Away from friends

Uzma and Faryal and their oh so teasing looks !

Its Summer and I'm away from home at my uncle's place in California, USA..Well obviously its good to be on a vacation and enjoy the relaxation and roaming around but its always sad to be away from the fun my friends keep having back home...They keep uploading pics of their activities and day outs and make me jealous :) But thanks to facebook we all keep connected.By the end of summer our mail threads are a good 50 pages long !!..I was wondering what friends did a 100 years back when the only way of communicating was mails which took months to arrive, distances must have felt so bad and depressing then !

Wedding dresses for the bride and the groom

A model wearing a traditional bridal dress called a lehnga

The interest in my last post made me realize that wedding rituals and practices are a popular choice for readers So here's a little more on the wedding on the festivities.This time its the dresses of the bride and the groom.

A Pakistani wedding is a very colourful occasion and is rich with culture.No matter what people wear in their everyday lives on a wedding every one makes sure they adorn a traditional dress.These dresses reflect the glory of east and the charm and grandeur of the once mighty Mughal empire.Embroidery,sequins, and other intricately crafted details are often hand made with amazing precision. The pictures below are from the online galleries of various fashion designers.The pictures are from photo shoots in studios and not a traditional wedding setup :)

Notice the detailed design

Brides usually wear a sharara, the dress in the above pics.The groom wears a sherwani (shown in the pics below).Both the lehnga and sherwani come in various colours and a vast variety of designs.

The model is wearing a traditional sherwani designed by Amir Adnan

A closer look at the sherwani.

This one has embroidery done on it by golden and silver wire

This one's made of a fabric called Jaamawar which is silk weaved with golden threads

This ones a subtle black sherwani with emroidery only on the collar and sleeves.The red turban gives a great contrast with black.

So this was a little about the dresses.I hoped you like this post as much as I liked writing it.I'll be posting some other stuff about weddings very soon.

The shoe stealing tradition !!!!

The bride and the groom.

All eyes set on the shoes !!

The traditional shoe that the groom wears is called a Naagra.

Yes you read it right, its the shoe stealing tradition ! and yes ofcourse the pictures above are of a wedding.How does the shoe stealing relate to the wedding you ask ? well because the shoe stealing is done in the wedding , and whose shoe is it? The groom's !!!!. Yeah its a strange , but interesting practice which I witnessed at a wedding I went to last summer. I had heard a lot about it but I witnessed it first hand only then.

This practice is not exactly a tradition, some people practice it, other's don't.What happens is that the siblings, cousins or friends of the bride (usually youngsters) steal the shoes or a shoe of the groom and hide it until the groom gives them some money.This practice started in the olden times when the couple sat on a floor mat for which the groom had to remove his shoes.This made the shoe very vulnerable to being stolen ,and stealing was thus easy.But nowadays the couple sits on a sofa with their shoes on so the sisters and friends either hold the shoe and not let go of it, or at other times ,like at this wedding, they just ask for money for the shoe without actually stealing it.What follows is a lengthy debate and persuasion from both sides with the groom trying to bargain the price of his shoe,while the shoe stealers try and make the groom give in to their higher demands.The persuasion is the best part of it all, filled with light hearted humour and sarcasm.The money that the shoe stealers get varies as per the financial standing of the newly wed. It usually ranges from Rs 500- Rs 25 000.

This seemingly strange and time wasting practice (as I used to think before I saw it) serves no main purpose except that it creates a friendly relationship between the brides family and the groom from the very starting of their newly formed relationship and brings them to closer to each other.

The city of Angels - Bangkok

Here a few pictures from my vist to Bangkok last week.We couldn't spend much time there but it was still a wonderful experience.Visiting the grand temples and palaces in the pictersque backdrop of Bangkok was an experience that I'm gonna cherish for a long time.Infact I cant wait to plan another visit !. The Thais' are very helpful and friendly.Most of them have a very poor English but they make it up by smiling and bending all the time( So much, it makes you feel Royal :) ).And oh yeah ! Shopping there is an experience of its own since stuff like clothes are very cheap (There is usually a great need to bargain while shopping in front of tourist locations especially if you are a foreigner). Food is really a 'No problem' since not only is there an abundance of Thai food restaurants but other cusines are also served at various restaurants widely spread in Bangkok especially in down town area like Sukhumvit (Sukhumvit has an entire street of restaurants serving Halal food).And the most pleasurable experience related to food for me was the fact that Mc Donald's and KFC are present almost around every corner..I felt good about it beacuse the environment, which is almost the same at every outlet throughout the world, gives me a sense of closeness to home! (Yeah Mc Donald's and KFC work that way for me :) !!!`)

My parents in front of The reclining Buddha at the Wat Pho (Temple of the reclining Buddha)

At the Wat Trimitr (Temple of the golden Buddha)

