Tuesday 30 July 2013

Where Would I Rather Be?

“When we were kids, we couldn't wait to grow up. Now that we are grown up, we realize that wounded knees and broken toys were better than wounded emotions and broken hearts!”

As I started growing up, this world became more and more of a cruel complex place. The place where innocents are brutally murdered, rapes are common, bomb blasts and drones are quotidian breaking news, child abuse and molestation is the trend, and stereotyping is a fashion. ‘This is not the kind of world my parents told me about. No fairytales here exist. No girl is a Barbie, a Cinderella or a Snow White’, I thought. ‘Contemporary times are not what I dreamed of when the Alice in me saw the Wonderland’. So where would I rather be? What would I do? Where is it in the world that I would find solace? Caves? Perhaps. But only a moron would want to go back in the Stone Ages. An island? That wouldn’t make any sense whatsoever either. Under water? Not like evil creatures don’t dwell either.

Realizing the fact that there is nowhere real I can go, where I bury my head (well I’m no ostrich) and keep myself aloof from the unjust happenings of this world; I can say I want to go back in my childhood.

I want to go back to that time when in stories shooting someone shed no blood, when my father used to sing me ‘All things bright andbeautiful’, ‘Sohni Dharti’ and ‘Dosti’ type sweet songs, when I could slurp not just the noodles but tea and everyone would find it cute, when I could wear a beautiful stitched frock and everyone would compliment me. I would rather dwell in my childhood than being a part of this grown up and mature yet fake and ruthless world. I would rather be in a dream where everything looks like a fairytale and hope no one wakes me up. I would rather be in that wondrous world of magic where I can turn everything into gold.

They say the bubble of fantasies bursts as soon as you get reality checks and reality is better than fiction, but if this is reality, I would rather be in a fantasy world – a world where justice prevails, discrimination is extinct and humanity is the one and only value.

There's no shortcut to success or you are a moron, if you think so!

Because of the distance that scientists had to travel from point A to point B, one fine day, they described the shortest distance from and to, to the respective points. And *bam*; there came the displacement. Now before you start thinking that I am a geek who gets curious over apples falling on my head from the tree, I would like to make a few points. This was in a totally distinct yet significant frame of reference which was not connected to science through any magnetic or electric force of attraction. The nucleus of the initiation of this discussion was the fact that people believe there are shortcuts to success, which in all ways is a philosophical debate (not that I haven’t emphasized on that earlier :p). So when asked how I feel about the phenomenon, this is the logical argument that I came up with.

Another logical point of discussion here is the existence of elevators in the buildings and staircases. And after pondering over the argument further, I asked people why they take elevators when stairs are there. All answers had two words ‘faster’ and ‘easier’ (though some obese fat ass morons responded with ‘free exercise equipment’, missing the crux of the conversation). Nonetheless, it was obvious that shortcuts exist and they give you the same end results as the longer ways. And even in that case some attention seeking conventional goofs responded with ‘But hard work always pays off’!

Other supporting clauses: the advent and exponential growth of the fast food industry, updated softwares and processors, replacement of buttons with zips :p etc. etc.

Anyhow, concluding the discussion with one argument: Time is money. And money if invested well gives great returns. Shortcuts might be risky, but they may give magnanimous results within no time following simple rule of risk and return. And I believe the world revolves around smart individuals who know how to optimize resources (of which time is the most essential indubitably) and get spectacularly prolific results out of them.

One piece of advice: Be smart. Work under pressure. Discover yourself. Be successful!

Monday 29 July 2013

Creative Chaos: Where Work and Fun Converge

Promoting good organizational cultures is not only a responsibility of organizations but also becomes inevitable when employee satisfaction and motivation come in play. Luckily a few contemporary evolving companies like Creative Chaos (my employer fortunately :D and I’m not sugar coating) understand the importance of employee interaction and thus arrange leisure activities for increasing socializing opportunities for its employees. After the great triumph of the movie night at Atrium to watch ‘Now You See Me’, Club Chaos decided to organize an iftar + dinner hang out scene for its employees.

Arena Club and Resort because of its entertainment area and Rangoli was chosen as the venue being a one-stop shop. Bowling had never been more fun in the past. With teams of two and individual players, the bowling area at Arena was looking like a fish market (only in the crowded sense). Those who aren’t big fans of playing, sat back cheering for their colleagues.

