Thank You, My Inspirations.

19 Jul 2010

Above is a graphic showing the hits this blog got. So I guess the interview really got people intrigued. I found the graph both hysterical and humbling at the same time. So this is a thank you note, and a progress report.

I depart from Karachi now for a little internet-less retreat, before I return in a few days and then fly back to Lahore for TEDxLahore 2010, both the rehearsal and the real thing. It has been a great trip, meeting family, weddings as usual, and now with fresh eyes looking at Karachi.

Just before I left Lahore, a partly disillusioned friend expressed his woes. He said he hoped he would find something in Pakistan to save, something great that made the dream believable in our heads. But after he came, it was just a country, with its problems. Just another country. I smiled and said he was right. But I am here and enjoying myself. I have lived here all my life, and wish to return back after getting necessary my necessary experience. This is however, not everyone’s land. But it is my home, it is the mitti (soil) I am made of. It is where I know the people’s smile and no road is alien. It is the home of the cricket team I so adore, the music I couldn’t live without, the buildings that have been my childhood and adolescent inspirations & the responsibility that makes it all mine. My education might make me partly foreign here, but this land is not foreign to me, and I will be here to let it do so.

I leave Karachi thinking these thoughts. Thinking of the live Qawwali I just heard a couple of days ago, that I must write about soon after I am back (with a writing mode inspired by Mohsin Hamid, whose The Reluctant Fundamentalist I just read). I think of the Aunty Crowd that so amuses me, and which I shall also write about. I think of Noori and Hor Vi Neevan Ho, which I am listening to now and which will make my all time favorites.

I am working with Shahzad Hameed for a little discussion, in touch with Shehzad Roy, and working myself on a post on my meeting with Muhammad Jawwad, and more.

Thank you all.