The idea for this post was given to me by a discussion I was having with one of my followers, and I ultimately wrote a very long post about it.

It can be found here

It will be running up here.

It is very empty, at the moment, but this is how it will ultimately look once I start putting posts there. The menu still needs to be customized however, which I intend to do as soon as I manage to get some free time in the day.

The WordPress theme I have used is called Daily Notes, which makes me think of a blank sheet of paper, where I can express my thoughts freely on a clean slate – a perfect way to start.

Special thanks to Arsalan Ahmad for putting the idea in my head in the first place, for selecting the theme, and for the technical assistance involved in setting the website up and making it live, and to Sohail Ali for designing the logo. Couldn’t have done it without you guys!

Looking at all the delicious looking themes, and spending all this time developing beautiful websites for clients has been tempting me to get my own website for ages. Finally today I took the step and shortlisted a theme for myself, with my developer Arsalan’s help. Arsalan also spent time and effort developing my website on the company’s webserver, and helped me to finalize a domain name (URL) for my new blog – which I will be forever indebted to him for.

In one or two days, I will pay the hosting company the fees to be able to launch the  website. However, Arsalan and I will not be making the website live immediately. He suggested that I should wait until I have at least 10-15 posts to put up there. It makes sense – what is the point of starting a website with nothing on it, after all? This means that it will be at least two weeks before you can see a website.
Till the website goes live, there will be no new posts here. All of them will be saved up and posted on the big day itself. The address of this page will also not redirect to the new website – since I really don’t want to fork out USD 12 every year for that. For SEO reasons, the content of this blog will also not be transferred there.

I hope my readers follow me there too. The URL will be shared as soon as I managed to buy the domain I have my eyes on

I would like to ask my fellow Pakistanis and Muslims – and the media one question: Why Veena? Are there really NO other violations of Islam in our daily lives? What the public, and the media, should really be raising a hue and cry about are the major violations of Islam that take place every single day – and on a much larger scale. How come we see no one raising these issues on TV or other media? and how come no maulvi dares to raise his voice on these issues? Aren’t they just as prevalent in our society, in fact even more so? Don’t they deserve more importance than a woman’s indecent exposure?

Ill present my list here:

• Target killings (“A Muslim is the one from whose hands and tongue other Muslims are safe” – Prophet Mohammad (Peace be on him); ”Take not life, which Allah hath made sacred, except by way of justice and law: thus does He command you, that ye may learn wisdom“.- The Quran 6: 151; among many others)

• Rape of women (Islam forbids sexual relations outside the bonds of wedlock. Even the “rape” of one’s wife is not permitted. Similarly, the religion also prohibits a man from looking lustfully at a woman other than his own wife)

• Homosexuality (Sexual relations with members of the same sex are expressly prohibited. The Quran describes the story of the Prophet Lot, whose people openly engaged in homosexuality – and have been condemned in no uncertain terms in the Quran. “Would ye really approach men in your lusts rather than women? Nay, ye are a people (grossly) ignorant! ….And We rained down on them a shower (of brimstone): and evil was the shower on those who were admonished (but heeded not)!” (Qur’an 27:55-58)

• Bribery (“The giver and taker of bribes will both go to Hell” – Prophet Mohammad (PBUH))

• Denial of women’s right to employment (“..to men is allotted what they earn, and to women what they earn” The Quran, 4:32)

• Depriving women of education (“To acquire an education is the duty of every Muslim male and every Muslim female” – Prophet Mohammad (PBUH))

• The open dating culture (Read points above)

• Thievery, robbery and dishonesty

• Prostitution (same logic as above). Do the maulvis dare point fingers at the influential politicians who are regular visitors at Heera Mandi?

• The use of alcohol and other intoxicants (“O you who believe, intoxicants, and gambling, and altars, and arrows of chance are tools of affliction used by the devil. You shall avoid him so that you may be successful.” The Quran 5:90)

• Fortune tellers, which are in fact so openly endorsed by television channels (Read above verse)

Narrowing down to the entertainment industry in particular, why not openly condemn other violations of the teachings of Islam? The biggest example could be seen in the shape of another contestant on the same program – Mr. Ali Saleem, better known as Begum Nawazish Ali. Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) has specifically cursed men who dress like women, and vice versa. Did we hear anyone speaking out against him/her?

Or how about Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena, a dance competition which Wasim Akram co-hosted with Sushmita Sen, and in which both of them danced together? Is not touching a strange woman also prohibited?  How about the fact that singing and dancing are not allowed in Islam? Did I see any protests against that?

