Archive for the 'Weird and random' Category

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Day 233 (19.01.08)@3am – Movie scare tonight!

Published on January 19, 2008 in Thinking mood and Weird and random. 0 Comments

This is a long post.. pure blog post.. i.e about nothing :)

some stories, or all stories, should be written in the moment when you experience them, in real life or in your head. and thats why I am sitting right here and writing this story.

I have known for longer how to distinguish a good movie from my point of view: its when You finish watching – go out of cinema, or put down headphones and come back to the “real world”… just to realize that the world doesnt feel that real. It feels like the movie is not over, actually it feels that it wasnt a movie…

Thats the feeling I have right now. And I can tell You I was not watching a fairy tale or a romantic comedy. I was watching one of the best horror movies I remember – 1408. And the chill that I feel right now is at the same time stressing but also delicious. The movie just made me feel like this. Asking why? Well maybe because it could have taken place right here, right now, in this room. In one moment the main character says: there is something chilling about hotel rooms in general, You dont know how many people have slept in that bed, how many of them were sick, how many of them lost their mind… The same You can say about my room, its not a place I know for long, I do call it a home, but it doesnt have my history, I didnt paint the walls, didnt put the furniture, didnt see those cracks on ceiling happen. I am a stranger for it that can turn back to how was it before I came in 10 minutes. And I look out of the door, and see door of the other room, just a shade, no surprise its 3am. And hear some sound. Yes, there are lots of sounds. But if You are in a mood like me right now, You try to catch them, try to make them make You feel like there was something more about them. You want to know how? I put down the headphones, the chill still on my shoulders (it actually just went down mine spine and gave me a shiver… doesnt it feel like someone is behind You watching Your back? Right there where head connects to the body… I do). And I look up and go to my room and hear a low roaring sound… sound that doesnt look like belonging in the room. What was it? I am still not sure at this moment, I think somebody was using a pneumatic drill…. At 3am? Well, best explanation I have. And than the dropping. The dropping of the loose water tap in the bathroom (how many people have You seen die in a bathroom in movies? Arent You just a little bit scared of them?). And my chair squeeks, the light is very dim… Feeling it? Want more of it? OK, if its very dim, just one step from being that way that makes everything around You to see only in shades of grey – try to look around You. Fast, throw a glance to right, NO, left, let Your eyes stride and on purpose dont let them stop at anything. Left, right, on screen, sharp left… Oh what a feeling. Now I understand those who really love horror movies, the pictures are so obscure that if they make You afraid, they make You afraid in a strange way – You have never experienced the situations on screen and thats why the feeling is special.

Adrenaline goes down, heartbeat slows down, I took a deep breath, look at my own hand and see it moving, turn on the light and get ready for a normal night. I guess none of You has been feeling the way I did. But just for the feeling… when You turn off the light tonight, to go to sleep, try to remember why have You been scared of dark when You were young. And one last thing, do NOT check if something is under Your bed…

Day 223 – Christmass time!

Published on January 9, 2008 in Weird and random. 0 Comments

Sounds random to make such post on 9th of January? Well I finally got back home to Karachi and all the Xmass gifts and letters I got by mail have been waiting for me :D

I got two parcels, one from home and one from Lenka, a small gift from Anita (a kiwi I have met years ago in Zilina, Slovakia) and a couple of letters. I got chocolate, sweets, biscuits, xmas fairy tales and cool Slovak and Czech movies on DVD, thists, necklace, Xmas decorations, Xmas music, map of Pakistan, a weird cap, a book, wooden dice, like 20 pages of letters to read… and… I guess thats it :)   …I am thinking of not being a selfish ass and organize for my Pakistani friends “Slovak styled Christmas”… I have enough of material for that :D

Here is a pic of it all was…

Day 218 – One leg jumping jack flash KLepo…. [I broke my ankle]

Published on January 4, 2008 in Weird and random. 0 Comments

Well, I would be guessing that already everybody knows… But just to make sure that I dont get any more surprised messages like: “OMG, what happened with Your foot?“

…remember when I was complaining how bored I was in Lahore? Well, I guess God has similar sense for humour like my mom, who told me when I was a kid and was making a halo without a reason: “stop crying or I will give You a reason to cry!”

