Sunday, January 30, 2005

'Don't make me the scapegoat' - Shoaib

Just what I said below (in "Wasim slams ICC ...."). Its easy to come up with excuses/accusations. I am not the biggest Shoaib Akhtar fan but he should get credit where he deserves. If we rely on him so much so that we cant afford to see him out of action then that shows how valuable he is for the Pakistan team. Its a shame we cant produce quality bowlers capable of replacing the "unfit" ones, but its not Shoaib's fault.
Shoaib went on: "I am disappointed with my fitness, but not with my form. I think I bowled very well in the first two Tests and twice we had Australia on the ropes on 5 for 78 and 5 for 170, but there is no support for me at the other end and the batting also failed to click constantly in the series."
Link

I can't agree more. The batsmen just never scored enough runs. And I give credit to Shoaib for bowling really well so as to get the Aussies in trouble on so many occasions. Honestly when the series started I was thinking about something along the line of the Sharjah debacle. But thanks to Shoaib (and spells from Sami/Kaneria) we were much more respectable/threatening at times, although we weren't able to do that persistently.

I still think Pakistan's batting was much better than the way it came out in the Test series. But its showing some sparks in the One Day series.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Hasna Mana hai

I was just wondering about "jokes". There are so many of them and many of them are so good. I was wondering about their creators. They must be geniouses. Even the not-soo-funny ones take a huge amount of imagination and insight I think. Just look at the following dumb one:
Teacher: Tawanai kis ko kehtay hain?
Student: Taway per bethay huey nayee ko
I know this might not come of as funny to most of us but still imagine a bald, dark, shabby looking "nayee" (barber) sitting on a "tawa" with a board saying "tawanai" in front of him.. would create quite an image, wouldn't it?

Ok you think this is not funny? Well why dont you try and invent a joke? Ermmm.. well... stuck?

There must be a trick to it right? Coz there are sooo many of them around... new ones coming everyday in forwarded emails.... and many of them are works of a genious. Well I tried but couldn't come up with a joke... what about you?

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

The Friday Times is online! FREE

This is great! TFT is one of the better magazines in Pakistan and its available online.. Well i just care for the back page articles like "Articles of the Social Butterfly" or the Nawaz Shareef's diary... "Top Ten" is also amusing sometimes... The travel articles are also nice...

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Trying via email

I like the feature to be able to blog via emails... lets see if it works!

Chowk.com article ... Pak vs India

This is old but really funny... specially Miandad's comments...

It is about the first Test match in the Pakistan vs India March '04 series... probably written prior to the final day's play...

Linkhttp://tinyurl.com/6vfd4

Power down

This happens so often...

Yesterday the power in the CS building went out and we had a blackout almost ALL day! This is a (beautiful/modern) new building designed along very modern techniques/architecture and has back up generators which are supposed to kick-in as soon as there is a power break-down. And while they are coming up there is a UPS system to hold things together in the meantime. However, it seems that the system works well except in case of an emergency (like yesterday).

I am not complaining tho coz we got a day off due to "unavoidable circumstances"...

Monday, January 24, 2005

" Wasim SLAMS Shoaib and ICC"

Akram, who was speaking to reporters in Dubai during a promotional event, also bagged Shoaib Akhtar for his recent performances. "He [Shoaib] is just not a matchwinner anymore," said Akram. "He just comes and talks and plays one game, and then gets injured. He just thinks he is too good."

"He's the only one who praises himself all the time, which means there is something seriously wrong with him," said Akram. "He should let the ball talk. He talks before and then doesn't perform."



I agree with most of what Wasim Akram has said (I am his biggest fan in the world) but i think its easier to criticize than come up with ideas on how to fix things.... specially when a team is going through tough times.... In these cirsumstances I think legends like Wasim Akram and the like should come forward and try to help fix things instead of criticizing the state of affairs... Whateva he has said is known to all of us.... there is nothing new in that

I think Shoaib bowled pretty well in the Australian series and didnt breakdown as often as most ppl expected, except of course the one day series... I agree he should be more responsible in his approach but think about the burden on his shoulders at the moment... he has almost zero back-up in the bowling dept... and the ones to follow, like Sami and others are just too mediocre to be trusted with anything...

when the great Indian batting line up can crumble under pressure (against BD) there should be due regard given to the players in the middle... who not only have to listen to the bullshit but also come up with ideas on how to fix it... i think the greats like Wasim Akram etc should help them in some way instead of bad-mouthing....

Sunday, January 23, 2005

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
==========
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
=======
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
========
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
=============
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
=======
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
=======
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.