Yes I live in Peshawar, not the one you’ve heard of!
Posted by Khushal Khan on January 31st, 2008
4 years back while I was living in Tarbela Dam, a friend of mine asked me to accompany him as he wanted to have a computer upgrade, geek that he thought I was, I couldn’t say No to a close friend and said “Fine, let’s hit the road to Peshawar tomorrow”. The more easily I replied positively the harder it was for me to digest the response he gave”Oh no, I am not allowed to go to Peshawar, between me and you even my dad is afraid to go there, you know the people there and the city itself….” (For those who don’t know Peshawar, it’s the city that gave shelter to nearly 3 million Afghan refugees after the Soviet war, lies in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan and capital of the very province). Why my friend made that response is a different topic to debate on, but anyways let me tell you first I belong to a Pathan family from NWFP and my friend was from Okara, Punjab. Despite the cultural differences we have in NWFP and Punjab, there is a complete change in lifestyles as well, although we lived in the same colony that fall under my province but the place was quite a developed town with mostly educated people around so they were ok with that. Apart from that when it came to shopping around for stuff, Pathans would prefer Peshawar while the Punjabis preferred Rawalpindi although both cities were at equal distance from our town but that was just the priority and culture that mattered more to us since Rawalpindi was a modern city of Punjab and Peshawar being the capital city of my province who Punjabis think is very rural and backward. Anyway coming back to the start, he had his computer upgraded from some vendor in Rawalpindi rejecting my offer to go to Peshawar and later that year I shifted to Peshawar for educational purposes while my friend took admission in a renowned engineering institution of our country.
What he said to me four long years back is still something that is stuck to my mind, not only did that line meant his own views about the city or the Pukhtoon culture but the views of the entire Punjabi community. I am sure they are not much aware of the situation in Peshawar now since I can really tell a lot about the city having spent 3 good years of my life over here. It’s getting modernized and civilized not to forget to mention even getting educated on a massive and advanced scale. Peshawar as in the eye of my friend would be nothing but a backward area with hardly any sign of people getting good education, but well that’s just there point of view without having seen the place even, apart from education the city is well developed enough to have good roads and efficient transport system, also having from the most basic to the most advanced facilities a modern individual would desire and not as you hear from people, but women are equally getting educated as men are. This however is the only sneak peek of what I wanted my friend to know. The culture is rich and preserved yet getting innovative, yes and I think I am just a single example of that culture which others think is backward.
I study business in a renowned school of Peshawar and I live in hostels, we have all what it needs to be modern(at least enough modern in Pakistani point of view) , all the basic facilities from furnished rooms to TV, newspapers and a high speed broadband facility (not that you’ll see too common in my country though), games facilities and a beautiful yet under-construction campus but well that is not going to be a big wait till it gets completed using the state of the art engineering techniques and design features. I have a good company of friends around me who are from well educated families and know how to talk well, dress well and act well. We hangout mostly on the weekends hunting for good food mostly landing over in Pizza Hut, KFC, Italian and local continental food inns as well as the traditional tikkas and barbecue restaurants where i see many families, couples and gangs roaming around as well, we have parties and functions occasionally and they are modern yet reserved, my friends occasionally smoke but none of us is a victim of drinking, we listen to good music be it western or eastern but its of a class (not to forget to mention even the underground bands of Peshawar out of which Sajid and Zeeshan happen to be my favorite that sing English), am fond of good movies and TV series and I have a huge collection of movies in my computer’s hard drive, I can sing and I recently started taking Guitar lessons which happens to be a part of the course offered in my university, I have access to news and information of all types, I have a good knowledge of internet and computers and I often spend my leisure time in Orkut and Facebook while online. I don’t have a private car of my own, no one in my hostel does except a few but than its all about the afford ability yet time, we don’t have time to look well after a car and as far as conveyance is concerned, what are friends for. I can shop for any product I want, be it a needle to a Jeep or even a Cannon, the latter one though just doesn’t fit with me and I can get anything repaired yet again from the city, the thing is all about the perception and trust. I trust my city and community which they don’t, although I feel comfortable even when am in Punjab.I dunno why i feel so weird saying all this though i still think am missing many things that even some of the modern people can learn from us but well i just want my word to be heard and I can even freely say “Yes I live in Peshawar, not the one you’ve heard of…. Or shown on the TV how it is” cos that’s my next story….
Fatmeed Blood Camp: Am finally a blood donor~
Posted by Khushal Khan on December 12th, 2007
Fatmeed Foundation held a Blood Collection camp at the Institute of Management Sciences Peshawar (my uni) today, the idea was from the Social Welfare society in the institute that invited them to hold a free camp. Not all but many students including me gave blood to the only organization in Pakistan that has been saving lives of thousands of people. Other than that i was tempted to give blood today since i have a very rare blood type (i.e O-Negative) and other than that i heard someone say that it improves the skin and wipes out all the pimples off your face in case you get to recover the blood quick, and offcourse Sawaab is another bonus so why stand back?. So i finally am one of the Donor’s.
