Okay, not that I’m qualified to write this or anything, given as how I’ve been a journalist for just a little over six months (seven months on March 17) — I’m just putting up stuff that I figured out of my own experience.

1) Be willing to work your ass of.
And I’m being very VERY serious when I say that. There’s no substitute for leg-work ( no, not that, you pervert! ) — especially when you’re just starting off.

2) The ability to pick stuff up really, REALLY quickly.
No one has the time to sit down and train other people — not in the conventional sense. You have to be able to pick up on pieces of data and piece them together to form valid bits of information — yourself.

3) Keep your eyes and your ears open at all times.
Everything is a potential story. Learn to recognize “newsworthiness.” For this, you have to learn to not be shy. You should be able to talk to anyone at all — on any topic that’s required.

4) Do not get (personally) involved in a story.
This I most definitely quote from personal experience. Stay detached and neutral at all times. Activism is not part of your job responsibilities, lest dragons swoop down on you and take you away to Narnia.

5) Look up all possible angles and make your story as airtight as possible.
Your job is to present a balanced picture, and to “let the facts speak for themselves” (that’s what Mahim, our City Editor, taught me). Look at all nooks-and-crannies, and work out all kinks in the chain (of information). Try to stay away from second- and third-hand information as much as possible, and always double- and triple-check your sources.

6) Learn to filter out bullshit.
A lot of what politicians (and others) say is bullcrap. Learn to sift through mounds of bullshit to pull out information that you need.

7) I’ll add more points here later.

Abbas is our crime reporter. Mahim (the city editor) and him have been covering the story about Nisha’s death, and the police investigations, etc. Someone called Abbas up today and threatened to kill him.

This brings home the “fear” that every journalist lives in, here (in Pakistan). At times like these, you realize what a huge farce “freedom of the press” actually is, and reality hits in in a really big way. I mean, you always know that there’s a chance of things like these happening, if you’re pursuing stuff that’s serious enough, but somehow you never think it’ll happen to you or someone you know.

“Yeah well, it happens to people. I don’t know those people, though,” you think and sit back, relaxed. And then it happens to someone who works with someone you know, and then it’s someone you work with yourself. Someday it might be you…

I just realized what Abbas meant when he asked today if I could get his cellphone records out. I told him he should get a cellphone that allows him to record his calls — my K700i, for example, has the call-recording feature. With Nisha’s case, he needs to record every call that comes to him (exept from people that he knows, of course).

I’m hoping that the call to Abbas was just someone’s idea of a lameAss joke. If it was, all I can say to that person is: “Get a life, bhainchod! This isn’t even remotely funny.”

Anyways, so the van came over around 4 p.m. like it usually does, and the weather outside gave me a pretty waala surprise. Karachi-land (yes, I’ll call it Karachi-land today, instead of Stinky-ville like I usually do) was all cloudy and pretty. This was the Karachi that I remembered from summer vacations of yore, and happy memories came flooding in.

We’d spend our alternate summer vacations with relatives here (once every 2 years) — July and August. Each day would be filled with happy stuff from the time I woke up to the time I was forced to go to bed at night (or atleast I remember each day that way). There’d be cartoons on PTv, and for once every 2 years, I’d be able to watch cartoons that weren’t Japanese animes dubbed into Arabic.

Not that I had anything against the Arabic cartoons in Abu-Dhabi — I still remember “Captain Majid” with the amazing gravity-defying footballers, and “Adnan wa Reema,” the brother-and-sister duo who had two halves ofthis medallion and were looking for something that I don’t remember anymore. I remember “Jazora,” the metal-eating dinosaur, and loads more! And then there was the Arabic version of Care-Bears, and My Little Pony, and Midgets, Smurfs and this other cartoon in English on Channel 8. I don’t remember what the official name of the channel was, but it was tuned at Number 8 on our television at home, so “Channel 8” it was! *happy-dappy times*

So yeah, all that was Abu-Dhabi. Karachi would be Loony Toons, Silver Hawks, Thunder Cats, and all. ( I’m a huge cartoons fan! ) And then there’d be Chhupan-Chhupai (hide-and-seek) with the cousins, and Baraf-Pani and all sorts of rowdy games which I couldn’t play at home in Abu-Dhabi.

Outside the house, there were all those visits to Phuppi’s (paternal aunt) place, and Nani’s (maternal grandmother) place, and the best of all — Urdu Bazaar. I’d go wild there, and gather up all sorts of treasures! And the “cassette kahaanis,” which were recordings of stories in Urdu. Those cassettes had poems on them too, all sung out with music, etc. I think I still have them..

And Sumer-Vacation-Karachi had delightful thunderstorms. Electricity would of course disappear the moment the slightest drizzle hit the ground, but I remember none of us used to mind! We’d sit for hours around candlelight — all us cousins — and swap stories, or play games, and time would fly, and I’d sigh sadly when the electricity came back on. One of my cousins would take the motlen candlewax and roll it up into balls for me. I remember treasuring those balls, for they were a novelty for me — electricity was never dear in Abu-Dhabi, and we never had to use candles!

So yeah, Karachi today reminded me of Summer-Vacation-Karachi, and I forgot all the crap of the past few weeks. Life became simple again, and I got my “chhoti chhoti khusiaN” back..

I also figured out something else — how much I love my parents and my sister, and how much I owe to my parents. I mean, they’re the only people in the world who’ve always been there for me — who’ll always BE there for me — who’ll always welcome me back with open arms, no matter how badly I fucked up. The moment I realized this, I regretted all the times I’d blown up at them for stuff, and the times when I’d hurt them emotionally. Today I realized what “home is where the heart is” actually means… no matter where I go, my parents’ house will always be home, and there will always be a place for me in it.

