Light Within

Dear Friends!

I started in 1993 to make handicraft dolls in the village of TGD together with the village girls. The effort was based upon available resources and a respect for the local tradition. Especially the hand-made dolls representing the dresses of the different provinces and minorities became very popular.

Only scarce information was available at that time about these groups and their dresses and obtaining the relevant materials was also a problem. Detailed field studies were needed to obtain and organize the required information, which was quite expensive.

One of the oldest living cities in the world, Multan is a significant example of old Islamic urbanization. While many historic Islamic cities have lost much of their original character during the twentieth century, Multan has survived remarkably intact, retaining the classic form of the medieval city encircled by its rampart and gateways. It is the entire urban fabric of the place that is historic.

Inside the walled portion -- archetypal form of old town -- one can still see beautiful bay windows with intricately moulded 'jharokas' in narrow streets or delicate brick work with geometric patterns and tile friezes on the facades of havelis. Meanwhile, modern Multan has expanded in all directions covering over 28 square kilometres of area. And with modernism have come related difficulties. "Problems like overflowing sewerage and a broken down water supply system, encroachments and pollution are taken as hazards of urbanization or attributed to lack of funds," says a resident of Gulgast colony.

Why do you blog? I asked bloggers this question. First, I posted the question on my own blog Light Within and then emailed the post to bloggers soliciting their comments on the post. Earlier, I have been scouting blogsphere in an effort to find out different motives for blogging.


Some 20 bloggers posted their comments and almost same numbers replied through email, pointing to posts on their own blogs answering my question.Here is a kaleidoscope of opinions from bloggers that I was able to contact and read their posts.

Located north of Islamabad, Abbottabad town has lofty peaks and pine-scented air. Among Pakistan's towns and cities, Abbottabad -- small, neat, and clean in a spacious valley -- is a rarity. Apart from being famous for its educational institutions and Pakistan Military Academy, Abbottabad also serves as the gateway to some most stunning sites in Pakistan. While other hill stations are deserted during winter this place has visitors due to its bracing weather all year around. The town has beautiful gardens tall, tree-lined roads: and splendid stretches of turf with plenty of room for polo, football, hockey, and golf.

At 1,250 meters above sea level, Abbottabad lies below the lush pines of the Murree Hills. The importance of the town has been diminished a little after the completion of Karakorum highways because, in the past, the only track available to reach Karakorum was through Babusar pass, which could only be approached through Abbottabad. Despite this development, it continues to be a transit town for those who want to venture to northern areas of Pakistan. Abbottabad is the junction point from where one can go to places like Hunza, Gilgit, Skardu, and Indus Kohistan of the Karakorum Range. One can also reach Swat, Dir, and Chitral of the Hindukush Range or can approach Naran, Lake Saif-ul-Muluk, Shogran, and Babusar Pass of the Himalayan Range. Neelum, Lipa, and Jhelum Valleys are also connected through Abbottabad. It is where the hills start.

An old sleepy and dusty village Sher Garh lies about 20 minutes drive away from Renala Khurd (Okara). The coins found at Sher Garh prove that the place was inhabited at the time of Kushan dynasty. Though “the name Sher Garh was given by the Governor of Molten, Faith Jang Khan after the name of Afghan King Sher Shah Sure,” wrote Abbas Khan Sarauni in his book Tarikh Sher Shah Suri.

On the old bank of River Beas, it is a typical Pakistani village where farmers live like rustics in the face of urban attractions. Even the electricity and telephone are a recent phenomenon. But the village has never been out of limelight. Besides heritage conscious people from all over the world, the village is venerated by a large number of devotees. Reasons, a massive mud fort and mosque which were built in the period of Afghan Sher Shah Suri. And, it is the last resting place of Saint Muhammad Ibrahim Daud-e-Sani Kirmani Bandgi. If one wants to absorb the sense of history, Sher Garh is a place to visit. Director Syed Noor has set his film Chooriyan in the background of this village. One has to possess a sensibility shaped in granite not to be moved by the village of past age that has not changed much in last 400 years. In the periphery few van (salvadora) trees, may be as old as the village stand witness to the bygone era. The village is experienced changed due to awareness about various things and agricultural advancements but at a snail speed.