The fact of the matter is, we as a nation are hypocrites. We condemn what we feel like condemning, while we ignore the things that give us pleasure and enjoyment.  We pick on a non-issue like Veena Malik, conveniently ignoring the other things more deserving of our attention. If we condemn Veena Malik so openly, we should ALSO condemn all the other things I mentioned earlier, otherwise we shouldn’t condemn her either.

The words of Prophet Isa (AS) (Jesus Christ) mentioned in the Bible seem very appropriate here:

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

There are so many articles like the above on the positive aspects of Pakistan and its people. One quality that hardly ever gets mentioned however is how enterprising Pakistanis can be – a prime example of which I observed when I visited the Badshahi Masjid in Lahore in 2007.

As with any masjid, visitors are required to take off their shoes before entering. In any other masjid, however, this would mean that there would be no guarantee of getting them back when you came out. Not at the Badshahi Masjid.

The entrance of the masjid is guarded by a shoe-keeper, who takes visitors’ and worshipers’ shoes the minute they take them off. In return he gives them a token which identifies their pair of shoes. After the tour of the masjid is complete, on their way out, visitors and worshipers are supposed to present both their token and 10 Rupees, and collect their shoes. No money and no token, no shoes. Simple as that.

Ten Rupees may not seem like a lot of money in this day and age (One probably wouldn’t even get two rotis for that amount), but when you consider the fact that the Badshahi Mosque is the fifth largest masjid in the world, with a capacity of over 100,000 worshipers, who pray five times in a single day, as well as on occasions such as Eid, and is a major tourist attraction, the amount of money that these shoe-keepers could potentially collect is simply mind-boggling.

Pity how talent and enterprise are not acknowledged in this country.

• The chichora Hindi/Urdu songs. Every day after lunch, when the biryani is getting us down, someone or the other puts on loud music at full volume to avoid the post-lunch lethargy. It was also during one of these sessions that I was introduced to Kishore Kumar’s “Naach Meri Jan” reproduced here for the sheer laughs of it.
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• I get home every day at 6.30 pm without fail. Since my firm primarily relies on email and telephonic communication rather than face-to-face communication, there is no need to stay in the office beyond 6pm. If there is anything left over, we simply take it home and do it from there. Any communication with clients can be deferred safely to the next working day.

• Two day weekends. Try getting away with that at a bank.

• Where else but a marketing agency can you get away with spending the entire day on sites like Facebook, Youtube, Songs.pk, Twitter and Cricinfo/Crictime in the name of research and/or inspiration? It helps that my company is trying to expand its portfolio to include Facebook apps, which means…..more research, and even more Facebook. JACKPOT!

• In the name of creativity, ANYTHING is acceptable.

• Scattering pieces of paper with sketches of the weirdest things possible, actually counts as work

• Can you proudly point out a hot pink ATM screen like this one and claim “I made this”? What gives me a double high is that this ATM screen is installed in an equally hot pink ATM machine. I have half a mind to apply for a Silk bank (formerly Saudi Pak Commercial Bank) credit card, so that I can be the proud owner of a pink and black credit card too.

Hot Pink ATM screen designed by my firm for Silk Bank

• Does the largest mobile phone manufacturer  proudly display what you have done for them? Samsung? LG? (Couldn’t find the soft copies of the Urdu manuals for Samsung or LG)

Downloadable version of Nokia 6600 user manual

• Or the world’s most popular search engine?

Google Urdu home page

• Can you work at controversial projects such as this one at a bank?

Urdu page of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

• Even the “Yahan Paan thookna mana hai” sign outside your office door is “all in a day’s work”, and therefore deserving of awe and respect

• The corporate webmail account will never be a cute little squirrel

Squirrel Mail

• I wouldn’t go to seedy locations just to take dozens of photographs (for an upcoming project for Lucky Aluminium, photographs will be out soon)

I may not get a big fat pay cheque at the end of the month, but nothing beats the sheer satisfaction of being responsible for creating something  from scratch – and that too something as  beautiful as that – having your work displayed and being able to point things like the above out to others and being able to say “Yes, I did that!”

For a photographic account of why working at an advertising agency is “way cooler” than working at a bank, feel free to check out Umair Kazi (aka “The Idea Artist“)’s Facebook album “Why NOT to work at a bank” (Also the primary source of inspiration for this work)

Five minutes later, I asked her for permission to go the SAME trip. Her response: “Are you crazy? NO”!

What is also so typically “desi” about this: both of us needed to ask our parents for permission. My brother is 22, I am 27.

Funnily enough, if I tell my friends I couldn’t go because I didn’t get “permission” from my parents, they will accept it as a legitimate reason, even considering how old I am.

Find it amusing that I will automatically support any team that is playing India when it comes to cricket (except Australia, more on that some other time), yet I prefer Hindi films to Urdu/Pakistani ones.