A hot, happening and interesting summer day

I've been crossing my fingers with a very high frequency for the past few days, the reason- today was the day we were supposed to get our result transcripts. This well anticipated day (today) took an odd start when I woke up half an hour late !! I hopped and galloped all across the room to get ready in time. Then when I was at a distance of 15mins from college, what greeted me at the roundabout was a huge traffic jam ( I'm jinxed to meet traffic jams whenever I'm running late), anyways my driver took a detour only to find it jammed as well, but my clever old driver who was once a driver with a railway officer and knows the city like his own house, made another detour to get to college. Now this detour took us from the other side of the city and costed me 40 mins due to which I missed my first lecture !! When I finally arrived, my friends were waiting for me so that we could get the transcripts togethor.We got in line, collected them and them opened them togethor.I got a GPA 3.88 !!!! I had'nt expected such a good GPA because of the problems I had listed in one of my previous posts. But a 3.88 GPA came as such a relief and such a reward after all the hardwork I put in. (Thank God)

Any ways then we had our second lecture where I sat next to my best friend,Uzma ( we have the same classes this semester). Uzma was in a hyperenergetic state today for God knows what reason, she kept bugging me, nudging me, kicking me under the table and made faces at me while the teacher wasn't looking, she was annoying and funny at the same time. But when I finally realised that I was missing out important stuff in the lecture, I swapped seats and left her to bother my other best friend Misbah who kept smiling despite of the storm underneath :p.

The devil grinning :)

Our last class today was a skills lab ! Its my favourite class beacuse of the hands-on experience we get about emergency management and other clinical skills. I performed my first venepuncture and inserted the first cannula of my life ! It was on a mannequin especially made for this purpose ( The dummy arm has a system of veins with fake blood in it ) It was fun to experience some clinical performance

The days are hot as ever but it was windy in the evening today. I hope it rains tomorrow.

Beat the heat - Pakistani style !

Summer at Karachi is not only hot but owing to its coastal location is extremely humid as well.These days the temperature is around 38 C. The traffic on the roads is visibly less and people prefer to remain indoors ,but, nevertheless people have devised methods to 'beat the heat' over time. There are various traditional home remedies that have been passed on from generation to generation. For eg its said that keeping an Onion in your pocket close to the body keeps the body protected from the harmful effects of heat !! But I can't testify to how true that is because I have n't tried it nor do I know anyone who has (For obvious reasons !!).

Some more practical measures that we take at our home are

1 - We make sure we consume atleast two tablespoons raw onions with lunch (In the form of a salad).This works especially for dry summers but is good for humid weathers too.

2 - The use of 'Keri' (Unripe mangoes) is increased. Its consumed in the form of chutneys and beverages.

3- These days we are also making sure we take plenty of lemon and yougurt in our diet.

But the most effective of all techniques is the use of the following two beverages.They work miracles,trust me.

KERI (UNRIPE MANGO) SQUASH

Return home from a hot day at work and drink a glass full of this drink with ice and whoosh it'll cool your insides and make you feel all light and cool within seconds. How to make it you ask ?

Well all you need to do is buy some unripe mangoes, boil them really well(without peeling), drain the water and once the mangoes cool down peel them and cut small pieces of the mango and remove the seed.Once this is done cook the mangoes with a little water and sugar make sure you put in plenty of sugar for unripe mangoes are sour.Mash the mangoes if you need to while cooking.Cook it with sufficient water long enough to give it the consistency of a squash.Cool it down and use two tablespoons of this mixture per glass of water to make this refreshing drink. (Do let the squash cool down first !) This squash can be used for two weeks if refrigerated.

FAALSA (Grewia asiatica) DRINK

This is a yummy drink which is not only refreshing,but, its said has a lot of other beneficial properties for the body.Not only that it has a very unique taste too.All you need to do to make it is, take a cup of berries, put them in a blender , with around 4 glasses of water, 5 tablespoons of sugar (these berries are pretty sour,but you may reduce the amount of sugar if you like ), and a little bit of salt and black pepper.And blend it well.Drain the blended mixture through a seive and vola the drink is ready to serve(Around 4 glasses) Add some ice to add to the coolness !

Exams, friends and summer

My exams finally ended after we took the the OSPE (Objective structured practical examination ) this week. They went okay, but I really don't know what GPA to expect. With all my belief in Allah I have hopes that it will Inshallah (God willing) be 3 or above, but lets see (fingers crossed). Other then that the best part is that I have two whole weeks off ! It seems like such a huge blessing after all the hardwork for exams.



But the downside of vacations is being away from friends whom I could meet on a daily basis when college was on . We could n't plan any outing since the heat is simply unbearable ( a scorching 38 C !!!)and everyone prefers to stay indoors at this time of the year but nevertheless I'm hoping to meet my buddies for cofee tomorrow evening and I think we'll go shopping on Saturday (My friend has discovered this new shoe store which makes custom shoes as per your choice and colour for just Rs 200 ($2.50) !!!! so naturally I cant wait to check it out ). Other then that my cat has given birth to three most adorable kittens , I'm still thinking about what names I should give them.I'll upload their pics in my upcoming posts