Furniture in Karachi

Whether you're going to build up a new home or you need to upgrade your current one, you'll find it hard to get great furniture. People like us who work throughout the week and find time only on the weekends during the daytime, find it hard to know where to go and have very little time for exploration. I have been trying to search for good furniture shops on the internet, the locations and the quality for each vendor, but one way or the other have hard time in locating one and finding quality within budget.

While the quality of furniture in the famous Furniture Markets (Nursery & near Garden) is controversial :), established brands seem a better choice if your budget is above average.

I, for one, didn't even know the names of the places where we can buy good furniture. While the search is still on, here goes my evaluation so far:

• International Interior Designers & Furniture (Tipu Sultan Road)
  Bedroom Furniture. Is very expensive but Teak wood variety is present which is termite-proof). Takes around 2-3 months to delivery based on the quantity.
  Sofa sets and other furniture is also available, not too sure about Kitchen.
  
• Sam Abbas Design Studio (Tuaheed Commercial, DHA, near Gelato Affair/Biryani Center)
  Mainly Sofa sets, is expensive but affordable to people who desire better furniture. Mostly Sheesham
  
• Interwood (Tuaheed Commerical, DHA, besides Mosaajees)
  Kitchens are great but very expensive. Other furniture also available in good ranges
  
• KalamKaar (near Schon Circle, Clifton)
  Bedroom, Sofa Sets & other furniture is available, but again not cheap, but affordable prices. They dealt with us in a very nice manner and the catalogue is very rich.
  
• Habitt (Tipu Sultan & somewhere in Gulshan as well)
  Generally everything is available on less expensive side as compared to the branding. I was not comfortable about the quality of some of the items e.g. the wood being used is not that durable.

I am still short of all the furniture except for the bedroom and looking for options, mainly for affordable Kitchen building and will be visiting Ashrays, ST (or Estee?) and Dreams in DHA area. There's one other shop by the name of Prestige Kitchens which I plan to explore as well.

Once I am over with the whole deal, I'll write on the summarized analysis of the same so that buyers have consolidated knowledge in one place.

Efficient or Impatient?

“Pomp, Pomp”, a sound which is usually heard from behind while I am sitting in my car waiting for the signal to turn green. This is pretty common in Karachi, the mass-operative city; though very rare in Islamabad, the so-called dead city. This is not the only noise which is disturbing; one can see many vehicles breaking signals; coming from wrong side of the road; and changing lanes quite drastically.

One can easily say that this trend of traffic is due to the fact that people don’t have enough time and they value it too much that they can even risk their own lives for it. But, quite interestingly the trend is almost 180 degrees when you enter a shop, office, governmental department or any other operational place where time actually matters. There, one can clearly observe wastage of time in gossiping, slowness of activity and simply sleeping; though these are not limited as you can find lots of other time-wasting activities and discussions going on which are simply useless and which is not what our country needs.

Most commonly discussed areas are cricket, politics and religion; which can be termed as healthy discussions if you see it from a higher level. But, my experience after being parts of such discussions (for the sake of knowledge) , was disappointing as I found these as just blames and complaints to those who are simply not hearing us. In addition, nothing can be done about it, as opposed to the workplace where one has some authority and can do something constructive.

Some people might believe that these are past-times for people and can be treated equivalent to sports or any other leisure activity; as for some people things like gossiping are recreational. To some extent, this can be agreed upon, but not wholly as people sacrifice their work for the sake of such activities whereas they’re not ready to sacrifice their time for the sake of safety for travelers.

What good is the impatience normally taken as efficiency which saves you just 2 minutes with lots of risk and tension; as compared to the hours of time-wastage coming under inefficiency but assumed as pride by many?

Comments are welcome related to the usage of semicolon

Life is what it's meant to be..

There's this uncomfortable feeling since a very long time now. No it's not that I am not busy in things, infact I am very very busy lately. But somehow, everything seems like nonsense. No, it's not that I'm depressed, just that life doesn't seem to make sense. Maybe I am not good at accepting limits.