Well, while normal walking, stepping down from pavement to (trimmed) grass, I landed wrongly, twisted my ankle and against all odds, broke a bone in my ankle… For first few hours I thought its just a muscle overstretched, but a friend of mine (Adeel) made me go to hospital (at 2 am)…

Click to see the bigfooT

Click to see the bigfooT

…Xray showed that it is a minor fracture of the ankle, the bone that leads to the little finger, right behind the knuckle, if You have a look at the Xray, You can actually see it, left side, like 1cm above the bottom of the Xray… … 4-5 weeks in plaster :P

Days 207-209 – Xmas in Pakistan

Published on December 26, 2007 in Cultural and Weird and random. 0 Comments

People back from home are asking me if I miss Xmas, Lenka even tried to bring me the Christmas atmosphere through SMS and of course I got wishes of a happy Xmas time…

Well, I have spent the Xmas in Lahore, in the hostel mentioned below… In Pakistan, and most of all iLahore, has a suprising lot of Christians. But they celebrate Christmas on 25th, unlike in Slovakia where the celebration is on 24th night. I have spent the days sightseeing in Lahore…  But I have a few interesting stories to share :)

random guy: “hello, what Your name?”
me: “Tomas”
random guy: “me [insert name], nice to meet You …… where You from?
me: “Slovakia – Czechoslovakia – Europe ”
random guy: “Aaah, Europe … are You Christian?…… because I am!”
me: “Yes …………by birth.”
random guy: “Ok, nice to meet You, Happy Christmas”
me: “You too, Khuda-hafiz”

random guy: “hello, what Your name?”
me: “Tomas”
random guy: “me [insert name], nice to meet You …… where You from?
me: “Slovakia – Czechoslovakia – Europe ”
random guy: “Ok, suppose You pray to Your God what would You wish for? ”
me: “……. [mind stuck] well, ehm, aaaaah, huh …. [finaly idea] I guess Peace for this country.. ”
random guy: “Ok, nice to meet You, Happy Christmas”
me: “You too, Khuda-hafiz”

random guy: “hello, what Your name?”
me: “Tomas”
random guy: “me [insert name], nice to meet You …… where You from?
me: “Slovakia – Czechoslovakia”
random guy: “I am Pastor in church here in Lahore. I just see You here and think he is Christian, and thats why I come to You. Would You be so kind and let me invite You for dinner to my house, day after tomorrow?”
me: “Well, nice to meet You, I am not sure if I have time, I might leave Lahore soon ”
random guy: ” I will show You my church. Actually would You like to say something in my church – from the Bible. You do read the Bible(!?)”
me: “Thats really nice of You, actually I want to read it…. Just like the Quaran. But as I say, I dont know yet if I am here than. [which is truth].”
random guy: “Ok, here is my number, can You give me Your number and we call and say if You can?”
me: “Ok, here it is. [that cant hurt and actually it could be interesting]”
….. discusion during which he shows me his planned speach for the next mess and tells how he wants to be a good reader of English Bible and than we part [and I forget it all due to Benazir]
….. few days pass……
phone: “hello? here is [name], I want to ask how are You, I sent You SMS message on Christmas.”
me: “Oh, hello yes [totally forgot about the message], nice to hear You. ”
phone: “So can You come to my home? I am not sure if I tell You, I even have a small school at the Church, and I tell them I met You and they want to see You and I say You might see, if can. I understand You are busy.”
me: “well, I want to return back to Karachi as soon as possible, so do not know… again [partly true], will see”
phone: “Ok, was just nice to hear You, good bye, God bless You”
me: [confused] “Yes, good bye.”

guard at Sacred Heart Cathedral : “halawala kikle afiaz [something in urdu]?! ”
me: “Pardon me? I want to take pictures, can I?”
guard: “haliflatu platu watu [something in urdu] Christian?”
Jeremy : “Why? …. Yes, we ………… by birth”
guard: “Catholic? urdududududu [something in urdu]”
Jeremy : “No, we not Catholic, can we go to the cathedral? ”
me: “Yes, we are”
guard : “huhlugugulgu, nah, go. [gives up and lets us in].”
Jeremy: [pissed off] “Why did he ask us? If we are Catholics? Did anybody ask us at the Mosque or Sikh Temple if we are Muslims or Sikhs?! What the #$%? ”
me: “In case like this, I will be buddhist, muslim or even sikh, I want to see it…”
Jeremy: “phf” [pissed off, disinterested in the really nice cathedral]
…after a while…
me : “Jeremy! I know now why did he ask us… There is a service going on inside…”
Jeremy: [surprised looks at his bag] “Oh, afraid of terorist attacks? From us? ”
me : [thinking: Actually, its Christmas service, Muslims also dont like when non-muslims go for their Friday prayers and this service is only once in the year... ]”

(I am cheating – the last pic is from India, in Pakistan there were no Xmas markets…)

Day 156 – day of State of emergency, a.k.a. Happy Emergency!

Published on November 3, 2007 in Politics and Weird and random. 0 Comments

Well, this happened during the conference, so to get You into the mood…

Sesion is over, me, Jeremy and the Islamabadis are sitting at the pool (the venue was perfect) with feet in water and just doing random chats when…

…understand, most Islamabadis are actually from Rawalpindi. And exactly in this moment of pure relaxation, one (and than another and another one) gets and SMS that in Rawalpindi was a bomb blast with I dont know how many people dead.