Cloud computing is the next big thing in the Information Technology (IT) development. The concept has come a long way since it first came on the scene in the late 1960s. Since then demand driven computing industry has started offering solutions rather than specific hardware and software to link together the complicated global infrastructure. Computing is turning into cloud computing it seems.

The “cloud” in metaphoric term “cloud computing” is a set of hardware, software, networks, storage, and interfaces that combine to deliver different features of computing as a service over the internet (either as separate components or as a composite platform) based on users’ demand. Simply put, cloud computing is a service through which everything from computing power to computing infrastructure, applications, business processes to personal collaboration can be delivered to users wherever and whenever they need.

Located near old Multan, Khanewal is comparatively a recently founded town. Its only claim to fame is that it is an important destination on the map of Pakistan Railways. Busy railway junction, railway workshop, pre stressed concrete sleeper factory and huge shunting yards have developed a sort of railway culture in this agricultural market town. National highway also passes the town but people mostly uses railways for travelling and transportation.

This area was a vast grazing land before the excavation of Lower Bari Doab Canal. As per the local lore, the grass from this land used to go as far as Burma during the Second World War.

Pakistan Urdu Science Board textbook defines earth surface “13000 feet above sea level as mountains. Areas that are 9840 feet above their surroundings are also mountainous.” Much more than travel, recreation and adventurous destinations, mountains are natural resource reservoirs that help to sustain life on the planet earth. Nature has blessed our country with rich mountain terrain.


Nowhere in the world is concentration of high mountains, peaks, glaciers, clean water lacks (full of trout and romantic legend attached to them) and passes except in Pakistan. Of the 14 over 8,000 meters high peaks on our earth planet, four occupy an amphitheatre at the head of Baltoro glacier in the Karakorum Range: K-2 (this year Pakistan is celebrating fiftieth anniversary when man first conquered the world’s second highest - 8,611 meters – peak half century ago), Gasherbrum-I (8,068 meters), Broad Peak (8,047 meters) and Gasherbrum-II (8,035 meters). There is yet another great mountain, Nanga Parbat (8,126 meters), located at the western side of the Himalayas. Moreover, there are 68 peaks over 7,000 meters and hundreds others over 6,000 meters in Pakistan.

Published books and printed words have been bringing changes in human relationships and making difference in lives of people. The power of words has caused people to loose their existence or to better them.

I always wanted to get published. But this could not happen. So I decided to self publish instead. When my first self published book Izhar came off the press, I personally distributed the book and placed it on all the show rooms in town and sent some copies to other cities as well. I also did a lot for promotion of my first book. After six months, when I went around to see the result of my book promotion efforts, one of my books sellers told me that four books have sold. Surprised, I wondered who are those four patrons and asked him. He came up with a small list on which one name was written: Erum, Erum, Erum, Erum.

Which is one of the reasons that Pakistan’s printing and publishing industry has not developed. Services like editing (manuscript reviews, proofreading and editing) Graphics (book covers, illustrations), publishing consultations and marketing are generally not available. The author and or the publishers do every thing by experience. There is no formal book promotion here.

A strong online presence is important for businesses in today's high-speed and competitive world. Blogs have already become a new are a new buzz marketing. Marketers are blogging for organizations, products, ideas and or for other organizational goals and achieving.

That has not started happening in Pakistan yet. An overwhelming majority of local consumers who do not (or cannot) use the Internet and even marketing professionals still ask what is Blog?

To understand blogging as a corporate communications tool, we must understand the nature of blogs . Here is a short definition, "Blogs - an abbreviation of 'weblogs' - are published on the web, typically as microsites standing by themselves but today also as parts of traditional web sites. They reflect the interests, thoughts and opinions of the person, sometimes persons, publishing the blog. Blogs are characterized by frequent updates, an informal tone and many links to other blogs and web sites."

A business blog is a blog published by or with the support of an organization to reach that organization's goals. In external communications the potential benefits include strengthened relationships with important target groups and the positioning of the publishing organization as industry experts. Internally blogs are generally referred to as tools for collaboration and knowledge management.

Blogs can drive visitors to existing web site and help find new customers and engage the ones organizations already have. Blogs are prevailing and cost-effective marketing tools. As far as businesses is concerned, there are clients and potential clients. A blog will create a dialogue between the business, present client base, and potential buyers. Communication has never been easier and user friendly.

