A ‘Thank You’ Post: ATP Turns Three Today!

Adil Najam and Owais Mughal

The very first post on All Things Pakistan came online on June 11, 2006. Today, we celebrate the completion of three years in Pakistaniat.

It has been a traumatic, but most enthralling ride. Today we write only to thank you all for sharing this ride with us. The ups as well as the downs. And there have been plenty of both.

In the past we have used or milestone posts (100th post, ‘Going Forward’ post, ‘Move to Pakistaniat.com‘ post, ‘Tangay Walla’ post, 6-month anniversary post, 1-year anniversary post, Redesign curtain-raiser post, 2-year anniversary post) to detail the philosophy of ATP, chart its development, make announcements, share our frustrations, and examine our achievements. All of those posts remain on record, and part of us hopes that you will go back and read them.

But our purpose in this post is merely to take a pause, catch our breath, and say, “Thank You, All!”

Thank you for your companionship. Thank you for your community. Thank you you letting us be a small part of your routine. Thank you for tagging along even when we moderated out your comments. Thank you for letting us know (all too often) when you disagreed with us. Thank you for cheering us along when you thought we were moving in the right direction. Thank you for sending in your ideas. Thank you for pointing out our mistakes. Thank you for supporting our causes.

Thank you to the nearly 100 authors who have written over 1400 posts on this blog. Thank you to those who have written over 50,000 comments. Thank you to the nearly 6000 who follow us on newsreaders and RSS. Thank you to the 250+ readers who now follow us on Twitter. Thank you to the over 200 who follow us on Mobile phones. Thank you to the nearly 2400 who are ‘fans’ on Facebook and have now created a parallel Pakistaniat community there. Thank you, most of all, to the many millions (yes, multiple millions) who have visited this blog on Pakistan and have viewed many many more millions of pages.

Thank you, everyone, for having stayed for the ride. For those of you who have been with us from the beginning, thank you for having stayed on (we, too, miss the more intimate comments of those early days when ‘everyone knew everyone by name’). For those who have joined us more recently, welcome aboard and thank you for being part of this community. For those who were more frequent visitors and are no more, we hope you will keep coming back, even if less frequently.

What we cherish more than anything else – and the one thing that keeps us going – is the sense of community and companionship. The belief and the manifestation that we may disagree on much, but we share a bond of Pakistaniat. And, so, we thank you today for your Pakistaniat. It is your Pakistaniat that helps keep our Paistaniat alive. Thank you.