dez-my-wez - Karachi 2004/05

[This is a brief account of my trip to Karachi in Dec 2004 to Jan 2005 ...]

Wow! what times. No two days are the same...

I dont remember having a more fun month in Karachi, as far as my recent memory goes...

The Cricket
===========
Getting back to cricket after such a long time felt good. Really good. BTW I mean the circket we played ourselves, not the one on TV. Pakistani team surprises us with a new "low" each time we think that this is the worst performance we will ever see from a Pakistani side. Bob Woolmer will have a tough job saving his ____ (face).

The Movies
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Life here is about watching one movie a day if not more... plus loads of local TV. I find it surprising/annoying that people here are not too fond of the Pakistani channels like Indus/ARY etc as compared to the Indian masala channels. GEO has a separate place though coz of it being news-oriented. The TV programming in general has also improved i'd say.

Indian TV is the same old movie stuff. Almost all programs revolve around movies and the dramas are as boring and racy as ever with even louder background music.

Cable TV here is good though with lots and lots of channels for the same low price.

The Food
========
Marvellous! Nothing better than great Pakistani food. Home cooked or restaurant.

We went to the newly opened Salt n Pepper restaurant near EBH Clifton. The interior was great and the food was awsome, not to mention awsome service as
well. Guess who I met there? Yasir Nawaz! The guy who I worked with in the TV play I did long time ago. And guess what he recognized me without me saying
hello first :). We had a nice little chat and he also gave me the phone number in case I or someone I knew was interested in acting. He was into production with a new Dubai-based channel.


We also paid the obligatory visit to Super Salateen the open-air Karhai place on seaview which was as crowded as ever and the food tasted as good as ever.

Were invited to the PC Tai Pan Chinese Restaurant which was great coz the hosts (chacha) had arranged the separate room for us with a big round table.
The food wasnt too special but we had fun.

Home cooked meal - well you cant say enough about that.

Friends
=======
Held a cricket match here with the friends. Although it was an open invitation only 8 of them turned up. But we had a great time. Mukhtar's biryani was a major highlight.


Profitability (Gifts etc)
=========================
The good stuff! So it was a good investment. Although I had brought a few gifts but got better ones back ;)

Weather
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Karachi's weather is awsome! I am sure the best in Pakistan (if not the world) at this time of the year. Yesterday it was a bit dusty tho but then its Karachi.

The Crib
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DS House Karachi - huge and magnificient. Big lawns and lots of them plus the rockery by the pond. The house itself has many rooms and it took me a couple of days to get the map of the house in my head. Every bathroom as a "side-room" and both are huge. Typical old railway houses. Everyone had a room to himself but it was a long commute to get something from the bag if you are upstairs.

Plus the fleet of cars. There are at least 4/5 cars at our disposal including a nice big van which is great fun coz all of us plus others can go places in the same vehicle.

The personal cars are awsome too. The new Corrolla is seldom used but its counterpart staff car is. The modified 98 Corrolla is really cool with a big diesel turbo engine and a lot of gadgets. All of them look great too coz they are cleaned all day by the quarter dozen drivers we have.

New year night Bar B Q
======================
Had a BBQ on Dec 31. The new scheme of getting prepared seekhs and BBQ-ing them at home is a better idea! Reduces a lot of trouble as well as risk.

Concert at Governer's House
===========================
A grand function at the Governor's House on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of the Services Academy. It was spoiled by the delay in the start coz the chief guest PM Shaukat Aziz took forever to arrive and gave a long boring speech at the start. But finally the food was served and we got to see the
celebrities: Hadeeqa Kiyani, Moin Akhtar, Ali Zafar, Shahzad Roy, Ahmad Jahanzeb (in that order). Hadeeqa Kiyani was a little boring i thought. But Ali Zafar was cool.He looked very relaxed in front of the "sober" audience, which he admitted himself too. He performed well, even came out into the (small) audience and
had a guy sing one of his songs, who did a pretty good job actually. So we got a chance to see him really "close". Shahzad Roy was good too but of course was cut short coz of the time wasted at the start. By the time Ahmad Jahanzeb came on most of the public had left, including us.

Farmhouse Picnic
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This was awsome! We spent a day at the farmhouse, 15/20 miles from the city, which was a beautiful place with nice cottages. Ours had a swimming pool but no water in it so we utilized it for playing cricket. For swimming though we went to another one, which had chilly water but a nice big pool.

Sindh Sea Festival
=============
A thoroughly disappointing event! Although it was organized by the prestigious company of Zohaib Hasan but the involvement of all the high profile Navy ppl and Chief Minister being the late-arriving chief guest made a mess of it. Besides I thought there wasnt much in it. In fact there wasnt much "sea" in the festival. Just parades by the Navy soldiers, school children etc. A couple of floats maybe but not too great. The general greeting/seating arrangement wasnt too good either. A waste of precious time! They should really learn from the Lahore event management groups on how to conduct such events.

Mohatta Palace Exhibition
===================
I forgot the name of the exhibition but it was about historical stuff related to the Pakistan Movement. Some very special exhibits were there including those belonging to Quaid-e-Azam, Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar, Liaquat Ali Khan, Fatima Jinnah, The Nawaabs, Agha Khan elites, and others.

I noticed that the fashion of those days wasnt too different from that of today. Specially the ladies clothes looked very "in" but glamorous/stylish. There were some rare photographs at display too.

Lifestyle Exhibition
====================
A Bad show! Awfully horrible exhibition of mismanagement. Although there were a lot of stalls - some of them looked pretty interesting but the HUGE turnout of (ill-mannered) people and the stupid handling of the crowd made it an awful event. The carpet on the floor was all covered with food-wrappers and paper plates and there was hardly room to walk, let alone see what the stalls had to offer.

Auto-show
=========
This was organized by GEO Tv and was pretty good for a first of its kind auto-show although. Some of the cars were really cool, specially in Hall 4with BMWs, Mercs, Porches, Jaguars, etc. There was also a section for vintage cars. Suzuki had a big portion in a hall but surprisingly Honda was nowhere to be seen. The chinese motorbikes (and the female models on them) were a major attraction.

The best part was the go-Kart racing track outside - the cars looked exciting and fun but there was a long queue. Maybe some other time...

Shopping
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Well this is what karachi is famous for. I did more than i had planned but not too much actually. Some of the prices have gone higher due to the new "Supermalls" springing up everywhere. But the good old Zainab market and Sunday bazaar are a great place to go to (altho they are not as cheap as they used to be).

I was disappointed by not too many Pakistani "brands" coming out. The only one I can remember was ChenOne which wasnt too impressive anyways. I think fisnished garments is a good business if the costs can compete with those of the imported ones from China/Thailand/etc, which are not of the highest quality actually. I hate Chinese stuff - badly imitated, low quality, insanely priced.

Also met Atif Aslam (of Aadat/Jal fame) in Forum one day where he was shooting a video. But frankly-speaking wasnt too impressed. I mean there wasn't any star-like aura/charisma about him which you usually expect from someone so popular. Well maybe i need to spend more time under his influenced circles.

The best things to get from there (which i regret I didnt get too many) are probably books and software. Of course movies/music too for the interested souls.

The Van
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I have to reserve a few words for her. It was a reasonably big one with at least 15 people's capacity. It is so much more fun when you are going places in the same car instead of separate ones. I think there should always be a van in the family.