Once an organization has a blog, it offers immediate and high impact interaction with its target audience. As more people have online access, they'll want more than the standard online newsletter or typical PR response (we are so averse to existing PR stereotypes). Long gone are the days when companies simply fed information to their customers. Now everyone asks for a dialogue - a meaningful exchange of information. People also want to know that organizations are listening to them and paying heeds to what is being suggested, and blogs allow just that -- responding quickly and openly.

From a business point of view there are several potential reasons to blog particularly in less connected country like Pakistan. But, as always, it depends on what businesses want. Blogs are no different from channels like video, print, audio, presentations and even word of mouth marketing. They all deliver results - but of varying kind. The kind you can expect from blogs is mainly about stronger relations with important target groups.

Who should blog for the businesses? Ideally, front line people who know the business in and out should blog about it. Marketing professionals can also use this powerful tool. Organization can hire professional writers to blog for them under company's name or blog under their own. Depending upon the feedback and information provided by audience, an inside blogger can develop the ability to write in his or her own voice and create content for business blog. Outsider bloggers can view business with an objective eye and offer fresh marketing ideas and strategies.

Outsider blogger can study company's marketing materials, reports, other collateral information, and meet key people in organization to learn about what organization does and how best to market the product through blogging.

In developed world, blogging is being taught in most business school as a part of business studies and or part of mass communication courses.

Bloggers can post material written in editorial style and voice, updating at least once a day, three-to-five days a week. The content may also include company news, events, and information about new products and services relevant to your business.

Earlier, online marketing and web sites never picked up in Pakistan because of obvious "digital divide that exists due to individual disparities in levels of income, education standards, psychological reasons, age, gender, rural urban divide, and quality of life or collective deprivations like lack of physical infrastructure."

Pakistan corporate world should look at blogging as an opportunity to reach out but sadly, this has still not started to happen.

Pornography on the Internet is a new king of plague that has spread all over the world. It is seamlessly tearing apart the fabrics of societies, visibly corrupting the public morals and damaging the institution of family. It is also here in our society and every Web user is aware of its presence. More than 60 percent of the country's Internet users are visiting porn sites, BBC reported quoting Pakistani telecoms officials. But many local users are still unaware of its impact and hence are indifferent about the need to combat this threat; some has simply chosen to ignore its presence. Even talking about pornography on any forum is considered a taboo.

Like it or hate it, explicit images of naked flash on the Internet are popular. Free and easy access to naked flash engaged in various acts is extremely popular. Let me hurry to add a disclaimer that the Internet cannot be blamed for this because it is merely a tool; neutral. Restricting access to the Internet is also not a solution. Similarly, Playboy, Penthouse, or Hustler cultures overseas cannot be held responsible for exporting the trend here. Dr. Irfan Mahmud Chaudhry, a psychotherapist in Lahore says, Viewing nudity is a personal penchant that may lead to addiction and many other negative behavioural changes.

Pornography began spreading with the advent of the Internet as a new medium of communications in the middle 1990s. Earlier, like the video cassette recorders and even earlier like printed material, the Internet has been effective because it allows viewing pornography anonymously in an absolute privacy, without fear of being pointed out as a sex starved or a perverted psychopath. And, now cyber space is littered with porno websites for any one with a computer and a modem to access. Experts predict that tech advancements like use of cable modems and DSL connections will fuel even more growth in the trend. No wonder some people in the world have not only accepted porno but playfully heap it with high brow attention and defend it?

Developments in computer technologies, in the past decades, have had their impact on human life in more than one way. But where this increasing interaction between human beings and computers is leading and how is it defining the focus of research in the field are some of the valid fields of study that are likely to make difference in human lives in future.

The emergence of information technology (IT), the availability of the web, and the user friendly designs are rapidly increasing the use of computers. Despite odds like literacy, availability (and reliability) of phone connection and affordability, the use of computers is significantly increasing in Pakistan as well. E-mail, real-time text correspondence and voice exchange are already popular asides from word processing and spread sheets. But in Pakistan, most of the new concepts are still untested, which makes any analysis inconclusive.