Impressions

There are a few things in life that sort of leave 'impressions' on you, well more of, should I say exhibit an influence on you. Let's say there are things and people. Coming to the things first, books.. most of us who do get to read them (apart from the one's that further our vocation) do get influenced, for instance your first book. I can remember mine, some thing I got at age 9 as a school momento/gift for being "best boy" in my class. I know it took me a couple of months to get through it, Enid Blyton's - 'Mr. Pink Whistle's Party'. I guess the only way it influenced me was to get into and read more books,, left right, across and all. Summer vaccations are usually quite an interesting time. Especially if you have had lived a life of an 'expatriate'. You look forward to spending the one month among your relatives back home (Pakistan) and getting into all the fun stuff. (Some things change little). Plus you get to read books,.. perhaps some day I will ponder on the mechanics of reading and how it effect you on a psycholgical level.

Just some books that have changed my thought process are Tolstoy's War and Peace (yeah I read the whole thing) Suleri's Meatless days, Vickram Seth's - A suitable boy. There there are the one's in Urdu,, the first and foremost, is ofcourse Bano Qudisa's Rajah Gidh (the King Vulture) and Mumtaz Mufti's Ali pur ka Aaili and Alakh nagri. There are some books again that leave a taste in the mouth,, in the good sense ofcourse,, some thing like brain masala or biryani or whatever.

Next in line on impressions is Movies and People,,,

Journal

Aren't blogs more of your daily journals ? well, quite a stupid question there, is'nt it. If any of you have maintained a daily journal at some point in time... you know the kind that goes on to say "Dear diary,.. today was quite a hectic day. I started of by..."
I am saying this because I have; pretty much from the time I was thirteen (perfectly expalainable with all those raging hormones and stuff) until I was ironically eighteen or nineteen. Thereafter I did maintain a journal but more of an ocassional half dozen entries during the year. Now what was all that about? my inspiration was (and hold your breath for this) the Queen,,, HRH Queen Elizabeth II of the Royal house of Windsor ofcourse, constitutional head of theUK, Canada, Australian and NZ. Now the Queen has been an ardent recorder, a diarist from when she was eleven (and if my information is not outdated) to this day. I knew back then that I would not be able to beat her,, rival her may be... but then again I was just thirteen and all my literary failures of getting my short stories in the local 'Youth magazine' had become some what a reality. I must say that putting my thoughts to paper ( the pre internet era !) was quite refreshing and each day had its own high and low and on the most boring days the journal writing was a 'high'. Now, now its not as pathetic as it sounds. If you still think so,, you have no literary streak and I am really dissapointed !

But then blogs are not exactly like writing a journal, I think its more of a projection of self thought and end of the day you are concerned that are people are going to read it and JUDGE you. So there, end of my theory its not a journal, its more of your corporate statement. Some thing like the companies we work for keep on pushing down our throat,.. you know, 'Quality in every thing we do', ' People matter to us' and all that bolocks.

An email from Amazon announned today that my pre order of 'In the line of fire' is going to be delayed by not one or two days but 4-6 weeks !!! with their oppoloigies ofcourse. Now that is a real downer to internet buying,. I have no one to go and shout at and get my complementary vouchers from. So like every self serving conscious customer I have cancelled my order (so it hits them where it matters most .... their kitty) and am going to buy it the old fashioned way by stepping into my local book chain (there is no such thing as the local book shop any more). To make a long story short, my brother in Lahore has already thumbed through his copy of the book, while in LONDON I am still twiddling my thmbs to get one in ! You see they are well ahead of us in the third world.

Birthdays

Its a four letter word now,, and take my word for it,, especially if you are any day over 25. Is it just me or every one my age feels like that. I used to be a big fan of 'Thirty some thing' (the CBS tv series) back in my teens in the 90's. One of the reasons for this was because the whole story line seemed to be another world... some thing I could only fantisize about and perhaps muse. People in control of their lives and making all these darastic changes and risks and being adults, masters of their own destiny.

Now, for the love of God its all happening to me. Thirty some thing is none other than yours truly !!

Life just takes a turn and like one e card I got aptly put it as:
'Lost a little hair, belly is in the way, cholestrol's is ok......' there is a whole list to it. (For the record I am not all those things..well may be the cholestrol..)

Ofcourse you have more sexy things to think about like getting that mortgage, buying the BMW (so the TT is like just too small for the wife and family) and hey that cruise trip might just happen and going around the world.. perhaps in another five years..

Talking about birthdays, it was so easy back in the old days,, I mean any one wishing you for the day would send you a card (through snail mail... remember that !) or call you (on the phone .. the fixed line) and in person. This year around.. I had it in all these ways and much more... so much so that it got a little too yucky.... (no offence to all my well wishers ...friends and commercial enterprises alike) here is the list if you still care to read:
1) email (work, personal and all)
2) SMS
3) Phone calls (Mobile and telephone)
4) Forum posts
5) ORKUT posts
6) Snail mail
7) and ofcourse in person.

I am not being un thank ful, infact would like to take this opportunity to thank all my well wishers but it just stuck me so odd... or is it the age,,. well it must be my age for sure,...

My Birthday is 22 September....

The wait

Its still not here,.. might as well had got my copy from the local book shop. The worst thing is not getting it in time but actually having to wait for it. What happens when you pre order a book a CD etc is you loose the God given (hmm capitalistic god given) right to be a free willy consumer. So there you are with your hands tied,.. nothing to do but sit around and twiddle your thumbs.

I do not need to give a book review here, (unless I read the damn thing) but am surprised myself that it has created a lot of interest among fellow Pakistanis in Pakistan and Overseas and surprise surprise the opposition leaders in land of the pure and not so pure (read across the wahga border !!)

Hope fully by this time tommorrow I will have my merchandise and not go ahead with a civil suite against amazoooon

In the line of fire

Tommorrow (I mean yesterday actually) is going to be a big day in the life of 'Me' (excuse my inadequate use of language and grammatical sentence construction) but it is quarter to six in the morning and I am torn between catching a few winks or just staying up and enlightning the world with my pearls of wisdom. Ok.. coming back to the important thing,, 'in the line of fire'... as most Paksitanis would know is the much talked 'memoirs' of our erstwhile President, the General and staunch ally of the free world 'Pervaiz Musharaf'.

Its a big day for Musharaf since its his first book published and out in the US (racking him his million dollars) and mine because it is the first time I have 'pre ordered' a book from amazon. This may not come as surprise to people who know me, apart from being an accountant (reason enough) I am a conservative sort of guy and usually like to browse in a dozen books, reading in as a free loader before I buy my book. Let's say I feel like feeling upthe book before I buy it... in all the physical meaning of the phrase there.

I hope my big day is up tommorrow, when I expect to have delivery of the memoirs and can fill blogs upon blogs with raunchy stories of a General's strife with leading a country the size and depth of Pakistan. Until then I will just keep my sprits up musing on 'we will bomb Pakistan to the stone age' vs. 'Unhon nae kaha hae kae woh Pakistan ki eint sae eint baja daen gae'.

Editorial note: I dare note transalte this last sentence from Urdu,.

Blogging

When I hitched myslf this place on the world of blogging, I thought I would be a regualr contributor, 'blogger' and would soon have the following of the likes of the 'Dilbert blog'. Things did not work out that well and I think it goes to show my committment when my first blog post comes on in a little after a year I booked this blog !

Watch out this space for more thought provoking blogs... I promise its going to be less than 14 months it took me with my first blog.