoughts of imaginery klashinikovs and a storm of bird-droppings, till the whistles and catcalls run out.

Jill didnt go up the Hill!

I never studied abroad as a young woman because my parents were firstly conservative and secondly, couldnt afford to send me at age 18 (or 21 for that matter). I studied here in one of the best local colleges. One of my friends was a very nice girl, Jill, who came from a middle class family. They were catholics and her father had a very respectable job in a private firm. She was bright and very funny. Once after college we were sitting around the canteen and discussing what we were going to do and she said she wanted to be a private secretary in a firm to the CEO becasue the secretaries of CEO's are well paid and pampered and have an easy life. Her mom had been a private secretary to the CEO of a multinational and was picked and dropped home and got bonuses and a good pay and didnt have to work long hours. I said i wanted to be a journalist and do in-depth reporting on the grave injustices of society (i was 19!), others had various views which ranged from doctor to lawyer to fashion designer and TV show host.

Anyhow we graduated from college. I tried my hand at being on the staff of a local eveninger. That experiment lasted five days. Told my dad that i hated it. He, poor man, pulled a few strings and landed me an internship at a mulitnational bank. I wasnt sure i wanted to do that either, but didnt want to appear to be flighty and indecive to the parents. Also it was bothering me that i didnt know what i wanted to do or be and that i was 20 and had no idea where to go. Wasnt going for further studies and at the time when i finished by BA in the last years of the 80's, there was really very few options in Pakistan, which were acceptable to both parents and myself. So decided to jump in with both feet at the opportunity the internship provided me. Worked my tail off for the next two months. Stayed late, did extra projects, acted like the goffer girl. And then came my break - at the end of the internship i was offered a job which paid whole two thousand five hundred rupees (about USD 80 at the time). My God! I thought i was well on my way to becoming a power-wheeling investment banker. Little did i know how far (far, far, far) that was away from the truth :)

A couple of years down the line, i had earned a masters degree while working and changed jobs. One day i was visiting my fathers Travel Agency, which had offices all over the country. I had talked to his new secretary on the phone and she was going to let me wait in his office while he was in a meeting. I reached Dad's office and the secretary buzzed me in. On reaching his office, the person holding the door open was Jill. We looked at each other and broke into laughter and sat down and had a good talk.

Coming back home that day i was pensive. Jill was way smarter and brighter than me but she became a private secretary. Everytime since then when i think of that incident i go quiet. What part does our own drive play in where we end up and how much is destiny? I am not saying that anything is possible (because that is really and truly not true!), but do we limit ourselves with pre-conceived notions???? Dont know about others, but i know Jill did that to herself.

Jive Talkin' Pakistani Style

I had heard from my mother that they were holding Salsa classes as a local institute and roped my buddy to join with me. So off we went and duly enrolled. There were just two other students in the class and our instructor, a rather sweet young man, who had learnt dancing in his student years somewhere in the civilized world.

The first surprise was that we were not going to learn the Salsa (which i always thought was a dip, rather than a dance....ignorant me!) but rather the Jive. Now Jive, as i understand it, is more rock n roll with a partner, so i didnt mind. My friend didnt know the difference and didnt care. He, bless his heart, is a lovely guy and about his dancing skills, lets just say that the mind is very willing and hopefully the rest of him will follow soon :)

Anyhow, back to dancing - the one hour class was the most fun i had had in a long time. The other two students had been there for nearly a month. There was a pretty woman and the other, a rather shy young man with a trendy goatee, who kept smiling when he had to partner me.

So we started to dance. Now i dont know if i can accurately decribe the little room we dance in - its a longish room with tiles from the 1950's. The air conditioner is also from the 50's and for it's age it is doing a great job - by which i mean that it occassionally spits out gushes of somewhat cool-ish air, then it makes a noise as if it is going to get air-borne but then suddenly it goes completely and rather surprizingly silent. This cycle goes on and on. The effect is intermittant cool air and a lot of noise.

Even though we are used to the national dress, one can not dance with a dupatta (scarf), because the dupatta, as any pakistani woman knows, is a wily thing with a mind of its own. Sometimes it stays behind when you go ahead, sometimes it stands when you sit, sometimes it just doesnt want to be there and slips away. Couldnt deal with all that when dancing so off with the dupatta. When i was learning Khattak, the classical Mughal dance, one was supposed to tie the dupatta in a very specific way, around one shoulder and then encircle the waist. But no room for dupatta's in this class..... I wonder if Ginger Rogers would have been as fabulous if she had a dupatta to contend with with.