Let's talk about depression for a moment and move ahead. I think it cannot be stopped, but can be dealt with, and the best way to deal with it is to expect nothing out of anything. For me, the definition of depression is that things are not going along the lines as expected and you are helpless and this results in depression, hence it can be termed as a symptom that something is wrong and you are unable to fix it, hence helplessness.

After all life has its own turns and tricks and one can only accept these and understand why things happen. I have lost all the interest in life almost 5 years back, maybe because something happened and that unveiled life altogether and since then things have been revealed for me gradually. At this point in time, I think I have understood some of the basics and to cut a long story short it's nothing but observation. You observe life and understand it. But then, I think you can change it to some extent, but again everything could be pre-written and you're just discovering it.

I think I have found how to remain calm, just by accepting that it's just learning and by the end of it, you'd have learnt everything required. We might think that we can change everything, but how can one tell that the change you brought in wasn't written? Once you understand what life is, it doesn't matter how much challenges come to you or how much you are tested, it's just a matter of time and will pass by. For many, life can be wonderful and operational things matter, but really the concept seems to be different and then there's no interest in it and then it doesn't matter what happens and you feel nothing.

Life is as it's meant to be and for me somehow it doesn't make sense at all. Maybe my standards are very high and that's why I have kept aside my feelings altogether and I want nothing for myself and just prioritize what others want and try to achieve those. Some might call this foolishness that I'm not selfish at all, but I have developed into this gradually.

After all, are there any other options?

Praying for alternate paths?

Often times a situation comes into somebody's life where prayers are the only hope towards achieving something important in the world. When nothing else seems to work, praying seems to be the last resort.

The concept of praying becomes very ambiguous at times, specially when you have strong belief that things will go on as written in fate or if one believes the saying "what is written will happen". To me, this is somewhat conflicting at times: What'll happen is already written, then why pray? Will prayers lead to alternate paths in life? e.g. if I had to attain a degree and this is written as my fate then whether I work hard and get it with flying colours or I don't work hard and get it for the sake of just getting it, I'll get it.

If I were to do something and its quality depends upon my effort and concentration, then what role does prayer play? Or to be exact of the conflict I am in right now, what if I am not certain of getting something I really want, do the prayers play any role?

It's not certain that: "If you pray for something it's just a matter of time that you'll get it" because of the reason that it might be good for you but not for everyone. Again this is logic and my question still remains the same: What do prayers do?

If we limit this discussion to the result of the prayers as: "I will get it or not" rather than "I will surely get it, but I pray that I get it with lesser obstacles", etc. If we are to think upon whether prayers really make it happen or not, we can come up with the following combinations, after praying:

• You get it IF you pray, not otherwise
• You get it regardless of praying
• You don't get it regardless of praying

The last two combinations are solely based upon logic and prayers don't work. Let's talk about the first one, can this be true? If yes, then this statement: "Whatever happens, happens for the best" becomes false. And if this becomes false, then the alternate path which occurs after human praying is better than the original path. This implies that human path construction is better and leads to a weird state of mind.

Coming back to the last 2 points above and assuming that our last paragraph is just false, then we arrive to a conclusion that praying does nothing. Again, a weird state of mind.

All these questions can be answered if we think of this:

• This world and its events are based upon humans, but God's intervention is there whenever required. Requirement is posted through praying.
• There's no such thing as fate, everything is done by humans, except for maybe a few things such as birth & death? Maybe a few more?

The Software World..

Software Engineering, a term commonly used nowadays and easily comprehended by most of the people in this world, is a world in itself. Just for the sake of mentioning, it means to develop software or a program which models a subset of reality onto a machine. The skills required for developing software are not only the analytical ones but logic plays a major role as well. On the other hand, creativity is required as well as the empathetic sense relating to the user. Hence we can easily say that Software Engineers are one of the most skillful people around, in this world.

When I say “Software Engineering is a world in itself”, it means that it’s a virtual world and not a real one like Earth. The mapping of the real world onto this one is what Software Engineers do. Let’s limit ourselves to the design & coding phases of Software before we move ahead, generally termed as programming. The difference between the task of a software engineer and other engineers is the presence of this virtual world. If one is good in this virtual world, this means that he’s doing his job well.

