salma sitaray

Without being too disrespectful (or going in too much depth) I'll confess something to here: I am a BIG believer in the concept of karma i.e. the concept of what you do is what is returned to you, either here or in the afterlife. It forms the very BASIS of our existence, in terms of our religion too. Do good, so you shall have good, here or in the afterlife. As you sow, so shall you reap جیسا بوا ویسا کاٹا What goes around, comes around etc. etc. جیسے کرنی ویسے بھرنی What I fail to understand is why are we so eager to pin mis-happenings on some external hand, or on to an azaab (punishment) of the divine, while blissfully living life breaking every possible rule... I am talking about rules and actions that define us as a human. The most simple, basic definition: An entity who thinks, strives to be good, do good, and tries not to harm others That is how I define us humans. Why is it that then, we've managed to give ourselves a free pass to do whatever we l...

Here is my first blog post after my recent perspective change I'll start off by writing about something I've started noticing on facebook. Much as how much people term facebook as a silly social tool (in Pakistani at least), its only after you've spent time on the back-end of social analytics that you discover how much facebook trends & posts reflect what is going on the society's mind... Which brings me to the latest trend: maasi (maid) -bashing Yup, bashing your maid's incompetency on facebook, while your other (equally snobbish) friends will join in and sympathize with you and even offer to provide you one with better 'references' and endorsed 'skills' (For my non-South Asian readers, being a maid in Pakistan, or in usual Muslim Arab countries is not a very coveted job, unlike in the UK where house-workers actually charge by the hour and are more of a luxury than anything.) Coming back to the rants,  the first time I read one, I c...

So after much contemplating, I've realized the best way forward is maybe to shift my focus to other things/topics to blog about.  It's not that I have run out of good memories to write about, it's just that the current times are so 'interesting' I'm tempted to write more about them instead. Keep an eye out for a variety of other topics I'll cover...

So imagine this: You are at the office, working away, when a co-worker steps in, casually produces a BIG box of mithai with as much variety as possible, places it on a centre table and just walks away with the words, 'Here you go guys! Enjoy!' The above scenario can of course, never happen. You CANNOT have mithai without a reason for it (an engagement, Eid, a new baby etc.) The same way, you CANNOT have biscuits in dear old England and NOT have a reason for them. I had a huge tin of biscuits at home. After failing (miserably) to stay away from it (and gorging down about 15 biscuits) I realized I had to redeem myself by sharing the sugar high with the world (or risk gorging down the remaining 30 and be cursed by the gods of perpetual weight gain) (that is so me isn't it? Trying to get Karma to help me lose weight instead of actually getting off my lazy behind to make an actual effort!) Anyways, for the redemption to continue, I decided to bring the box in to work ...

A lot has happened since I last posted online. And in some weird way, I have been trying to stay away from all the bloodshed and the turmoil and the frenzy afoot in my city. The saddest thing is how my relationship with Karachi seems to be turning sour by the day. It’s as if one day I woke up and realized that I just cannot stand being associated with the city. Of course, this is the bit where all the self-righteous trolls would kick in to condemn me off to some foreign land, or tell me to just pack my things and move abroad forever. I wrote the above lines about an year ago(yes, I’ve been very lazy with my blogging lately) and realized shockingly enough how those words were still so true, if not truer! News of killings, rapes, bombs etc. have become so commonplace we've grown immune to it. Anyways, I thought I'd post this entry out to atleast get the blogging habit started off again... Let's see how consistent and good I am this time!