Worried expressions come, followed by calls home and checking on everybody possible if they are all right. Thanks God, nobody from their circles got hurt. (…would You care about other circles?) And as the home-checking calls slowly diminish, somebody gets another piece of news…

…a State of emergency was imposed on Pakistan!

Calls start all over again, everybody trying to reach some cousin, brother-in-law, uncle, family friend who ranks the highest in military to find out WTF is going on.

Pieces of news come: TV channels cut off, consitution dumped, flights cancelled, arrests, Islamabad and Rawalpindi closed down… And after a while some of them start to prove exaggerated.

Thats the real story. But the most fascinating was the behaviour of people. As soon as the safety of personal circles of the guys there was checked, the discussion went to for me into quite surreal ways. Seriousness got turned into sarcasm, biggest concern became if they will be on time for exams and all of them sure that the university (in Islamabad) will not do a shit about the chaos and keep up to the schedule. The speed with whitch people accepted the status, adapted and started to think and act as nothing has happened was astonishing.

Some people actually started to wish each other Happy Emergency Day :)

Observing this something became clear: stirring any kind of revolution in here will be difficult. People of pakistan have seen a lot and actually expect to see even more. They actually remind me of the character of Donkey Benjamin from “Animal Farm” by Orwell that I read recently. His approach is very clear – things wont change, I will get old and see new things come and become old and I will try to be still there and live my life.

And thats the story, not very entertaining, but giving an image, image that calms some of You down, that might frustrate some people and maybe might explain a few things. Heck, I guess it pretty explains why nothing has changed after all the rallies by lawyers and all those arrests, because the basic question is – why should anything change, why should I change?

Last thing… this article shows how much I suck in trying to be a journalist stirring peoples emotions. If You want some better stuff go to e.g. blog of this guy Emad…

There are two images that stuck in my head… The Black ribbon, symbol of protest against the State of emergency and the pic of the character “V” from the movie “V for Vendetta”… A friend came with a pretty chilling slogan for it “Remember, remember the 3rd of November!” (if You have seen the movie, You know what am I talking about…). What will be remembered? And who except of Wikipedia will? I dont know, ask Benjamin.

Days 133-138 – Eid in Islamabad

Published on October 16, 2007 in Cultural, Islamabad and Weird and random. 0 Comments

Eid is the day when Ramzan finished. Big holidays when everything is closed, thats why nearly all the interns in Karachi and Lahore have decided to go to Islamabad.

So here is a brief outline of my experiences in Islamabad:

train traveling – arriving late at night after 20 hours in train in “Low Air Conditioned” class… horrible, the carriage was so cold that I have spent most of time at open door…

partying – the international community of Islamabad has a life quite different from that of the rest of Pakistan. Some of them actually say that “Islamabad is 20 minutes out of Pakistan“. I have been on a party organized by a few US guys who live here. The party was pretty big mix of different nationalities and was a real party (You know what I mean :P ). It was a pretty unreal feeling, being on a terrace of a house in the middle of a other houses with beer in my hand and LOUD music booming behing me… Definitely not the Pakistan I have imagined :)

sightseeing – I have visited again the Faisal Mosque. First time during the Friday prayers and later at night. We have also went in and actually also have been alowed to take pictures. The mosque itself is nice, but not too beautiful, but what makes it amazing is the size and location… Seing the hills right behind the mosque (a path starts a few meters behind it) is really experience.

Of similar interest was the National monument a work of (quite colosal) art which is still in development. A beautiful place that not just offers interesting sights of the monument itself and views on Islamabad, but also offers a lesson of history of Pakistan (via reliefs in the monument).

hiking - on one of the days when I was alone I went to the view point above Islamabad called Daman-e-Koh, it was a hike that lasted maybe 15 minutes up hill, but was refreshing as I had not been hiking for a long time… I have seen the “famous” Islamabad monkeys and also tested if You can call the forests of Margalla Hills can be called “forest“, they can be – as soon as You leave the path walking is very difficult due to thorn bushes and creepers. The hills offer a mix of leaf trees and random palm trees and are very easy for hiking.

On one of the hikes I had a chance to see the Faisal Mosque and Red Mosque from distance, their proximity was a little bit disturbing.

One important warning – dont hike there alone or without local people… its stupid idea, trust me.

eating – if I have not told to You till now, Eid is mostly about eating. Some of the locals said that You dont have real Eid if You dont eat at least 5 times per day… We had Eid :) We have been invited to dinner by three different families and everywhere we went have been offered food… I definitelly gained some weight!