Omar Ahmad – born in Ohio to Pakistani parents and raised in Florida – was elected to the city counil in San Carlos in 2007 and became mayor in 2010. According to an interview published in Illume, he was “an experienced entrepreneur and community leader who founded several companies including SynCH Energy Corporation, TrustedID and Logictier. He was also in leadership positions at Grand Central Communications, Naptser, @Home Network, Netscape and Discovery Channel.”
Whether it will or nor, we will not know for a little while still. We will know it from the actions the government takes, and not just from words. But words are often a good place to start. I do not wish to rush into judgment just yet and want to first digest exactly what the Prime Minister said, and what it will mean in practice. At an immediate glance it should lead to at least a few conversations in and beyond the parliament that are very unusual for Pakistan. Conversations that will raise questions about the government’s as well as the military’s performance. It is not a bad thing that these conversations will happen. I just hope they will happen honestly.
The quality of this particular recording is not the best and for some readers it may star off as sounding too much like a shaadi band baaja routine. But stick with it and maybe it will grow on you too the way it did on me.
As you may have guessed by now, it is a jazz rendition of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s Mann Kunto Maula by the Booklyn Qawalli Party (BQP), a group formed by “non-desi Brooklynites” that is really a tribute to the genius of the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and reinterprets his master pieces in their own unique, jazz-infused style.
While All Things Pakistan has remained alive and online, it has been dormant since June 11, 2011 - when, on the blog's 5th anniversary, we decided that it was time to move on. We have been heartened by your messages and the fact that a steady traffic has continued to enjoy the archived content on ATP.
While the blog itself will remain dormant, we are now beginning to add occasional (but infrequent) new material by the original authors of the blog, mostly to archive what they may now publish elsewhere. We will also be updating older posts to make sure that new readers who stumble onto this site still find it useful.
We hope you will continue to find ATP a useful venue to reflect upon and express your Pakistaniat. - Editors
I never met Omar Ahmed, but I remember first hearing of him when he famously responded to a question about whether his being a Muslim affected his position as Mayor of San Carlos City, California, that “there’s no Muslim way to fill in a pothole.” It was with great sadness that I learnt today that he had suddenly died of a heart attack at the young age of 46.