The iftar + dinner buffet had over 20 dishes. The iftar began with serving Rooh Afza and tea at each table and the fried items consisted of samosay, rolls and pakoray in addition to chana chaat, fruit chaat and dahi barey.  After a few moments the dinner was served which had everything from fried rice and gravies to Pakistani and Continental food including handi, biryani, chapli kabab, fried fish and prawns etc. Even the dessert bar had ice cream, trifles and puddings.


The event was very well planned with the van service at discretion and it ended even better than our expectations. A lot of memorable photos were clicked and long lasting connections made. Thanks Team Creative Chaos and the management for the best professional hang out ever. 

Monday 15 July 2013

Le Coolness-Jet Ski found its way to Karachi

Karachi has its own way of attracting its residents. Whenever the city is running out of entertainment stuff someone volunteers to step up and calls ‘Challenge Accepted’ (Barney Stinson style) and bestows the city with some great entertainment. After the restaurants and amusement parks came the cinemas, followed by cafes and now the city is exploiting its shore and the boon of water to provide exciting stuff to people.

These kinds of activities are especially becoming popular in the urban dwellings of the city. The Defense Housing Authority Phase 8 with its line of alluring restaurants located near the Do Darya side has built the reputation of generating great business. Savor, an eatery located in Phase 8, a little aloof from the rest of the chain started offering boating and other water sports like Banana Boating, Para Sailing, Water skiing etc. in the Gizri Lake and the Bundle Island. After the tremendous triumph of the introduction of these, the managers saw Jet Skiing as a lucrative opportunity and decided to introduce the sport for water lovers. Savor thus took away the title of being the pioneer in introducing Jet Skiing in Karachi. Madeen Kalia, the owner of Jet Ski Karachi, explained how this was an untapped market and how he sees its demand growing exponentially in the next few months.


I happened to be the first one to try out the sport in Karachi a couple of days ago and I’m still at a dearth of words to describe the feeling; a feeling so mesmerizing that I got transferred to a totally different world. As much as I am scared of water and keep my distance from it, when I first heard about it coming to Karachi, a force so irresistible compelled me to go for it. The moment I stepped my foot into the motor and took off was the moment I felt I was floating over water. The experience connected me to nature so brilliantly that I couldn’t come out of the euphoric state for quite some time.



As much as I would like to keep talking about the experience, I believe now comes the time to answer some technical questions. The place has Five Yamaha Jet Skis ranging from 700cc to 800cc ones and can go at 60 to 70 km/hour in terms of speed. The managers understand that safety feature is the most important concern for all and thus have the hand cuffs type keys and life jackets at their disposal for the riders. The boats have the capacity of 2 to 3 people at a time depending on their weights and have experts to ride and even rescue people through a life motor boat available at all times.

‘The best time for jet skiing is when the waves are at high tides’, said the manager Mr. Ismail, who had been the National Champion for Wind Surfing for the past 12 years.

With all questions answered, I opine that Jet Skiing can prove to be a very different experience for you, if you are a fun-loving adventurous person and are on the lookout for some different leisure activities within the city. For more details and further queries, you can visit the Facebook page of Jet Ski Karachi, the link of which is http://www.facebook.com/Jetskikarachi. Happy exploring! :)

Sunday 14 July 2013

Creative Chaos CTO Receives Award for Inventing a Mass Transit Touch and Pay Solution

Umair Aziz - Chief Technology and Innovation Officer of Creative Chaos, a leading technology consultancy, recently received the 1st Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) Achievement Award for inventing and developing a state of the art NFC (near field communication) based fare collection system for mass-transit.


Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, in the presence of distinguished business leaders, presented the medal to Mr. Aziz at a ceremony held in Karachi.

The system is called bPass and is currently being piloted in Kuwait, Jordan & Sharjah.

The Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce & Industries (FPCCI) is the apex body of trade and industry of Pakistan. FPCCI servers as the bridge between the Government and the Private Sector and its membership covers 48 Chambers and 96 Associations.

The FPCCI achievement awards recognize and honor the dedicated individuals and enterprises of Pakistani origin that have made sustained and lasting contribution at the in economic and socio-economic development of the Country and helped build its image and thus rendered all Pakistanis proud.