Cocktails and Dreams

Its 530 in the morning and I havent slept! been running for almost 21 hours..and only 8 hours of work in that 21 hours..nice eh? aaahhhh...this is the life...but its saturday night..and saturday nights are meant for this..but ive kinda been enjoying all week..like this guy i know says, and I'm quite willing to accept as my career motto for the moment :
" Work everyday, party every night!"

posted by h@mMy! @ 5:43 AM 0 comments

Suddenly, and for a whole avalanche of reasons that make it too complicated to even want to think about it, I seem to have lost faith in the institution of marriage. Seriously.

posted by h@mMy! @ 3:08 PM 1 comments

Eid??

I'm back in Khanewal. Almost 700 miles away from home. On the second day of Eid. I spent ONE day with my family at Eid. And while the whole of Karachi was out partying and meeting up with relatives and friends, I on the other hand, was first seated to a lady with the most horrifying combination of makeup, then was whisked away to a village where everybody goes to sleep at 7 in the night even on the second day of Eid. I cant believe this. Im working today, and its the third day of Eid. Some people might be working or studying today too. But atleast theyre probably at home. I'm anywhere and everywhere but home. If I had a wish for a chance, it would most definitely be the chance to stick an 8 inch firecracker up the a** of the one person responsible for me spending an occassion as homely and lovely as Eid with a herd of buffaloes and a large number of ripe cotton fields.

posted by h@mMy! @ 10:02 AM 0 comments

Live from Khanewal (Part 2)

Ahh the HO of Unilever. Its no less than heaven. That is if youve seen the other sites. And if youre a single male. But I wont go into that. So there I was; pushed away into the furthest part of Karachi for a WHOLE FOUR MONTHS!! yes, thats exactly how much I (over)reacted. It was in a place called West Wharf. Many of those who read this havent ever been there. Many, yet, havent even heard of it. But it wasnt THAT bad. Atleast I was home. Karachi. Good 'ol polluted, people-screaming-in-your-face, ramming-cars-up-your-a**, breaking-roads-everywhere, Karachi. My plan for the training period COULD HAVE gone smooth. It could have gone all nice and easy, as planned. But it was not to be. Somewhere in Pakistan, there was a village. They called it ..........................................Khanewal. Somewhere in that village, there was a factory which belonged to .......................................................Brooke Bond (which does not sound all that dramatic actually). This factory was bought by Unilever in 1998. Exactly 8 years later, they decided to suddenly change the training plan of one poor, innocent, unsuspecting management trainee.
To be continued...

posted by h@mMy! @ 10:20 PM 1 comments

Guilty Feeling of the Year

I dont think I'll easily be able to get over the fact that all I did for last years earthquake was to collect money. I wasnt able to go to the PAF Museum. I didnt go to Azad Kashmir. Infact, all i really did do was initiate a couple of donation movements. I feel horrible about it. While even the girls that I know were able to actively participate in all this, I stayed back and encouraged others to give in money and everything. There was a reason why I couldnt go to all these places, but perhaps theres nothing that can make me feel better about it all. Selfishly speaking, I feel as if I wasted a perfect opportunity to get inner peace and satisfaction of having helped so many people at the same time. If you see a poor old man carrying a heavy bag of supplies to his hut, would you give him a Rs. 100 note or take the bag from him and carry it for him? I believe, the latter is better. That's what I would do, or atleast want to do. The fact that I couldnt do such a thing for over a million people when I had the chance to is something that will always sting me like a needle bent into my flesh. For some reason, I had to share this with the world. There is no measure to the amount of regret I feel.

posted by h@mMy! @ 6:44 PM 1 comments

The Kind of People I Hate

On my flight back from Multan to Karachi, I had the unfortunate coincidence of having my seat next to the typical kind of Pakistani I loathe. He was well built and had a large belly. With thinning black hair with white sideburns and a typical 'Landlord' type of moustache. But more than his physical appearance, what mortified me more was the fact that he was another one of those villagers, illiterate, uncivilised and with tons and tons of money. I always believe that more than knowing how much you make, its more important to know how to spend it. And now that I AM making money (alhamdulillah), I feel my own attitude changing as far as spending money is concerned. I wont be stingy when it comes to food. Food is my life. Here in Khanewal I'm spending loads on groceries and the typical 'Bachelor' food shopping spree. But tell you what, I am NOT going to spend seven grand on an Amir Adnan Kurta that could rip if I put it in a washing machine. I cant fathom why anyone would want to buy something so simply yet so ridiculously overcharged. J.J.'s boutique is better. ANyways, back to that man. He was some sort of businessman or something. And it seemed he had just gotten a cell phone for the first time. Because the only time he wasnt talking to anyone (in a thick, heavy, uneducated Punjabi accent), was when the plane was in the air. If man had somehow managed to stick up a communication pole up at 10000 ft, I'm sure he wouldve continued blabbering away. He called up three people more than twice, and his longest break between two calls was a staggering 5 seconds. He blabbered away while we were in Multan. Then he blabbered away when we stopped over at Faisalabad. And he blabbered on when we touched Karachi. He was seated in at the window. The plane takes off, and I'm nicely looking past him outside to marvel at the scenery. And that idiot, knowing fully well that I was looking outside, suddenly reached over and shut the window. There and then I wished a had a hot cup of coffee with me. I wouldve dropped it on him and conveniently make it look like an accident. And then he did something that pissed me off beyone limits. He took off his seatbelts as soon as the plane landed, and before it even stopped at the terminal, he was ready to get up. Just like the other hundred or so uncivilised, impatient people, he wanted to get off the plane before the doors even opened. And even seeing that the long line of people in the aisle was hardly moving didnt stop him from nugding me and signalling that I should get in the line too so that he could get off as well. When is this country going to be rid of people that have so much money yet such little appreciation for anything else? When are we going to have a reduction in uneducated, illiterate people? And when are the educated and literate people going to start acting civilized? It was a very small incident. But I see people worse than him many times a day. Every day of the week. Should I have left the country to live life in a country with more civilsed people who respect the values of civics?

posted by h@mMy! @ 6:57 PM 1 comments

Live from Khanewal (Part 1)

even when i finally managed to get a rather ridiculously huge amount of time at my hand, ive still been unable to post anything at all here. i wonder if anyone still comes stumbling around this website anymore. rather a webpage. yes, my very own little webpage. curiously more, does anyone even read what i write? do i submit each and every article, and log off from my dashboard witha feeling of content that i have submitted my thoughts for the world to know only to have NO ONE reading more than two lines? for all i care, i dont care! but im straying away from the point here. the news is...im in khanewal. yes. the town-esque village with a grand total of four roads and four marketplaces and a population perhaps less than that of my own block in karachi. that khanewal. im there. what am i doing there? well, quite frankly, i dont really know. something to do with my supply chain director asking me in my final interview, " Are you prepared to relocate yourself within pakistan for some duration of time if the need be?"
And, as every young, graduating mechanical engineer aspiring for a chance to be a management trainee in Unilever Pakistan should answer, I immediately said "yes". so thats what im doing now in khanewal. counting my woes. no, just kidding. i wont complain. i cant afford to complain. my first brief tour of the karachi tea factory during my orientation led me to constant whining about how i didnt want to go there coz it was so far away from my home. so as a reward of being a loyal complainer, i got the 'honor' of being attached to the same factory right up after three sweet weeks at the company Head Office..........to be continued.

posted by h@mMy! @ 4:43 PM 1 comments