Tag Archives: karachi

Around the Interwebs: Digital News

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Just catching up on major inter-web related news:

1. Very excited about the Skype / Facebook integration. I heard about it a while ago but didn’t realize that the ‘integrated’ version is available for download.  (The full release details are available here.) I actually thought thought that the integration would be available seamlessly on FB (i.e. no upgrades download required – just sign in with you skype login on FB). Once I get it fired up (hopefully I will if my work computer is not totally locked down) I’ll post screen captures.

2. Bing incorporates Facebook ‘your friends like this’. Interesting news. I guess it’s still up in the air about who is going to own the ‘social webs’ but I think Facebook is winning. Seems like all of Googles initiatives in this area have not been super successful (i.e. Buzz, Wave, FriendConnect).  I wish I could buy some Facebook stock.

3. Looks like more and more Brands are getting into the location game. Actually, I’m really annoyed because of course being in Pakistan mean I have not really been able to try the whole ‘Facebook Places’ ‘Gowalla’ ‘Foursquares’ check-in thing. I wonder how successful this will be (in the future) in our local market. I know that some forward thinking business in Pakistan have actually been using Google Lattitude for business purposes – i.e. tracking the location of on the road salespeople / delivery people etc.  I think if would be interesting to use check-ins to monitor for field visits and collect real-time data.Two side notes though:

- I gotta get data on ‘data package’ penetration on mobile phones. I think providers like Telenor have recently pushed for it on the mid-level market (i.e. People who don’t have smart phones)

- I really gotta get rid of my BlackBerry. Almost of all my data communication is still locked down (Ok if SOMEONE can logically explain to me why is it locked down for blackberries and not other handsets I will bake them a cake). This mean no Facebook, no Twitter, no ‘on the go WordPress updates’, no google maps (which I really miss most of all), no Google mobile search (which is actually very useful and pretty accurate – even in Karachi).  So basically this device is totally useless for me.  I will probably go for an Android phone although sometimes I still get tempted by the iPhone.

Service Review: The Readers Club

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We recently joined the readers club which is an book rental service in Karachi.  I’ve heard about the service for a while and we decided to take the plunge after it was featured in last weeks weekend issue of Dawn.

What I Love.

  • Really fast delivery! I ordered a book on Monday and it was delivered to my door by Tuesday evening
  • I was happy to learn that there isn’t a reoccurring cost model with the program. You select which ever level you want to be at (minimum is 500PKR per month, unlimited rentals, one book out at a time). Once you rent a book you pay your monthly fee upon delivery and you have 30 days from that date to borrow unlimited number of books. I think this model is really well adapted the local environment; there would probably be a HUGE barrier to trial if you had to pay for the rental via a monthly billing program. As it is, you only pay for the first book you rent if and when you choose to rent it.

What they gotta work on.

  • Surprisingly, the biggest weakness of the readers club is not service delivery, or even catalogue size, but the website itself. I found that the search feature doesn’t work well (e.g. I searched for “in defense of food” which is the title of the book and found no results, but if I search for the author Michael Pollan I found the book).
  • Thanks to Amazon, Google, and other repositories of information which not only help us find what we are looking for but to also help us find stuff when we don’t know what we’re looking for. The site had ‘readers club picks’, but I really missed features like similar book, reader reviews, most read books (by category), reading lists etc.  I found myself basically looking for books I might want to read on Amazon and then searching on the readers club to see if they had them.

What they should do.

  • I would be great of the readers club would be able to create a partnership with other clubs like Karachi Club or Gymkhana both of which is a decent library. The readers club could offer a white-labeled online book rental solutions to these clubs offering members the ability to rent books online and not have to both with pick / drop facilities.
  • If they are getting the rental part right, then there are lots of other products they could venture into. What about rental of kids toys? Sounds funny – but it’s happening. How about rental of school books? I’d also love to see rental of sports equipment like roller blades, skateboards, bikes etc.

Beware and Watch Out.

  • Well the photocopied books available at Sunday bazaar might be a threat. Maybe e-books eventually in the future (at least 3 years for a country like Pakistan). Probably the biggest threat is that we don’t have enough people reading (in any language) in Pakistan.

Good and Bad

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Good: Biryani and rita eaten even though its one of my least favorite Pakisatni foods.Bad: Urdu play, for Japan, about Hiroshima. Moral of the story? Listen to your mother in law. Also do not sit on the imaginary kid you were holding. It will make people laugh.Good: Enola Gray – London Fields – Martin Amis. I might reconsider this author I love to hate.Bad: Cramps.Good: Connections that hopefully come through. Getting shit done.

Breaking The Curfew

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Finally finished – Breaking The Curfew by Emma Duncan.Yes, so it’s an old book about Pakistan and reading a book about politics in history written in 1989 fully 20 years later in 2009 is a little weird. What is surprisingly un-weird is how much the class, political, tribal and ethnic breakup (and alliances, affinity, identity) that the writer describes (with clarity, sharpness and openess) is still so valid today.Most of the key players in the book in Politics, Tribal Power, Feudal Power, Business Power are the same people from 20 years ago, or at least from the same family. The army and its power play is the same. All you really have to do is replace soviet threat with Tabliban and whamo – you gotta book for 2010.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

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Or uhh– thankfully not so mutant, not so ninja turtles.

