Deeda-i-Beena

They were always there but nobody gave them any recognition. They waited patiently and long for their day and at long last when it arrived, they acted. Quietly they arrived in their millions, got their thumbs inked and had a line marked at the edge of their thumb-nails. They went into the privacy of the polling booths, stamped the symbol of their choice, performed their sacred duty and left as quietly as they had come. What each of them did as an individual, aggregated into a colossus.

The results we are now witnessing are not the result of any plan or a grand design. Simply put, they all thought like-mindedly and voted to that focus. By not giving any one party the run of the place, they have also created their own system of checks and balances – each keeping an eye on the other. With the maturity they have displayed this time; their message to their elected representatives and the political parties is loud and clear: “We will be watching.” Hopefully there will be a next time for them.

Guest Post By Ghazala Khan

likhtay rahay junooN ki hikayat…When I was a little girl growing up in a quite suburb of Islamabad, I vividly remember playing with dolls and asking for toffees and biscuits from my father. I also used to imagine as to what would I become, when I grow up.

At that time, many ideas regarding my future used to storm my mind which were quite narrow in their scope. This was mainly because my future ambitions were influenced by my parents, uncles and aunts. At that time, I couldn’t think beyond traditional professions of becoming a doctor, or a teacher, or becoming a bride perhaps.

At that time, I really didn’t know one could choose her career from a multitude of options. I didn’t know there existed such things as becoming a writer, a network administrator, a software developer, a marketer, a banking executive, a sales guru, and certainly not the blogger.

Now I wonder how different the my life could have been, had I known in my childhood about the possibility of becoming a blogger. Just imagine the little me telling my teacher

“Oh Miss, when I grow up, I want to become a blogger.”

I am sure my teacher would have called my parents and gravely suggested to them to take me to a physician.

Adil Najam

On Tuesday the Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE’s) KSE-100 Index – Pakistan’s equivalent to the Dow Jones Index – broke the psychological barrier of 15,000 for the first time. At the time of writing this (on what is Wednesday morning in Pakistan) the Index remains well above that mark.