Harry Potter Party comes to Pakistan

Owais Mughal

Just like rest of the world, Harry Potter’s seventh book, titled as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows got launched in Pakistan today amid fanfare. Considering the diminishing trend of reading printed books worldwide, it is a positive sign to see the type of demand this book has created among Pakistani muggles.

Big bookstores all over Pakistan arranged launching ceremonies and theme decorations to go with the launch.

However, in an increasing sign of a divided society, a bomb scare laid rest to one such ceremony at Park Towers Mall in Karachi. The book will now be sold at this venue unceremoniously. While we are talking of a divided society, Shoaib Mansoor’s movie which was discussed at ATP a few days ago also got released yesterday.

Going back to Harry Potter series, the suggested retail price of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in Pakistan is about Rs 2000 (US $33).

It is however, being sold at a discounted retail price of Rs 1595 (~US $27) with pirated versions being advertised for as low as at Rs 195 to Rs 295 only. The retail price of the book seems too high for the buying power of general populace therefore the threat of piracy looms large. One shopekeeper attributed piracy to be as high as 75% of total market sales. Spokesperson of Liberty Books while talking to Dawn newspaper said:

“Prominent notices have been put up in Urdu Bazaar and other places warning would-be pirates that strict legal action will be taken against them.”

News from Islamabad say that Saeed Books of Jinnah Super Market ordered 2000 copies of this book with 700 being pre-reserved. Mr books in Super Market ordered 200 and London Book Company in Kohsar Market 100 copies.

News from Karachi say that Liberty Books alone got 3000 pre orders with 75 orders coming through their online service. Liberty Books in Karachi had planned a themed release of the book with audio-visual display of Harry Potter movie scenes and posters. This show at Park Towers Mall had to be cancelled for the reasons mentioned above.

I couldn’t find Harry Potter news from Lahore yet but Harry Potter sales may not be much different there either or in other major cities of Pakistan. Metroblogging Lahore had this post on Harry Potter coming to Lahore.

The previous two books of Harry Potter sold in excess of 10000 in Pakistan so there is a good chance that latest book also will do a good business.

This last book of the series was much awaited because in an interview in 2006, J.K. Rowling the author of Harry Potter series had said that atleast two characters will die in the last book. Now the question is who will they be? Will they be Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort? I guess we’ll all know by tomorrow.

People sometimes ask about what is so special about Harry Potter and its popularity in Pakistan. I think it is possibly the new generations love for fantasy stories, just like the generation before. It is just like the love of eastern fantasy tales of alif laila and Pakistan’s very own daastaan-e-ameer-Hamza and Umro-Ayyaar series which kept many of us hooked on to them many years ago.


Apart from Harry Potter’s news emanating from Pakistan, the book had reached the top spot worldwide on both the Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble bestseller lists just a few hours after the date of publication was announced on 1 February 2007. As I am writing these lines only 1 minute is left before the book is released in US. I will now go out to get my copy. Hopefully I can find one tonight.

Which is the most used word in the blogsphere?

Every wonder what the most used words are in the blogsphere during 2007? I emailed some of my blog friends this question: Which is the most used word on the Web? Scouting produced following list (leaving out most common words like "a," "the," "to," and "for"). That said, it will be interesting to track the top words used in blogsphere and publish a list at the end of the year. What you think is the most used word in the blogsphere? Leave comment here and or suggest words.

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Light Within

Books have been bringing changes in human relationships and making difference in the lives of people. The power of worlds has caused people to loose their existence or to better them. Abbas Khan spends lot of time in reading. He reads philosophy to understand how varying points of view about existence are presented and psychology to know how philosophers come up with those points of view, Greek mythology to learn about their strong love of nature and Roman history to explore what they gave to the world.

For this he has explored annals of history, philosophies, biographies, autobiographies, and literature spread over centuries. He has mediated upon what he finds life building and has put them up in his eleventh book entitled Din Main Charagh for readers to benefit. His other published work includes three novels and seven short story books: Zakham Gawah Hain, Tu Aur Tu and Mein Aur Umrao Jan Ada (novels), Dharti Binam Akash, Tensikh-e-Insan, Qalam, Kursi Aur Wardi, U’s Adalat Men, Jism Ka Johar (short story books) and Reza Reza Keenat and Pal Pal (afsancha -- shortest story books).

