Mubarakbaad: Wedding dholls for Asma

Adil Najam, Darwaish and Owais Mughal

ATP contributing editor Asma Mirza got married in Lahore over the weekend. On behalf of all of us here at ATP, we want to wish her the very best of luck and the good wishes for her and her family’s future. We hope our readers join us in sending their prayers and fond wishes to Asma.

Asma, based in Islamabad, has been contributing wonderful posts about the everyday life of everyday Pakistanis. Her eye for interesting photographs as well as for the small details that often get lost by those who chase ‘large’ stories makes all of us await her posts. We here at ATP realize that she now has more responsibilities and demands on her time than before, but on behalf of all our readers we hope that she will not totally disappear from the ATP pages.

This, by the way, is not the first ATP wedding – Bilal Zuberi got married in 2006 while he was a contributing editor at this blog (see here).

One of the lesser-know but interesting facts about ATP is that of its four current editors – Adil Najam, Owais Mughal, Darwaish, Asma Mirza – none has ever met any of the others. Adil and Owais both live in the US but far apart and despite having tried have actually never met in person. Darwaish is technically in Lahore but is always on the road and he too have not met Asma who is (or was) in Islamabad. Nor have Adil or Owais met either Asma or Darwaish.

We mention this because this is one of the wonders of technology. Technology expands the world, but also shrinks it. Although never having met each other, or so many of our readers, we still feel that ATP is a community, maybe even like a family. We disagree on issues (mostly political ones), we sometimes even fight and shout at each other, but we can also laugh together at a Fifty-Fifty clip, or bask in the goodness of good Pakistanis, but also come together to share in each other’s gham (sorrow) as well as each other’s khushi (happiness). This is what communities do. Whatever else this blog may or may not be, we try to foster that sense of community.

Of course, it is much more fun when communities come together in moments of khushi as we do now. So please join us, once again, in congratulating Asma on her wedding and in sending the couple your best wishes.