Autumn returns but with a bit of discontent

Zaka

"Then summer fades and passes and October comes.  We'll smell smoke then, and feel an unexpected sharpness, a thrill of nervousness, swift elation, a sense of sadness and departure."   Thomas Wolfe

In a nice cool evening of September,  I walked along the edge of the stream, the leaves whisper the sound of past and the wild air reveals the arrival of autumn. I don’t know why some people call it “sad season”, may be they think, the year is dying but I love fall. 
With skies a deeper blue, and nights that become suddenly clear and chilled, I love fall  because of the smells that it speaks of. I don’t know why Poet like Faiz Ahmed Faiz cursed this time of the year  in his poetry..

“This is the way that autumn came to the trees:

it stripped them down to the skin,

left their ebony bodies naked.

It shook out their hearts, the yellow leaves,

scattered them over the ground.

Anyone could trample them out of shape

undisturbed by a single moan of protest.

The birds that herald dreams

were exiled from their song,

each voice torn out of its throat.

They dropped into the dust

even before the hunter strung his bow.

Oh, God of May have mercy.

Bless these withered bodies

with the passion of your resurrection;

make their dead veins flow with blood again.

Give some tree the gift of green again.

Let one bird sing”

My be the poet narrated the half truth about autumn, because everything is half dead. The wind moves like a cripple among the leaves. But there is another way of seeing.  Seeing with the eye of memory, there is colours everywhere, the winds will blow their own freshness into you, and your sorrow will drop way like the leaves of trees. I sit quietly, listening to the falling leaves and wishing miseries of my land vapours like the faded memories….

Beach: more than a swimming place!

Zaka

A view of Hawks Bay beach- Karachi

The human voyage into life is basically feeble, vulnerable, uncontrollable. So they need nature for inspiration and strength. with hectic life such is this, you aren't get many chances to come across beautiful places but if you do get an opportunity, make it count and memorize the ecstatic moments with the camera lens.... 

I've had it and did exactly the same. A week ago, I travelled to the Hawks bay beach, even though I come here before but honestly speaking, I discovered many great activities that can be enjoyed on the beach.

Hawks bay beach is just 20 kilometre away from the City centre. And it is one of the few beaches in the world where green sea turtles come to lay eggs. 

On a glorious sunshiny day, I drove my Mini Pajero with full of food stuff to the beach. On the way through we stopped to fill the air in a tube, which we carried for surfing purpose, the guy in the tyre shop told us that tube is punctured and need a repair. My buddy give him nod to go head, and then we experienced the most astonishing, at least we have seen it for the first time. The tyre shop guy started sewing the pierced part of the tube. When our eyes met, I knew that Beven's thinking was same as mine, that what the hell tyre shop is guy up to? Then the tyre shop guy realized that we are worried about his ability.... 

"Saab hamara roz ka kam he" (sir this is my routine work), said the tyre shop guy, who didn’t look too content with our distrust.

Anyway we enjoyed all day long and learned that spending time at the beach isn't limited to just swimming. There are tons of other great activities that can be enjoyed on the beach. One of them is partying, if you turnout in numbers, you can play music, dance and just have a great time. 

Writing on the sand is another interesting thing as I came across few guys whom wrote something on the sand and then took pictures. They told me that it will last forever. Another thing that we really missed was "Frisbee", this is a classic beach game and it is one that people never get tired of. Well talking about beach, then you can't forget fishing, but everybody knows about it and people have been doing this for centuries.

Building a sandcastle not only helps you pass the time at the beach but also it is really very creative activity, besides that you can troll the beach looking for seashells. Taking the best ones home, so that you can always remember the fun that you had at the beach. 

The beach is a great place for getting good photos and those photos will be a great memory to take back, and the modern gadgets make things really easy these days. Beaches are generally filled with people so you can make new friends. But then you've to be very social, in order to do that. There is no doubt in my mind that beach has been inspiring, so artistic mind people can get very good ideas.

Turning towards some of the romantic things, obviously watching the sunset is the top of all. This is one of the favourite things that I often do at the beach because it is such a fascinating thing to do. By doing so, this is the wonderful opportunity for the daydreamers like me to sit around and just hang out and daydream a bit.

Be careful with your online life

By Zaka

With monitoring software running on the social networking and online job sites, data about you and your activities on the internet can easily be tracked. The troubling fact is that nobody can tell what the trackers did or intends to do with user’s data. With 500 million Facebook, over 100 million Twitter and plenty of other’s social networking and jobs related portals users, the future life on the web is about to unleash.

Traditional expectation of personal privacy came into question as it proved that tiny pieces of data are being mashed together to create a digital profile of people in such detail, one never thought imaginable. Because of that, Facebook forced to change the setting in order to keep the user’s personal information private.

As such concerns have spread; the heat has been turned up under long simmering debated about the limit of online privacy. But for now it’s quite evident that only a big scandal to do with misuse of personal information for the issue to explode.

More than anything else, its user’s responsibility to keep them safe by careful of what they posting. The new technologies paint ever finer portraits of individuals based on their online activities, the greatest risk to privacy online for many users is their own ineptitude. Sites such as Twitter and Facebook encourage the sharing of status updates, travel plans and photographs, making it easier inadvertently to wreck a marriage, friendship or jobs. CNN anchor Octavia Nasr was recent famous casualty of 140 words of Twitter, in her tweet Nasr praised the Hezbollah leader Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah and lost the job as her tweet received huge criticisms.

I’m not sure in the 3^rd world but certainly in the west, your tweets and posts can and will be held against you in a court of law.

     

Being unsocial: Is that a bad trait?

Zaka

I have been unsocial since, well ever since I can remember, When I was little, I was convinced that I belong to some other place or family, because I always found difficult to fit in my surroundings; later realized I've to be like everyone else. Over the year's, I had tried but still think it's not enough. 

Now days I do live in a bit of shell, made few friends, because it really hard to find trustworthy people. So I prefer social withdrawal. As a result of that I used to hear “RUDE” when people describe me, some say arrogant. I don’t care when people talk like that because lots of social interactions seem pointless to me. Rarely I interested to talk about people, even then for some eccentric reasons people like to talk with me.

One can argue that many people do live that way, then why people create so much fuss about. When I look around, the real successful people aren't those who have great social circle rather it depends on hard work. ……..