The historic stories in Din Main Charagh seem to get better over time, whether they be fiction or fact. They have a mystique about them even in the world of today, where some insist that past values are dying. In literature and life alike there's something to be learned from what Abbas Khan has compiled. I have had the pleasure to translate Din Main Charagh because I believe that, what Abbas Khan tells us is worth knowing.

Publication of the book from Multan is another good thing that proves that voices can still be heard in this din, provided the voice is strong enough. Abbas Khan's is a very strong voice.

Extract from the book: Human beings live in four prisons as per empirical observations of one scholar.

First are natural restrains. Humans are bounded by natural environment, seasons, atmospheric conditions, other living beings, calamities and every thing else present in the eco system.

Second confine to humans is history -- the chronology of the past. It is so very difficult to get rid of the past.

Third is society. Humans simply cannot live oblivious of the societal traditions and customs. It is not possible to live alone nor is it workable to violate folks, mores and norms of society while living as its part. And last is own self. Envy, love, anger, joy, desire, sex, prejudice, self-indulgence and fear compel humans to restrict behind the walls of own self.

How can one throw away all these yokes and truly set free. Science can take control of nature. Understanding of philosophy can free the humans from burdens of what went before. Knowledge of social sciences can steer them safely through the society. But getting away from self is the most daunting of the tasks. For that one needs altruism. And that can only be attained through passion for others.

Available @ Caravan Book Center, Multan Cantt, Pakistan [Tel: 92-62-4544714]

Tag: Books

Students and Networking Sites

USA Today has an interesting article about how college orientations this fall include warnings about the dangers of blogs and social networks. The students are also told about how students can later came to regret postings and profiles they have made {Via}.

Cosmos: Bloglines BlogPulse IceRocket Technorati

Handyman Blue!

Electric and water supplies have become an essential part of contemporary urban life; bright lights, heat, air conditioning, cooking appliances, televisions, computers, and central water supplies are modern conveniences. Of the many kinds of repairs and maintenances required at homes, electrical and plumbing ones tend to intimidate people the most.

Problem is that most residents cannot handle the troubles. Wiring seems confusing and the specter of electrical shock is scary. Most people do not know that doing certain jobs like replacing fuzzed bulb can be easy and safe, provided basic safety precautions are followed. Similarly, many homeowners can not (or do not) tackle minor plumbing problems, like dripping faucets and clogged drains what to talk of repairing leaky water-supply lines or fixing those messy plumbing problems in kitchens and bathrooms.

What you do when an electrician or a plumber is needed in a hurry? This question was asked to some residents of posh localities of Lahore - Defence Housing Authority (DHA), Gulberg, Model Town and Cantonment - generally considered modern face of ancient Lahore. Answers revealed that home repairs rituals are not easy for many.

"Generally speaking repairmen are not qualified to do the job. Most have learnt to handle home repair and maintenance while 'on job training' instead of from vocational schools, says Civil Engineer Shahid Mirza, second, houses even in posh localities start having repair problems due to poor quality of material used."

In the absence of any central maintenance system and or services, residents have to find repairmen for trouble shooting as and when they arise. Mostly electricians and plumbers are found with the eclectic and or sanitary stores. Some of them also have working arrangements with the shopkeepers. Call comes to the shopkeeper and he in turn informs the workman to go to the given address. It is mutually beneficial for both of them; workman gets the assignment and shopkeeper sells the parts required. The prices vary and are bargained.

One of the situations is this: "Give whatever you like Sahib Ji," says a handyman. After the work is done and Sahib gives what he thinks is appropriate, the workmen finds it less and says, "you can keep this also, I will do it for free putting Sahib in a very embarrassing situation," narrated Dr. Munir Ghazanfar of Gulberg III. "The worst is that you have an electric outage at home at an odd timing and you don't find any one to repair," adds Dr. Ghazanfar.