By the end of the class we had learnt two basic steps and danced a couple of numbers doing the steps again and again. In that one hour I had stepped on toes, got bumped into, hurt my ankle, used foul language and sweat like a horse. But i had a royal blast. Cant wait till the next time.

What do Pakistani Women Wear to Work

So i got up in the morning, later than usual and over chai started contemplating what to wear to work. Although i have a significant western clothes wardrobe (yes, we do get western clothes here), it is not acceptable for a Pakistani woman to be dressed in pants and shirts and go to work - or go anywhere for that matter. I do wear pants and a shirt when i go out but not to work. I wear the national dress, which is called Kameez (long shirt) shalwar (baggy pants) and top it off with a dupatta (scarf) around my shoulders. It sounds a bit frumpy and to the western eye it may be, but the Kameez shalwar is ideally suited to the warm weather we have in this part of the world and the dupatta is very useful to protect from the harsh rays of the sun. The material is very light weight and in pretty colours. Methinks geography plays a big role in deciding the nature of clothing. My theory is countries closer to the equator/tropics, where the sun is bright inspires bright and colourful clothing and those away from the equator inspires more sedate clothing. That would fit right in with why African, Meditteranean and South Asian countries wear more loud colours than the Europeans, North Americans and Canadians. Just a theory.......

Coming back to working women clothes in Pakistan, there are some young women who do wear western clothes but too many - especially not the ones who use the public transport system. It is very obvious that the western clothes trend acceptability is only in the large cities of Karachi followed by Islamabad and then Lahore. Amongst other issues like being perceived too western (translation, too forward)coverage is an issue. Pakistani's tend to be conscious of bare arms and even slightly drooping necklines are not .... er.... proper. Even though i myself wear sleeveless tops and sometimes a lower than usual neckline, i know very well that if i wear it to work, everyone will be thinking about my neckline and not what i am saying or doing - which is a shame. So i reserve my western gear only for when i go to places, like a friends house or an exclusive restuarant or private club (yes we also have those).

But today at work i am in my regular Kameez Shalwar. This one is in pastel shades of pale pink and pistachio green, topped off by a rather pretty pasley print dupatta of pink and green. Looking like a giant ice-cream cone :) but getting many compliments, mostly from my female colleagues.... So all's good.

Monday Blues, Short Fuse and Feminist Hues

This monday was as bad as the publicity monday's get - it was bad. I had a problem on my desk before i had the time to get my caffeine fix or read the paper on my desk. God I am such a mem sahib .... not that i am going to change but still feel a pang of embarrassmen over it - which i would like to continue to feel because that pang is kind of like paying my dues for being a spoilt mem sahib..... warped? sure!

Then the day did not get better with Audit stepping on my tail. Fools. Felt like slugging their leader, which would, i am sure, have been extremely satisfying, but interest of self did not do so. Cant get a repute of having a short fuse - well lets rephrase that - cant give the people further proof of having a short fuse.

Went out for lunch with a few colleagues - all decent guys. After all these years in a male dominated industry, i now have a good feeling of camaraderie with my male colleagues. Helps that i am older and chubbier and not a 26 year old with a figure like a coca cola ki bottle (only those in asia will understand this). And yes i had that figure and now its comfortably covered in a layer of cozy fat. Being older and heavier does have it's advantagess. Hmmm...so does that mean that my male colleagues would have treated me different had i been lighter?? Yes, i think so. Damn all that feminine liberation - male psyche is still standing still as it has been forever.

Going Home Time on Friday Evening

Work day is almost over and i have to go the gym to exercise. Have been struggling to begin a weight loss programme. Depression coupled with laziness, lack of discipline and hypo-thryroidism have been the respective causes of a gain of nearly 35 kgs in the past four years.

The new gym that i have started just yesterday is a quiet place. Just a couple of men and women, age group late thirties, early forties. Nice, sedate and quite boring. It's going to be an uphill struggle and i am not sure how successful i will be. Anyhow, must start it because if i dont i will become very sick. Also there is the cuteness factor. I think i am vain enough that if i concentrate on getting cute again, rather than being healthy, then it will be a stronger incentive. Flaky? unfortunately yes - but that's the reality for me.

Me Blog??? Why???

Finally i started the blog after quite a few months contemplating the need for one. Is putting my voice out there really such a need. Who would hear it? and why? and why would it matter? Or does it just matter to me? Dont know. Just was driven by need to put my perspective out there and not be typecaste.