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.

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?

We don’t really have any stars and celebrities of our own in Pakistan. The only Pakistani who made it to top 15 search queries, is Atif Aslam defeated by Sania Mirza the Indian tennis star.

Karina Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Aishwarya Rai, Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan and bollywood itself is one of the most popular queries made by Pakistanis. No matter how much Pakistanis love Bollywood and Indian Stardust, the search term Urdu is the eighth most popular query.

Karachi is the eleventh most popular search term, warid at 12 and Jang got the 13th position.

While surfing I found Rumi‘s blog where he mentioned HamAsar, a Denmark based Urdu literary journal. They have a very nice collection of Danish stories translated into Urdu, specially Hans Christian Andersen‘s children’s stories. However, their claim that these stories are translated for the first time in Urdu is not correct. These stories are available in Urdu at local bookshops published by various publishers.

While browsing HamAsar, I decided to look around for children’s folk tales from different countries. I found a few websites:

Web Japan, has a collection of Japenese folk legends with really cute illustrations. Read the stories from “once upon a time in Japan” that every Japanese kid grows up listening to. FOLK LEGENDS OF JAPAN takes you on a journey to a fairy-tale world of boy heroes, terrible ogres, animal antics, and more

Chinese Tea Stories. Chinese folktales, retold by Colette Chooey.

African Folktales. Three African stories retold by Timothy Bush, including ‘The Salt Trader’s Justice’, ‘Lions Wings and Lion’s Bones’ and ‘The Curious Monkey’.

Mayan Folktales, These ancient folktales were told to Fernando Peñalosa by don Pedro Miguel Say, a famous Q’anjob’al storyteller from San Miguel Acátan, Huehuetenango, Guatemala.

I also found some Pakistani folktales for children, but I suppose you have Google, don’t you?