Although metropolitan has so many posh localities, the DHA excels them all. It is the first ISO certified housing scheme in the country. It provides the best facilities to its residents and (offers excellent investment opportunities for a variety of projects). But even DHA does not have dedicated maintenance and repair service where one can ring and get the job done in a jiffy.

"We get maintenance staff from our factory when we need to install, maintain, repair, or operate any electric equipment or have a problem with house circuitry or any other," says Mian Muhammad Karim who lives in DHA and owns a business concern at Kasur Road.

But every body does not have such an arrangement where they can get tradesmen at telephone's call. Rahila Anab, a housewife who lives in DHA with her children while her husband is working abroad says, "It was easy during early phases of development when we used to get hold of people working in houses under construction nearby but now we have to go to the market to find requisite person from shops where they usually hang around. They charge for coming and fault finding and along with the work performed. My elder son is a handyman at home but I do not encourage him to take on anything to do with electricity."

It has become difficult to differentiate between commercial and residential districts in Gulberg. Dr. Munir Ghazanfar who is an old resident of Gulberg III says that repair and maintenance problems are tackled by my wife. She has telephone numbers of every one (from plumber to car mechanic) and gives a call when needed. They charge more but problems are solved pretty quickly. Mrs Ghazanfar explained, "Telephone numbers have not come easy way to me. I had personally gone after each one of them in the past when I made it a point to have their telephone numbers handy for future. Every one has one; most have mobile phones."

A satellite colony in Cantonment area has a best system working. One small concern provides house repair and cleaning services to the residents of the 800 households in the colony. Repair business offers membership to the residents for a fee and do not charge any thing for minor repairs or fault finding. "We only pay rupees 250/- per month and that solves most of our problems. Call and next moment the repairmen will be on the door. And they will carry our repair so that they don't need to come again and again where as repairmen from market will invariably leave the job so that he may be needed for repeat visit," say Sajida Javed, a housewife. Non members have to pay rupees 50/- per trip plus the cost of fixtures.

"Repair and maintenance in the house is easy. We can always get the repairmen from the market on cost. It becomes difficult when the problem is to be solved by WAPDA, WASA or any of the city development agencies," says Inam Karim who lives in Model Town, one of the best planned habitat of its time.

Civil Engineer Shahid Mirza says every one should be able to do certain basic tasks required from time to time: Familiarize yourself with electrical service panel in the house and it is easy to learn to reset a tripped circuit breaker (must use professional help instead of taking risk when required particularly in case of electric problems) or how to shutoff water at the water main or locally at the plumbing fixture when some leakage is flooding the home. Every one should have repair tools and necessary know how in the first place.

Tags: Homes, Home Repair, Appliance Repair

Do I look chubby?

Google Apps for your Domain

Badar Khushnood, Google Pakistan Country Consultant, Google Inc

Free 2GB email accounts for your own company domain hosted by Google #

Google Apps allows institutions to use Google’s communication and collaboration applications under their own domain names. All services are hosted by Google and are available to users via any web-based PC. Google Apps includes the following services:

• Gmail™ – provides users with 2 gigabytes of storage, highly effective spam filtering and powerful search. Gmail includes instant messaging within the email interface;
• Google Calendar™ – is an online calendar that makes it easy for people to organize their lives and share schedules with others;
• Google Talk™ – lets users make PC-to-PC voice calls and send instant messages to each other for free;
• Google Docs and Spreadsheets™ – allows people to create and collaborate on documents and spreadsheets without the need to email attachments back and forth. Different people from within the same organization can work on a document at the same time. All revisions are recorded for editing, and controls enable people to define who can and cannot share the information; and
• Google Page Creator™ – This what-you-see-is-what-you-get web page authoring tool lets domain administrators build simple web pages for their domain and publish them to the web even if they don’t have any website building experience.
  

You can browse a list of some of our global customers #

Other Interesting Links:

+ Google business services
+ Google consumer products (Don't forget to try: Alerts, Desktop, Earth, Orkut, Toolbar, Picasa and Docs)
+ Google search features (e.g. Calculator, Currency Converter, Definitions, etc.)
+ Google advanced/refined search tips #

Mind Reader

Atoorva forwarded me this link and she is wondering how it is works so accurately. If anyone can crack this, please enlighten us.

