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Hey… Hey Blog… Wake up. Vacation’s over.
Oh, you’re back are you? It’s about damn time.
Give me a break, I’ve been across the world and back.
And you couldn’t take a break from your busy holiday schedule to write something?
Well, you know, I was busy and ah, didn’t have Internet access all the time. And I’m…
Incredibly lazy?
Yeah, that too I guess.
Whatever. People have been asking about you.
Really?
Yeah. I told them you were dead.
Thanks, I appreciate that.
Thought so. You ready to get started again or what?
Yeah, back in the Land of the Pure, back to work, settling in.
Is that even a sentence?
Shut [...]
Yes, that’s right. Dave is on TV. The boob is on the tube. The first episode of my show aired last week on national television. Now, I have to admit that before I left, when people asked me what the hell I was planning to do in Pakistan, I certainly did not foresee acting in shoddy television productions. Wasn’t exactly on the radar, as they say. Still, I’m never adverse to the ways the winds blow me (or anyone else for that matter), so I’m just going with the flow.
But you know, it is a rush seeing yourself on television, no matter what it is. And honestly, the show wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Don’t get me wrong, it was still pretty terrible, but happily, it was not the complete catastrophic destruction of all things good and natural in this world that I thought it might be. I also happen to have the inside scoop that the episodes do get better… marginally. I took over writing around the fifth episode, so I guess I have to get behind the show at some point there. In the meantime, I was pretty confident that not many people would have caught the episode. But sure enough, within days, I had aunties and co-workers stopping and saying, “I saw you on TV!” Usually, I responded with a simple, “I’m sorry.” But even though I’m living proof that you only have to be [...]
Well, I’ve been in Islamabad for most of the week for a conference, and Islamabad was a pleasant change. Quite a difference, compared to Karachi. Everything is very well planned and laid out. Someone decided back in the sixties that Pakistan needed a new capital, so they created a city. Perfect square blocks form perfect square sectors… each sector has its own market area in the middle. It’s a far cry from Karachi, where the roads sometimes go around buildings that were built there illegally years ago; where a half inch of rain causes major flooding. Everything is peaceful and quiet in Islamabad, but its eerie in that “It’s quiet… too quiet” kind of way. Everything is just a little too planned out. It feels false… like pretense. I looked around at all the open space and thought, where are all the cars, trucks, crazy busses, donkeys, camels, stray dogs, beggars, rickshaws, burning piles of garbage…? This isn’t what I’ve come to know and love.
But now I’m back. Time to start up this blogging with a vengeance now that we’ve got it pretty much set up. How do you blog with a vengeance anyway?
Congrats to Troy on the show, I hear it [...]
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We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
-T.S. Eliot
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