It rained in a few areas of Karachi today. The MET office is predicting thunderstorms tomorrow. So tomorrow will be another happy-dappy day!

Why am I saying this? I have a bunch of reasons. They might not be correct — they’re probably just conspiracy theories, or results of me reading too much into these incidents. But that doesn’t mean the people in my head will shut up. They won’t.

Here’s what they have to say:

1) Suicide bombing never fails this badly. I mean, seriously. Even the tarmac on the road is intact.

2) The pictures which came in on the wires last night show that the bomber’s body is pretty much intact (except the part where he tied the bomb-thingums around his waist). I’m pretty darn sure our suicide-bomb-vendors know how to make better stuff (read: stronger bombs or something).

3) The guy had a very “Sharaee” beard. That’s, like, wayyyy too obvious — suspiciously so.

4) The reaction from ‘authorities concerned’ has been very “mild,” to say the least. The reaction after the Peshawer blasts (when the Peshawer CCPO and all were killed) was wayyyyyyyyy different. Everyone (authorities concerned) sat up attentively after the Peshawat blasts. The reaction to the Islamabad Airport blast, however, is more, like, “Yeah well oh well, whatever!” I work in a newspaper — all their reactions come to us. Security was “beefed up” in places, but something’s missing. I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but they’re just not clambouring like they should have.

5) When no “official” is injured (or killed), it generally points to an “agencies ki job” (not that I’m saying that the “agencies” did this — no siwwee bob! :P).

6) Like Ziyad pointed out on the NFP community (on Orkut), “If they really were tribal militants, I expect them to out-gun airport security officials any day.”

Here’re the pictures. The “labels” have been put in by the photo editors at APP and Online (click on thumbnail to view larger picture):

[Pictures courtesy: APP and Online]

One year later, the feelings for the effects of the devastating earthquake of Oct 2005 have somehow ebbed, atleast here in Karachi. The ferver with which people of this city came other on the days following the quake was not seen ever since the war of 1965. However gross mismanagement of funds and donations have left an indelible mark on the people now and have turned up their skepticism on any new effort. This year, we see a lot of appeals for local causes again, but the earthquake effort is not seen anywhere…… YET!

A group of concerned and dedicated individuals, still carrying the scars of the earthquake, have gathered their resources and started a drive to collect eidi donations for the children of the earthquake affected areas. I am proud to be associated with this group, along with Unaiza Nasim and Naila Jaffery, the two masterminds behind this effort, and request all my fellow citypeople to come forward and open their hearts once again and join this cause to bring happiness to the children upcountry, if only for one day.

A donation collection point has been setup at PAF museum (main parking lot) once again, from 10 AM till night, where volunteers would be available to collect, sort and package any donations given to be transported before Eid. Time is of the essense here, as we dont have many days left. I’ll be posting updates to the effort as well as pictures as and when they become available.

Donations required: Books, Copies, Coloring books, Color pencils, Pencils, pens, Toys, Biscuits, Candies, Packaged Juices, Milk anything u feel is for a kid.

 Join hands with us once again, to bring smiles to the faces of children (of the EQ affected areas).

For people living abroad and wishing to lend a helping hand, please contact Unaiza Nasim or Mansoor.

And yes, now I will be excessively chhichhorfying and tell everyone that I BOUGHT NEW SHADES YESTERDAY!!! WOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!

I bought this in choclate brown, plain metal logo (no rhinestone thingums)!

Impulsive shopping is sooooooo, TOTALLY therapeutic! If only my dad understood this!

Extreme ways are back again
Extreme places I didn’t know
I broke everything new again
Everything that I’d owned
I threw it out the windows, came along
Extreme ways I know move apart
The colors of my sea
Perfect colored me

Extreme ways that help me
That help me out at night
Extreme places I had gone
But never seen any light
Dirty basements, dirty noise
Dirty places coming through
Extreme worlds alone
Did you ever like it planned

I would stand in line for this
There’s always room in life for this

Oh baby, oh baby
Then it fell apart, fell apart
Oh baby, oh baby
Then it fell apart, it fell apart
Oh baby, oh baby
Then it fell apart, it fell apart
Oh baby, oh baby
Like it always does, always does

Extreme songs that told me
They helped me down every night
I didn’t have much to say
I didn’t get above the light
I closed my eyes and closed myself
And closed my world and never opened
Up to anything
That could get me along

I had to close down everything
I had to close down my mind
Too many things to cover me
Too much can make me blind
I’ve seen so much in so many places
So many heartaches, so many faces
So many dirty things
You couldn’t even believe

I would stand in line for this
It’s always good in life for this

Oh baby, oh baby
Then it fell apart, fell apart
Oh baby, oh baby
Then it fell apart, it fell apart
Oh baby, oh baby
Then it fell apart, it fell apart
Oh baby, oh baby
Like it always does, always does 

 Have You Forgotten? October 8th 2005

October 8, 2005, changed Pakistan forever. At precisely 08:50:38 a massive earthquake struck the northern areas of Pakistan which devastated the entire country over 80,000 lives perished in a blink of an eye, thousands were displaced resulting in millions of dollars in damage. The entire country joined hands in unison to help the suffering, but even more needs to be done.

In an effort to raise awareness for the victims of the Earthquake in Pakistan we propose to launch a Blog Day, requesting all bloggers to make a post about the earthquake which struck our country one year back by actually asking yourself

HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN?

PS :: Thank you, Dr. Awab Alvi, for bringing this to everyone’s notice.