Pakistani Probloggers: Lets share more about ourselves, specifically:

1. Why you started blogging.
2. What are / were your inspirations.
3. What other blogs / sites do you frequently read.
4. Were do you see yourself as a pro blogger in next couple of years.

Replying this post I realized I have never wrote about it on my blog, it is about time I share my blogging story, at least for the record keeping. I can then look back at this page and see how it started.

It was back in late 2004, I was new to internet and there was nothing much for me to do on the internet other than reading. As many of you might know, while reading is fun it is not very interactive. I thought I should do something, one thing led to another and I came to know about blogspot. I thought how awesome it is to publish your thoughts and share them with the entire world. First I started an Urdu blog, just because it was more challenging to do so. The response I got from the small and closely knitted together Urdu Blogsphere was overwhelmingly positive. Which encouraged me to be creative and write on different topics. I was then asked by Spider Magazine‘s Editor to write an article for them. Which gave me the confidence that I can write in English and thats how I started my English blogs.

2. Among bloggers Jason’s kottke.org inspired me a lot. It made a significant impact on not only the way I wrote, but also on how I think and see the web today. Chapati Mystery and Huma Imtiaz‘s personal blog were also good motivations. Later, when I started professional blogging, Darren Rowse’s Problogger helped and inspired me. Apart from bloggers, I started blogging because I had this innate desire to tell stories and ideas and hear other people’s stories and ideas. When I look at blogs, I don’t see articles, I see conversations, storytelling, a party.

3. This is going to be a long list. I read mashable, lifehacker, kottke.org, problogger.net, copyblogger, Slashdot, The onion, Matt Cutts, Design Milk, blogs of people I am following at Google Plus, Urdu blogs, Tribune blogs (because it is difficult not reading them everyone’s sharing them on facebook), etc, etc.

4. I see myself outgrowing blogs. I think I will be able to move on to other fields particularly social web, online marketing, copywriting, advertising or something else too. I will continue to blog professionally but I will be known for other things as well. I am not quite sure what those other things would be, but its going to be an awesome journey.

Another reason to choose the night shift is to save myself from the agony of load shedding. If I had opted for morning shift I’d have to spend four to six hours without power and then two hours for Seheri and Iftar. After that I would have no time left to do anything but sleep.

I am hoping to achieve a lot of things this Ramadan, not spiritual things, but materialistic things. I am hoping to fix a few things. On top of my list is fixing one of my websites that got terribly affected by Google’s Panda Update. Each day I work a little on that website when I get home.

I am improving that website’s theme by replacing the old one with Thematic which is a powerful theme framework. I am creating a child theme that will use Thematic core features with my own styles. While working on themes, I will also improve many other things on that old website. The focus is to make it look more visually pleasant, create a better user experience, and give website some authenticity.

Once I am done with the theme, applied it on the website and fixed all the bugs, the next step will be writing content for it on a regular basis. This next step will be very important as I am hoping not to repeat the mistakes I made last time. This time I will try to build a community around the website, a loyal readership that will help the website moving in the future. I will be also looking forward to find more ways to monetize the content.

There are things that you can write even when you are not feeling like writing. Most of the time these are the ideas and stories that hundreds of people have already told. You just rephrase what others have said and give it a little extra something and push the publish button. Often, you don’t really feel any thing after publishing these things.

Today I saw the movie Get him to the Greek. It had the 73% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes. So I thought it would be good, but it was not that good. I am getting sick of the people going through dramatic changes in their behavior and lifestyles in the movies. These movies are just like the blog posts that I write these days.

I picked it up and started reading it. At first he talked about Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto that how he understood the US policies and realized that US is not a reliable friend. Then Mr. Chodhry tells us that Russia is giving the money and weapons to Taleban in Afghanistan and since Pakistan was a US ally in both Afghan wars, Russia is also supporting the Talebans in Pakistan. He builds his argument beautifully involves India and Iran in it too and it all makes sense until he writes which I translate below:

Our army has arrested people from tribal areas who are uncirumcised, eat meat of dogs and cats and drink alcohol.

I didn’t know that Russians ate dogs and cats. And how Pakistan army found out that these people eat cats and dogs? Were they having a party when Pakistan Army arrested them? Or these people later requested Pakistani forces to provide them fresh meat of dogs and cats? I don’t think that Hindus, Russians or Afghans eat cats or dogs. Why would they? and why would Javed Chodhry write such a foolish thing?

I left home late afternoon thinking that I will be smart to reach there before Eid’s Chand is announced. The barber shops, saloons and beauty parlors get extremely crowded on chand raat. But during the whole Ramadhan such places remain deserted until the Iftar. So being the smart guy I reached there early, and then I realized that I wasn’t the only smart guy in the town. 

The saloon was full of people, there was no room to sit on the velvet seats in the waiting area. Instead of feeling awkward, walking from one corner to other, I decided to sit and found a place between a skinny memon teenager and a beefy pathan guy. The Pathan guy was wearing Shalwar Kameez, was smelling of onions and garlic, and he looked just like Taliban. May be he is a suicide bomber ready to attack the saloon where people get their beards shaved. According to taleban shaving your face is unIslamic. So they bomb the barber shops in Tribal areas of Pakistan. I checked out that Pathan guy once again through the mirror on the wall. I specially paid attention to his upper waist portion, this is where these suicide bombers wear the explosives belt. The Pathan guy had a huge belly, and it was obvious that there are no bombs inside his kameez, just the hideous gorilla sized belly. With his long beard, belly, fatness, and stinkiness, I wandered if he is married or not. If he is married what his woman thinks when he tries to kiss her. But then I don’t know if kissing is allowed in Taleban ideology or not. Women are the most weird of all species in the world. May be she loved him with all his shortcomings. May be she is more ugly and terrifying than the poor pathan guy. 

