Abbasi World
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Blog Has Moved
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Ash Lamour Brand Launch
The clutches on display were simple but elegant in design. They were not highly embellished as we often find such to be and neither were they awkward to carry. I found them well suited for practically any event and will go with any sort of dressing, be it formal or party wear. The price range was between 900 to 2000, a reasonable fee for handbag designs which usually cost anywhere between 1500 to 4000. Being the curious sort I asked Ayesha to tell more about her handbags and how they were made.
The handbags were made from artificial leather that makes them more affordable and durable than original leather. These handbags are easy to maintain and do not stain easily, perfect for long term use. Additionally, the making of these clutches is based on cottage industry concept, which means the manufacturers are residents of slum areas of Karachi that work from their homes. This provides valuable skills, experience and above all, livelihood to these underprivileged members of our society. The whole concept of Ash Lamour is environment friendly with all the materials used in the making and packaging can be recycled.
Ayesha's future plans revealed that Ash Lamour will be conducting an awareness campaign in slum areas where she will be accompanied by few other seasoned campaigners and the residents will be shown how they can develop their skills and work from home. The campaign will be handled by Ash Lamour's CSR department and similar campaigns will be time to time.
The exhibition at Dawn Lifestyle seems to have gone well and the response from general masses have been positive. Ash Lamour has its own Facebook page which more and more people are liking every day.
After meeting with Ayesha and seeing her products on display, I am pretty much sure what I want to get for my mother and sisters next time on their birthdays.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
A Case of Exploding Cricket
Sunday, November 7, 2010
An Evening With Sarah Beg At Liberty Books
Setting aside my lazy activities, I drove to Liberty Books BBQ Tonight branch on Sunday 7th of November and sat amongst the audience gathered to listen to Sarah's charismatic presentation that not just highlighted many of the important elements explained in the book but also linked them with Franklin Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People", with personal experiences and religious teachings of Islam.
A little introduction to Sarah Beg might be in order. She is "Manager Capability Development Franklin Covey Pakistan" and is certified trainer for "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". It was my first experience of attending her presentation session that proved to be great one.
The greatest contribution in knowledge was undoubtedly from Sarah but the audience participated immensely to make the event interactive, interesting, informative and engaging. Everyone had something to share and touched upon all-too-familiar topics in new light, casting the whole situation in an entirely different dimension.
The event highlighted concepts which we all should aware ourselves and adopt in daily life:
1) The greatest secret to success in life is "Love"
2) Love the things around you and think positively because what goes around, comes around. The more you are positive, the more positivity will follow you.
3) Even when we're all positive, why still our lives are not wonderful? Because we give up, be pessimist, harbor doubt or don't work at all to achieve positive results.
4) Always keep your destination in mind and work hard to find it. The more positive you are, the greater will be your will and the greater will be your efforts to attain your goal.
5) "Circle of Influence" defines what control you have in any given situation. "Circle of Concern" defines what is out of your control. If there is bomb blast or you are stuck in traffic jam, it's in your "Circle of Concern" and that's where we spend most of our time.
6) Spend more time in your "Circle of Influence". If there is bomb blast, focus not on fear of it but to the well being of victims and try to help out where possible. If you're stuck in traffic jam, instead of getting angry or cursing just put on music and relax because you can't do anything about jammed traffic.
7) Life is not 'happening' to you, life is responding to you. The more gloomy you are, the more gloomy your life will be. The more happy-go-lucky you are, the brighter will be your life.
8) Positive events have positive effects on us and negative events have negative effects. Learn to shut-off your auto-pilot of feelings and remain positive in occurrence of both events.
9) Use positive words, they bring forth positive attitude and put positive impact on both speaker and listener.
10) Have a positive view of life when you wake up everyday. The positive outlook brightens your day and driving, office, shopping and any other routine will be fun rather than torture.
11) Happiness is contagious, try to contaminate yourself with it as much and as many times as possible.
12) Having a bad boss is your bad luck. Instead of blaming your destiny, simply change your attitude and maybe you end up changing the attitude of your boss towards you because happiness, after all, is contagious.
13) Learn to IMAGINE because every inventor had imagined and visioned their success. Pakistan was imagined and visioned by Allama Iqbal and it was made real by Jinnah.
14) Imagination defines your sense of purpose. Have a purpose in life, it proves you are alive and do not simply exist like an empty sack.
15) Law of Attraction states "Like Attract Like", so be positive and positive will be attracted to you. Be purposeful and imaginative, your goal will be attracted to you.
16) Have the intend and passion to attain your goal, this is your driving force towards success.