Turtles Power on the Beach

Went to Sandspit beach this weekend and was lucky enough to be there for turtle egg laying season. We saw TWO turtles coming up from the ocean (those cuties are NOT as slow as you would think for a turtle and are really big) and we say them dig their hole and start laying the eggs.The local peeps who protect the turtles told us to keep away from the turtles until they start laying their eggs (otherwise they get afraid and run away aborting the turtle babies for the year).  Once they started laying their eggs we got closer to take a look. It was amazing – right under their back legs is a surprisingly deep hole which had over two dozen eggs.Apparently each turtle will lay between 100 – 120 eggs. Once the turtles lay the eggs and go back to the sea the local peeps dig them up and move them to fenced off location where they are safe from predators like dogs and of course humans. We either saw the Green Sea Turtle or the Olive Ridley Turtle. My bet is that it was the Green Sea Turtle which as supposed to be big ’cause these guys sure were. (I also kept referring to said turtles as guys, even though they are clearly the opposite.)We also got to see some of the baby turtles that had already hatches (they were probably a couple of weeks old) and released them into the ocean. Pretty cool!

More Turtles on the Beach - Photo Credit Danish Ghazi

More Turtles on the Beach - Photo Credit Danish Ghazi

Turtles laying eggs - Photo Credit goes to Sami

Turtles laying eggs - Photo Credit goes to Sami

Pakistan Fashion Week

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Went to the Friday night showing for the ‘First Annual Pakistan Fashion Week’.  Okay, I will skip all the general commentary about contrasts in Pakistani society, conservative vs. extremely un-conservative…blah blah blah.The show was good.(Un-conservative: that’s going to be my new work for opposite of conservative given all the heavy meaning and language politics words can have.)Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any “unauthorized” photographs (not that I would have anyways; way to look like a newbie) – so there isn’t much to post about.LOVED. This once girl (crowd) was wearing this lone vertically stripped poncho/long loose shirt off the shoulder type things. She also had a clutch in similar vertical stripes but thinner – which I LOVED. I was planning to pull a Sartorialist and be all like, I have a fashion blog can I photograph you? But the crowd after the show was insanely packed.Also loved the show for Sanam Chaudhry; it was full of flowing fabrics in amazingly vibrant colors. A lot of the peices were very vintage-y which I loved. Here collection was definitely very wear-able even if it wasn’t that innovative.I also really loved Maheen Hussain’s show which was basically scarfs and bags. I really loved the way she styles and showcased her products, and I the color combination were mouth watering-ly delicious.The last show was Rizwan Beyg and it was amazing – in all white with pearl embellishments and hand crafted his pieces were a work of art. Obviously, totally un-wearable but all about what clothes as art.The show was really well organized; even when the ‘bijli went out’ – the organizers did a great job. I also liked that they had awards for the best dressed women / men in the crowd. It was fun to get the interaction; an also all about how fashion is people own personal style.A LITTLE LESS LOVED.I was annoyed about the bored people looked at the time as if they didn’t really want to be there. Booo to the jaded socialite look. Also, boo to people that were clapping a little too loud and hooting! OMG.I was really enjoying the music too – especially whatever was playing during the Ismail Farid men’s wear collect. I can’t stop my body from moving when the beat is so good; but as expected everyone else was just sitting there with a bored look.Regardless – the fashion show was great. Hope to see a lot more of them in the future!

Fear and loathing in…

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… Karachi.

To start; I watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas on Saturday night. It’s been – oh I would say – at least 7-8 years since I first watched the movie.

Aside from MAYBE catching bits of it on TV (is that really likely?) I hadn’t seen it since. Definitely a different mind state from the first run – where I found the movie totally incomprehensible – this time some things really connected.  I think I could appreciated the drunken, debauched, grossly sickening drug fueled adventure without having to bother about moralism (really me?) or rationalizing why that haven’t O-ded yet and was able to really wallow in both Depp and del Toro’s mind-blowing performance.

Dr. Gonzo Needs No Help

Dr. Gonzo Needs No Help

Also, since I recently read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test I second degree mourned with the ‘wave speach’.. (What a time! Would I have been part of it if I was alive then? Sad Truth… most definitely probably not.)

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.Source: Wiki-love

Which brings me back to fear and loathing in Karachi. (Kind of).The city is in high alert. All visible public places are to be avoided including… Cinemas, Markets, Restaurants, Hotels, Streets, Parks.. and yes ESPECIALLY schools. Its only a matter of time until a suicide bomb goes off and terror, terror  is everywhere. I am here, right now. What should I be doing?… I think its a good day to go shopping; the stores will be crowd free.

Karachi street.

Karachi streets - needs help.