You hear a very old song, drifting out of a small shop selling music cassettes. It’s Madam Noor Jahan singing in a much younger voice: آواز دے کہاں ہے — دنیا میری جواں ہے The shop is virtually a hole in the wall with the shopkeeper standing behind a counter…

The story of a small town, a newsagent, and Donald Club — Surrounded, as it is today, by hills and snow-covered mountains in the distance, Mansehra was a quiet little town, the tehsil headquarters (similar to a county seat in the US ) with a population of about 7,000. This was in the 1950s when I was going through high school. Electricity…

How to make an effective presentation — In the first few years of Esso Pakistan Fertilizer Company, everyone seemed to be making a presentation on something or the other. We made presentations to senior managers, to visitors from the head office in New Jersey, to groups of new hires, to our peers, and so many others. …

Kala Kola is not a beverage as the name might suggest but one of the oldest brands of black hair dyes in Pakistan. It so happens that most Pakistani men these days, when they reach their 50s or even before, start dyeing their hair, especially the politicians we see on…

A Canadian Couple travels to the Northern Areas of Pakistan — I did not expect Pir Wadhai (پیر ودھائی) to be mentioned in an international tourist book. But it is, in a book called Lonely Planet, produced by a publisher in Australia. Those living in Rawalpindi and Islamabad would be familiar with the name. It’s a low-income neighborhood situated between the…

A few years ago, I visited Islamia, my old college in Peshawar, after several decades. Visiting one’s old school or college always brings back happy memories. And this visit did, too. Among others, I met Mian Jameel, who was my roommate in Hardinge Hostel, Room №52. He was a student…

Things you must never do during a job interview — I traveled from Peshawar to Karachi for my first job interview with a large multinational engaged in manufacturing and marketing fertilizer. I had applied for a marketing job. Having recently returned from the US with a Master’s degree in Soil Chemistry, I was hopeful about my interview — yet a…

How they are similar — and dissimilar — Turkey is probably the only country that continues to receive Pakistanis warmly. Pakistanis know Turkey not only as another Muslim country but a country that was home to the caliphate (Khilafat-e-Osmania) for several centuries. They also know Turkey because of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (died 1938) whom they rate high among…

His long-held wish to travel abroad was fulfilled but not in a way he had dreamed. — He had one regret. That he had never traveled outside of Pakistan. I’m talking about Zaki, officially known as S. M. Zaki. He was one of the early employees of Esso Pakistan Fertilizer Co. (EPFCL). A graduate of Tando Jam, he joined the company as an agronomist, sometime in 1965–66. …