The other thing i was worried about prior to giving the blood was the apparatus used by them but well it was all clean and sealed stuff, other than the bare hands of the nurse, the Vaporizers and the Herbal Grinders (donno what were they for) all the equipment was sealed new and as clean as one can imagine, and the one thing was the needle didn’t hurt much at all. I hope i get the donated blood re-developed so that it comes into use by some needy person, I wish no one gets to need it but well its life and it is needed.~ So donate to Fatmeed and save a life, afterall who knows you need it tomorrow!
Me and my friend stood the Runner’s up in Dumb Charade @ FAST
Posted by Khushal Khan on November 17th, 2007
And the unprepared gang of my university (Institute of Management Sciences | Peshawar) at the notice of the same day went again to participate in the Maximum Talent Exposure at FAST-NU, in the middle of the FINAL term examination but luckily a weekend, and guess what? We rocked the place again getting 2 runner’s up and one winner’s trophy.
Luckily me and my friend and a side roommate Hissam *DeXter as he is preferred to be called* were forced into the Dumb Charade (A game where one partner is given a situation,name,or a thing to act upon and the other partner has to guess it within a minute) category like a baby being strolled over in a bugaboo and the worst of all right in the middle of the competition and i was like *What the…?* i came here to see a friend, enjoy and watch the show and not to act but the senior on my head had balls to force me and i agreed. Luckily, only 2 teams in the first attempt guessed the correct answer, one of them being me and ma mate and the other one being a team consisting of two twin brothers from FAST. Anyhow in the second round we did gave them tough time cos they guessed 2 extra and so did we but my teammate failed to guess the third while the opponent team did manage to and so we lost in the finals. Doesn’t really matters, you need to be lucky as well, other than that my team mate guessed “King Kong” just within 3 seconds of my act, “Hum Dil Day Chukay Hain Sanam” and “Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan” again within 15 seconds but failed to guess the tougher “A Walk to Remember (Movie)” though the crowd did guessed it some how.
In the other categories, our Drama team showed a spectacular performance by making a drama about the suicide bombing (which in real had a suicide bomb effect) and really forced the entire crowd to applause to there maximum and we won that trophy though the FAST drama was a great comedy as well. Other than that we stood Runner’s up in the Dance competition that was to be in the traditional style “Attanrr”.
Anyhow we came back with 3 Awards and that really meant a lot to a team that went unprepared. And we do plan to carry it on!
We Won the Video Competition in the campus:)
Posted by Khushal Khan on October 26th, 2007
The students of BCS arranged a Multimedia Video,Photography and Sketching competition in the campus yesterday, the event was very well organized and many students participated in it. Me and my friend Shoaib Anwer who is a very regular viewer and commenter in this blog participated in the Video competition category, we were asked to make a video of maximum 6 minutes duration that conveys a message. Hats off to Shoaib who made a video on the theme “Live to Love” , portraying different scenes shot in Peshawar out side the uni and in the bazaars, some drug related scenes and scenes from the 12th May incident, daily life, smoking, killing etc. In short the theme was to avoid killing and racial discrimination as life is too short , live it to love and not to hate others, the video was than smartly edited and made presentable by the use of softwares like Pinnacle, Ulead and Windows Movie Maker.
The Chief Guest for the competition was Zeeshan Perwez from Zeepar Studios , you all know him right?. We saw many great videos from the fellow university mates and personally thought some were far better than ours because of the advanced use of effects and animations, but the judge had something different in mind, he emphasized more on the concept and execution of the video rather than just the effects. We were glad that we got the first position overall, and yeah, all the credit goes to Shoaib who shot and edited the entire video, the concept also came from him. Thanks to all the classmates who help us shot the rebellious “Kill Rushdi” Scene full of violence.
After the results announcement we had a good discussion with the judge, who gave us some tips on how to make a video better and appealing, and he really appreciated our work.
Three Cheers for Shoaib (Show ON Production) Lolz!
How much can you eat?:P
Posted by Khushal Khan on September 27th, 2007
The hungry bird as i can be in the Ramadan and specially in the sizzling Peshawar weather where the temperature is still as good as Summers at day time but i have to agree it gets awesome at night, yes Ramadan is getting tougher every year because its rolling back to summers and sigh, the next 15-16 years will be real hard nuts to crack in Ramadan, but that is all the fun, the more tougher it is to fast the more you get to eat in the iftar which is what i am waiting for since i am stopped to eat and drink after the Sehri. In the hostel although it isn’t much a good environment or even the mood to eat much but when it gets to dining out with friends in restaurant for Iftar the real test and results are seen there, we have not many options here in Peshawar other than Pizza Hut (all you can eat till 9 pm), KFC with there all you can eat deal for a mere Rs.399, Shiraz with a heavy continental bulky food iftar for the same price and many other local restaurants( none of them listed in any local Business Directory or Yellow Pages ) but how much can you eat one time? Ok, this will get boring since you can’t count the food, but herez a small fun ask.
Q:If you go to Pizza Hut or KFC, how much will you eat in an Iftar in a all you can eat deal?
P.S: One of my friend ate only 8 units of KFC Burgers last night 
UPDATE: We went on Saturday to Pizza Hut and your’s truly ate 8 Slices, with all the other friends averaging 8 as well:P Oh Gosh! we are too greedy people but hey i balanced the KFC’s deal with Pizza hut cos i ate only 2 Zingers in KFC a day befor that:P