Coming from a different direction, I would like to highlight that when a person indulges into some environment, he develops some familiarity initially, moving forward he becomes smooth and then he gets used to it. One gets so much used to it that sometimes it feels like it’s the only world (or sub-world) and he’s not able to comprehend the situation (or environment) outside it. For example, I used play Unreal a lot (sometimes more than 5 hours a day) and it happened many times that I dreamed about it during sleep.

Now, if a software developer works for many hours a day, spends a few hours in sleep and spends the rest of the time in the actual world, there seems to be a high probability that most of the developers would confuse these 3 different environments.

Putting all of this on the plate of our discussion, is Software development changing the lives of the Software engineers by making them used to this virtual world? After working for more than 10 years in this arena, can the developers manage to segregate the virtual & the real world? One extreme example of this world is the game development line, supported by the statement that game is a modeled virtual world which is derived from reality or illusions, and is closer to being called a world than any other software.

Some updates..

Ah, finally passing time in Karachi for 2 weeks, 1 week to go. The weather is pleasant and as usual I have got used to the atmosphere in a week, now I am starting to enjoy. I'll return to Isb on 21st, InshaAllah. It's good to see a lot of roads being constructed in Karachi, but at the same time the ever-increasing traffic remains a problem. Though I've been to some areas within Karachi in the mean time, I haven't seen any relief camps here as yet, wonder whether the relief work is carried out as required or not. Meanwhile, LMKR is still into the relief work, may Allah bless them for their work.

If you are interested in the stock market business, have a look at BlogShares. It's a virtual stock market, but on a very initial stage. A tip for making quick money right at startup (once you have registered and are playing) is to get chips by answering the survey questions on the right side of the home page. Once you have some amount of chips, register on the forum and goto the Chip Auction House and auction your chips or sell them to some willing buyer. You can easily get 50 million per chip, at least :). A neat site for business minded people and also for those who like to understand the stock business.

I'm gathering my thoughts to write about something which might derail the thoughts of some of the readers, just waiting for the time to come and being patient, thoughtful and observative. It'll be a post which'll try to unveil some things which are covered by our society carelessly, related with Islamic teachings. If you can, have a look at Tanzeem-e-Islami headed by Dr. Israr Ahmed. I hope to write it soon..

Show The Objective..

Often times you tend to be aggressive or get into bad mood, get into difficult conversations at the company or in the family, can't get over something you really miss, are confused or into any other state of mind in which you really don't want to be, but due to human nature, you find it difficult to control your emotions.

Keeping the objective in mind is the key. No matter what you do, you have to know what you are getting from it. You might think that this seems materialistic and only applies to materialistic actions e.g. by helping someone you are not getting anything. But, you are getting something and that is the internal satisfaction, the happiness which comes when you make someone else happy. This is by no means materialistic, and if it's then everything is.

Aggressiveness is one of the wide spread negative habit which most of the humans have, at least most of the people I have seen. Aggressive nature, esp. at work is quite harmful to none other than the aggressor himself. Not only at work, but in family dealings as well, this may result in disruptions in family relationships mainly due to both parties being aggressive. What can keep you from getting aggressive? It's the objective!

Nonetheless, being cool-minded all the times is not that easy, but it's not that hard too and it's necessary for one to be successful and this applies to every aspect of life i.e. there are lot of advantages. After all, who likes a person who offends and charges other people every now and then?

Whenever you are in a bad mood, you need to remember the objective..What’s the use of being into such a mood? You are just wasting time and energy, which could've been utilized in something more important to you. Controlling your emotions is one of the main elements of leading a leader's life and realizing the fact that others don't like to be taken up by someone, an element of respect has to appear in everything you say or anything you perform.

Everyone is unique or at least wants to be, distinction attracts every human. So, realizing the fact that you are in a state of uselessness is the first step towards realizing that you need not be in that state most of the time. Don't you think everyone does the same when he's in a bad mood or when he loses his temper? So, you either want to be the same as others or you indulge into something which makes you distinct.

You might want to read about EQ (Emotional Quotient), plus there's a book which you might have heard about "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" and the sequels to it as well.

Something off-topic, a 3D First Person Shooter named Commando 4 has been developed by some FAST Karachi students.