17) Get rid of negative believes. If you believe on bad luck when a black cat cuts your path, it will come true. Don't give life to bad luck by believing in it.
18) Make your own destiny and don't curse others for whatever happens bad to you and around you.
19) Logic gets you from point A to point B, imagination can take you anywhere you want.
20) Your Love is your shield. Love is not without passion and it protects you from negative feelings, negative attitude, negative behavior, effects of negative comments, hostility and pressure. Once upon a time it was blasphemy to believe that Earth was round. Just imagine the Church's hostility and fanaticism when Galileo claimed Earth was round and how he endured all the hatred, criticism and negativity through his love for science and truth.
Many notable people were also present at the event, including Mr. Asif Noorani, the author of "Mehdi Hasan: The Man & His Music". I managed to get a signed copy directly from him and felt good at finally having the opportunity to learn more about our living legend of music. The presence of known literary people shows how we still value life, strive for betterment and care to spread love and respect. The event was free of charge for the attendees and the hospitality of Liberty Book's staff was exemplary.
These literary events are lifeline of our society which is full of misery, hurt, sadness, death, fear and broken promises. The more we collectively work towards better future, the more we will learn to live positively and affect the events in positive manner. Life does have the habit of challenging us to test our attitude and belief and rewards us accordingly. Let us join hands and promise to be positive, for ours and future generations sake. We are not a country of terrorists and neither we will ever be. We produced scientists, philosophers, artists, humanitarians and heroes before and we will continue to do so.
Pakistan Zindabad !!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Pakistan's First Twitter Prime Minister
After heated election campaigns, fiery tweets, anxious pleas and rigging complaints the first elections for Pakistan Twitter Parliament concluded. No member got a clear majority to win the elections, a time of 24 hours was awarded to announce coalitions and gain maximum number of votes to form government.
After much making and breaking, confusion, queries and questions the coalitions were announced. Tweeple Scorpioyas was declared the first ever Prime Minister of Pakistan Twitter parliament with coalition partners AbidBeli, NaeemShamim, Omair_Khalid and Rectified_guy with total vote count of 595 votes. The other coalition is now in opposition with BonBonDude as Leader of Opposition and members Kursed and Guppu, a total vote count of 370. This is Pakistan’s first virtual Prime Minister after the more successful Musharraf's Facebook President episode, effectively forming the virtual leadership of the country.
With a Prime Minister in place the process of appointing Ministers began as interested Tweeples were contacted and word was spread to file nominations for ministries. One Tweeple, IrfanQazi2010, was interested in the ministry of Nepotism, Corruption, Misgovernance, Misinformation and Injustice. He was conveniently ignored.
Tweeple AadilPitafi formed Facebook page for Pakistan Twitter Parliament and in short time it was liked by more than 100 people, showing effective Twitter and Facebook marketing and general audience interest in this unique twitter phenomenon. The first issue Parliament faced was the use of non-Parliamentary language which was effectively explained as “too tarakh” language and banning its use during session. It simply means if you are using #PKTP in your tweet, don’t be frank as “chaddi friends” because while parliament is in session, no one wants to be in his “Chaddi”.
Self-proclaimed President abidifactor ended up arguing in every which direction with the opposition leader who questioned everything, from neutrality to presidential voting and finally an offer of vote of confidence in return for a week of neutrality along with general reminder that they’re not friendly opposition; meanwhile Prime Minster kept banging his head in choosing Chief Justice, COAS and ministers and the first appointment came in the form of Deputy Speaker and Tweeple ShaikhRafia was awarded with this position.
Later on rumors spread that Prime Minister has already set out on his first Virtual Foreign tour (to Pakistan it seemed, since he physically resides outside the country), probably wasting much of new Parliament’s virtual money on Swiss accounts, buying castles and hotels, gambling in Casinos and acquiring personal jumbo jets … all virtual (obviously). It is yet to determine the extent of accuracy of these rumors and possible virtual expenditure; meanwhile self-proclaimed President, Bureaucrat, Intelligence Agency, Media and Establishment abidifactor continued to facilitate the curious visitors and agitating opposition.
Twitter Parliament faced its first crisis when member abidbeli threatened to leave coalition and join the opposition. After much hyper tweeting by concerned members and constant poking, it was announced that the coalition is still intact and abidbeli decided to stay with the government. Then Prime Minister showed up and announced that any problem should be directly discussed with him and not left to speculations.
As of yet the ministries are not complete and preparations for Presidential elections are underway which will be held in coming days. The #PKTP daily has some interesting insights that would give general information regarding Twitter Parliament updates every 24 hours.