The staff at this saloon is very professional. They usually don’t waste any time, but there is no barber in the world who wouldn’t want to chat with his clients. I hate such barbers, and the question that I hate most is “What you do for living”? Once when I was in Islamabad and went to a saloon there the barber asked me this question and I told him that I don’t do anything. He wasn’t satisfied so he kept asking and finally I told him that I am a writer. This question is usually an ice breaker for these barbers so that they can initiate a chat about your career, then they discuss whatever is on the television mounted on the wall in all barber shops, then they discuss politics while shaving your chin with a hand on your throat, and finally reaching the agreement that Pakistan is totally fucked up when spraying your face with water. This barber then shared some of his Urdu poetry with me. I told him I have absolutely no interest in poetry at all. So he asked then what you write. I told him I write stories for children, articles for internet magazines. 

Ohh you write Omro-Ayyar and Ameer Hamza kind of stories? He asked me. Well I told you every thing you say to a barber is returned to you in form of another question. He was asking for my home address when he was giving my hair the finishing touch and I end up leaving the shop giving him not only my address but also my telephone number. 

So the staff here is no different from anywhere else, what I like about this place is that they have already asked me all the questions. But they can always bring the current affairs. There was a news report on television about people rushing to the markets to buy new clothes, accessories and gifts for the eid. They were showing women, one of them was telling the reporter about how things are so expansive this Ramadhan. She was 40+ and over weight like 90% other women of her age group. Her face was glowing, she not only spent thousands of Rupees and countless hours while shopping she also got interviewed by Geo Television. Wow, she must be feeling lucky, and may be concious too her make up had long been evaporated. I am sure her friends would let her know how old she looked during her 30 seconds interview. 

Every one, particularly men have an opinion about women. The most common is that they are all stupid. Watching this woman on television the owner of the saloon commented. “Aunti you should have prepared for eid before Ramadhan why you waited till the last days?” Then a client who was bored while waiting for his turn said something, then the pathan guy shared a stupid joke about stupid women. 

It made me think, that sexy guys with hanging jeans, the fat pathan, the staff, the owner, and the little boy who was wiping the floor, they are all the same from inside. May be I am the only unique individual in this place. But then after two hours when I finally got my new fresh look and was about to leave my seat I reached the agreement with my barber. We both, just like many others before us, agreed that yes Pakistan is totally fucked up. I realized that we are all the same We are the common men. What I didn’t like is that I am one of the common men. I should get my hair done at that gay hair stylist’s saloon at Peal Continental.

This is the time when nothing can stop Karachiites from going out and shop till the dawn. It doesn’t matter who occupies the presidential palace or who is getting bombed by Pakistan army. Inflation, food and energy shortages, terrorism, nothing can stop them from spending money and feel happy for themselves. They are truly brave people, as they work hard to live in the now and they know how to enjoy it. Of course they are worried about how they are going to spend an entire month without any money left. But lets just not think about it now, they tell themselves. Lets just concentrate on how we can knockout the salesman at the Kurta Corner.

I didn’t get much chance to survey the shopping areas this Ramadhan. No, I was not too busy fasting and offering prayers. I missed several fasts and I prayed once or twice each day. What I did during this whole month? Why I didn’t call some friends to come and rescue me? I am asking myself.

May be it was work, I have started another blog and made it compulsory for myself to come up with one post each day. Any one who blogs regularly would agree with me that it is difficult to come up with fresh ideas every day. Every thing that you thought worth blogging, has already been blogged. It’s a difficult path, each day I go through doubts. May be I shouldn’t have started this blog at all. It becomes more painful to come up with new ideas when you are in doubt. So I need to assure myself all over again. No this project is good, it has so much potential, look at the link backs they are not bad for a week’s blogging. Then suddenly an idea strikes me and I start constructing my post.

I go through this doubt, re-assurance and light bulbing every day. Its really exhausting sometimes specially when I have to keep up with all the fried goodies at iftar. I am not the kind of person who would leave all the food and rush to the mosque for maghrib prayers. I sit firmly on the dastarkhawn and do justice to each and every thing that is there for me to eat. Even when I am not fasting, I never miss an iftar.

I feel sleepy after iftar so I go out for a walk. I walk from DJ science college to the Pakistan Chowk, then to Civil Hospital, then I turn around and walk back to Aaram Bagh, then to Fresco chowk and back home. I love the buildings on this route. They were built during good times. Walking past them, I think about how these buildings looked when they were new? Who were the people that lived and worked there? How was the life back then? Why don’t people make such beautiful buildings any more? I walk past garbage, and I think there is no hope for this city. Its the filthiest in the whole world and nothing is ever going to change this. Then I see women in burqas, and I think that each day there are more and more women getting attacked by the burqa virus.

When I am back home from walk, I am tired. My body is just as fat as it was an hour ago when I left home for the walk, it is my mind that needs rest.

I sit back on my desk again, staring at my computer screen, downloading movies, listening music, reading blogs, chatting with friends. It’s all necessary. Thank God I don’t use facebook or orkut or other social media sites. I simply can’t. There is really no time for any new activity at all.

But I think I should go out and do some shopping. Or atleast, I should go to the saloon for an haircut. I look like Saddam Hussein freshly out of his cave.