Rate Your Students

Rate Your Students blog offers college professors a chance to rate their students. What is more, here is a site, which is supported by advertising, allows students to grade teachers anonymously on a 1 to 5 scale for easiness, helpfulness and clarity.

Do You Love Your Job?

In some way sweeper Ashiq Mang knows so much more about life that anybody else does, about grief, about happiness, about pretense and falseness of life. There is nothing in his own life, which he would like to hide or not talk about.

Ashiq has been working at our home for two years. My friendship with him developed when brought me laddoos on the birth of his son. It was a very pleasant surprise though later my wife and children hesitated to share the sweets with me. I offered him a cup of tea over which he started talking and gave me the chronological narrative of the life, experience and reminiscences. Then we used to talk whenever got chance to meet on holidays mostly, when he was late doing his job at our place or I came home early. He may not be a good communicator, but has definitely enriched my vision. He is so candid and honest about every thing.

Happily married to a working woman for last 18 years, Ashiq has six daughters and a son. He has his own home consists of one room, verandah, bathroom and kitchenette where he lives with his family. His wife also works as a cleaning lady besides giving birth to and rearing children. He told me about the tube legation of his wife, her miscarriages and death of their first daughter and how they have had so many children for want of a son, whom he wants to educate.

At one point early in our friendship he started narrating his observation of the job. "Every body is fixated only on keeping their house clean, oblivious of any thing beyond their four walls. It take four hours to clean that big bungalow whereas they me only for two hours. I work in six houses and they all want to get their house to be cleaned first. They have so many guests every day. They do not buy brooms and wipers in time. They litter the house thoughtlessly. Most of the educated women of wealthy families have neither time nor desire to keep their houses clean. Most surprising is that no body pay in time."

"There is no love in that house," he once told me about one of his employers, "no body talks to each other. Even the kids do not talk or laugh. Every one in the house is locked into a shell. It seems as people from different families are staying in a hostel. It is suffocating to work what to talk of living in their house." Then he told me about another superstitious character who would wash his furniture items like tables and sofas, pens, shoes frequently and his hands every time he would shake them with another human being. Ashiq said simply, "Sahib thinks that not only the air is polluted but every thing is contaminated with lethal germs." Incisive analyses by a person who cannot read or write contain spontaneous and honest reflections of our society it seems.

After having completed 15 years of colored service in armed forces he is reemployed by a national company where he works from early morning till noon in addition to working at different houses. His wife also works at different houses. Remembering the period spent in the service he says, "It was the best time of my life. I was young. I used to clean single men's barracks meticulously and all service men used to look after me affectionately. There used to be Christmas greetings and gifts for me. Life was so orderly, organized and happy." He narrated an incident happily, "During my days in service our company was given a quiz with a question: what is the name of the person who cleans your barracks? They had seen me cleaning the barracks several times, but most of the young soldiers did not know my name and in their paper left the last question black. Before the day ended, every soldier knew my name." The problem with the present that are that no body seem to bother about my name and the company deducts pay if I do not go to work even for a single day for any reasons."

Ashiq Mang is leading a comfortable life in his pensions, pay and some additional amount he and his wife get by working at the houses. "Wealth has nothing to do with happiness," he once explained to me philosophically, "in my life I have seen people with lot of money living miserably miserly and unhappy." Proud of his job to contribute in making the world a little cleaner place to live in, Ashiq loves his life, wife and children. At the age of 47 years he says that he has never fallen sick despite of hard worked and always busy hours. He dreams a lot and is looking forward to his retirement, for the second tine, when he will have all the time to play with his son.

Ashiq as I know is kind trusting and warm, willing to share his joys and sorrows, openly and freely. The only regret he says a little wistfully is that people treat us discriminately due to our job. We are denied our basic cultural and social rights. We have to have our own utensils in order eat or drink at any house, in case they offer something. We are also human beings with emotions and passions.

Tags: Memories, Culture, Society

What Gender is Computer?

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

"House" for instance, is feminine: "la casa." "Pencil," however, is masculine: "el lapiz." A student asked, "What gender is 'computer'?"

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether "computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun.

Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men's group decided that "computer" should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la computadora") because:

• No one but their creator understands their internal logic
• The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else
• Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval
• As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.
  

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine ("el computador") because:

• In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on
• They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves
• They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem
• As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model
  

You could decide the winner for yourself?

Tags: Humor, Technology

How I Write {and Publish)

Every body has a book in his mind, as they say. But, everybody trying to write one is a different thing, and self-publishing one yet another. There are lots of considerations that induce people into writing about various things: people, events, ideas, issues, passions, observation, noble causes, problems and more. Some of these are pricked by their strong sense of right and wrong to raise their voice for or against a cause of their own or of their community's interest, while some others do it to cover up some disrepute and or misdemeanors. There are those who do it for amusement. And the ones for whom writing is a career. Of the many other classifications, there is a class of writers and it is a very well populated fraternity that takes its writings as a means to achieve an end. The end, of course, varies from person to person, but the mercenary passion with which the community members market (yes, market) themselves remains constant.

As a sub category of this specie there are among them the innocent writers who keep visiting publishing houses simply in a hope that some day someone will be convinced about the great idea presented by them and will be willing to invest on the publication of their work. The writer whom I am going to profile here is a commoner. That seems to be his first problem. When the first time he took the draft of his book to a well-reputed publishing house, the owner of a publishing house enlightened him to go do something else instead of writing. My writer friend was surprised with how the owner had given his opinion even without setting an eye on the draft of his life long labour of love.

My friend did no lose heart though. He kept visiting publishers "who would publish his book and give him royalties and he would grow famous and rich and then he would write some more". Somebody had told him that this is what happens to every new writer. After a lot of legwork and listening to many unfavourable remarks, he came to the conclusion that they are not going to benefit from his work. They were unlucky!

And finally he decided to become a publisher of his own book. He thought that after the publication of his first book people would discover the gem in him and would come searching. Now the first problem was finances. He consulted his wife who was very proud of him but unable to help financially. She advised her husband to get one copy printed to be kept in their drawing room so that any body could see that "we" have written a book. The idea was very sincere but hardly practicable. Then he consulted his friends. Everybody gave his opinion with a varying degree of sincerity. But one of his friends was most candid. "Do you have a car, bank balance or any other sellable assets, asked a friend? The answer was obviously no. The candid friend told him that he was already living a miserable life so why not get a loan from the bank and publish a book? Banks are so eager to offer personal loan these days. Of course every thing would be all right once the book was published added the friend reassuringly. And the writer agreed to do just that. Why had this simple idea not come in my mind my friend kept thinking?

Composing, printing, binding, and finally the book was published and dumped in the house of the writer. It was a great boost to his already highflying ego. A new marathon to market and sell (read dispose of) the book started. The writer kept the copies of his books for display at all the bookshops in the city (who agreed to that). How he managed to keep his book in display windows of the bookstores is yet another story. But after six months once he went about to collect the sale proceeds he, to his horror, found out that only four books had been sold. Who were those four patrons?

Now the writer started distributing his book to his writer friends other members of the fraternity -- with a hope that they would write about him and his book in the press and he would get noticed. But the best remark he could get in the press was that this: “He is very promising and upcoming writer of the future.”This is a crux of my lifetime experiences, empirical observations and research findings. What else I should come up with he thought in awe. The others have nothing new, they just write rumours and yet they are published as well as sold and appreciated. The newspapers carry their profiles and interviews. Why not me?

On the advice of yet another sincere friend the writer managed to pursue a "writers' forum" in the town to arrange a book launching ceremony. Sitting on the stage between the chief guest and a few guests of honour and listening to the speakers talking about him my friend kept thinking about writing his next book. During high tea (that was financed by the writer himself) after the speeches, the spirits of my fiend was at the zenith.

Over a period of time and after a lot of sittings with my "writer friend", I have found out what he thinks about future. He is convinced about two things: One that he is a great writer and has to be 'discovered' by others some how. Second, or else, as written by Kevin Kelly (in some other context) in a recent cover story in time, "The page (and reading and writing) will die. Who will adhere to the linear rationality found in books, new and old?" But I dare disagree with my friend.

Tags: Writing, Satire, Publishing